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Will the working class strike back? History shows that numerical strength isn't everything

(Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)


December 20, 2022   7 mins

I felt oddly cheerful last Friday evening as I trudged home through the snow, forsaken by public transport that had stopped running. The truth is that, like Slade or Morecambe and Wise, strikes bring back poignant memories of the Christmases of my youth. At the time, picket lines, power cuts and hysterical articles claiming democracy was about to collapse seemed like part of the natural order. But, of course, the strikes of the Seventies were not simply part of the natural order, any more than the relative quiescence of organised labour in the decades that followed. And, with strikes set to bring much of Britain to a standstill this winter, it is worth putting the sudden and noisy resurgence of working-class protest in historical context.

For almost a century, the question of how to deal with the working class was at the centre of British politics. This period stretched from 1884, when the Third Reform Act enfranchised a significant group of working-class men for the first time, until March 1985, when those miners who had stayed on strike for a year staged a last show of defiance by marching back to work behind their colliery bands. Of course, the working class mattered to the Labour Party (which became the dominant party on the Left after the First World War). The trade unions were the pillars of the Labour Party. Most of its voters were drawn from this class — as were, at least at first, a certain number of its MPs.

But in a more complicated way, the working class mattered to the Conservatives, partly because they needed to contain its power, but also because they needed to win at least some working-class votes if they were to form a government. And the fact that Britain was ruled by mainly Conservative governments for most of the 20th century shows how successful they were.

When did things change? The Labour Party under the leadership of Jim Callaghan from 1976 to 1980 was closer to the trade union movement than at any point before 1914. But, perhaps for this reason, it was troubled by the number of strikes — often ones that involved a breakdown of union power rather than its assertion. The Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher’s leadership from 1975 still assumed that it was going to have to live with a large industrial working class; the party came to power in 1979 aiming to revive British industry, not destroy it. It also came to power with a surprisingly large working-class vote. Such voters had often voted Tory in earlier times in spite of being working-class (because they were deferential to those they imagined to be their social betters or because many voters, especially women, didn’t identify as working-class at all).

In 1979, however, some voted Tory because they were working-class. This was partly because they were voting against the various forms of pay restraint that the Labour government had practised (Thatcherite faith in monetarism meant that they were the first significant group of politicians since the Sixties who thought that government might simply absent itself from private-sector pay negotiations). The Tories also actively courted working-class voters in 1979 and for a couple of years afterwards. Watch Norman Tebbit (then Secretary of State for Employment) giving his “On yer bike” speech to the Tory Party conference in 1981. He is wearing a badge that says “CTU”: the initials stand for Conservative Trade Unionist.

Of course, the Tories wanted to reduce trade union power and, in particular, to break the National Union of Mineworkers. All Conservatives had wanted this for the whole of the 20th century. The desire was, in fact, particularly strong in the non-Thatcherite section of the party — it was, after all, Heath who had been destroyed by his confrontation with the NUM in 1974. However, the desire of the Tories to break the miners in 1979 was a bit like the desire of 16-year-old boys to sleep with Debbie Harry out of Blondie. They fantasised about it but did not think it likely to happen, or have any concrete plans to bring it about.

Indeed, the Thatcher government was nervous of the miners and backed down quickly when faced with potential strike in February 1981. But then Arthur Scargill became leader of the NUM. He took it into a strike in the worst possible circumstances, just after a Tory election victory, at the end of winter and after he had exasperated other union leaders and a significant minority of his own members. The Tories could not believe their luck. It was as though Ms Harry had stepped out of the poster on the bedroom wall and laid her head on their pillow.

The defeat of the miners changed the British working class. The miners themselves had once been its archetypical representatives — there had been over a million of them just after the First World War. Their numbers had been declining for decades but that decline became dramatic after 1985. By the early part of the next decade there were more university teachers than miners in the United Kingdom. Other unions were now wary of going on strike. Since the unions were often strongest in the public sector, privatisation (which took off after 1985) was both a cause and a consequence of weaker unions.

All of this fitted into to longer term changes. The total number of manual workers had been declining since the Sixties. The working class was increasingly divided — by sex or race, or by the growing difference between public sector workers (who were increasingly likely to be white collar and female) and those in the private sector. The working class also became less visible in a literal sense. In the Seventies, you could catch the 63 bus from Birmingham city centre and tell, almost at a glance, which of the passengers belonged to which class — you could, in particular, have a very good guess as to who was going to get off at the stop by the university and who would stay on until they reached the giant Longbridge car factory. You could hardly do that now (not least because Longbridge closed almost 20 years ago).

The miners’ strike has lodged itself in the public and historical memory, and this fascination springs partly from the fact that it seems so archaic. It involved an entirely male and almost entirely white group of workers who earned their living by hard and dangerous manual labour and worked for a single nationalised company. It seemed to mark the end of a struggle that had begun in 1926 and rapidly became associated with the end of a whole industry. Mining now plays a strange part in the British self-image. Almost no coal has been dug for years but people still talk of “pit villages”. The NUM is still, in an odd way, one of the most important unions in Britain, fighting for the rights of former miners and curating the memory of the “great strike”.

Focus on the miners has, however, had odd effects on how we see the working class. For one thing, the emphasis on a single, long strike involving a large number of workers is as deceptive as trying to understand contemporary warfare with reference to Western Front in 1916. Even before Scargill led his followers to defeat, most union leaders understood that the working-class is, almost by definition, weak. Outright confrontation with an employer or government was dangerous. Strikes now are short and intermittent. They are conducted by people who are often ostentatiously reasonable in their aims. The post-Scargill leaders of today have learned the hard lessons of the mid Eighties as much as the pre-Scargill leaders remembered the hard lessons of the Thirties.

