Reading and revising

Use this blog as your primary resource, in combination with the material on icampus.

The blog entries and the slides on icampus are the course outline. For further detail on any specific topic, make full use of the links provided, and be sure not to neglect the audiovisual material (particularly the Schama and Marr documentaries).

Specimen exam questions are available on icampus.

Any questions can be addressed to me by email, but if the answer is likely to be of interest to others a better place might be on the forum in icampus, or in the comments box on the blog.

Good luck with your revision and with your exams.

Don't neglect to sleep and eat regularly and sufficiently. A plate of roast beef and a good night's sleep is worth an extra day's revision.

British governments 1937-1997

• 1937-1940: Conservative and Unionist government under Neville Chamberlain
  
• 1940-1945: Wartime government of “national unity” under Winston Churchill
• 1945: Conservative “caretaker” government under Winston Churchill
• 1945-1951: Labour governments under Clement Attlee (general elections 1945, 1950)
• 1951-1964: Conservative governments under Winston Churchill, 1951-1955; Anthony Eden, 1955-1957; Harold Macmillan, 1957-1963; Alec Douglas-Home, 1963-1964 (general elections 1951, 1955, 1959)
• 1964-1970: Labour governments under Harold Wilson (general elections 1964, 1966)
• 1970-1974: Conservative government under Edward Heath (general elections 1970)
• 1974-1979: Labour governments under Harold Wilson, 1974-1976; James Callaghan, 1976-1979 (general elections Feb. 1974, Oct. 1974)
• 1979-1997: Conservative governments under Margaret Thatcher, 1979-1990; John Major, 1990-1997 (general elections 1979, 1983, 1987, 1992)

Suez Crisis

When President Nasser of Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal, the French and British response was to plot with Israel to got to war against Egypt. American threats to sell their sterling reserves, and Arab threats of oil embargo, forced a hasty and shamefaced British withdrawal, and a rethink about Britain's imperial future.

The newsreel used in class:


Further images and information, from a recent BBC documentary:

Elizabeth II

George VI, at his coronation in 1936, was styled "By the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India".

Elizabeth II, at her coronation in 1953, was styled "By the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith".

This already indicates major changes, all of which took place in the late 1940s: the independence of India and Pakistan; the establishment of the Republic of Ireland; and the replacement of imperial claims with headship of the Commonwealth. The two unchanging elements are being king or queen of Great Britain, and Defender of the Faith.

Nevertheless, the coronation was the occasion for much celebratory propaganda about a "second Elizabethan age", in which Britain would, by courage and ingenuity, (again) carve out a place for itself in a world dominated by much stronger global powers.





Pay close attention to the Queen's words in her first televised Christmas broadcast, the year after Suez.

The Fifties

Most of the notes for class 4 seem to have vanished into cyberspace, leaving only the powerpoint slides (on icampus). Fortunately, this is a period extremely well covered by Andrew Marr (as you will all be aware, but here it is again).

The main events outlined in class were:

• the coronation: a moment of jubilation, the first mass ceremony of the television age (Princess Diana's funeral, at the end of our period, makes a nice complement), and a time for new hopes of British "greatness" emerging from wartime deprivation and postwar austerity.
• British achievements in science and technology (the first jetliner, the first nuclear facility for non-military purposes, an independent atomic bomb, describing the structure of DNA, etc.), giving science-fiction writers the impression that Britain would stand at the forefront of the future
• the attempts to maintain some independent standing in world affairs, and to reassert British power in Malaya and Kenya
• the Suez Crisis, for which follow this link (it's important, so do click), revealing the illusory nature of any hopes for Britain being an independent world force; two of the films used in class are here
• a long period of economic growth and prosperity, despite on-going inefficiencies in British industry
• the "Profumo Affair" (covered in detail by Marr)
  

Eamon de Valera

Eamon de Valera was the single most influential individual on the course of Irish history in the 20th century.

Born in New York, and holding American citizenship, he was the only one of the leaders of the Easter Rising of 1916 to escape execution.

He went on to lead the (unrecognised) Irish Republic of 1918-1921, and to lead Republican forces against the army of the Irish Free State in the Civil War of 1921-1922. Increasingly marginalized from politics after 1922, having taken an oath as a member of Sinn Fein not to take a seat in the assembly until all of Ireland was united and independent, he founded Fianna Fail in 1926 as a way back into the political mainstream, and went on to become head of the Irish government as President of the Executive Council 1932-1937, and (after the Constitution of 1937) Taoiseach 1937-1948, 1951-1954, 1957-1959; and head of state as President 1959-1973. He died in 1973.

