"thatcher's Governments 'changed The Soul' Of British Society": Discuss In Relation To The Construct

Perhaps the continually polemic nature of Margaret Thatcher and her governments is, at the very least, indicative of their attempts to 'change the heart and soul' of Britain, and her continued shadow over British political life evidence that, in some form, these attempts were realised. The historiographical and perceptive rifts caused by her economic, social and military policies and polarising imprint on public consciousness complicate the recognition and assignment of any sort of uniform national identity to her governments' period in office. Yet, however divisive, the terms 'Thatcher's Britain' and Thatcherism retain both a meaningful and resonant cultural presence, and are perhaps indicators of changed national identity, or, more whimsically, 'soul'. For despite the influence of longer-term Conservative ideals , the absence of a coherent Labour party and a degree to which Thatcherite 'national identity' flickered circumstantially, the 'changing of Britain's soul' in all its historiographical complexity requires acknowledgement and clarification under Thatcher as it would under any Premier as long-lasting, convicted and combative. To say otherwise would be rather simplistic and potentially biased (perhaps understandably). With this said, the construction of national identity under Thatcher might be phrased in oppositional and moralistically economic terms that constituted a reconstructed and polarising 'Britishness' that drew heavily upon the past but also redefined, however controversially, the future of British identity. Indeed, much of the debate here is not over whether Thatcher's governments changed British national identity, but rather how much responsibility is ascribed to these governments, as opposed to other factors, in bringing about these changes. Was it Thatcher's governments that 'changed the soul', or longer term, outside factors? To consider this question, and the nature of the national identity constructed, it seems correct to delineate several spheres of historiographical enquiry concerning Thatcher and her governments' relation to national identity. Broadly, these will include: the idea, propagated by E.H.H. Green amongst others, that Thatcher and thus Thatcher's Britain were defined by much longer-term aspects of Conservative ideology which 'existed long before she became leader of the Conservative party', P. Hall's idea of a 'swing to the right', explicable here in terms of national self-identification, brought about by Conservative manipulation of the political landscape, and the concept that national identity in this broad period was defined as much by what Labour and the Left were not as by what Thatcher and the Conservatives were, a view represented historiographically by E. Evans, amongst others. From, and in addition to this wide and overlapping set of analyses of Thatcherism and its relationship with national identity can be drawn a conception of a reconstructed, contemporarily fitting but stunningly divisive and oppositional form of British identity that did constitute a 'changing of the soul', though in terms that often make it difficult for historians and cultural theorists to accept it as such. For this would be a vision of national identity that defined itself against others and by what it was not, in frequently antiquated and polemic ways. It is thus not surprising that it proves so controversial as a subject. Before analysing such trends, it would serve to clarify some oft-debated terms, as well as some brief historical context. The term 'national identity', has been debated endlessly as a concept yet will be used here, for fluidity's sake, as more-or-less interchangeable with 'Britishness' and the influence of Thatcher's governments on self-perception and definition thereof. The relative inclusiveness and exclusiveness of the term 'Britishness' within the British isles is clearly an important topic in the period in question and will be mentioned later. The term 'Thatcherism' also carries a number of connotations relating to its ideological content, or lack thereof, but here it will be taken more generally, perhaps by necessity in a wider discussion of national identity, as the beliefs, methodologies and associated outcomes of Thatcher and her governments. This leaves room for manoeuvre in discussing a topic such as the construction of national identity which requires adaptable and fluid terms rather than a rigidly worded framework. Into these more broadly defined areas of analysis can be slotted some of the crucial events of the years of Thatcherite government on which the 'changing of the soul' did not hinge, but was perhaps rechanneled: the Falklands War of 1982, the Poll Tax Riots of 1990 and Thatcher's re-elections are all examples. In all of this however, it remains critical to look outside of the time period, to events both before and beyond Thatcher; to consider that a figure and her government do not suddenly appear in a political landscape, nor disappear out of it, but react to and leave remnants of the political and cultural forces that preceded them. With this in mind the 'changing of the soul' in the terms defined above can be understood in a more well-rounded sense. A longer term perspective is one used by historians such as Green and R. Saffer in a way that seems to preclude the construction of a national identity by Thatcher's governments. Green, for instance, believes the identity inscribed during the period in question was a manifestation of wider Conservative trends and a persistence of 'Victorian values' in the national imagination, a view echoed by Saffer who claims there was no 'pronounced intellectual break with the past' in this regard. And indeed there are grounds for these claims; Thatcherite national identity drew heavily in all spheres, as any convicted figurehead would, from pre-existing trends in wider Conservative and national thought, in its economic reliance on the ideas of Hayek and Friedman, its socio-economic assertive individualism as integral to the British psyche, and the renewed declaration of age-old values in times of crisis. These ideas would become ingrained in newly forming notions of Britishness, yet it was arguably Thatcherite rechanneling of these admittedly older tropes into a new context that represented a reconceived Britishness, or, as Hirst describes it, a uniquely 'strong commitment to a radical ideology'. Whilst 'radical' might be overplaying it, the merging and later dissemination of these trends of thought certainly represents something above and beyond what Green and R. Saffer might suggest; perhaps more indicative of the