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Labour Party in power on the 70s - verdict?

ska invita

back on the other side
Curious to hear what people make of the record of Labour when in power during the 70s. Before my conscious time and have never read up on LP history
 
Smaller point but saw the cabinet papers release had Wilson and Callaghan keeping tabs on so-called left union leaders.
 
When the lights went out by Andy Beckett is a pretty good read on the 1970s in general, whether you were there (I was, but aged 6-16) or not.

There’s a particularly good bit documenting the lies that were told to Healey (who believed them) by the IMF.
 
Banks and finance keen to profit at everyone's expense, security and establishment undermining democracy, a hard playing field.
 
I had to google the running order
  • James Callaghan. Labour, 1976 - 1979. ...
  • Harold Wilson. Labour, 1974 - 1976. ...
  • Edward Heath. Conservative, 1970 - 1974.
Didnt the economy start tanking under Heath? and thats partly why Labour got in?
 
I remember the 70s well. One thing that stands out is how much better dressed the kids at my primary school, which was in a poor area, were when I left school. Fewer kids with plimsolls for shoes and NHS specs mended with Sellotape. :(

The strikes I remember well actually took place during the Heath government. This was the miners' strike and the three day week. My main memory is of going to Guides in the church hall down the road in candlelight. We thought it was fun, though I bet a lot of people didn't!

Oddly, I don't remember the Winter of Discontent even though I was not far off leaving school and I wanted to work in the NHS. I think its effect have probably been exaggerated by the right.

I read somewhere recently that the mid-70s were the time when we had the most equal society. It was really normal and not looked down on to live in a council house. I honestly never saw people sleeping on the street until I went to New York in 1987.

I don't remember inflation but then I was basically a child so wouldn't have been concerned with shopping and bills. I do remember going on holiday to France and noticing how expensive it was.

I'd second planetgeli's recommendation of Andy Beckett's book.

The Red Pepper piece is interesting but obviously (and understandably) is left-leaning. Overall I suspect that the picture of the strike-ridden, inflation-ridden 70s has been massively exaggerated to suit right-wing agendas.
 
When the lights went out by Andy Beckett is a pretty good read on the 1970s in general, whether you were there (I was, but aged 6-16) or not.

There’s a particularly good bit documenting the lies that were told to Healey (who believed them) by the IMF.
I used to work for the son of one of Healey's cabinet colleagues. When I asked him about the IMF deal he got genuinely huffy and said "all that money was paid back in six months".
 
The Red Pepper piece is interesting but obviously (and understandably) is left-leaning. Overall I suspect that the picture of the strike-ridden, inflation-ridden 70s has been massively exaggerated to suit right-wing agendas.

It's broad brush approach means that it also ends up giving Heath credit - not to mind letting labour off the hook and not relating any of it to wider changes in capital globally.

edit: that 74-79 govt has to be directly related back to the anti-w/c moves of the 64/66-70 labour govt and it's fights with the w/c+unions as well. They were still fighting battles they considered unfinished.
 
It's broad brush approach means that it also ends up giving Heath credit - not to mind letting labour off the hook and not relating any of it to wider changes in capital globally.

edit: that 74-79 govt has to be directly related back to the anti-w/c moves of the 64/66-70 labour govt and it's fights with the w/c+unions as well. They were still fighting battles they considered unfinished.
You could argue that on their own terms the 74-79 government did relatively well, and that it was the 64-70 lot who were the real travesty, and who had no excuse really.
 
Callaghan was the first monetarist PM. His autobiography is worth reading.
I dont think thats going to happen :D
You could argue that on their own terms the 74-79 government did relatively well, and that it was the 64-70 lot who were the real travesty, and who had no excuse really.
Thats what i wonder - how much of the damage was already done and Labour came in to pick up the pieces?

I do remember reading about Tony Benns drive to set up co-ops in this era. In the most high profile cases co-ops took over failing/failed businesses (Meriden-Triumph car/bikes and a Scottish Newspaper). Nut surprisingly they failed again quickly - the businesses were already bust. This set back the UK co-op movement to this day arguably. Co-ops were also encouraged by local councils, and some funds were available, but there was a lack of support and education to go with it, or so Ive read. Anyhow the point is if the base conditions are set for failure its hard to make a success of them just because you have some version of socialism taking over.

If Brexit tanks the economy and Corbyn gets in power at that point history could yet repeat itself on this level.

Also more generally were Labour bereft of good ideas? Were they going through the motions? Out of date thinking for the times?
 
I remember the 70s well. One thing that stands out is how much better dressed the kids at my primary school, which was in a poor area, were when I left school. Fewer kids with plimsolls for shoes and NHS specs mended with Sellotape. :(

The strikes I remember well actually took place during the Heath government. This was the miners' strike and the three day week. My main memory is of going to Guides in the church hall down the road in candlelight. We thought it was fun, though I bet a lot of people didn't!