An emphasis on the numerical strength or weakness of the working class can also be deceptive. In many ways, the most successful strike of the Seventies was not that of the miners which brought down the Heath government but that organised by the Ulster Workers’ Council a few months later. A relatively small number of workers (rendered more powerful by the fact that Protestants monopolised the best paid and most important jobs) were able to bring the province to a halt and force the government to abandon plans to introduce power sharing between Protestants and Catholics. The Conservatives, by now in opposition, studied the strike carefully. It taught them how much power might be exercised by small numbers of workers in key positions. They showed how well they had learned their lesson in 1984. The defeat of the miners was partly rooted in a willingness to appease other unions whose members might have helped the miners. The relatively high pay of train drivers now derives partly from the fact that they kept working during the miners’ strike.

In some ways, the previous balance of forces between workers and the middle classes has been reversed in recent years. Once, the great majority of the population were working-class but only occasionally and with difficulty could they assert their power in ways that redistributed wealth in their direction. Now a large part of the population has acquired attributes that would once have been associated with the middle class. They are likely to do white collar jobs, to own their own homes and to send their children to university — indeed access to university and to the “property ladder” are often foci for Left-wing complaint.

A small working class is not, however, necessarily a weak one. Covid illustrated the sharp distinction between those whose presence in the workplace was required and those who could work from home: “Virtuals” and “Physicals”. I am not sure that people have yet fully grasped the importance of this distinction. Anyone who can do their job from their bedroom will have shown their employer that their job can be done by someone much cheaper in Chennai or Manila. It will take a long time for employers (especially in the public sector) to act on this lesson but it will happen.

In recent years, it can seem as though the working class is a matter of purely historical interest — in universities, it feels as though even historians who once worked on the working class belong to the past. E.P. Thompson is often talked about as a quaint relic of a bygone age. Mobilisations around gender and race have attracted far more interest. If economic divisions are discussed at all, they are presented as ones that divided “the people” from the “1%” — as though an equitable division of wealth would be arranged in a manner that caused no inconvenience to anyone who is not a partner at Goldman Sachs.

Strikes, of course, bring back a simple question. How essential is your job and who would notice if you stopped doing it? After each strike by university teachers, we get a polite note from the administration asking us to specify which days we were on strike. I am guessing that Avanti do not need to ask the driver who is responsible for taking the 8.10am out of Euston whether or not he turned up for work. I doubt if there is going to be a great resurgence of working-class power, partly because the working class was never that powerful even when it was most unionised. But some workers have begun to realise again that withdrawal of labour is a powerful weapon — and one that may reveal how much the distinction between manual and non-manual workers still matters.


Richard Vinen is Professor of History at King’s College, London. His book Second City: Birmingham and the Forging of Modern Britain is out now.


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Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago

I like the distinction between virtuals and physicals. I’ve never heard that before.

Working class seems like outdated terminology today. Even union membership seems outdated. Many union members today, if not most, belong to public sector unions, whose members earn higher wages and pensions than private sector workers. Yet it’s the private sector that ultimately pays their salaries.

I think one of the issues impacting the west is fewer people working in businesses that generate wealth. Public sector workers like teachers, health care workers and police are all vital to society, but they are disconnected from economy. Their jobs are not directly dependent on economic growth and stability.

If society is dominated by public sector workers, it can be easy to lose focus on the importance of a robust economy. Maybe that’s why so many people do not oppose govt policies that punish the private sector, like shutting down the economy, or imposing restrictions on agricultural and energy production.

IDK. Just spitballing here. Maybe I’m wrong.

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Not wrong. We focus so much on the hot issue of mass immigration and an 8m pop top up that we have lost sight of other massive labour market revolutions which also began in the social engineering Blair/EU years. We have an ever expanding white collar/grad technocracy which has extended its regulatory/bureaucratic reach so much that wealth creation is utterly suffocated. Lockdown also proved that this insulated privileged class do not care a jot about the grubby greedy private sector. They thought they could do without it too – just print the money!!! MMT!!! Total insanity – we are living through a Cost of MMT/Lock Crisis. At least that practice has been exposed as a lie. But the UK is fast heading toward East German style Statism (thanks a bunch Boris Johnson) and this divide is only going to get worse.

Andrew Dalton
Andrew Dalton
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Completely agree. I wrote a mini rant on the inflation spiral article about how governments need to address the supply side to actually fix the cost of living issues but your post elucidates why that is not happening and likely won’t for some time.
We seem to have developed not just a political, but a cultural, apathy towards infrastructure. It’s almost as though people genuinely believe the line that money is actual wealth and the economy is just money. The integrated exchange of goods and services is wealth, money is the mechanism that allows this through abstraction.

Last edited 1 year ago by Andrew Dalton
Ron Bo
Ron Bo
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Dalton

Good point Andrew.Here in the UK no one seems to have addressed the issue of supply side economics.Liz Truss tried albeit with poor messaging and borrowing money for tax cuts but she was deposed and technocrat Hunt popped up from nowhere to run our country and impose more austerity.We have the lowest degree of robotisation here because we are junkies for cheap unskilled labour.Furthermore we have 5 million workers on out of work benefits.

Ron Bo
Ron Bo
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Dalton

Good point Andrew.Here in the UK no one seems to have addressed the issue of supply side economics.Liz Truss tried albeit with poor messaging and borrowing money for tax cuts but she was deposed and technocrat Hunt popped up from nowhere to run our country and impose more austerity.We have the lowest degree of robotisation here because we are junkies for cheap unskilled labour.Furthermore we have 5 million workers on out of work benefits.

0 0
0 0
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Wales is an example of a country where a disproportiionate number of taxpayers work in the public sector. There’s not much actual wealth creation. It’s the old story of earning a precarious living by taking in one another’s washing. The devolved Welsh government is composed largely of people who have never worked in private sector. Mark Drakeford is typical….

Brendan O'Leary
Brendan O'Leary
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Spot on Jim.
We also have a whole class who will tell you they’ve worked in the private sector when all they’ve done is work in the bureaucracy on government contracts through recruitment agencies.

