Thatcher's Britain: The Politics and Social Upheaval of the Thatcher Era 1459675924, 9781459675926

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Also by Richard Vinen A HISTORY IN FRAGMENTS THE UNFREE FRENCH

THATCHER'S BRITAIN The Politics and Social Upheaval of the Thatcher Era

Richard Vinen

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SIMON& SCHUSTER

London · New York · Sydney · Toronto A CBS COMPANY

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

IX

Introduction

Chapter 1

Thatcher before Thatcherism, 1925- 75

12

Chapter 2

Thatcherism before Thatcher? Enoch Powell

43

Chapter 3

Becoming Leader

60

Chapter 4

Opposition, 19 75- 9

75

Chapter 5

Primitive Politics, 19 79- 83

101

Chapter 6

Unexpected Victory: the Falklands

134

Chapter 7

Victory Foretold: the Miners

154

Chapter 8

Serious Money, 1983- 8

178

Chapter 9

Divided Kingdom?

209

Chapter 10

Europe

230

Chapter 11

The Fall

249

Conclusions

274

Some Thoughts on Sources

308

Notes

320

Bibliography

367

Index

383

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

am grateful to Andrew Wylie for selling this book and to Andrew Gordon for buying it. After Andrew Gordon moved on, Mike Jones and Rory Scarfe adopted my literary orphan and brought it up as though it was their own. Only authors know what a difference a good copy-editor makes and Bela Cunha is the best. She handled my manuscript with an impressive mix of rigour and good humour. The first draft of this book was written in Houston, Texas. Houston is Thatcher's kind of town; she went there on her first visit to the United States in 1967 and returned to the meeting of the G 7 a few months before she resigned as prime minister. Houston's appeal was not immediately apparent to me, and the fact that I grew to appreciate the city's charms owes much to the friendship of Sarah Fishman and Daniel Cohen. I am also grateful to Martin Wiener, whose influence is discussed in chapter 8, for arranging for me to enjoy the status of visiting scholar at Rice University. I also owe much to my students and colleagues at King's College, particularly Laura Clayton and Paul Readman. All historians of modern Britain owe a debt to the Margaret Thatcher Foundation, which is making an extraordinary range of sources available on the web. I am particularly grateful to Chris Collins of the Foundation for his advice on a number of points. Karl French read a draft of this book and made many helpful suggestions. Three professors also took time out from their own busy schedules to read my work and comment on it from their

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THATCHER'S BRITAIN

different perspectives. My father, Joe Vinen, represents that strand of the British establishment which shifted from the Labour Party to the SDP in 1981 and from The Times to the Independent in 1986. John Ramsden is a veteran streetfighter for Conservatism as well as being a distinguished historian of the party. Miles Taylor claims never to have voted; he belongs to that curious group of British historians who became post-Marxists without ever having been Marxists. All three of them were generous with their time and very perceptive in their comments. My mother, Susan, and my sister, Katie, provided much practical and emotional support. Alison Henwood read my work, did her best to make me understand the workings of capitalism, and undertook more than her fair share of childcare whilst I was writing. I am, however, grateful to Alison for many things that are more important than any book and, most of all, for our children: Emma and Alexander.

INTRODUCTION

remember where I was when it began. On the morning of 4 May 1979 I was in an 'O' level Latin class. Our teacher put a transistor radio on his desk and turned it on so that we could hear the speech that Margaret Thatcher read out from notes jotted on the back of a card as she entered l 0 Downing Street:

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I would just like to remember some words of Saint Francis of Assisi which I think are just particularly apt at the moment. 'Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope.'

My school was in Solihull, the second safest Conservative seat in the country,* and the whole place was pulsating with excitement at the Conservative election victory - all the same, I think that most of my classmates thought that the speech was pretty mad. I remember with equal clarity where I was when it ended. I was walking down a back street near Euston station on 28 November 1990. I looked up and saw a sign that someone had placed against an office window. It said: 'She's gone.' Anyone seeing it that day would have known that Margaret Thatcher had resigned as prime minister. It is not just self-indulgence that makes me begin this book with *Just after Sutton Coldfield.

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personal remm1scence. There was something about Margaret Thatcher's premiership that cut deeply into the personal lives of many British people. In 1985 psychiatrists produced an interesting piece of research that illustrated this. Generally, patients suffering from dementia forget things about the present whilst remembering things that are more permanent. For most of the post-war period, for example, many demented people knew that Queen Elizabeth II was the monarch but could not remember who was the prime minister. Under Thatcher things changed: 'Mrs Thatcher has given an item of knowledge to demented patients that they would otherwise have lacked: she reaches those parts of the brain other prime ministers could not reach.' 1

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