1979 Redux?
The BBC marked the 30th anniversary of the election of former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher by re-running its coverage of the 1979 election on its BBC Parliament television channel on Bank Holiday Monday (The coverage is still available to download for UK viewers over the next week at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0074yz8)
Watching the material helped crystallise a few of my long running thoughts on the next general election, which must be held by this time next year.
While the Conservatives may be nearly 20 points ahead in the polls, they still have an electoral mountain to climb. Going into the 1979 general election, the Conservatives held 277 parliamentary seats, and needed to gain just 41 seats to gain a majority of one. In the event they gained 62, but in 2010 the Conservatives must add 128 seats to their tally in order to form a majority administration. The sheer logistical effort of managing a general election targeting this many seats is almost unprecedented, and a landslide of 1997 proportions will be required.
Britain is once again at an economic cross-roads. Just as in 1979, Thatcher found herself in charge of an economy with a very poor record in industrial relations, and an industrial sector in crisis. Furthermore, the winner of the 2010 general election is facing a financial sector plagued with problems. The new administration will either have to tackle head-on the underlying asymmetries and rebuild the competitiveness of the banks and investment industry, or a new economy-wide growth model is going to have to be found. Both options are going to require considerable political courage to make some very tough choices.
Fiscal reform is even more pressing in 2010 than in 1979. Margaret Thatcher built her reputation as a ‘small government’ politician, and by the time she left Downing Street government debt as a percentage of GDP was on its way to halving from the 47.2% she inherited. The next government faces debt ratios which have gone into orbit, with government debt already at 50.9% of GDP. Debt could well punch through 70% over the coming years. Totally overhauling the government’s spending priorities and debt management will be a task to rival pushing through the privatisation process of the 1980s. This will be far from an enviable task. The risk is that should the next government (Conservative or Labour) falter in pushing forward economic reform, the economic and real GDP growth volatility will rise far above the levels seen through the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, and instead mark a return to 1970s levels. In such a scenario, we would expect the fractious political climate of the 1970s to return as well.
May 5th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
So, does Cameron have what it takes to be the next Maggie and will the British public be as hungry for change in the 10′s as they were in the 80′s?
May 5th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
I visit the UK from time to time, and I cannot help but feel that Britain in 2009 is nowhere near as bad as it was in 1979, when there were strikes, power blackouts, rubbish piling up in Lycester Square, etc, or so I am told.
I know there has been some talk of a ‘summer of discontent’ in the UK (see this article http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/23/police-civil-unrest-recession ) but how likely are we to see 1970s style unrest? I think the public the world over is a lot more passive these days than it was in the 1960s / 70s / 80s. Maybe our brains are being nuked by reaility TV!
I would agree with the previous commentator that Cameron Davids may not have what it takes to be the next Thatcher. The question then becomes, where is England’s Barack Obama?
May 6th, 2009 at 9:49 am
Is Cameron the new Thatcher? Time will tell on that score, but remember that pre-1979 Margaret Thatcher was not yet the ‘Iron Lady’, and the nearest thing she had to a sobriquet was ‘Margaret Thatcher, Milk Snatcher’ from her time as Secretary of State for Education and Science.
Indeed, the 1979 election manifesto was far from a fully formed programme for the Thatcher years (see the full text of the manifesto at http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/man/con79.htm). It majored on trade union reform and controlling prices. The extent of the privatisation process or the remoulding of British society is not to be seen here. Similarly, I would not expect a fully formed programme from the Conservatives under David Cameron ahead of the 2010 elections. Instead, a general statement of principles is more likely, concentrating on promoting civil liberties (the Unions of the 2010s) and the desire to reduce the size of the state (akin to the 1979 manifesto). As for Britain needing a President Obama-figure, I would contend that we have already had one.
The election of Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1997 was a reaction to a generally unpopular government, and the desire for change in the UK. The themes – a fresh start, a new type of politics – were very similar in the UK in 1997 and the US in 2008.
However, I will caution, as I did back in November in a BMI Special Report entitled Obama: The World Awaits, that the hopes, dreams and aspirations being attached to the Obama presidency will be very difficult for the new US head of state to meet, and as a result he could yet disappoint many of his supporters.
February 11th, 2010 at 11:35 am
Many dustbin men have gone on strike, many university staff are going on strike. The rich Poor gap is wider than it was in 1970. This year had the worst growth since 1921. I would say New liebour try and hide as many facts as possible from people. If you only visit the UK you do not get a true sense of the state it’s in. The growth it saw was fulled by excessive house prices and high personal debt it has trippled under Labour.