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Not wrong. We focus so much on the hot issue of mass immigration and an 8m pop top up that we have lost sight of other massive labour market revolutions which also began in the social engineering Blair/EU years. We have an ever expanding white collar/grad technocracy which has extended its regulatory/bureaucratic reach so much that wealth creation is utterly suffocated. Lockdown also proved that this insulated privileged class do not care a jot about the grubby greedy private sector. They thought they could do without it too – just print the money!!! MMT!!! Total insanity – we are living through a Cost of MMT/Lock Crisis. At least that practice has been exposed as a lie. But the UK is fast heading toward East German style Statism (thanks a bunch Boris Johnson) and this divide is only going to get worse.

Andrew Dalton
Andrew Dalton
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Completely agree. I wrote a mini rant on the inflation spiral article about how governments need to address the supply side to actually fix the cost of living issues but your post elucidates why that is not happening and likely won’t for some time.
We seem to have developed not just a political, but a cultural, apathy towards infrastructure. It’s almost as though people genuinely believe the line that money is actual wealth and the economy is just money. The integrated exchange of goods and services is wealth, money is the mechanism that allows this through abstraction.

Last edited 1 year ago by Andrew Dalton
0 0
0 0
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Wales is an example of a country where a disproportiionate number of taxpayers work in the public sector. There’s not much actual wealth creation. It’s the old story of earning a precarious living by taking in one another’s washing. The devolved Welsh government is composed largely of people who have never worked in private sector. Mark Drakeford is typical….

Brendan O'Leary
Brendan O'Leary
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Spot on Jim.
We also have a whole class who will tell you they’ve worked in the private sector when all they’ve done is work in the bureaucracy on government contracts through recruitment agencies.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago

I like the distinction between virtuals and physicals. I’ve never heard that before.

Working class seems like outdated terminology today. Even union membership seems outdated. Many union members today, if not most, belong to public sector unions, whose members earn higher wages and pensions than private sector workers. Yet it’s the private sector that ultimately pays their salaries.

I think one of the issues impacting the west is fewer people working in businesses that generate wealth. Public sector workers like teachers, health care workers and police are all vital to society, but they are disconnected from economy. Their jobs are not directly dependent on economic growth and stability.

If society is dominated by public sector workers, it can be easy to lose focus on the importance of a robust economy. Maybe that’s why so many people do not oppose govt policies that punish the private sector, like shutting down the economy, or imposing restrictions on agricultural and energy production.

IDK. Just spitballing here. Maybe I’m wrong.

Paul T
Paul T
1 year ago

A couple of sloppy false assumptions in this article. The 1970s headlines predicting the end of democracy are only ‘hysterical’ in hindsight. Communism was a very real global force and a motivator for some of those orchestrating the picket lines and power cuts. Societal breakdown and authoritarian government were an unlikely, but still real, prospect.
The notion that working class people voted Conservative only out of deference to their social betters is ludicrous. My mum and dad were a textile factory worker and bus driver. They, and people like them, voted Conservative for a variety of reasons, perhaps because they were patriotic, or aspirational, or concerned with freedom. The author’s analysis belongs in the 1970s and should be left there.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  Paul T

I agree. As a young person growing up in the 60s/70s, the analysis just seemed too simplistic. Yet, these are the recent history tropes being fed to young people now. No wonder their view of our history, both recent and longer-term, is skewed. Academic advancement must have been just as dependent on hitting the right-on notes in the late 20th century as it is now.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago
Reply to  Paul T

Indeed. I often suspect that the universal hatred of Thatcher among middle class leftists like this writer is due to the fact that her’s was the last government to provide any real benefit to working class people. Being able to buy their home changed my parents’ lives massively for the better.

We should never forget that it was a Labour Chancellor who changed the way that inflation is calculated in order to conceal the disastrous impact of his policies on the blue collar class.

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago
Reply to  Paul T

Exactly my thoughts, he has an old socialist’s misunderstanding of why the working class voted Tory, and his analysis belongs in the distant past, like his allusion to lusting after Debbie Harry – which I shared, but which is hardly designed to appeal to female readers.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  Paul T

I agree. As a young person growing up in the 60s/70s, the analysis just seemed too simplistic. Yet, these are the recent history tropes being fed to young people now. No wonder their view of our history, both recent and longer-term, is skewed. Academic advancement must have been just as dependent on hitting the right-on notes in the late 20th century as it is now.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago
Reply to  Paul T

Indeed. I often suspect that the universal hatred of Thatcher among middle class leftists like this writer is due to the fact that her’s was the last government to provide any real benefit to working class people. Being able to buy their home changed my parents’ lives massively for the better.

We should never forget that it was a Labour Chancellor who changed the way that inflation is calculated in order to conceal the disastrous impact of his policies on the blue collar class.

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago
Reply to  Paul T

Exactly my thoughts, he has an old socialist’s misunderstanding of why the working class voted Tory, and his analysis belongs in the distant past, like his allusion to lusting after Debbie Harry – which I shared, but which is hardly designed to appeal to female readers.

Paul T
Paul T
1 year ago

A couple of sloppy false assumptions in this article. The 1970s headlines predicting the end of democracy are only ‘hysterical’ in hindsight. Communism was a very real global force and a motivator for some of those orchestrating the picket lines and power cuts. Societal breakdown and authoritarian government were an unlikely, but still real, prospect.
The notion that working class people voted Conservative only out of deference to their social betters is ludicrous. My mum and dad were a textile factory worker and bus driver. They, and people like them, voted Conservative for a variety of reasons, perhaps because they were patriotic, or aspirational, or concerned with freedom. The author’s analysis belongs in the 1970s and should be left there.

Malcolm Knott
Malcolm Knott
1 year ago

Trust an academic to suggest that those members of the working class who voted Tory did so ‘because they were deferential to those they imagined to be their social betters.’ An alternative explanation is that they had no time for socialism.

