Thatcher, Blair and a brief history of class in British politics – podcast

When Tony Blair got here to energy in 1997 as the primary Labour prime minister in a era, his authorities grew to become related to the phrase “we’re all center class now”.

Within the second a part of Know Your Place: what occurred to class in British politics, a podcast collection from The Dialog Documentaries, we glance again at a century of sophistication in British politics to grasp why Blair’s choice to maneuver Labour away from the working class was such a watershed second.

The British Labour celebration was created in 1900 by commerce unionists who wished to offer a voice to working class folks. On the time, the category construction was inflexible and solely property-owning males over the age of 21 might vote.

However the rupture of the primary world struggle ushered in common grownup suffrage, and with it, says Mark Garnett, senior lecturer in politics at Lancaster College, a sense amongst opponents of the Labour celebration that it will ultimately turn into the principle electoral pressure. He says:

After we get to the center a part of the twentieth century, being a supporter of the Labour celebration was one thing that one inherited virtually … it will actually be very peculiar in the event you have been a really aware member of the working class who didn’t additionally see your self as a Labour celebration supporter.

After the second world struggle and the election of Clement Attlee as Labour prime minister, class nonetheless appeared firmly cemented into British political allegiances, as Martin Farr, senior lecturer in modern British historical past at Newcastle College explains.

Essentially the most dramatic illustration of sophistication I may give you is within the 1951 common election: 98% of voters voted Conservative or Labour. No different events mattered.

Thatcher’s best achievement

For Farr, the political and financial turmoil of the Seventies, ending within the winter of discontent below the Labour authorities of James Callaghan, marked the start of the tip of this political association, paving the best way for the election of Margaret Thatcher as Conservative prime minister.

Margaret Thatcher mentioned that her best achievement was Tony Blair. The Thatcher years created a distinct type of Labour Celebration … which essentially wasn’t the celebration of commerce unions to the identical extent as a result of there have been weaker commerce unions and fewer commerce unionists.

After 17 years of Conservative rule, Blair’s election in 1997 introduced Labour again into energy. However its angle towards its working class base had modified.

Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary College of London, says Blair’s advisers realised that the working class in Britain was shrinking and that, in contrast to the previous, Labour couldn’t put collectively a successful electoral coalition based mostly purely on working-class voters. However he additionally says they wished to construct a cross-class coalition.

They spent extra time rhetorically interesting to the middle-class votes and thought the working-class vote will take care of itself so long as they obtained the financial system and public companies proper. And maybe they need to have carried out extra … to attraction to either side of that electoral coalition, that cross-class coalition that they hoped to construct. 

For extra evaluation, hearken to the complete episode of Know Your Place: what occurred to class in British politics on The Dialog Documentaries, which additionally consists of interviews with the previous Labour MPs Reg Race and David Hanson, who’s now a member of the Home of Lords and minister of state for the House Workplace.

A transcript is obtainable on Apple Podcasts or YouTube.

Know Your Place: what occurred to class in British politics is produced and combined by Anouk Millet for The Dialog. It’s supported by the Nationwide Centre for Social Analysis.

Newsclips within the episode from AP Archive, New Labour, British Movietone, British Pathé, SirEdwardHeath and ITN Archive.

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