He pursued policies of economic self-sufficiency (once telling a journalist that a "higher standard of living" should really be thought of as a "costlier standard of living"), and a moderate form of corporatism with "social partners". Despite his own leadership of Republican forces in the Civil War, he came down heavily on the IRA during the Emergency (1940-1946) and during the Border Campaign (1956-1962), effectively ending that body's influence until it was reinvigorated by the events of 1969.

Below, De Valera speaking on the Easter Rising.

The Uprising of 1916 was an assertion in arms of the right of the Irish People to be free. Freedom has been secured now over more than five-sixths of the national territory. We constantly hope that it will not be long until the whole country is united.

Modern Ireland

The main dates in 20th-century Irish history are:

1916: unsuccessful Easter Rising in Dublin proclaims independent Irish Republic
1918: the Republican party Sinn Fein ("Ourselves Alone") won 73 of 105 Irish seats in the general election, but refused to take seats in the Westminster Parliament and organized their own assembly in Dublin
1919-1921: War of Independence; Ireland given independence as the Irish Free State, still nominally part of the British Empire; Ireland partitioned when the 6 counties of Northern Ireland elected to remain part of the United Kingdom
1921-1922: Civil War between those (led by Michael Collins) willing to accept 26-county independence with nominal British sovereignty, and those (led by Eamon de Valera) who saw anything short of a republic encompassing all of Ireland as a betrayal
1923: Irish Free State joins League of Nations
1926: foundation of Fianna Fail (described by one of its founders, Seán Lemass, as a "slightly constitutional" party), to get around Sinn Fein oath not to take part in politics until ireland reunited
1932: Fianna Fail in power under Eamon de Valera: policies of economic "self-sufficiency" instituted, intended to reduce economic dependence on Britain
1933: foundation of Fine Gael, uniting the strands of nationalism closer to the vision of Michael Collins than of De Valera
1937: Irish Constitution, perhaps the most liberal and democratic new constitution drafted anywhere in Europe in the 1930s (Irish Free State renamed Eire; the "whole island of Ireland" claimed as the national territory; the "special position" of the Catholic Church in Irish life given constitutional recognition)
1938: Royal Navy withdrawn from Irish ports and coastal defences
1940-1946: "the Emergency": Ireland neutral in the Second World War, but governed under a State of Emergency; IRA activists interned for undermining the state's neutrality towards Britain
1949: Republic established (Eire renamed Ireland)
1956: IRA launches "Border Campaign" (carrying out cross-border attacks from the Republic into Northern Ireland)
1957: De Valera orders internment without trial of IRA and Sinn Fein activists at Curragh Camp, Kildare
1958: Seán Lemass replaces De Valera as head of government; launches First Programme for Economic Expansion (moving away from protectionism)
1961-1963: unsuccessful bid for membership of the European Community
1969: beginning of "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland
1970: Dublin Arms Trial: rogue elements of the Irish government and armed forces had been supplying guns to Northern Irish Republicans
1972: 30 January "Bloody Sunday" (paratroopers shoot 27 civil rights protesters in Derry, killing 13); 2 February British embassy burned down in Dublin; constitution modified to drop the "special position" clause relating to the Catholic Church
1973: membership of the European Community
Over the next 30 years, Ireland went from being one of the poorest countries in Western Europe to being one of the richest (the "Celtic Tiger" phenomenon), thanks in part to European structural funds and American investment, but also to a clear policy of making Ireland an attractive place for outside investment, and to the lack of post-industrial problems (due to a lack of older industry)
1998: Good Friday Agreement: Ireland agrees to drop a territorial claim to the whole island of Ireland from its constitution, in response for a voice in the affairs of Northern Ireland

Below, the beginning of the RTE documentary "Ireland in the Seventies", part of the "Seven Ages" series on the history of the Irish state.



For those interested:
Part 2 here
Part 3 here
Part 4 here
Part 5 here
Part 6 here

Land of Our Fathers

The Welsh national anthem, "Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau", was composed in 1856. It is sung in Welsh, but an English translation will be found below.



Note the Welsh flag, the harp, and the Menai Bridge (linking Anglesey to mainland Wales, completed in 1826)

And here, at the end of a concert:



Note (at 2 mins 31 sec) the Welsh flags and the giant inflatable daffodil. And of course Ms Jenkins herself is draped in a Welsh flag.