Last edited 1 year ago by Malcolm Knott
Ron Bo
Ron Bo
1 year ago
Reply to  Malcolm Knott

A friend of mine is a very posh left wing prof.I’m a working class scroat with a very good education and I’m now middle class.My friend also believes that the working classes are naturally deferential to their ‘betters’.He’s wrong of course.Working class people are naturally patriotic and conservative with a small c.

Ron Bo
Ron Bo
1 year ago
Reply to  Malcolm Knott

A friend of mine is a very posh left wing prof.I’m a working class scroat with a very good education and I’m now middle class.My friend also believes that the working classes are naturally deferential to their ‘betters’.He’s wrong of course.Working class people are naturally patriotic and conservative with a small c.

Malcolm Knott
Malcolm Knott
1 year ago

Trust an academic to suggest that those members of the working class who voted Tory did so ‘because they were deferential to those they imagined to be their social betters.’ An alternative explanation is that they had no time for socialism.

Last edited 1 year ago by Malcolm Knott
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
1 year ago

How can anyone who can write this
“Such voters had often voted Tory in earlier times in spite of being working-class (because they were deferential to those they imagined to be their social betters ….”
occupy an academic position at a university?

Martin Smith
Martin Smith
1 year ago

Yes, full-on “false consciousness” narrative. Funny how the working class is supposed to follow its ‘class interest’ as defined by dialectical materialism, but the middle-class, who should be enthusiastically capitalist by the same impersonal force, are perfectly free to make an individual choice and become ‘progressive’.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Smith

Progressivism is driven by class interest too.
Getting the working poor to fight each other over race and gender is the perfect way to divert them from demanding an end to the globalist policies that are pauperising them.

Martin Smith
Martin Smith
1 year ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

Quite so.

Martin Smith
Martin Smith
1 year ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

Quite so.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Smith

Progressivism is driven by class interest too.
Getting the working poor to fight each other over race and gender is the perfect way to divert them from demanding an end to the globalist policies that are pauperising them.

Martin Smith
Martin Smith
1 year ago

Yes, full-on “false consciousness” narrative. Funny how the working class is supposed to follow its ‘class interest’ as defined by dialectical materialism, but the middle-class, who should be enthusiastically capitalist by the same impersonal force, are perfectly free to make an individual choice and become ‘progressive’.

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
1 year ago

How can anyone who can write this
“Such voters had often voted Tory in earlier times in spite of being working-class (because they were deferential to those they imagined to be their social betters ….”
occupy an academic position at a university?

William Goodwin
William Goodwin
1 year ago

Yet another privileged middle class academic with no experience of the real world, let alone the working class, expatiating with unshakeable confidence about the proletariat he knows nowt about. Forgive me if I take this book-learned bias with a bucket of salt. Rule number one: never underestimate the ordinary working people of this country; and never try to second-guess them.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago

Yes. The snobbery is breathtaking, isn’t it.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago

Yes. The snobbery is breathtaking, isn’t it.

William Goodwin
William Goodwin
1 year ago

Yet another privileged middle class academic with no experience of the real world, let alone the working class, expatiating with unshakeable confidence about the proletariat he knows nowt about. Forgive me if I take this book-learned bias with a bucket of salt. Rule number one: never underestimate the ordinary working people of this country; and never try to second-guess them.

David M
David M
1 year ago

Scargill took the miners into a strike without a national ballot. That meant that it lacked validity and unity. It is one reason why the strike failed and it is often forgotten.

David M
David M
1 year ago

Scargill took the miners into a strike without a national ballot. That meant that it lacked validity and unity. It is one reason why the strike failed and it is often forgotten.

Martin Smith
Martin Smith
1 year ago

Some questionable assertions here. Firstly, many working class people were not and are not socialist but believe in competition, enterprise, private ownership and the monarchy. Secondly, by the end of the 70s many working class people were sick and tired of the trades unions and the closed shop that held them hostage to organisations that no longer represented their interests. Thirdly, Thatcher knew that a confrontation with the miners would come: yes she backed off against Gormley because she wasn’t ready, but although Scargill’s timing and tactics were poor one of the main reasons for this was that, learning from Heath’s defeat, coal stocks and policing had been well organised by the government.

Last edited 1 year ago by Martin Smith
Aphrodite Rises
Aphrodite Rises
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Smith

In the seventies, Felixstowe docks operated a closed shop:well-paid jobs but only open to friends and relatives of those already employed. ‘Things falling of the back of lorries’ was considered a perk of the job. The workers did not strike when workers employed at other docks throughout the country did. Felixstowe is now the busiest container port in England.

Last edited 1 year ago by Aphrodite Rises
Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
1 year ago

My father called BR in the eighties to ask how my brother could get a job driving trains; my (pilot) brother loved (still loves) train.

“Oh” (imagine mellifluous welsh accent) “are you on the railways?”

No

“Any family?”

No

“Oh, not much chance then”.

Aphrodite Rises
Aphrodite Rises
1 year ago

Strong unions inevitably resulted in members controlling recruitment.

Aphrodite Rises
Aphrodite Rises
1 year ago

Strong unions inevitably resulted in members controlling recruitment.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago

… and hardly anyone works there.

Aphrodite Rises
Aphrodite Rises
1 year ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

Do you mean very few workers are employed by Felixstowe docks, or that those who work there do very little work?

Aphrodite Rises
Aphrodite Rises
1 year ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

Do you mean very few workers are employed by Felixstowe docks, or that those who work there do very little work?

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago

They still held sway in the north even into the nineties – as a factory manager in the north I had to make some workers redundant – inevitably men as the union managed to avoid women getting into the highly paid machining jobs.

It was last-in-first-out, so I had to explain to some young men, who were far far better workers than the older men who knew they would never lose their jobs, that they had to go. I hated doing it and told them so, but they totally understood the Union ‘rule’ and expressed no bitterness about it. In fact they were perplexed at my upset about having to do it this way.

