making uk the age of affluence 1955 to 1976

01/05/2023 Age of Affluence 1955 to 1976 1

The Age of Affluence 1955 to

1976N C Gardner MA PGCE


‘You’ve never had it so good’

• After the General Election of 1955, which the Conservatives won under the leadership of Sir Anthony Eden, the number of British homes with television sets nearly doubled.

• Eden’s successor, Harold Macmillan (prime minister 1957 to 1963) set out to adapt his own brand of showmanship to the potent new medium of television.


Harold Macmillan, prime minister 1957 to 1963, presided over rising affluence

and standards of living.


1950s: rising prosperity

• In 1957, Conservative prime minister Harold Macmillan had stated in a speech: ‘Let’s be frank about it; most of our people have never had it so good. Go around the country, go to the industrial towns, go to the farms, and you will find a state of prosperity such as we have never had in my life time – nor indeed ever in the history of this country.’


An affluent family in the 1950s.


Rising prosperity: a Conservative theme

• Rising prosperity became a theme of Conservative politics in the 1950s.

• Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, RAB Butler, had talked of the prospect of the British standard of living doubling every twenty-five years.

• Compared with the austerity years of 1940 to 1955, a major shift in the key arguments of British politics took place in the late 1950s.


Stable and traditional family life reached its height in the 1950s.


Unprecedented prosperity

• Unprecedented prosperity derived from the unparalleled growth rate of Gross Domestic Product of, on average, more than 2% per annum.

• The average Briton was to enjoy a growth in consumption levels that by 2000 was to take them to heights almost unimaginable in the 1940s.


Peace and Prosperity in 1950s Britain


But the perception was one of decline

• While people on average had ‘never had it so good’ according to the GDP and consumption figures, many of them for much of the time perceived the economy to be suffering from ‘decline’, a word that came to dominate discussions of the British economy.


The weekend retreat: champagne on tap. Marking the rise of affluence for some lucky people in modern

Britain.


The postwar settlement of full employment

• In the postwar settlement the determination not to return to the conditions of the 1930s – economic depression and mass unemployment – led to a public policy focus on the prevention of unemployment as the key way to secure the welfare and security of the masses.


Before the internet, newspaper reading was widespread


1944 White Paper on Employment Policy

• The 1944 White Paper on Employment Policy advocated ‘high and stable’ levels of employment and was supported by both the Labour and Conservative parties and governments after the war until the 1980s.

• By the early 1950s the spectre of mass unemployment had disappeared. Growth seemed to offer an alternative route to improved welfare.


Sales of fridges boomed in the 1950s and 1960s. Happiness is a full fridge.


The election in the Age of Affluence: Macmillan triumphs in 1959.

• Macmillan stumped the country with energy in the 1959 General Election. The election was by no means a foregone conclusion. The Guardian, the Observer and the Spectator had all come out against the Tories.

• However, Hugh Gaitskell, Leader of the Labour Party, started to make rash, panicky, electoral promises about vast sums of money which would be earmarked by Labour for pensions and other social reforms, and which would be raised by cutting the allowance on business expenses.


Macmillan won decisively in the 1959 election with a Tory lead over Labour of 107 seats.


Economic growth at the centre of political debate

• By the early 1960s economic growth was at the centre of the political stage.

• The Conservatives were devising a whole range of policies to try to raise the growth rate, from the National Economic Development Council through to applying to join the Common Market.

• Labour was attacking the failure of the Conservatives to achieve growth rates comparable to those elsewhere in Western Europe.


Hugh Gaitskell, Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition, 1955 to 1963.


Labour’s defeat in 1959 and the affluent society

• Labour suffered its third successive defeat in the 1959 General Election (previous defeats had been in 1951 and 1955).

• Some commentators argued that a large section of the working class no longer saw itself as working class, and that this process of ‘embourgoisement’ was loosening the ties between Labour and its core support.


Smoking was seen as a glamourous pursuit in the 1950s


1959 election defeat post-mortem

• Increasingly after its third successive election defeat in 1959, Labour was being seen as an outdated party representing ‘the poor’ at a time when many workers, regardless of their politics, no longer saw themselves as working class.

• Even worse, young people were alienated from Labour in large numbers.

• However, other surveys contested the view that Labour was in serious trouble.


Labour won in 1964.

• A 1963-64 study of Luton, a town dominated by the motor industry, found that, despite affluence, there was no evidence of any shift in working-class political loyalties away from the Labour party.

• On the whole, it seems that the picture of Labour in decline due to broad sociological factors was overdone.


The underlying strength of Labour in the 1950s

• Labour had underlying strength in the 1950s; the party polled very well, and lost elections by relatively narrow margins.

• The basic cause for Labour’s defeat in 1959 was that enough voters continued to believe that the Conservatives were and would remain successful in government.