This land of my fathers is dear to me
Land of poets and singers, and people of stature
Her brave warriors, fine patriots
Shed their blood for freedom

Chorus:
Land! Land! I am true to my land!
As long as the sea serves as a wall for this pure, dear land
May the language endure for ever.

Old land of the mountains, paradise of the poets,
Every valley, every cliff a beauty guards;
Through love of my country, enchanting voices will be
Her streams and rivers to me.

Chorus

Though the enemy have trampled my country underfoot,
The old language of the Welsh knows no retreat,
The spirit is not hindered by the treacherous hand
Nor silenced the sweet harp of my land.

Chorus

Flower of Scotland

A patriotic song written in the 1960s, when Scottish folk music was going through a revival of international significance. The lyrics refer to the Battle of Bannockburn (1314), where the army of King Edward II of England was defeated. It is now sung before international football and rugby matches.



O flower of Scotland
When will we see
Your like again
That fought and died for
Your wee bit hill and glen
And stood against him
Proud Edward's army
And sent him homeward
Tae think again

The hills are bare now
And autumn leaves lie thick and still
O'er land that is lost now
Which those so dearly held
And stood against him
Proud Edward's army
And sent him homeward
Tae think again

Those days are passed now
And in the past they must remain
But we can still rise now
And be the nation again
That stood against him
Proud Edward's army
And sent him homeward
Tae think again

Words and music: Roy Williamson. (c) The Corries (Music) Ltd.

National symbols

The United Kingdom has few shared symbols aside from the Union Jack and "God Save the Queen". Each of its constituent nations, however, has a rich collection of national myths and symbols, often apparent in banal, day-to-day contexts, but also celebrated on set-piece occasions.

The basic national symbols are:

• for Wales the red dragon, the leek, the daffodil, the harp
• for Scotland the red lion rampant, the thistle, the bagpipes
• for England the lion (passant in heraldry, but often couchant in popular imagery) and the rose

The flag of Wales shows the red dragon of Wales. The national day of Wales is St David Day's, 1 March. It is not a public holiday. On this day people might wear a leek or a daffodil.

The flag of Scotland shows the saltire, or Cross of St Andrew, in white on a blue background. Scotland's national day is 30 November, the Feast of St Andrew. It became a public holiday in Scotland in 2007. Some people might wear a thistle on this day.

The flag of England shows the red Cross of St George, on a white background. England's national day is St George's Day on 23 April. It is not a public holiday. On this day people might wear a red rose.

In both England and Scotland the formal national anthem is "God Save the Queen", but on occasions where it is desirable to distinguish between the English and the Scots (such as international sporting fixtures) it would be inappropriate for both to be singing the same anthem. At football matches the Scots used to sing "Scotland the Brave" (still the anthem of the Scots team in the Commonwealth Games), but that is now surpassed in popularity by "Flower of Scotland" (sung before Scotland's international rugby and soccer matches). On such occasions, the English sing "Jerusalem"

The Welsh have an official national anthem, Land of Our Fathers. There is also an "unofficial" anthem, Men of Harlech (sung here with harp, daffodil, and male voice choir, at the Prince of Wales's 50th birthday celebrations). Both make reference to fighting "foemen" (meaning the English).

John Major

When Margaret Thatcher was forced to resign as leader of the parliamentary Conservative Party, she was succeeded by John Major, a relatively unknown figure who had entered the Cabinet only three years before as Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

In 1992, Major called a general election, which the Conservative Party won with over 14 million votes, the largest number of votes ever cast for a single political party in a British election. After Thatcher's forceful and charismatic leadership, John Major's extremely bland public persona may well have been an asset.

The British electoral system, however, meant that the unprecedentedly large number of votes did not convert into a strong majority in the House of Commons. Thatcher in 1983, and Blair in 1997, had "landslide" victories with a smaller number of votes cast in their favour, the issue not being number of votes, or even the proportion of the national vote, but the number of constituencies in which a party's candidate gets more votes than any of the competing candidates. In 1983 the Conservatives, under Thatcher, won a sound majority in the Commons (397 of the 646 seats) on 42.4% of the national vote; in 1997 Labour, under Blair, won 418 seats on 43.2% of the national vote. In 1992, on a comparably strong 41.9% of the national vote, Major won only 336 seats - a slender majority, especially as a strong minority of Conservative MPs continued to support populist "Eurosceptic" positions, and were willing to go against their party leadership on important votes on European affairs. This put Major's government in a weak position to direct policy.

