30 years ago today

[Marmora Man]

THe Callaghan led Labour government lost a vote of confidence and went to the country for a decision - which ushered in 18 years of Conservative Government and 12 years of a sub optimal Labour government.

It was claimed today by Roy (Woy) Hattersly that (unelected successor) Jim Callaghan could have stitched up a deal and won the vote and that, perhaps more interestingly, could have certainly gone for an earlier election and won it in 1978.

"What if" history is always slightly off the wall but "What if Callaghan had won the 1978 election"

Miner's Strike, Falklands, Big Bang in the City, sale of council housing, Canary Wharf, privatisation, 1st Gulf war - what woudl have happened anyway and what would not?

Is today's Government led by (unelected successor) G Brown in a similar position - would he have won in Sept '08 and will he lose in 2010?

[mockney piers]

Well the parallels are rather startling, but of course it's a very different world now.

What would and wouldn't have happened?

Blimey impossible to say.

If there had been no confrontation with the unions, a la miner's strike, then the Callaghan gov't could conceivabley have been rendered impotent and a Conservative gov't more inevitable than it had been in '79 led by an even more strident thatcher, so that one might have been delayed by a couple of years.

Also difficult to say how Labour would have responded to the Falklands, but traditionally the left has been happier to go to war then the centre right, so again, it would have been a possibility.

Big Bang was a technological revolution, I think sometimes it's conflated with deregulation, and of course those bankers were portrayed as Thatcher's front line warriors, but really was just the birth of today's flavour of bubble of wealth through speculation, which is more attributable to the gov't than installing a load of glass fibre cable and transaction processing software (which is all terribly dull isn't it).

Difficult to say how different things would be but politics in the entire 'western' world has shifted to the centre ground and policies driven by dull pragmatism rather than ideological zeal, so chances are it would be a recognisable Britain to some dimension traveller.

We might not have had the poll tax riots though, and alternative comedy would have missed their anti-hero!

[AllforNun]

i put my first beehive nr Dulwich village.

[mockney piers]

and your reeves?

[JetSetWilly]

would the troubles have ended 5 yrs earlier than they did, as the hunger strikes could have been avoided, the ira wouldn,t have had a new recruiting sergeant........but as mp says, would,wouldn,t, who knows.

[Huguenot]

Jeez, MM took me to task for name-calling a couple of days ago.

In one short note he referred to Labour as sub-optimal without any reference to 15% interest under Conservatives, he took the piss out of an intelligent man's speech impediment, and questioned the legality of our legal government. Twice. A stupid comment from someone who I'm sure will recognise that Thatcher's dismissal was equally 'undemocratic'. Idiot.

Piers didn't take you to task because he agrees with your political objectives, not because you're right. Piers is a (scarcely) closet anarchist.

Tw@ttishness. Of the highest stupid b@stard degree. What a disappointment.

On the substance of your inquiry...

Mob psychology would have it that it wasn't Thatcher that took on the unions, it was whoever was in power at that time. It would have happened anyway. As, technically, would most of the other things you refer to. Dallas wasn't watched or written by the British Government, it was the zeitgeist. The people were going to put in power anyone who gave them that dream.

Likewise G Brown (what, not Gordon? or just another pointless frickin' insult?) will lose power not because of himself, but because of the lack of imagination that poisons a party of 10 years+. Just like it did for the Tories.

At some point people have to get a grip that it is them who creates the country, that votes, that consumes oil, that thinks dead foreigners are cheaper than dead locals.

France is France, Germany is Germany because of the culture, not the government. We blame governments because it's a get-out, not because it's true.

Even after having written this, which took me 10 minutes, I'm still so f*cking disappointed that you thought you were clever by focusing on speech impediments instead of rationale. You cheap hack.

I've also noticed that you've got into Fisking, also hackerage, with the boon of being witless.

Never post when angry they say. But Woy? Woy? Woy? Two f*cking years of Major?

[Marmora Man]

Hugenot, we normally approach issues from diametrically opposed directions but I usually look forward to reading your views. This time I was disappointed.

PS: What is Fisking or hackerage?

[macroban]

> Roy (Woy) Hattersly

This is bad form.

[Marmora Man]

> Roy (Woy) Hattersly

This is bad form.

Why - the man himself has used it in jest and Spitting Image used it in earnest many years ago. It's hardly the worst insult a politician has had to bear.

[Huguenot]

You were disappointed? Huh. Unlike Sir Alex Ferguson, I've never stooped to lambasting the opposition for the same crimes my own team commit.

Where's the arms folded smiley?

Fisking is the reproduction of another persons posts word by word, and then pursing 'line by line rebuttals where facts are dropped like radar chaff' rather than rational debate or coherent arguments. I find it essentially destructive rather than creative, and establishes argumentative position by listing your dislikes rather than your enthusiasms. Load of old poo. You weren't really doing it, just a little bit, on another thread.