Last edited 1 year ago by Ian Stewart
Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
1 year ago

My father called BR in the eighties to ask how my brother could get a job driving trains; my (pilot) brother loved (still loves) train.

“Oh” (imagine mellifluous welsh accent) “are you on the railways?”

No

“Any family?”

No

“Oh, not much chance then”.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago

… and hardly anyone works there.

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago

They still held sway in the north even into the nineties – as a factory manager in the north I had to make some workers redundant – inevitably men as the union managed to avoid women getting into the highly paid machining jobs.

It was last-in-first-out, so I had to explain to some young men, who were far far better workers than the older men who knew they would never lose their jobs, that they had to go. I hated doing it and told them so, but they totally understood the Union ‘rule’ and expressed no bitterness about it. In fact they were perplexed at my upset about having to do it this way.

Last edited 1 year ago by Ian Stewart
Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Smith

Is it not aelf evident that the militants of today exist across and within the vast white collar public sector or Blob? We have coordinated strikes within the NHS, teachers and Border Force – whose union is taking the govt to court to oppose the will of parliament on illegal migration. Why are we so scared to acknowledge the new post covid reality of life in the UK; a politically partisan active pro EU anti Brexit civil service is running amok. It is picking off the Brex awkward squad one by one. The seniors got Johnson; the juniors target Priti Suella and Raab – funny how every single Brexiteer is a criminal or ‘bully’. Enough naivety. A bitter civil war burns on with Tory/Brex hatred embedded in all public sector unions. The idea of a united ‘government’ is nonsensical. Lockdown saw the public sector divorce itself from the interests of the private sector, wealth creation and the nation at large. They got fat and greedy with all the authoritarian power they accrued in the emergency. We are hopelessly divided and these strikes will hopefully wake the public up. Self interest & leftist credos are leading the public sector to war on us.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago
Reply to  Walter Marvell

Yes.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago
Reply to  Walter Marvell

Yes.

Aphrodite Rises
Aphrodite Rises
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Smith

In the seventies, Felixstowe docks operated a closed shop:well-paid jobs but only open to friends and relatives of those already employed. ‘Things falling of the back of lorries’ was considered a perk of the job. The workers did not strike when workers employed at other docks throughout the country did. Felixstowe is now the busiest container port in England.

Last edited 1 year ago by Aphrodite Rises
Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Smith

Is it not aelf evident that the militants of today exist across and within the vast white collar public sector or Blob? We have coordinated strikes within the NHS, teachers and Border Force – whose union is taking the govt to court to oppose the will of parliament on illegal migration. Why are we so scared to acknowledge the new post covid reality of life in the UK; a politically partisan active pro EU anti Brexit civil service is running amok. It is picking off the Brex awkward squad one by one. The seniors got Johnson; the juniors target Priti Suella and Raab – funny how every single Brexiteer is a criminal or ‘bully’. Enough naivety. A bitter civil war burns on with Tory/Brex hatred embedded in all public sector unions. The idea of a united ‘government’ is nonsensical. Lockdown saw the public sector divorce itself from the interests of the private sector, wealth creation and the nation at large. They got fat and greedy with all the authoritarian power they accrued in the emergency. We are hopelessly divided and these strikes will hopefully wake the public up. Self interest & leftist credos are leading the public sector to war on us.

Martin Smith
Martin Smith
1 year ago

Some questionable assertions here. Firstly, many working class people were not and are not socialist but believe in competition, enterprise, private ownership and the monarchy. Secondly, by the end of the 70s many working class people were sick and tired of the trades unions and the closed shop that held them hostage to organisations that no longer represented their interests. Thirdly, Thatcher knew that a confrontation with the miners would come: yes she backed off against Gormley because she wasn’t ready, but although Scargill’s timing and tactics were poor one of the main reasons for this was that, learning from Heath’s defeat, coal stocks and policing had been well organised by the government.

Last edited 1 year ago by Martin Smith
Jonas Moze
Jonas Moze
1 year ago

The strike which I found the most amazing was the New Zealand dock workers went on strike in WWII when the American armada had arrived to fight the Japanese. They would not unload the ships. This amazed the USA military – who just ran them off the docks and used the gear to do it themselves.

”At the height of World War I, in February 1915, workers in munitions factories on the Clyde had walked out, with industrial unrest spreading to factories in Sheffield and Birmingham.”

”Later in the year, 15,000 Clyde shipyard workers went on strike again in protest at the compulsory deduction of rent arrears from their pay packets.”

”In 1943, workers at a factory in London making tail-fins for Halifax bombers went on strike and more than 16,000 women and some men walked out of the Rolls-Royce factory in Glasgow — where they should have been making engines for fighter planes.”

‘During the rest of the war, there were strikes all across the country — in engineering factories, the coal mines, aircraft manufacturers, shipyards, and by bus drivers and conductors.”

”Another key area of industrial unrest was the docks. In December 1943, 1,000 dockers went on strike in Middlesbrough and 1944 was considered to be an annus horribilis in terms of strike action, with lightning walk-outs in many ports at full stretch preparing for the invasion of Europe.”

The Australian dock workers had major strikes during WWII, making the war effort worse wile they were part of it.

and now when things are a mess and all need to be belt tightening, well they stop the holiday, and the NHS..

Although in WWII it was Communist directed unions, as in the rest through the 1980s, but now – I think just the leadership still are enemies of the nation in their heads just out of blind anti-British tradition.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

If those companies were making large profits during the war (which they would have been) why shouldn’t the workers have seen their wages rise accordingly, especially as it was them producing the equipment that was being sold? If Rolls Royce were selling their products for no profit to help the war effort then you may have an argument but I can guarantee you they weren’t.
Why should private companies be able to make record profits while their workers are left destitute?

Brett H
Brett H
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

“Why should private companies be able to make record profits while their workers are left destitute?”
This has always been the argument. The question to follow up on is whether increases in wages create inflation.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
1 year ago
Reply to  Brett H

If wages are keeping pace then why is inflation a problem, especially if the whole world is experiencing it at similar levels?

