8 October 2001
© John Barnes
A. The notion of the Conservative century - product of the early nineties, based on Conservative longevity in office since 1918.
Wilson (PM 1964-70, 1974-76) had earlier thought the Labour was on the way to becoming the natural party of government, an idea found also in students of voting behaviour like Butler & Stokes.
But the notion of the Conservatives as a hegemonic or at least a potentially hegemonic party was also abroad in the early sixties. Cf. Beer
Perspectives shift over time and are shaped by contemporary concerns.
B. The prevailing periodisation of the postwar period can be expressed in four propositions:-
1. War begets consensus and the postwar consensus lasts until the 1970s.
2. There is a crisis of governance in the 1970s.
3. Mrs Thatcher restores the authority of government through a hegemonic project, which can be seen either as temporarily successful or, more usually, as launching the state on a new trajectory.
4. The Labour party accommodates itself to the Thatcherite mould and a new consensus emerges in the 1990s.
Obviously it is still very early to judge the course pursued by the Blair Government, but there are clear signs that whilst the idea of a new consensus still looks persuasive in regard to economic policy, it is open to serious question when issues of tax, public spending and regulation are under review. There are marked continuities in public policy, and, as doubts on the Left suggest, some disposition to tackle issues that the Conservatives did not dare touch. On the question of Europe, however divisions have, if anything sharpened. It may be too early to reach a final judgement on the Blair Government and the trajectory that it is now pursuing but the literature is now available to allow us to reach some provisional judgements.
C. There are several problems with this picture of the postwar period:
1. It does something to explain why the interwar Conservative hegemony (the party is in government from 1918-24, 1924-29, 1931-40) comes to an end, but does not explain why the party was able to reassert itself. It contributes very little to our understanding of why the political parties might alternate in office, but the suggestion is that it matters very little in terms of policy outcomes.
2. The notion of consensus is itself problematic. It subsumes what might be described (with some reservations) as the welfare state consensus of the 1940s and 1950s, an approach to foreign policy which rests on the Atlantic alliance and the nuclear deterrent (but ignores differences over Europe), the presumed acceptance of Keynesianism by all parties and acceptance of the mixed economy by the time the Attlee Government leaves office. Advocates of the consensus are not without good points to make, but in order to present the picture they do, they have to play down the socialism of the Attlee governments and to some extent also the economic liberalism of Conservative Governments in the 1950s. More to the point still, they have to ignore the marked shift towards corporatism that takes place in the early 1960s.
3. They ignore continuities between Mrs Thatcher's conservatism, the views put forward by Churchill in 1945, 1950 and 1951 (Mrs Thatcher was herself a candidate in 1950 and 1951) and the platform adopted by the Conservatives in 1970. They can be criticised for exaggerating the transformative effect of Thatcherism.
D. Middlemas, who recognises some but not all of these objections, conceptualises the period somewhat differently. He writes in terms of a postwar settlement (an accommodation, more a balance of forces than a consensus) which gradually unravels in the course of the first decade and a half after the war, is reasserted quite consciously in 1961/62, but which again disintegrates. Middlemas would accept that there is a genuine crisis in the 1970s which permits Mrs Thatcher to launch a successful assault on the postwar settlement. Although he does not cover the period, it is possible to infer that Middlemas sees a fresh "settlement" emerging in the 1990s.
E. While this view clearly makes more sense of what has taken place, it too is open to attack:
1. Like the prevailing view, it underplays the socialism of the Attlee Governments.
2. The view taken of the early sixties stresses the relaunch of the postwar settlement, but what takes place is not so much a relaunch as a total rethink. Complacency about British exceptionalism gives place to a rising tide of discontent with Britain's postwar performance.
3. Again, like the prevailing view, acceptance of postwar economic policy as Keynesian ignores the evolution of Governmental approaches to the economy and some of the tensions to which that evolution gives rise. The economic dimension, it should be noted, is in general the crucial dimension in postwar party conflict. Cf. Robertson.
F. Punctuated equilibrium or a combination of evolutionary change with periods of rather more rapid and extensive change.