It was a habit of right-wing bloggers attacking left wing ideologues such as Robert Fisk. Hence Fisking.

Hackerage is the act of being a hack. It's a word I just made up in my moment of madness.

I was being a little bit rude and unnecessary, and I apologise.

I do stand by my point, that you pilloried a giant amongst men as a disabled nitwit, flippantly and hypocritically dismissed your opposition as 'undemocratic' when Major had his own fingers in the pie, and seemed to suggest that Labour's 1970's tragedy was that they didn't cheat when they could have.

[Huguenot]

And I apologise again, I was quite rude. :-$

[SeanMacGabhann]

I don't think it's the insult to Roy that's the problem MM - lots of people with speech impediments are still stigmatised and don't have the benefit of decades in politics to help them feel less insecure. By taking the mick out of the impediment, it's just reinforcing the bullies

"tediously politically correct" is possibly going to be thrown my way. But there it is..

[Jeremy]

Huguenot Wrote:

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> Thatcher's dismissal was equally 'undemocratic'.

Quite. The original "unelected successor" comment seemed a little strange to me, as it has happened several times, and it's not exclusive to either party. That's the system in this country isn't it... we elect the party, not the PM. That's how it works, it is not in any way illegitimate.

[Keef]

So just so I'm clear, Fisking is what TLS does?

[Huguenot]

Piersy would probably know better than me, but I think the Argies argued that they had been 'sent messages' that they could have the Falklands if they wanted them.

If these messages were sent, deliberately, in order to create a war that would win Thatcher an election and a mandate against the unions, then that would mark a new low in Tory cynicism that the Iraq conflict couldn't even sniff at. At least the Iraq war had an objective even if we pretend we don't know what it was.

Had the messages been sent by the civil service, then it wouldn't have mattered which party was in power.

[SeanMacGabhann]

go on

ooh err!!

could be could be

;-)

[citizenED]

Yea, TLS does Fisking along with a large dollop of obsfucation....;-)

And boys, boys I always look forward to posts from you two (Hugs and MM) so please don't get all woofmark on us.

[Huguenot]

I remember Millet's running an in-store promotion around the time of the miner's strike announcing 'Now is the Winter of our Discount Tents'

Whilst highly humourous, I think it reflects the fact that the general population wanted some come-back after the parlous events of the seventies. You could argue that Labour had indulged the coal miners, but they didn't have much choice after the oil crisis in '73.

The miner's strike was going to happen anyway, and any government would have had to go all steely. I don't reckon it was party political.

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Keef Wrote:

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> So just so I'm clear , Fisking is what TLS does?

I was enjoying my popcorn on the sidelines and I get dragged in

Cheers My Son!;-)

[Tony.London Suburbs]

citizenED Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Yea, TLS does Fisking along with a large dollop of

> obsfucation....;-)

How appropriate on this thread as any Politician worth his salt is a Master in obsfucation...

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Huguenot deserves some credit here, on several levels, one must say.( Edited to say, despite the fact that he is becoming a grumpy old sod, sometimes):)

I, rarely, get involved in "hypothetical" debates as, ultimately, no-one can proove anything, but as I was continuing to read this thread I,honestly and rather bizarrely was thinking I'm going to get mentioned in some context here and eventually I was.

p.s. If you had difficulty deciphering any of that sentence citizenED I will provide a translation with admirable lucidity and brevity.

[mockney piers]

I think successive gov'ts showed willing to the Argies that we'd be happy to cede sovereignty should the islanders give it the ok. The islanders never gave it the ok, and a junta on increasingly shaky ground took a stupid populist move and took (back) the islands.

I think there was a fair bit of noise that the invasion could happen that the government either ignored or just didn't pay attention, civil service underestimated the possibility that it might happen and hence it didn't really make a big profile on politicians radar.

I really don't think the war as a cynical play by Thatcher, indeed it was a costly and risky enterprise that came closer to failure than we'd like to think.

[Marmora Man]

The Falklands were much much closer to failure - and we'll have to wait 30 years to find out al the details.

However, I've always subscribed to the "cock up" theory of history rather than the "conspiracy" theory. Too many people would have have had to be involved to make the conspiracy work - Mockney's version is probably closest to the truth - a combination of complacency, disinterest and lack of wider considerations when pulling together the savage cuts in Gov't spending necessary in 1980's.

The original "unelected successor" comment seemed a little strange to me, as it has happened several times, and it's not exclusive to either party. That's the system in this country isn't it... we elect the party, not the PM. That's how it works, it is not in any way illegitimate.

I wasn't meaning to make the "unelected" bit imply undemocratic - merely trying to draw parallels between then, as one Labour led government was in its dying days, and now when, arguably, we have another Labour led government in its dying days. Agree totally that the unelected successor trait isn't restricted - Douglas-Home anyone??

[david_carnell]

Apologies for not contributing earlier MM...a lack of a real keyboard meant trying to repsond on a touch screen would have been painful.