Brett H
Brett H
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

I don’t know. That’s why I raised the question.

Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
1 year ago
Reply to  Brett H

I don’t know about the war time issues and why any potential profits did not result in higher wages but one reason that inflation would have been a serious problem is that Britain would have found buying goods from the US very expensive and catastrophic. Secondly, it would effectively force up interest rates on the money HM Government needed to borrow to fund the war. An inflationary crisis could have led to defeat.

Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
1 year ago
Reply to  Brett H

I don’t know about the war time issues and why any potential profits did not result in higher wages but one reason that inflation would have been a serious problem is that Britain would have found buying goods from the US very expensive and catastrophic. Secondly, it would effectively force up interest rates on the money HM Government needed to borrow to fund the war. An inflationary crisis could have led to defeat.

Brett H
Brett H
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

I don’t know. That’s why I raised the question.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
1 year ago
Reply to  Brett H

If wages are keeping pace then why is inflation a problem, especially if the whole world is experiencing it at similar levels?

Ron Bo
Ron Bo
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

During the First World War the mine owners were profiteering but cut the wages of miners.Let’s not forget the large sums made by people in the know during covid.

Andrew Lale
Andrew Lale
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Do you have any evidence at all that the companies involved in war production during WWII were making large profits?

Brett H
Brett H
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

“Why should private companies be able to make record profits while their workers are left destitute?”
This has always been the argument. The question to follow up on is whether increases in wages create inflation.

Ron Bo
Ron Bo
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

During the First World War the mine owners were profiteering but cut the wages of miners.Let’s not forget the large sums made by people in the know during covid.

Andrew Lale
Andrew Lale
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Do you have any evidence at all that the companies involved in war production during WWII were making large profits?

Nick Wright
Nick Wright
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

What makes you think that this disruption isn’t part of a wider Communist movement? (I’d like to say neo-Communist, but this seems part of the old playbook.) We have a group of avowedly Marxist organisations – BLM, JSO, Stonewall, unions – coming together to undermine Western society: see Greta Thunberg’s support for Edinburgh students blocking the showing of a film about womanhood. Why? Is this just coincidence? In the topical words of Kevin McCallister, “I don’t think so”.

Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

One serious weakness in capitalism is the formation of monopolies or cartels, only then can firms guarantee large profits for long periods.

However, this isn’t such a bad thing if those profits arise from innovation. For example, the profits earned by the developers of the Spitfire would seem deserved. Should the fitters who were building the planes share in the cleverness of the entrepreneurs?

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
1 year ago

Of course they should. Without their expertise in making the parts then the spitfire simply remains a drawing on a piece of paper

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
1 year ago

Of course they should. Without their expertise in making the parts then the spitfire simply remains a drawing on a piece of paper

Christopher Chantrill
Christopher Chantrill
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

I would say that any jolly old World War is great fun for the ruling class and hell for young men, workers, and ordinary people. And the ruling class in our day is the educated class. What fun they have had ruling us for the last century!

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago

WW1 devastated the upper and middle class because officers were expected to be first over the top.

Brett H
Brett H
1 year ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

A genuine question; was England better or worse off as a result?

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago
Reply to  Brett H

I expect the subsequent dearth of middle and upper class men available for management roles opened up opportunities for the working class men. Every cloud….

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago
Reply to  Brett H

I expect the subsequent dearth of middle and upper class men available for management roles opened up opportunities for the working class men. Every cloud….

Brett H
Brett H
1 year ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

A genuine question; was England better or worse off as a result?

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago

WW1 devastated the upper and middle class because officers were expected to be first over the top.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

If those companies were making large profits during the war (which they would have been) why shouldn’t the workers have seen their wages rise accordingly, especially as it was them producing the equipment that was being sold? If Rolls Royce were selling their products for no profit to help the war effort then you may have an argument but I can guarantee you they weren’t.
Why should private companies be able to make record profits while their workers are left destitute?

Nick Wright
Nick Wright
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

What makes you think that this disruption isn’t part of a wider Communist movement? (I’d like to say neo-Communist, but this seems part of the old playbook.) We have a group of avowedly Marxist organisations – BLM, JSO, Stonewall, unions – coming together to undermine Western society: see Greta Thunberg’s support for Edinburgh students blocking the showing of a film about womanhood. Why? Is this just coincidence? In the topical words of Kevin McCallister, “I don’t think so”.

Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

One serious weakness in capitalism is the formation of monopolies or cartels, only then can firms guarantee large profits for long periods.

However, this isn’t such a bad thing if those profits arise from innovation. For example, the profits earned by the developers of the Spitfire would seem deserved. Should the fitters who were building the planes share in the cleverness of the entrepreneurs?

Christopher Chantrill
Christopher Chantrill
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas Moze

I would say that any jolly old World War is great fun for the ruling class and hell for young men, workers, and ordinary people. And the ruling class in our day is the educated class. What fun they have had ruling us for the last century!

Jonas Moze
Jonas Moze
1 year ago

The strike which I found the most amazing was the New Zealand dock workers went on strike in WWII when the American armada had arrived to fight the Japanese. They would not unload the ships. This amazed the USA military – who just ran them off the docks and used the gear to do it themselves.

”At the height of World War I, in February 1915, workers in munitions factories on the Clyde had walked out, with industrial unrest spreading to factories in Sheffield and Birmingham.”

”Later in the year, 15,000 Clyde shipyard workers went on strike again in protest at the compulsory deduction of rent arrears from their pay packets.”

”In 1943, workers at a factory in London making tail-fins for Halifax bombers went on strike and more than 16,000 women and some men walked out of the Rolls-Royce factory in Glasgow — where they should have been making engines for fighter planes.”

‘During the rest of the war, there were strikes all across the country — in engineering factories, the coal mines, aircraft manufacturers, shipyards, and by bus drivers and conductors.”

