During the 1979 election, the outgoing Labour Prime Minister, Jim Callaghan, noted a “sea change” propelling Margaret Thatcher to power. Callaghan declared despairingly to a senior adviser that there was nothing he could do about it. The ideological tides were unstoppable. His views on the role of the state, how to govern, were out of step with the times. He duly foundered.
Four decades on, and those mighty currents have turned, this time against a Conservative Prime Minister. He has been left powerless against them.
There’s a key difference between now and the Seventies, though. Back in 1975, when Thatcher became leader of her party, she wasn’t just moving with the tide; she was generating ideological currents of her own. Amid the economic and industrial chaos of the decade, she highlighted the failings of the corporate state under both Labour and Conservative governments — and came up with her own alternative vision from the radical Right. The state was not working so she would liberate the people from the state. This was the essence of her introductory message to the Conservatives’ 1979 election manifesto.
But in stark contrast with 1979, those whom the tides should favour — Starmer and his shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves — dare not seek to define themselves ideologically against their opponents. Instead, they see the main dividing line in this election as being “stability versus chaos”: the most safely apolitical pitch it is possible to make. Who, after all, would vote for instability? And in the same breath, they reassure that “stability is change”, which is a promise of everything and nothing.
All things considered, it is an extremely limited pitch given our current political and economic climate. Current orthodoxies and assumptions shared across the political spectrum are almost the reverse of those that prevailed in the late Seventies. The financial crash, pandemic and soaring energy prices have transformed the state from villain into a far more benevolent actor — one to which voters and institutions increasingly turned. Amid such an ideological rebalancing, it is hard for Thatcher’s disciples such as Rishi Sunak to flourish. The current PM is not useless, but like Callaghan, his convictions are increasingly outdated.
Looking back, our recent Tory politicians have sensed the turning of the tide. On becoming Prime Minister, in 2016, Theresa May declared that it was “time to recognise the good the state can do”. Thatcher would have rather swam the Channel than make such a proclamation. May also spoke of the need to intervene in markets and sought a new industrial strategy. Her successor, Boris Johnson, claimed to be a “Rooseveltian”, a big spender like the US president. A confused Keynesian, Johnson initiated “Levelling up”, was an enthusiast for HS2 as an engine of economic growth, and increased National Insurance to pay for his vaguely defined plan for social care. During her fleeting tenure, the “small state” advocate, Liz Truss, hosed a fortune on subsidising fuel bills. Even Sunak, the self-declared Thatcherite, instinctively well to the Right of May and Johnson, was forced to raise taxes to prevent public services from collapsing altogether, and has since committed to spending more on defence, proposed a return to National Service and become an inadvertent advocate of a more active state. Currents have been nudging all our recent Prime Ministers to the Left.
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