The pattern of voting in the 1992 general election also showed a country divided: Major's party won a lot of its votes in the South-East of England, where it would have done well anyway. In Scotland, Wales, and most of the North of England the Conservatives did very badly, but were returned to power in Westminster regardless. This could give people the feeling that they were being governed not by the United Kingdom's vote, but by the South of England's vote. In the 1955 general election, the Conservatives had got 50.4% of the vote in England and 50.1% in Scotland. The Conservative share of the Scottish vote had been falling ever since, and in the 1992 election they got 46.7% of the vote in England, and 25.6% in Scotland. This disparity bred discontent with rule from Westminster, and lay behind the decision of the Blair government to "devolve" powers to a Scottish Parliament after 1997.

Scotland

At its union with England, Scotland retained

• its own legal system (based on principles of civil law rather than common law),
• its own educational system (with far higher literacy rates than elsewhere in Britain, and a proud claim to be "the first country in the world with universal education"),
• a separate established church (the Church of Scotland),
• and its own aristocracy and gentry.

All this was accompanied by all the heraldry and symbolism of legal, academic, ecclesiastical and noble life.

Scotland is more sparsely inhabited than England, but contains a number of impressive cities. The largest is Glasgow, a major centre of industry and ship-building in the 19th century, "the second city of the Empire", with all the social problems attendant on industrialization and postwar industrial decline.

Edinburgh, Scotland's capital, is a centre of administration, law, banking, learning and culture.

Aberdeen, anciently important in North Sea shipping and fisheries, and a minor centre of 19th-century industry, became the energy capital of the U.K., and to some extent of Europe, after the discovery of North Sea oil.

Geographically and culturally, the Highlands of Scotland are set apart from the Lowlands. Much of the romantic imagery of glens, lochs, castles, crofts, kilts, bagpipes, etc. derives from the Scottish Highlands.

Four nations in one state

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is, as its name implies, a union of several components: the kingdom of England, the kingdom of Scotland, the principality of Wales, and the province of Northern Ireland. There are different patterns of culture, identity and political allegiance within and between each of these components.

England is the largest, richest and most powerful of the four components, and the institutional core of the United Kingdom (London being the capital of the U.K., as well as by far its largest city).

A united Kingdom of England was created in the tenth century, with Edgar I (959-975) crowned king of all England in 973. It was subsumed into the United Kingdom of Great Britain by the Act of Union with Scotland in 1707.

Wales was united to England by a long process of conquest and partial colonization, culminating in the 1536 "Acte for Lawes & Justice to be ministred in Wales in like fourme as it is in this Realme", which formally incorporated Wales into the same structures of law and government as England.

Scotland was an entirely separate kingdom, which successfully withstood English attempts at conquest in the 14th century. England and Scotland shared a monarch from 1603 onwards, when James VI of Scotland became James I of England, and assumed the courtesy title "King of Britain". Formal unification of England and Scotland under a single crown and parliament, with a curency and customs union and freedom of movement between the two kingdoms, was agreed by the parliaments of Scotland and England, and legislated in the Act of Union with Scotland 1707.

Kings of England claimed lordship over Ireland from 1171 onwards, but English rule in Ireland was seldom effective or widely heeded before Henry VIII declared himself King of Ireland in 1535, initiating more intensive efforts to enforce the royal will there. Ireland was fully incorporated into the United Kingdom by the Act of Union with Ireland 1801, but 26 of the 32 counties left the Union in 1921 to form the Irish Free State (which became the Republic of Ireland in 1949). The 6 counties where the majority of the population wished to remain part of the United Kingdom became Northern Ireland.

Toxteth riots

The anti-police rioting of the spring and summer of 1981 led to methods of community policing becoming somewhat gentler, and methods of riot control becoming much more effective. Ultimately it led to the rise of "multicultural" policies to make different ethnic groups feel more accepted in British society - as a cheaper alternative to investment in job creation or urban renewal.

Militant

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Labour Party was divided over the status within it of a radical left wing, created in part by Trotskyist infiltrators (who had adopted a tactic of "entryism" to try to radicalize mainstream party politics). Neil Kinnock, the Labour leader from 1983 to 1992 (and a European Commissioner, 1995-2004), took steps in the mid-1980s to make his party electable by cleansing it of the far-left pressure group "Militant", and instituting a "policy review". These were the early moves towards what Tony Blair rebranded as "New Labour": a Labour Party that was still concerned for social justice, but not interested in state ownership of industry, energy, transport and communications.