”Another key area of industrial unrest was the docks. In December 1943, 1,000 dockers went on strike in Middlesbrough and 1944 was considered to be an annus horribilis in terms of strike action, with lightning walk-outs in many ports at full stretch preparing for the invasion of Europe.”

The Australian dock workers had major strikes during WWII, making the war effort worse wile they were part of it.

and now when things are a mess and all need to be belt tightening, well they stop the holiday, and the NHS..

Although in WWII it was Communist directed unions, as in the rest through the 1980s, but now – I think just the leadership still are enemies of the nation in their heads just out of blind anti-British tradition.

Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
1 year ago

“But in a more complicated way, the working class mattered to the Conservatives, partly because they needed to contain its power, but also because they needed to win at least some working-class votes if they were to form a government. And the fact that Britain was ruled by mainly Conservative governments for most of the 20th century shows how successful they were.”

Not, perhaps, because they might have cared that working people had decent opportunities, even if they would go about achieving this situation in a different way to Labour?

It seems an easy claim to make that Labour were for the workers and the Tories for the wealthy. Given that millions of working people voted Tory, were they not voting in their own self-interest?

Forgive me, I really need to read the whole article but this paragraph struck very strongly. It seems to caricature the Right in a very tired way.

Cross my heart and hope to die but I have the idea that there were probably similar numbers of Tories who wanted the best for ordinary British people as Labour people. Am I deluded and, if so, why do they keep winning so many elections?

Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
1 year ago

Dear God.

“Such voters had often voted Tory in earlier times in spite of being working-class (because they were deferential to those they imagined to be their social betters or because many voters, especially women, didn’t identify as working-class at all).”

Clearly the writer considers the working classes of twentieth century Britain to be a bit twp (one of the few Welsh words I know but it means simple, dim).

I don’t think I’ll bother with this. Hopefully, the comments might be interesting.

Last edited 1 year ago by Jonathan Andrews
Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago

Comments have been much more enlightening than the article, which is what I love about Unherd.
I assume you pronounce twp phonetically – unlike, it appears to me, most words in Welsh.

Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian Stewart

Something between tup and top

Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian Stewart

Something between tup and top

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago

Comments have been much more enlightening than the article, which is what I love about Unherd.
I assume you pronounce twp phonetically – unlike, it appears to me, most words in Welsh.

Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
1 year ago

Dear God.

“Such voters had often voted Tory in earlier times in spite of being working-class (because they were deferential to those they imagined to be their social betters or because many voters, especially women, didn’t identify as working-class at all).”

Clearly the writer considers the working classes of twentieth century Britain to be a bit twp (one of the few Welsh words I know but it means simple, dim).

I don’t think I’ll bother with this. Hopefully, the comments might be interesting.

Last edited 1 year ago by Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
1 year ago

“But in a more complicated way, the working class mattered to the Conservatives, partly because they needed to contain its power, but also because they needed to win at least some working-class votes if they were to form a government. And the fact that Britain was ruled by mainly Conservative governments for most of the 20th century shows how successful they were.”

Not, perhaps, because they might have cared that working people had decent opportunities, even if they would go about achieving this situation in a different way to Labour?

It seems an easy claim to make that Labour were for the workers and the Tories for the wealthy. Given that millions of working people voted Tory, were they not voting in their own self-interest?

Forgive me, I really need to read the whole article but this paragraph struck very strongly. It seems to caricature the Right in a very tired way.

Cross my heart and hope to die but I have the idea that there were probably similar numbers of Tories who wanted the best for ordinary British people as Labour people. Am I deluded and, if so, why do they keep winning so many elections?

AC Harper
AC Harper
1 year ago

I suspect that there is another factor in play too. At one time you wanted a ‘job for life’ and feared unemployment. Nowadays many jobs are interchangeable. Within certain limits a desk job is a desk job anywhere. A sales clerk is a sales clerk anywhere. And if you have a particular skill set you can become self employed as a plumber or electrician.
Perhaps people are choosing employment conditions with their feet rather than going on strike?

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago
Reply to  AC Harper

When I got my first job as a government scientist in the eighties, emigrating from an economically depressed Scotland, I was over the moon. I’d come from a jobs for life culture in Central Scotland, and I was sorted now.

But moving down south I was impressed by the southern English culture of trading your skills as a marketable commodity by changing jobs when it suited you. It took me 5 years of boring science work, but I finally managed to wrench myself away from this job for life attitude, and never regretted it.

My civil service colleagues thought I was nuts – trying to convince me, at the age of 26, that it was worth staying in this job forevermore because of its pension!!

Last edited 1 year ago by Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago
Reply to  AC Harper

When I got my first job as a government scientist in the eighties, emigrating from an economically depressed Scotland, I was over the moon. I’d come from a jobs for life culture in Central Scotland, and I was sorted now.

But moving down south I was impressed by the southern English culture of trading your skills as a marketable commodity by changing jobs when it suited you. It took me 5 years of boring science work, but I finally managed to wrench myself away from this job for life attitude, and never regretted it.

My civil service colleagues thought I was nuts – trying to convince me, at the age of 26, that it was worth staying in this job forevermore because of its pension!!

Last edited 1 year ago by Ian Stewart
AC Harper
AC Harper
1 year ago

I suspect that there is another factor in play too. At one time you wanted a ‘job for life’ and feared unemployment. Nowadays many jobs are interchangeable. Within certain limits a desk job is a desk job anywhere. A sales clerk is a sales clerk anywhere. And if you have a particular skill set you can become self employed as a plumber or electrician.
Perhaps people are choosing employment conditions with their feet rather than going on strike?

Andrew Lale
Andrew Lale
1 year ago

A large proportion of those striking are not working class. They are relatively well paid public sector apparatchiks. The actual working class aren’t in unions, don’t go on strike, and work large portions of their year to pay the ungrateful shits currently on strike.