G. What we have to address and if possible answer by way of explanation are certain questions. Setting them out may suggest a rather different, more complex periodisation of the postwar period than those sketched earlier:
1. What brings the period of inter-war Conservative hegemony to a (temporary) end?
2. Was there a degree of consensus during the war and did it persist into the postwar years? Is it better regarded as a "settlement" and if so, what was settled and what left unsettled?
3. Was there a genuine attempt to build a socialist commonwealth and if so why did it fail?
4. To what extent were the Conservative governments of the 1950s the product of a genuine reaction against socialism and in what ways did their practice and policies differ from those of Attlee's governments?
5. Keynesianism insofar as it was adopted seems to have had an achilles heel, a propensity to generate inflation. Keynes discerned this rightly as a political problem, but one which seemingly proved insoluble in conditions of full employment. Why?
6. Why was there a renewed interest in planning in the early 1960s and to what extent was it associated with the decision to seek entry into the EEC (hitherto unthinkable)?
7. Following on from that, why was the corporatist experiment abandoned, only to be briefly revived in 1972-74?
8. Was there a crisis of governance in the 1970s and if there was, to what extent was it the result of factors external to this country and to what extent the result of the growth of a rather anarchic version of trade union power?
9. Was the Thatcherite response simply a reaction to what had gone before or was there rather more to it? To what extent was it an ideologically driven project or is it best seen as a form of statecraft?
10. Should Thatcherism be seen as an entity or an evolving project adapting itself over time to a changing environment?
11. Was a different agenda set in the 1990s?
12. To what extent did a fresh consensus evolve in the 1990s? If there was such a consensus, should it be seen as a natural development of Thatcherism or is a new project in train?
It should follow from this that I see parties, their ideologies and programmes as major change agents although they operate always within an institutional framework (I use the term in the broadest sense Cf, Peter Hall) which is slow to shift and which affords both opportunities and constraints to political actors.
Therefore my periodisation of the last sixty years tends to take more account of the alternation of parties in office, but would not consist entirely. Broadly
1. 1940-45. The war years which confirmed notions of an active state (arguably this was a product of the 1930s) and established the possibility of what might be described as a Keynesian welfare state.
2. 1945-51. The Attlee Governments which take some of these ideas forward, but within a very different framework. Planning and Controls.
3. 1951-60. The reaction against socialism, moves back to economic liberalism, amrred by increasing concern for sterling and a series of crises, which produce what the Opposition damn as stop-go policies. Internecine disputes in the Labour party.
4. 1961-70. An attempt to pursue sustained growth through the adoption of French-style indicative planning and the involvement of unions and business in a corporatist structure. The attempt at sustained growth is bedevilled and destroyed by a succession of sterling crises. The attempt to restrain wages through an incomes policy ends with an attempt to modify the whole pattern of industrial relations in the UK.
5. 1970-74. An attempt to follow a much more economically liberal set of policies, accompanied by a further attempt to legislate for a more responsible unionism ends in a sharp reversal of course, the imposition of a prices and incomes policy and a major industrial relations crisis.
6. 1974-79. Although beset by crises, both external and internal, and rather hesitant in action, the Labour Government nevertheless secured co-operation from the unions in a voluntary incomes policy, but the successful economic recovery, which was engineered on the back of that policy led not to victory but defeat in face of renewed strife with the unions.
7. 1979-82. The years in which Mrs Thatcher mastered her Cabinet and party and inaugurated the privatisation programme, sale of council houses etc. Also the years in which monetarism is pursued and in which the Lady shows she's not for turning. Mrs Thatcher is helped greatly by Labour's sharp turn to the Left and split.
8. 1982-7. Apart from the defeat of the unions, more a period of consolidation and a shift to more pragmatic economic policies. The Labour Opposition beat off the challenge of the Alliance.
9. 1987-92. Late Thatcherism, more radical and more coherent programmes of reform and virtual completion of the privatisation programme. The gradual adaptation of the Labour party ends in failure.
10. 1992-97. The Conservative party destroys its reputation for economic competence and, faced with the challenge of greater European integration, breaks into warring factions. New Labour emerges to win the 1997 election.