The Thatcher Years, 1979-1990

Margaret Thatcher’s first term as Prime Minister was marked by two things: a determination to bring down inflation by a rigid application of "monetarist" policy (restricting the supply of money), and a small but costly war fought against Argentina for control of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.

The determination to bring down inflation whatever the short-term cost meant the death of much of Britain's traditional industry. The refusal to subsidise industry or to compromise with trade unions was the end of a long postwar consensus. It was clear from the beginning that the social cost in terms of unemployment would be high, but "fixing the fundamentals" of the economy (that is, bringing down inflation) was given priority. This was despite the Conservatives having run an election campaign in 1979 that was critical of high unemployment, with the slogan "Labour isn't working". In 1977 there were 1.3 million unemployed in Britain; by 1981 2.7 million.

In 1981 there was rioting in several major cities: in Brixton (London), Chapeltown (Leeds), Handsworth (Birmingham), Toxteth (Liverpool), and Moss Side (Manchester). In each case there was an element of racial conflict in the rioting, as well as a sense of grievance relating to unemployment and urban decay.

Victory in the Falklands meant that the social and industrial cost of monetarist economics could be overlooked by the electorate. There was also, in the early Eighties, no real political alternative: the Labour Party had fallen under the sway of a Trotskyist-infiltrated left wing, and made itself unelectable. Four senior members of the more moderate wing of the party - including Roy Jenkins - broke away to form the Social Democratic Party (SDP). In terms of policy the SDP presented an attractive alternative to the two main parties, but it lacked the party machinery and established mass base to win power. The SDP formed an electoral pact with the Liberal Party, and in 1988 the two parties merged under the name Liberal Democrats.

It was in her second term that Margaret Thatcher began to change the British economy in ways that were soon copied in other countries, by a commitment to the privatisation of state-owned companies. Together with the sale of council houses, this created a new "popular capitalism" of home ownership and share ownership. At the same time, the deregulation of financial markets meant that speculation was producing massive new wealth, and London was becoming the most active financial market in the world. A Labour government had begun the exploitation of oil fields in the North Sea in 1975, but it was Thatcher who reaped the benefit of growing revenues and a measure of energy self-sufficiency, subsidising her economic reforms.

It was during her third term that Thatcher began to lose popularity in the country, as her policies to make the rich richer came to seem equally calculated to make the poor poorer (income tax cuts, sales tax increases, the "poll tax"). At the same time, she was becoming increasingly unacceptable to other leading figures within the Conservative Party through her populist anti-Europeanism, wrecking their attempts to gain Britain a "leading role" in the European Union.

Notting Hill

The first major race riots in Britain occurred in August and September 1958, first in Nottingham and then in Notting Hill Gate (West London). In each case the violence was started by young white men looking for trouble deciding to target black men with white girlfriends or wives.



The Notting Hill Carnival, which has been claimed to be the largest annual street festival in Europe, is a celebration of Afro-Caribbean culture that began in reaction to the Notting Hill Riots. It too has featured on a special stamp issue as a representative aspect of modern Britishness (see here).

In 1976 there was a second race riot in Notting Hill, this time young black men reacting to heavy-handed policing of the Carnival.

Immigration and multiculturalism

Before the Second World War, mass immigration to Britain had been from within Europe, with the most clearly foreign groups being the Irish, and Jews from Central and Eastern Europe. Mass immigration from outside Europe began only in the postwar period, when the immigration of substantial numbers of West Indians (that is, people from the Caribbean), Africans (especially from Nigeria) and South Asians (from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) created pockets of far more visible racial and cultural difference in many British cities.

The British Nationality Act 1948 gave a right of settlement in Britain to any citizens of the British Empire or Commonwealth. The Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury on 22 June 1948 with 492 immigrants, mostly from Jamaica: the beginning of postwar mass immigration. In 1954 around 10,000 immigrants from the West Indies arrived (see this clip, from about 1 min onwards). Such immigration resulted in a much more visibly culturally and ethnically diverse country. It supplied not only labourers for British industry, but also doctors, dentists and nurses: without the immigration of medical professionals, the NHS would not have survived.