Andrew Lale
Andrew Lale
1 year ago

A large proportion of those striking are not working class. They are relatively well paid public sector apparatchiks. The actual working class aren’t in unions, don’t go on strike, and work large portions of their year to pay the ungrateful shits currently on strike.

Peter B
Peter B
1 year ago

“Anyone who can do their job from their bedroom will have shown their employer that their job can be done by someone much cheaper in Chennai or Manila.”
Lazy thinking. A gross over-simplification which only holds if there is someone with the required skills and experience in Chennai or Manila. The more complex and higher value the job, the less likely that is. Case in point: my son showed me a YouTube video this morning about software programmers in Silicon Valley being paid record amounts (well over $1m a year). The fact that you can find people with the same apparenty job title cheaper elsewhere means nothing if you need and can pay for the best.

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter B

Yeah that was a very old fashioned piece of industrial analysis. Reshoring of even relatively straightforward call centre jobs to the U.K. has been going on for over 10 years now.

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter B

Yeah that was a very old fashioned piece of industrial analysis. Reshoring of even relatively straightforward call centre jobs to the U.K. has been going on for over 10 years now.

Peter B
Peter B
1 year ago

“Anyone who can do their job from their bedroom will have shown their employer that their job can be done by someone much cheaper in Chennai or Manila.”
Lazy thinking. A gross over-simplification which only holds if there is someone with the required skills and experience in Chennai or Manila. The more complex and higher value the job, the less likely that is. Case in point: my son showed me a YouTube video this morning about software programmers in Silicon Valley being paid record amounts (well over $1m a year). The fact that you can find people with the same apparenty job title cheaper elsewhere means nothing if you need and can pay for the best.

Christopher Chantrill
Christopher Chantrill
1 year ago

In our age we are ruled by an educated class that imagines it rules for the benefit of the oppressed against the oppressors.
Thus, your Marxes, your Webbs, your Asquiths, your Lloyd Georges, your Attlees, your Wilsons, your Callaghans were all for the working class. Yay!
But I think the working class would have done a lot better if the ruling class had indulged in a lot fewer wars. Up through World War I the rulers would feature “resumption” of the Gold Standard after their war — i.e., deflation. Workers hated that. Then, of course, after World War II the rulers adopted permanent inflation. Workers hate that too.
Who really cares about the workers? That’s what I’d like to know.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago

Well, the Webbs thought the best thing for the poor would be sterilisation. Still, I suppose that’s an improvement on GBS’ idea of just slaughtering them en masse. Progressivism has always been more about control than equality, hence the divide and rule ideologies now being promoted throughout the education system.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago

Well, the Webbs thought the best thing for the poor would be sterilisation. Still, I suppose that’s an improvement on GBS’ idea of just slaughtering them en masse. Progressivism has always been more about control than equality, hence the divide and rule ideologies now being promoted throughout the education system.

Christopher Chantrill
Christopher Chantrill
1 year ago

In our age we are ruled by an educated class that imagines it rules for the benefit of the oppressed against the oppressors.
Thus, your Marxes, your Webbs, your Asquiths, your Lloyd Georges, your Attlees, your Wilsons, your Callaghans were all for the working class. Yay!
But I think the working class would have done a lot better if the ruling class had indulged in a lot fewer wars. Up through World War I the rulers would feature “resumption” of the Gold Standard after their war — i.e., deflation. Workers hated that. Then, of course, after World War II the rulers adopted permanent inflation. Workers hate that too.
Who really cares about the workers? That’s what I’d like to know.

Perry de Havilland
Perry de Havilland
1 year ago

“Working class” is as outdated a notion as “serfs”

Perry de Havilland
Perry de Havilland
1 year ago

“Working class” is as outdated a notion as “serfs”

Joanna Clarke
Joanna Clarke
1 year ago

Thank you, Richard, for placing “property ladder” in quotation marks, where it definitely belongs. I can’t think of a single other person to do this – even Brendan O’Neill appears to think it’s a real phenomenon.

Joanna Clarke
Joanna Clarke
1 year ago

Thank you, Richard, for placing “property ladder” in quotation marks, where it definitely belongs. I can’t think of a single other person to do this – even Brendan O’Neill appears to think it’s a real phenomenon.

Christopher Barclay
Christopher Barclay
1 year ago

This article misses the point. Nurses have been going on strike for the last two years by leaving the profession. Much of the working class have already decided years ago that working and paying tax does not match living off benefits and working casually for cash. Many professions such as lorry driving and those in construction are either lacking workers or recruiting immigrants because British people have decided that the pay is not good enough. As taxes rise, this phenomenon will spread into many middle-class professions. People will simply decide that it is not worth working or repaying the student loan or going for a promotion. Our economy will become lethargic and stagnate. Our elite will fail to fund the spending commitments required to keep rioters off the street. One way or another change is coming.

Christopher Coote
Christopher Coote
1 year ago

I was a victim of Thatcher’s privatization back in the 1980s whilst working as a Civil Servant for the MoD….she ruined the service!

Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
1 year ago

How? Were you so important?

Peter B
Peter B
1 year ago

Did Thatcher actually privatise the MoD ? As far as I’m aware, only Qinetiq was privatised (from DERA) in 2001 – 10 years later under New Labour. That and some of the MoD housing. Not quite sure which events you’re referring to – please do add some details.

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago

And she won the wars – in the Falklands, against the USSR, and at home against the unions.

Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
1 year ago

How? Were you so important?

Peter B
Peter B
1 year ago

Did Thatcher actually privatise the MoD ? As far as I’m aware, only Qinetiq was privatised (from DERA) in 2001 – 10 years later under New Labour. That and some of the MoD housing. Not quite sure which events you’re referring to – please do add some details.

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago

And she won the wars – in the Falklands, against the USSR, and at home against the unions.

Christopher Coote
Christopher Coote
1 year ago

I was a victim of Thatcher’s privatization back in the 1980s whilst working as a Civil Servant for the MoD….she ruined the service!