Oddly, I don't remember the Winter of Discontent even though I was not far off leaving school and I wanted to work in the NHS. I think its effect have probably been exaggerated by the right.

I read somewhere recently that the mid-70s were the time when we had the most equal society. It was really normal and not looked down on to live in a council house. I honestly never saw people sleeping on the street until I went to New York in 1987.

I don't remember inflation but then I was basically a child so wouldn't have been concerned with shopping and bills. I do remember going on holiday to France and noticing how expensive it was.

I'd second planetgeli's recommendation of Andy Beckett's book.

The Red Pepper piece is interesting but obviously (and understandably) is left-leaning. Overall I suspect that the picture of the strike-ridden, inflation-ridden 70s has been massively exaggerated to suit right-wing agendas.

So the downplay by a blatantly left wing author is fine then?

I was married with a child in 1975, and struggling hard to make ends meet under Wilson then Callaghan. Their fiscal incompetence cost me my job, I was a Civil Engineer.

They were dire, and frankly that article is so far off what was actually happening, it is fiction.
 
My memories (politically) of the '70s, in which I went from 10-20.

Northern Ireland (all through) and Vietnam (early years) constantly in the news.

Apocalyptic coverage of how "the unions" were "holding the country to ransom." (Fast forward forty years into our neoliberal rats' nest and workers having representation doesn't seem such a bad thing).

The IMF loan in (I think) 1976.

Mike Yarwood "doing" the well-known politicians of the day: Ted Heath's shoulders, Denis Healey's eyebrows.

The (dismal) prominence of the NF and the (marvellous) resistance to it.

The Winter of Discontent and the wretched arrival of Thatcher which threw a wrecking ball against everything worthwhile and decent and began the decline into our current ignominy.
 
I dont think thats going to happen :D

Thats what i wonder - how much of the damage was already done and Labour came in to pick up the pieces?

I do remember reading about Tony Benns drive to set up co-ops in this era. In the most high profile cases co-ops took over failing/failed businesses (Meriden-Triumph car/bikes and a Scottish Newspaper). Nut surprisingly they failed again quickly - the businesses were already bust. This set back the UK co-op movement to this day arguably. Co-ops were also encouraged by local councils, and some funds were available, but there was a lack of support and education to go with it, or so Ive read. Anyhow the point is if the base conditions are set for failure its hard to make a success of them just because you have some version of socialism taking over.

If Brexit tanks the economy and Corbyn gets in power at that point history could yet repeat itself on this level.

Also more generally were Labour bereft of good ideas? Were they going through the motions? Out of date thinking for the times?

The Triumph co-op didn't fail immediately, it lasted about 6 years and made a decent effort at modernising the product. It went tits up when the pound became a petrocurrency and rose in value destroying any chance of competetive exports in tbe early 80s. It could have succeeded with only slightly more procipitous circumstances. One of AWB's better ideas I always thought.
 
Curious to hear what people make of the record of Labour when in power during the 70s. Before my conscious time and have never read up on LP history
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Sorry, haven't read all the thread, and also sorry to not address the specific question. But I think the specific question needs context.

In my opinion, between 1945 (edited to change from 40 to 45 because of the Second World War. But to be honest, 1940 IS when the change started.) and 1970 the major economic players in the world turned to, what some people call socialism, and which could more accurately be described in my opinion as "the state direction of capital investment". Or reformism, whose aim is to reform capitalism, to make it run not destroy destroy capitalism.

What they saw in Britain was massive investment in the human population. Investment in education, health, housing and many other forms of infrastructure that aided directly the people of Britain. The upside for capitalism, a more healthy, productive, profitable labour force. On an industrial perspective, it rationalised British industry which had become woefully antiquated in the opinion of many of the observers of the day.

There is a "genius" video on YouTube discussing Keynes, as the father of this movement. However much part it was a reaction to the failure of economic liberalism (Reaganomics neo-economic liberalism) to deal with the depressions of the 1930s (and 20s in Britain). But to some degree it was also following the lead of Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany (some historians labelled the first Keynesian), who both appeared to overcome global downward trends in economic fortunes.

In my opinion, why Keynesianism began to fail at the beginning of the 70s is partially answered in Chris Harman, "the post-war arms economy". What I would say however that the Labour Party of the 1970s were more the convenient Patsy of the global trend, rather than its instigator. However, for working class people and ironically even more so for the capitalists, socialism/reformism of the Labour Party type produced the greatest period in capitalist, if not world history, again in my opinion.

Again in my opinion, Reaganomics has actually been detrimental to the long-term interests of the capitalist classes, though it has satisfied their gluttony. Where investment in people socialism/reformism of the Labour Party type still takes place, not only the people prosper, but also the millionaire's.

 
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