George Brown and Harold Wilson, Deputy Leader and Leader of the Labour Party. Labour won the 1964

election albeit by a narrow margin.


The scapegoat for the 1959 defeat: Clause IV

• The scapegoat for Labour’s defeat in the 1959 election was found in a small passage in the Labour constitution, drafted in 1918 by Sidney Webb, ritually ignored by every leader since 1918, a passage whose only function was to reassure the idealists in the party’s ranks.

• Clause IV called for the public ownership of all means of production by a Labour government.


Hugh Gaitskell, Labour leader 1955 to 1963, challenged Labour

theology, namely Clause IV, in 1959.


Clause IV retained

• Tony Blair, Labour leader 1994 to 2007, was able to drop Clause IV of Labour’s constitution in the 1990s, but in 1959 Britain was a different country and was run on mixed economy and progressive taxation lines.

• The Thatcher Revolution had not happened and hence neo-liberalism was not around in the 1950s and 1960s. After a fierce debate at the 1959 party conference, it was decided that the existing Clause IV would be retained.


The politics of affluence, 1951 to 1964

• After their election victory in 1951, the Conservatives throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, sought to sustain the welfare of the British people by managing capitalism at home and protecting Britain from the menace of the Soviet Union.

• The economy grew in the 1950s and living standards steadily improved.


Cold War Britain, 1946 to 1989: the main international threat was the Soviet Union


Full employment secured in the 1950s and early 1960s

• Full employment was secured by the Conservative governments of 1951 to 1964 and household incomes increased.

• Harold Macmillan, as housing minister from 1951 to 1954, fulfilled the Conservative election manifesto promise to build 300,000 houses a year.

• The Conservatives were also conciliatory towards the Trade Unions during 1951 to 1964.


The Cold War influence on British politics

The Cold War was highly influential in British politics in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Labour Party was divided between robust anti-communists and an equally determined left-wing, which regarded the Soviet regime as a model of socialism.


Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. The Cold War with the USSR supplied the

international context for British politics from 1946 to 1989.


The Labour left and the Cold War

• The left-wing of the Labour Party led by Nye Bevan, opposed the re-armament of West Germany in the early 1950s.

• The Labour left-wing also embraced the idea of unilateral nuclear disarmament from the late 1950s.


The post-war consensus

• The 1950s and 1960s were the decades of the post-war consensus and it has been argued that there was little difference between the Conservative and Labour parties and governments of 1951 to 1970 on having:

• The welfare state• Full employment• A mixed economy• Consultations with the Trade Unions


RAB Butler, Conservative

Chancellor of the Exchequer 1951 – 55;

Home Secretary 1957 – 62; Deputy Prime

Minister 1962 – 63; Foreign Secretary 1963 – 64. Butler was one of

the leading representatives of the post-war settlement

and consensus politics. He was very much a ‘One Nation Tory’.


The politics of affluence: the post-war consensus, 1951 to 1970

• Both the Labour and Conservative parties accepted the ‘mixed economy’, an economy which was not socialist, but was not neo-liberal either.

• Instead Labour accepted a measure of private enterprise and did not advocate socialism; and in return the Conservatives accepted a measure of nationalised industries and planning of the economy.


Harold Wilson, Labour prime minister 1964 – 70; 1974 – 76. Wilson accepted the role of private

enterprise in the economy but also advocated a measure of national planning. Like the Conservatives,

Wilson wished to modernize British industry.


The expansion of education, 1944 onwards

• Britain after the 1944 Education Act experienced the expansion of secondary and higher education in the 1950s and 1960s.

• RAB Butler in the early 1960s set out the Conservative policy towards education thus:

• ‘For on the future of education not only the efficiency of our society but the fulfilment of our ideals depends. In 1944 I played my part in opening the doors of secondary education to all.’


The expansion of secondary and higher education in the 1950s and 1960s

• Butler continued: ‘Now a fresh challenge and opportunity awaits us. Already seven new universities are being created, and plans are in hand to increase substantially the capacity of existing universities, colleges of advanced technology and teacher training colleges.

• Our aim is higher education for every boy and girl in the land who can benefit from it.’


List of universities built from 1952 to 1963

• Southampton 1952• Hull 1954• Exeter 1955• Leicester 1957• Sussex 1961• Keele 1962• East Anglia 1963• York 1963• Newcastle 1963


Southampton University, built 1952: one of its newer buildings


Southampton University student room: carefully note the teddy bear on the bed, the slippers and multi-

coloured curtains.


The success story of modern Britain: university education


The expansion of the universities• At the end of the 1970s one in eight 18 year

olds was in higher education; by 1990 it was one in five; by 1994 one in three.

• On the one hand, this was a welcome development in modern Britain: with regard to their working lives, an educated population is more flexible and less fearful of change.

