The Conservative Governments, 1979-1997
1. Thatcherism as an ideology?
2021: In what sense, if any, was the work of the Thatcher Governments ideologically driven? (63 answers)
2019: Did the governments of 1979-1997 have much to do with Conservatism?
2018: Were the Conservative governments 1979-97 more about order or freedom?
2016: What best explains Thatcherism?
2013: What ideological label best characterises the policies of the governments of 1979-1997?
2010: ‘Coherent as ideology but incoherent as political practice.’ Do you agree with this judgement of
Thatcherism?
1a. Traditional vs. ‘new’ conservatism
2014: Was Thatcherism more ‘old’ or ‘new’ Conservatism?
2012: How innovative were Conservative governments between 1979 and 1997?
2011: Was Thatcherism any more than a revival of traditional Conservatism?
2. Policy/practice
2020: What was Thatcherism designed to achieve?
2018: Were the Conservative governments 1979-97 more about order or freedom?
2017: Was the power of the state reduced between 1979 and 1997?
2016: What best explains Thatcherism?
2010: ‘Coherent as ideology but incoherent as political practice.’ Do you agree with this judgement of
Thatcherism?
2009: The term ‘Thatcherism’ suggests a coherence which was in fact missing between 1975 and 1990.
Discuss.
3. Thatcher years vs. Major years
2015: Why were Conservative governments powerful in the 1980s and weak in the 1990s?
Tips from examiners’ reports:
1. The question is never just asking you to discuss ideology. Always talk about policy.
2. Always disentangle the ideology – ‘Thatcherism’ – from the woman herself. Do not understate the
importance of other figures in building Thatcherism.
3. Consider change over time in the intentions of the government.
4. Consider what prominent Conservatives actually thought. What failed? What succeeded?
,First term: 1979 - 1983
At 43 seats Thatcher’s was the lowest Conservative majority since 1922. Votes for the Conservatives seemed
to reflect more of a popular dissatisfaction for strikes, taxation and inflation than a positive consensus for the
alternatives.
Second term: 1983 - 1987
The "Falklands Factor" along with the resumption of economic growth by the end of 1982 bolstered the
Government's popularity and led to Thatcher's victory in the most decisive landslide since the general
election of 1945. The Conservatives had a majority of 144 MPs, even while the Alliance split the opposition
vote.
Third term: 1987 - 1990
Another landslide victory with a 102 seat majority. Polls showed that Thatcher's leadership style was more
important for voters than party identification, economic concerns, and indeed all other issues.
Major: 1990 - 1997
21 seat majority in 1992.
Background to the 1979 election
1. The 70s and the W inter of Discontent (1978 - 1979)
a. Widespread strikes demanding pay rise from Labour Callaghan govt, plus coldest winter in 16
years.
b. Followed fears of ‘welfare scroungers’ after newspaper complaints of 1975-6 depicted those
living ‘more than comfortably’ on the dole.
c. Conservatives have long been good at capitalising on and ‘narrating’ crises, casting themselves
as the stable solution.
i. Idea that people favour and trust Conservatism when they are scared (Vernon
Bogdanor).
d. Increasing opportunities for working mothers, the decline of
traditional manufacturing industry and the rise of the service
sector → all already in motion before Thatcher.
i. ‘For all the power of Thatcherism as an idea, it should not be made an explanatory
tool for every social development’ (Ben Jackson).
2. Thatcher before election
a. Rebelled against corporate style of Heath govt.
b. Joined Sir Keith Joseph in founding the Centre for Policy Studies as a forum for market
individualism and monetarism.
, c. Thatcher’s election as leader is often regarded as a kind of peasants’ revolt against Tory
grandees. Harold Macmillan: she was ‘selling off the family silver’.
W hat is ‘Thatcherism’?
Defining ideology:
1. Freeden: Ideologies are not static belief systems. They have core concepts and peripheral concepts,
which may increase or decline over time relative to each other and the external world. Ideologies, like
language, can acquire new meaning.
2. Nigel Gould-Davis (IR scholar): A politician can be both a pragmatist and an ideologue. To call
something ideological is only to make a statement about the nature of its goals, not exactly how to
achieve them.
Separating ‘Thatcherism’ from Thatcher
1. Neoliberalsim and the New Right
a. Neoliberals argue that rolling back regulations and the marketization of social life create more
choices and thus more freedom.
b. At the forefront of Hayek’s mind when he wrote The Road to Serfdom was not the failures of
capitalism after the Great Depression but rather Nazi Germany. The small state was essential
to ensure the highest level of liberty or ‘toleration’.
c. New work by Aled Davies, Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite and Ben Jackson complicate the
standard narrative that neoliberalism was a right-wing ideology peddled by political
economists, think-tanks and politicians from the 1930s onwards, which finally triumphed in
the 1970s and 1980s.
i. Instead they point to some left-wing origins and the importance of voices from the
business world.
ii. Robert Saunders also argues that it is mistaken to imagine neoliberalism as ‘a
marginalised group of [foreign] intellectuals who succeeded [in Britain] through the
sheer force of their ideas.’
1. Rather, they received significant indigenous support, e.g funding from
leading British companies, sympathetic coverage in The Times and The
Telegraph etc.
d. Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite: Thatcherites ‘plundered neoliberalism when it suited
them’, and chose to imbue it with an overtly moralistic tone.