I suppose I have to come at this from an entirely academic perspective because, unlike some, I wasn't even born when Thatcher came to power. As such I am truely one of Thatcher's children, for better and worse. I do not possess first-hand knowledge of the events that took place before and after her election (although my father was on the receiving end of some of her anti trade-union legislation) and this presents the possibility I could be more objective, but open myself to accusations of "not knowing what I'm talking about" 'coz "you weren't there". I'l take such criticisms on the chin.

I wrote my dissertation on union power during the Thatcher years and I found it interesting that many leading academics ntoe that whilst union power was indeed high during the mid to late 1970s, these things go in cycles. Manufacturing and other heavy industries were already on the decline when Thatcher came in and whilst Callaghan (or any other Labour leader) may have subsidised them for longer, the traditional trade union power-base was ebbing away in the face of the growing service industries and the technological revolution. I would speculate however that the miners struggle would have been resolved much faster and with much less proverbial bloodshed. Mine closures could have been spread out over a longer time frame, communities could have been saved, relations between citizen and state would not have been irrecovably damaged. The coal industry was dying, and the strike was it's last stand. Output had been falling and the number of people employed likewise for three decades. There was little need for such horrific confrontation and for this the Thatcher government, and to a far lesser but still important extent, the NUM and Scargill, remain culpable.

Other areas of this virtual history are less clear. The desire of Thatcher to create a wealth owning society, and her achievement in doing so, has forever changed the British political and social landscape. The sale of council houses and the share creation by the sell-off of nationalised industries can never be reversed. Personally, I wonder if this is a good thing? Our current housing crisis is partially created by the excess desire to own a home and the stigma attached to those who still rent, be it privately or council property. On the continent, where house prices did not undergo the boom-and-bust cycle that we have suffered twice since the 1980s, no such stigma exists with families happy to rent apartments on long term leases at low, fixed costs and with legislative protection. I think the idea that Thatcher planted and which has now firmly taken root in the nation's psyche, that owning your own home (or even house) is a "right", is a particularly unpleasant British disease that has contributed to the breakdown of community spirit - something even my arch-nemisis TLS may agree has occurred.

The sale of nationalised industries has led to the erosion of workers' rights, the explotation of labour and the search for profit over-riding the idea that vital national infrastructure should be run for the benefit of "the nation" or "society" and instead replaced it with the idea that it should be run for the benefit of share holders. And it was done under the disguise of efficiency. As a social experiment with wide-reachnig ramifications I believe it to be a failure - however a full discussion of this is perhaps best left to a seperate thread.

Would a Labour government have done these things? I think it unlikely. And as such Britain may be a very different place today.

As a footnote, if a Labour government had been in power in the early 1980s I wonder how the internal divisions within the party would have manifested themselves? Militant Tendancy came close to destroying the party entirely and the SDP break-away led to the establishment of a third force within British politics. Would the chance to seize more power have been too irresistable for the pseudo-communists in Labour's ranks? Perhaps - and if they had sympathetic ministers in key cabinet positions what would the outcome have been. An interesting alternative history I would encourage all political bents to check out is A Very British Coup written by Chris Mullin, currently a Labour MP.

[DaveR]

An interesting analysis, but I would disagree on a few key points. A confrontation between govt and union power was inevitable and inevitably bloody, if it was to result in any meaningful change - the interests on both sides were too strong. The miners' strike was neither the first nor the only industrial dispute of the 70s-80s that saw violent confrontations on the picket lines (Grunwick and the 'Wapping' strike are two notable examples). I'm also not sure that relations between the citizen and the state were irrevocably damaged during this period; at one time it looked as if the police might never recover from appearing to be the tool of the Tory government but in truth I think that phase passed fairly quickly (despite the fact that industrial disputes were far from being the only outbreaks of significant public disorder during the 80s). The subsequent history of mining communities up and down the country has varied enormously up and down the country, and lots of other areas saw sudden and dramatic job losses without any associated disputes and disorder.

I think you will also find that patterns of property ownership had differed between the UK and most european countries for many years before 1979 (an Englishman's home has long been his castle!), and in any event that it is a myth that overall home ownership rates are massively lower outside the UK (see here for example). It's arguable that greater mobility (and hence a higher turnover in the UK housing market) is a consequence of weaker community cohesion, rather than a cause.

The sale of nationalised industries involved many previously state owned operations that were not infrastructure related (airlines, steel, freight), and the process has since been largely repeated throughout the developed world, even in countries with far stronger 'corporatist' traditions. The dreadful service provided to customers by the old state monopolies was a standing joke (and continued to be so in Italy, for example, when I lived there is the 90s). The one area where I would say it has been pretty much an unmitigated disaster is in transport.

A Very British Coup is an interesting work of fiction, but a Labour Party led by Tony Benn (who was being touted in the early 80s as the man to lead Labour into the next general election) would have been unelectable, even in 1982.