• With regard to personal growth, an educated person is more open to a wide range of intellectual and social experiences and cultures.


However, resources for universities were limited

• On the other hand, successive governments wanted the expansion of the numbers of students achieved using relatively fewer staff with substantially fewer resources.

• Student numbers went up by 88% between 1989 and 2002, while the money provided per student fell by 37%. Spending on university fell sharply.


The success story of modern Britain: expansion of further education and better and better A-Level results.


The haunting ghosts of Stockton in the 1930s

• The haunting ghosts of Stockton in the 1930s Great Depression were never to leave Harold Macmillan, prime minister 1957 to 1963. As a young Conservative MP for Stockton-On-Tees in the Thirties, Macmillan had witnessed the unemployment of his constituents first-hand.

• In the 1957 – 63 period of his government, if there had been a choice between modest inflation and the threat of a return to chronic unemployment, Macmillan would not have hesitated – he would have tackled unemployment.


The affluent society 1955 to 1973

The affluent society of 1955 to 1973, from the end of rationing in 1955 to the OPEC oil price rises of 1973, was threatened to be undermined by the balance of trade deficit or by rising price inflation.

However, the economist Peter Oppenheim, pointed out that in 1952 – 1964, retail prices rose by only about 3 to 4 per cent per annum, which was almost entirely due to the normal functioning of the UK economy.


Elvis Presley. The King of Rock n Roll and also the megastar entertainer of the new youth culture of the 1950s.


The youth explosion

• Very much part of the affluent society was the rise of youth culture, a completely new situation for western society including British society.

• The new high-wage society of the Fifties gave new spending power to youth.

• Popular entertainers and fashion-setters were also 15 or 20 years younger than previously, and Elvis Presley above all represented this new experience.


Elvis Presley (1935 – 1977). Cultural icon and the biggest-selling solo artist in the history of

recorded music. Elvis was the leading entertainer of the new youth culture, of

‘teenagers’ in the Fifties.


Technological change and youth in the Fifties and Sixties

• The rise of the affluent society in the western world also accompanied technological developments which were essential for the new youth culture – faster cars, improved record-players and huge sales of television sets.

• The new youth culture was independent of upper and middle class influences. The working classes were no longer a stereotype but were achieving success and a presence on their own terms.


Moral panics about youth

• With the growth of youth culture and sub-cultures, moral panics took place. There were media reactions to particular social groups or activities which were defined as threatening ‘mainstream’ social values, creating anxiety amongst the general population.

• Teddy Boys, Mods and Rockers, hippies smoking marihuana, led to moral panics from the mid-1950s to late 1960s.


The expansion of the media during the affluent society

• The high and consistent economic growth rates of the 1950s and 1960s, and technological developments led to expansion of the media. Britain gained a second television channel in 1954 (ITV) and a third channel in 1964 (BBC2).

• With only three TV channels, viewing figures ran into millions. National newspapers had large circulations of millions since the Internet had not been invented.


Serving ruling-class ideology

• The media served an ideological function according to Marxist academics:

1) Turning the White working class against the Black working class (i.e. ‘divide and rule’)

2) Diverting attention away from the mismanagement of capitalism by the capitalist class

3) Justifying repressive laws and policing that could be used against other ‘problem’ groups.


The Rolling Stones in concert


Low levels of social mobility

• The stubborn persistence of low social mobility led in 1965 to a nationwide shift towards comprehensive education.

• Eleven Plus selection tests and Grammar School entry was weighed in favour of middle-class children at the expense of the lower-classes.

• Fashionable utopian theories about the repressive nature of discipline and of formal methods of learning had fatal consequences.


Public spending on housing rose dramatically

• Public spending on new housing, often high-rise flats, and on subsidies to council tenancies rose dramatically in the late 1960s, but even so was increasingly outstripped by tax relief on mortgage interest payments to owner-occupiers.

• Owner-occupation accounted for more than half of all housing stock by 1971.


Arsenal won the Double in 1971: the League Championship and the FA Cup. Arsenal’s captain was

Frank McClintock, goalkeeper Bob Wilson and star striker Charlie George.


Changing social mores

• Changing sexual and social mores were signalled by the tentative introduction of sex education in schools, contraceptive services through the National Health Service, and the legalization of abortion on medical grounds (1967).

• Between 1969 and 1973 a series of cross-party measures introduced major changes in the law relating to marriage breakdown, including a shift towards ‘divorce by mutual consent’.


“Revenge is a dish best served cold” The Godfather (1972), an iconic movie of the

Seventies


High public spending

• Labour’s social legislation and high tax rates of the late 1960s carried public expenditure to over 50% of national income and there was a significant increase in social mobility.

• There had been a marked increase in white-collar at the expense of manual employment; a marked decline in the percentage of those following the same occupations as their fathers and many more people were regularly moving in and out of different classes.


