On the Edge of the Eighties: Developments

Abstract

Unlike the Conservative victory which proclaimed the end of the sixties, the success of Margaret Thatcher in May 1979 came as no surprise to anyone on the British left. Callaghan’s attempts to muddle through after the resignation of Wilson failed to paper over the struggles within the Labour Party between the old right and centre hard-core, and the new ‘grass-root’ forces of the left, chiefly mobilised around the figure of Tony Benn — struggles which were seized upon with glee by the predominantly right-wing British press. In the face of such confusion, with a middle-of-the-road leader standing on a left-influenced manifesto with which he had little sympathy, and with an accompanyingly well-orchestrated media campaign in search of ‘reds under the bed’, the Labour defeat was inevitable. Thatcher’s clearly articulated promise of a return to a simple model of strong government struck a chord in an electorate as disillusioned with the impotence of Parliament as it was uncertain about the implications of Britain’s declining role, economically and politically, in the contemporary world.

JEREMY: Then just one question, Martin. How do you think they will react? The people who’ve been breastfed on the milk of social kindness all these years? When the teat is pulled away? When the plateglass is put up between them and the goodies they’ve been promised as of right? I listen to the future and I’m hearing broken glass. I look into my crystal ball, and I see London burning.

MARTIN: I see. And so, what antidote do you prescribe?

TRELAWNEY: Well, in a word: Authority.

(Slightly misappropriated from David Edgar’s Maydays, 1983)