lack of agreement over a uniform Thatcherite ideology as opposed to whether her governments imprinted on national identity. For the reinscri ption of the laissez-faire, individualism, the family and respectability into society required more than just leadership, but, as mentioned, a rechanneling of trends into an amorphous but effective whole. Moralistically, this reconstruction of identity in rightist and traditional terms could well fall under the 'New Victorianism' of contemporary American observer Charles Murray. However, it was the impact of the Falklands War in this active redirecting of national identity that lent itself to perhaps the clearest definition of this phenomenon, by Thatcher herself. Famously speaking not only to Conservative identity but to Britishness in general, and about not only military triumph but wider rechanneling of past identities and mores, she spoke in July 1982 of a 'new-found confidence' that 'comes from the re-discovery of ourselves, and grows with the recovery of our self-respect', framing and redirecting the trends observed by Green in her own light, and one that necessarily spoke to a redefining of national identity, for better or worse. That this often took an aggressively oppositional form meant historiographical opinion, and more importantly, national responses, were frequently polarised. This is related to, but perhaps clarifies further, the assertion made by historians such as D. Reynolds that the Thatcher period, and consequently its impact on national identity, was defined more by the 'absence of effective opposition' than the governing body itself, a view reinforced by Tiratsoo's statement that 'Labour (was) the architect of its own misfortunes' at the time. Such ideas, quite rightly, indicate the weakness and incoherence of a Labour party debilitated by the economic crisis of the late 1970s and struggling for political capital and influence over national self-perception in the period, surprisingly so for many theorists who regard it as the natural definer of popular sentiments. However, Hall and Jacques idea that the rise of Thatcher's Britain 'was predicated on Labour's decline' may be slightly closer to the mark, allowing for the oppositional agency of Thatcherism in the uneven yet palpable relationship between Labour and the Left's floundering and the Conservative assurance and enforcement thereof. This perhaps permitted the redefinition of Britishness along adversarial and exclusive lines, well highlighted by a Times article regarding national identity in 1981 being defined 'by reference to others rather than by knowledge of ourselves'. A stronger Left would probably have challenged Thatcher's reconstruction of identity, but arguably was not allowed to by the powerful oppositional nature of this reconstruction, a testament, as J. Turner labels it, to her governmental mastery of the 'cultivation of the political environment' and its relation to Britishness. Arguably, Thatcher herself saw this aggressive opposition to potential challengers as part of what Britain's newly forming 'soul' should be. Her claim 'we were the mould-breakers, they the mould' refers to the struggling Left, but can be taken more generally as part of a wider intent to draw battles lines that would define the national consciousness against certain groups and ideas, at whatever cost. A large part of this is against Labour, Trade Unions and the Left, as has already been gleaned, but is made explicit in her autobiography with continual disparaging references to Soviets, Alliances and Socialists, setting the boundaries of national identity here along political lines and further indicating the governmental oppositional relationship with a weakened Left. More widely, Jackson and Saunders argue this form of adversarial identification went as far as to 'subvert the social democratic assumptions' of post-war Britain and thereby 'restore the Conservatives as the leading party of the British state', and the primary boundary-shapers for Britishness. Subsequently, and perhaps destructively, Thatcherite national identity could draw upon Labour's weakness and perceived moments of national togetherness to define itself against opponents across several spheres. This might have been social, seen in Thatcher's objection to a sexually 'permissive society' , economic, seen in her linking of 'economic decline' to 'dictators' in terms of British reputation, or politico-economic, in her demands for 'solidarity' amongst 'every train driver' and NHS worker , in this case drawing upon recent victory in the Falklands to cleverly set those who politically opposed the government against national identity as a whole. Thus, using and reinforcing Leftist weakness, Thatcher's governments proved not only effective in establishing some sort of national identity along individualist, traditionalist and economically moralistic lines, but did so in a strict, emphatic and exclusive oppositional manner. This perhaps formed part of Hall's idea of a contextual 'authoritarian populism', which arguably rendered those outside this identity with little power to change it. Causing a 'marked split between North and South' according to Hirst, and with the exclusion of the 'young, black and unemployed', amongst others, according to Liberal Democrat David Steel in the 1980s, as well as the alienation of Conservative party members, this was a divisive construction of national identity that would influence the changing nature of Labour, and ensure a 'soul' of Britishness often defined by what it was not as much as what it was. Historiographically it is thus a complex and non-uniform version of Thatcherite national identity that emerges in this period. Distancing the North of England, industry, Trade Unions, what Evans labels an 'Underclass' and even Conservatives like Michael Heseltine does not seem, at least at face value, to represent a 'Britishness' of any coherent sort. Yet this is perhaps the key aspect of Thatcher's governmental 'changing of the soul'; by design, it was not inclusive, nor equal, but effective and polemic. The reconstruction of past Victorian social mores, economically individualist moralism and the contemporary oppositional outmanoeuvring of the Left combined to form an identity that often negative and never uniform, but nonetheless redefined national self-perceptions, in a way that any government with such controversial characteristics almost inevitably would. Thatcher essentially claimed the right to define Britishness, for good or bad, for herself and her government, when on the 14th June 1982 she declared 'Great Britain is Great again'. Redefined it would be, though whether it was 'Great' or not remains very much open to debate.