As the 1955 report linked to above has it:

Already their coming has caused a national controversy, but one point must always be borne in mind: whatever our feelings, we cannot deny them entry, for all are British citizens, and as such are entitled to the identical rights of any member of the Empire.

The official approach to integration was proclaimed in 1965 by the Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, as:

not a flattening process of assimilation but equal opportunity accompanied by cultural diversity in an atmosphere of mutual tolerance

Britain is now a multiracial society, with something over 85% of the population identifying itself as "White British" on the 2001 census returns. Another 7% identified themselves as "White Irish" or "White Other" (Polish, etc.); the "non-white" 7% of the population, still well over 4 million people, identified (in descending numbers) as: Indian, Pakistani, "Mixed Race", Black Caribbean, Black African, Bangladeshi, Chinese, "Other Black", and "Other Asian".

The laws that created Britain's current ethnic composition and race relations are:

• Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962
• Race Relations Act 1965
• Commonwealth Immigrant Act 1968
• Race Relations Act 1968
• Race Relations Act 1976
• British Nationality Act 1981
• Immigration Act 1988 (EC free movement)
• British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act 1990
• Asylum and Immigration Act 1993

With the exception of the Immigration Act 1988 (which incorporated European Community agreements on the free movement of persons into British law), the trend of this legislation has been to restrict entry to new immigrants (undoing the work of the British Nationality Act 1948), while at the same time outlawing discrimination against existing immigrants. It was in reaction to the proposed equal opportunities legislation of the Race Relations Act 1968 that Enoch Powell gave his "Rivers of Blood" speech.

The Seventies

In many ways, the 1970s were the nadir of postwar British history, with economic collapse, industrial conflict between capital and labour, high oil prices, inflation and unemployment both rising (a combination that the dominant economic models had not foreseen), a reinvigorated I.R.A. resuming the "armed struggle" in Northern Ireland and beginning a bombing campaign in mainland British cities, and British standing in the international community at a very low ebb, thanks in part to the impossibility of meeting international commitments after the devaluation of the Pound Sterling in 1967. There were those in the civil service and the political establishment who saw their job simply as "managing Britain’s decline" as gracefully as possible. In 1964 British workers were more productive than those of any country in the European Community except Germany; by 1977, Italy was the only E.E.C. country less productive than Britain.

In Northern Ireland the shooting of civilian protesters in Derry by the First Parachute Regiment on 30 January 1972 (killing 13 people, fatally wounding 1 more, and injuring several others) implicated the British armed forces in the cycle of violence in a new way.

The oil crisis of 1973 was exacerbated for Britain by coal strikes, leading to crippling energy shortages and the institution of a three-day working week. This finished Edward Heath's Conservative government of 1970-1974.

A new youth subculture, punk, reflected the prevailing sense of disillusionment and despair. Before the breakthrough of punk to a mass audience, the same sense of despair was reflected in established genres of popular music, such as the 1976 folk/rock single "Hard Times of Old England".

Fringe political movements - Nationalists, Anarchists, Neo-Fascists, Trotskyists, Irish Republicans - gained higher public profiles and disrupted prevailing social discourses. The National Front was formed in 1967, and in the 1970s managed to muster respectable shares of the vote in a number of carefully selected by-elections and local elections in parts of the industrial Midlands and South London. The "Angry Brigade" was a homegrown left-wing terrorist organisation, far less destructive than those of Italy, Germany or the United States, but still a startling new development for Britain.

In 1968 the right-wing Conservative M.P., Enoch Powell, initiated a public debate about immigration and a multiracial society with his infamous "Rivers of Blood" speech, and the 1970s saw growing contention around issues of equal opportunities and integration. As the economy was squeezed, there was a marked tendency to scapegoat immigrants, especially Pakistanis. Skinheads, another youth subculture of the period, were particularly attracted to violence against Asians. Racist violence, and anti-racist activism, gained a new prominence in British life.

A further sterling crisis in 1976 necessitated a loan from the International Monetary Fund, which meant the humiliation of having the I.M.F. dictate government spending cuts. In 1977-1978 the Labour government lost its parliamentary majority and could survive only through a pact with the (tiny) Liberal Party - another worrying development for a country unused to coalition governments. Like the Conservative government that preceded them, the Labour governments of 1974-1979 were brought to an end by their inability to contain industrial disputes.