Becoming a more equal society

• The proportion of wealth owned by the top 5% of wealth-holders fell from around 60% in 1960 to just under 50% in the early 1970s.

• Meanwhile the proportion of wealth owned by the bottom 50% was steadily rising largely through pension funds and the increase in mortgage-financed owner-occupation.


Love Story (1970), a hit movie of the Seventies starring Ryan O’Neal and Ali

MacGraw.


Greater class mobility and rising crime rates

• Greater class mobility and more widely dispersed ownership of property did not, however, lead to social peace and tranquillity.

• On the contrary, the late 1960s and early 1970s saw rising crime rates, increasing family breakdown, and widespread industrial unrest, with days lost in strike action running at five times the average for the preceding 25 years.


Borrowers or Lenders

• Both popular and elite opinion appeared volatile and confused, and when the Conservatives defeated Labour in the election of 1970, it was with no clear mandate for addressing the mounting symptoms of underlying crisis.

• The accelerating inflation of the period had the effect of transforming class and status positions into a vast public lottery, in which personal prosperity largely turned upon whether individuals were borrowers or lenders.


Joni Mitchell, Canadian singer-songwriter, whose album ‘Blue’ (1971) was a hit record of

the Seventies and is rated one of greatest albums of 20th century popular music.


Trade union militancy

• Much of the trade union militancy of the early 1970s was fuelled by fear that the relative status of organised labour was being hopelessly devalued, and that, without acceptance of their wage claims, they would be ‘better off on the dole’.

• The Heath government’s attempts to curb these inflationary pressures by a mixture of voluntary and statutory incomes policies were torpedoed by the international oil crisis of 1973, which led to further widespread industrial unrest, and the defeat of the Conservatives in the two general elections of 1974.


Thatcher’s diagnosis of what was wrong with Britain

• For Conservatives such as Margaret Thatcher, Enoch Powell and Sir Keith Joseph, Britain by the 1970s was in the soup.

1) There were too many public servants, almost 8 million, over 29% of the total UK workforce.

2) The Civil Service, employing 738,000, was twice as large as in 1939.


Margaret Thatcher, Leader of the Conservative Party 1975 to 1990; Prime Minister 1979 – 90. Thatcher thought that Britain in the 1970s was

in the soup and needed radical free-market reforms to solve the problem.


Thatcher’s diagnosis

1) The National Health Service employed 1.5 million by the 1970s.

2) Nationalized industries employed over 2 million, nearly half of the entire number in manufacturing industries.

3) Local government employed no less than 3 million.

4) The subsidies (£4.6 billion) and borrowing (£2.5 billion) of the nationalized industries in 1979 were almost equal to the cost of servicing the national debt (£8.4 billion).


Thatcher was influenced by the free-market writings of the economist Professor Freidrich von Hayek. Hayek preached the need for a free and competitive economy unbound from government interference.


Thatcher’s diagnosis about Britain in the Seventies

1) The public subsidies to nationalized industries were not going to growing industries such as electricity, whose supply had grown tenfold since 1938, but to old, declining industries such as coal, whose output had declined by a third, and railways, with half the miles of service as in 1938.

2) National per capita income – 40% above the West European average in the late 1950s – was below average by 1979.


Thatcher’s diagnosis of Britain’s ills of the 1970s

1) Britain had the lowest growth of productivity of any major industrial economy, with an eight-fold increase in strikes compared with the 1930s.

2) The currency was declining fast, with the pound worth one twentieth of its 1938 value.

3) A loaf of bread which cost 1.5 p in 1938 cost 65 p in 1979, an increase of 4,200% in the most basic of commodities in just 40 years.


Reform of the post-war settlement

• Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson tried to bring the trade unions under some control with the help of Barbara Castle, Minister for Employment and Productivity. They introduced a White Paper, ‘In Place of Strife’ in 1969.

• When the unions protested, Wilson and Castle backed down, setting the scene for the 1970s, a decade when government policy often seemed to be determined in TUC Congress House.


Barbara Castle, Labour’s Employment Minister, 1968 – 70, who tried and failed to

gain some government control over the trade unions. Where Castle failed, Thatcher succeeded in the 1980s, with the defeat of

the most powerful union, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in 1984 – 1985.


The unions as part of government, mid-1970s

• By the time James Callaghan succeeded Harold Wilson as Labour Prime Minister in April 1976, the unions were very much part of governing Britain and by 1979, Cabinet papers were being sent to the TUC for approval.

• Callaghan said to the TUC General Council at 10 Downing Street, “We are prostrate before you but don’t ask us to put it in writing.”


Jack Jones, General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) was regarded by 1977 as “the most powerful

person in Britain”. The unions had 13 million members including within key industries.

Strikes took place in the key industries and the country was deprived of vital services.

making uk the age of affluence 1955 to 1976

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