2. The importance of advisors and intellectuals
1. Thatcherism as an ideology?
2021: In what sense, if any, was the work of the Thatcher Governments ideologically driven? (63 answers)
2019: Did the governments of 1979-1997 have much to do with Conservatism?
2018: Were the Conservative governments 1979-97 more about order or freedom?
2016: What best explains Thatcherism?
2013: What ideological label best characterises the policies of the governments of 1979-1997?
2010: ‘Coherent as ideology but incoherent as political practice.’ Do you agree with this judgement of
Thatcherism?
1a. Traditional vs. ‘new’ conservatism
2014: Was Thatcherism more ‘old’ or ‘new’ Conservatism?
2012: How innovative were Conservative governments between 1979 and 1997?
2011: Was Thatcherism any more than a revival of traditional Conservatism?
2. Policy/practice
2020: What was Thatcherism designed to achieve?
2018: Were the Conservative governments 1979-97 more about order or freedom?
2017: Was the power of the state reduced between 1979 and 1997?
2016: What best explains Thatcherism?
2010: ‘Coherent as ideology but incoherent as political practice.’ Do you agree with this judgement of
Thatcherism?
2009: The term ‘Thatcherism’ suggests a coherence which was in fact missing between 1975 and 1990.
Discuss.
3. Thatcher years vs. Major years
2015: Why were Conservative governments powerful in the 1980s and weak in the 1990s?
Tips from examiners’ reports:
1. The question is never just asking you to discuss ideology. Always talk about policy.
2. Always disentangle the ideology – ‘Thatcherism’ – from the woman herself. Do not understate the
importance of other figures in building Thatcherism.
3. Consider change over time in the intentions of the government.
4. Consider what prominent Conservatives actually thought. What failed? What succeeded?
,First term: 1979 - 1983
At 43 seats Thatcher’s was the lowest Conservative majority since 1922. Votes for the Conservatives seemed
to reflect more of a popular dissatisfaction for strikes, taxation and inflation than a positive consensus for the
alternatives.
Second term: 1983 - 1987
The "Falklands Factor" along with the resumption of economic growth by the end of 1982 bolstered the
Government's popularity and led to Thatcher's victory in the most decisive landslide since the general
election of 1945. The Conservatives had a majority of 144 MPs, even while the Alliance split the opposition
vote.
Third term: 1987 - 1990
Another landslide victory with a 102 seat majority. Polls showed that Thatcher's leadership style was more
important for voters than party identification, economic concerns, and indeed all other issues.
Major: 1990 - 1997
21 seat majority in 1992.
Background to the 1979 election
1. The 70s and the W inter of Discontent (1978 - 1979)
a. Widespread strikes demanding pay rise from Labour Callaghan govt, plus coldest winter in 16
years.
b. Followed fears of ‘welfare scroungers’ after newspaper complaints of 1975-6 depicted those
living ‘more than comfortably’ on the dole.
c. Conservatives have long been good at capitalising on and ‘narrating’ crises, casting themselves
as the stable solution.
i. Idea that people favour and trust Conservatism when they are scared (Vernon
Bogdanor).
d. Increasing opportunities for working mothers, the decline of
traditional manufacturing industry and the rise of the service
sector → all already in motion before Thatcher.
i. ‘For all the power of Thatcherism as an idea, it should not be made an explanatory
tool for every social development’ (Ben Jackson).
2. Thatcher before election
a. Rebelled against corporate style of Heath govt.
b. Joined Sir Keith Joseph in founding the Centre for Policy Studies as a forum for market
individualism and monetarism.
, c. Thatcher’s election as leader is often regarded as a kind of peasants’ revolt against Tory
grandees. Harold Macmillan: she was ‘selling off the family silver’.
W hat is ‘Thatcherism’?
Defining ideology:
1. Freeden: Ideologies are not static belief systems. They have core concepts and peripheral concepts,
which may increase or decline over time relative to each other and the external world. Ideologies, like
language, can acquire new meaning.
2. Nigel Gould-Davis (IR scholar): A politician can be both a pragmatist and an ideologue. To call
something ideological is only to make a statement about the nature of its goals, not exactly how to
achieve them.
Separating ‘Thatcherism’ from Thatcher
1. Neoliberalsim and the New Right
a. Neoliberals argue that rolling back regulations and the marketization of social life create more
choices and thus more freedom.
b. At the forefront of Hayek’s mind when he wrote The Road to Serfdom was not the failures of
capitalism after the Great Depression but rather Nazi Germany. The small state was essential
to ensure the highest level of liberty or ‘toleration’.
c. New work by Aled Davies, Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite and Ben Jackson complicate the
standard narrative that neoliberalism was a right-wing ideology peddled by political
economists, think-tanks and politicians from the 1930s onwards, which finally triumphed in
the 1970s and 1980s.
i. Instead they point to some left-wing origins and the importance of voices from the
business world.
ii. Robert Saunders also argues that it is mistaken to imagine neoliberalism as ‘a
marginalised group of [foreign] intellectuals who succeeded [in Britain] through the
sheer force of their ideas.’
1. Rather, they received significant indigenous support, e.g funding from
leading British companies, sympathetic coverage in The Times and The
Telegraph etc.
d. Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite: Thatcherites ‘plundered neoliberalism when it suited
them’, and chose to imbue it with an overtly moralistic tone.
2. The importance of advisors and intellectuals