Rivers of Blood

In the most notorious speech of postwar British politics, the right-wing Conservative M.P., Enoch Powell, spoke against equal opportunities legislation, and in favour of restricting immigration and encouraging the voluntary repatriation of existing immigrants.

The BBC recently devoted a full-length documentary to the speech and its impact:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

Key phrases from the speech are:

Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. We must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependants, who are for the most part the material of the future growth of the immigrant descended population. It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre. So insane are we that we actually permit unmarried persons to immigrate for the purpose of founding a family with spouses and fiancées whom they have never seen. [. . .] As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood". That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlantic but which there is interwoven with the history and existence of the States itself, is coming upon us here by our own volition and our own neglect. Indeed, it has all but come. In numerical terms, it will be of American proportions long before the end of the century. Only resolute and urgent action will avert it even now. Whether there will be the public will to demand and obtain that action, I do not know. All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal.

Hard Times of Old England

A folksong released by the band Steeleye Span on the album All Around My Hat (1975), and subsequently as a sinlge (1976):

Come all brother tradesmen that travel along
O pray come and tell me where the trade is all gone
Long time have I travelled and I cannot find none

Chorus:
And sing O the hard times of Old England
In Old England very hard times

Provisions you buy at the shop it is true
But if you've no money there's none there for you
So what's a poor man and his family to do

Chorus

You must go to the shop and you'll ask for a job
They'll answer you there with a shake and a nod
Well that's enough to make a man turn out and rob.

Chorus

You will see the poor tradesmen a walking the street
From morning 'till night for employment to seek
And scarce have they got any shoes on their feet

Chorus

Our soldiers and sailors have just come from war
Been fighting for Queen and country this year
Come home to be starved better stayed where they were

Chorus

And now to conclude and to finish my song
Let us hope that these hard times they will not last long
I hope soon to have occasion to alter my song

And sing O the good times of Old England
In Old England jolly good times

Lady Chatterley Trial

The Obscene Publications Act 1959 defined obscenity as material that would "tend to deprave and corrupt" the reader. There was, however, a clause allowing for publication of material that would otherwise be deemed obscene, "in the interests of science, literature, art or learning, or of other objects of general concern".

The first test case of the Act came when a charge of obscenity was brought against Penguin Books for publication in 1960 of Lady Chatterley's Lover, a novel by D. H. Lawrence published first in Florence, in 1928, and later in Paris. The trial, officially known as "Regina v. Penguin Books Ltd.", is often referred to as "the Lady Chatterley Trial". A number of eminent witnesses took the stand to testify to the artistic merit of the novel, including the aged novelist E. M. Forster, and two of the academics behind the development of "Cultural Studies" as a discipline combining sociology and literature, Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams.

The acquittal of Penguin Books in November 1960 is often taken as symbolic of changing attitudes towards sexual morality and literary decency, one of the beginnings of the "sexual revolution" of the 1960s. Social changes were also explicitly referenced at the trial. The barrister for the prosecution, Mervyn Griffith-Jones QC, at one point addressed the jury with the words "Ask yourselves, is it a book you would wish your wife or servants to read?" The idea that men could happily read things unsuitable for women, or upper-class men read things unsuitable to the lower classes, went so much against the "classless" optimism of the time as to be laughable. The defending barrister made hay with it in his final statement:

I do not want to upset the Prosecution by suggesting that there are a certain number of people nowadays who as a matter of fact don’t have servants. But of course that whole attitude is one which Penguin Books was formed to fight against . . . the attitude that it is all right to publish a special edition at five or ten guineas so that people who are less well off cannot read what other people read. Isn’t everybody, whether earning £10 a week or £20 a week, equally interested in the society in which we live, in the problems of human relationships including sexual relationships? In view of the reference made to wives, aren’t women equally interested in human relations, including sexual relationships?

Immigration report

A 1970 French TV report on immigration to England and the beginnings of multiracial Britain, with a brief snippet of Enoch Powell speaking French:

The Permissive Society

The new notion of personal freedom that gripped Britain in the Sixties was translated into a swathe of permissive legislation. One of the most influential figures in this process was Roy Jenkins, Home Secretary, 1965-1967, 1974-1976; Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1967-1970; and President of the European Commission, 1977-1981.

While permissiveness was not government policy, Jenkins used his position in government to sponsor initiatives by backbench MPs, giving them a much higher chance of success. He famously remarked that:

The permissive society has been allowed to become a dirty phrase. A better phrase is the civilised society.

Key items of permissive legislation were:

• