Locating ‘Thatcherism’ in the ‘Here and Now’

This concluding chapter assesses the legacy of Thatcherism in the light of the preceding analysis. It does so by returning to two influential earlier assessments, written whilst Thatcherism was very much still a work in progress, re-assessing and re-evaluating its enduring significance with the benefit of hindsight. It argues that whilst Thatcherism may or may not ‘be with us’ today, the effects of the shifts in social and economic policies initiated by her governments will continue to work their way through the UK in a number of different ways. In ways which go unrecognized or are obscured by more immediate concerns, the legacies of Thatcherism can be distilled along economic, political, social and cultural lines. That not all of these consequences were intended—and that a number of the unintended consequences may appear more dramatic than some of the intended ones—does not make these legacies any the less important.

Commentary

Increasing inequality was a deliberate policy of the Thatcher governments, marking a significant shift in UK policy-making. The strategy was supported by strong vested interests and active myth-making that stigmatized both social spending and its recipients. The legacy of Thatcherism has been powerful and persistent, leading to an acceptance of the increased inequality and a lack of challenge to its proponents and beneficiaries. There now appears to be a growing challenge to this acquiescence from many quarters including the churches and, surprisingly, the IMF, as well as many more detailed analyses of the wide differences in income and wealth. The arguments against increased inequality have strengthened again, bolstered by growing evidence of exploitation of the tax system, but is the political will strong enough to bring about significant changes?

Commentary

The problems posed by the time-lag of a Thatcherite response to crime are well conveyed by Farrall and Jennings. Neo-liberal policies fuelled, and neo-conservative rhetoric narrowed the blame for steadily, then steeply, rising crime rates throughout the 1980s. But actual criminal justice policies were on balance a liberal-minded pursuit of community rather than penal measures by Home Secretaries, especially Douglas Hurd, who were left alone to ‘get on with it’. More emphasis is needed on the extent to which Labour’s disarray allowed the breathing space for decarcerationist policies to be developed by Home Office custodians of a liberal approach, along with Labour berating the government, not for being ‘soft on crime’, but for not pursuing penal moderation more vigorously. Following Labour’s fourth successive electoral defeat, in 1992, the Thatcherite U-turn towards more punitive policies was, if anything, sparked by Tony Blair’s Clintonesque rebranding of ‘New’ Labour as ‘tough on crime’.

Commentary

This commentary on Peter Dorey’s chapter sets Thatcherism’s distinctively English education policy in two broader contexts. Cultural conservatism and the introduction of quasi-markets are features of other west European school systems. English education, post-Thatcher, is marked out as different by the extent of marketization and the persistent intensity of its cultural politics. Looked at in a British context, the same kinds of contrast can be made: the school systems of all four nations of Britain may increasingly be shaped by neo-liberal policy formulae, but it is in England that such formulae are most potent.

The Legacy of Thatcherism For Education Policies: Markets, Managerialism and Malice (towards Teachers)

The Thatcherite approach to secondary education, which has broadly been adhered to by subsequent governments, was characterized not so much by the traditional 3 ‘Rs’, as by 3 ‘Ms’—marketization, managerialism and malice towards many of those working in education. These three themes and associated policies were predicated on a critique which was scornful of post-war secondary education in Britain, particularly the shift to comprehensive education and its professed egalitarianism, coupled with the apparent hegemony of the education ‘establishment’ in shaping education policy. This chapter examines how the Thatcher governments, and their successors, sought to instil market principles and practices into secondary education, with the associated discourse of competition and (parental) choice. Accompanying this process of marketization was the imposition of greater managerial control over teachers, as symbolized by a regime of audit and inspection, coupled with constant populist denigration of the alleged faults and failings of the teaching profession.

The Thatcherite Economic Legacy

This chapter considers the Thatcher governments’ economic policy in comparative perspective both in relation to their UK predecessors and successors and other large-economy states. It argues that the Thatcher governments presided over significant change to the structure of the UK economy, some of it through deliberate policy intent and some as the unintended consequences of their policy actions. It also shows that, seen as a whole, the Thatcher governments left little legacy at the level of policy framework. They were unable to reduce the fiscal size of the state and New Labour pushed policy in a different direction. On the monetary side, the Thatcher governments grappled with the same problems of inflation and sterling and as policy became ever less coherent, set up the ERM disaster, the response to which by its successors has set the parameters of UK policy since.

Interrogating and Conceptualizing the Legacy of Thatcherism

This chapter reflects on the debates surrounding Thatcherism with the benefit of hindsight. Most commentators seem to accept that Thatcherism is now a historic concept—referring, if not exactly to the period 1979–90, then certainly to events now largely concluded. This allows us a degree of historical perspective that was previously unavailable. Current assessments by political scientists of the rise of ‘New Labour’ and of the development of the British state in the post-war period have had to grapple with this period (and, indeed, 1997). But there are other reasons for returning to Thatcherism and perhaps even for preferring the term ‘Thatcherism’ to the more recent ‘neo-liberalism’. ‘Thatcherism’—however hard it remains to offer a strict definition—embraced more than just neo-liberal ideas. Thatcherism combined both neo-liberal and neo-conservative strands and was often at its more radical and consequential when it identified policy targets which combined elements of both.

Commentary

This chapter reflects upon Danny Dorling’s ‘forensic’ analysis of the spatial dynamics underlying Mrs Thatcher’s impact upon UK society. His innovative cartography, coupled to a remarkable facility with complex datasets, conclusively captures the deepening of socio-spatial inequalities that was integral (not incidental) to the Thatcherite project. The chapter also offers a thumbnail critical appraisal of Mrs Thatcher’s own understanding of ‘geography’. In one register, her approach might be cast as a ‘denying’ of the UK’s overall social geography, but in another it was envisioning a ‘tapestry’ of largely disconnected local social environments admonished constantly to compare and compete. Dorling claims that things could have been otherwise, since many regions of the world did not follow this path of ever-widening internal socio-spatial inequalities. Quite other, alternative visions of more equal and just geographies of the UK, antithetical to Mrs Thatcher’s geographical vision, should continue to feature on a progressive political agenda.

Thatcherism and Crime: The Beast That Never Roared?

This chapter explores the Thatcherite legacy for crime and the criminal justice system. We argue that, despite much of Thatcher’s rhetoric on ‘law and order’, most criminal justice activity during her period in office was essentially liberal (that is, progressive) in nature. Nevertheless, the social and economic policies pursued in the early to mid-1980s were, we argue, associated with rises in the crime rate, which in turn shifted public attitudes towards crime and the treatment of offenders. Coupled with the Labour party’s shift rightwards from the early 1990s and Blair’s focus on crime as a topic Labour ‘owned’ meant that both the Conservative and Labour parties were engaged in a crime ‘arms race’ towards policies which were in tune with the Thatcherite instinct on crime.

What were the lasting effects of Thatcher’s legacy for social security? The burial of Beveridge?

This chapter examines the sustained attack on the social benefits, increasing in intensity across the period of Thatcher’s premiership. These undermined social insurance and (in interaction with other policies) contributed to the increase of poverty. They were supported by a sustained cluster of arguments—that poverty is not a problem, that people must do more to help themselves, and that in the long run a successful economy will bring income gains for all—which have created an ideological legacy (sustained by her successors, and not only her Conservative ones), which has muted the role concerns about poverty and inequality play on the political agenda.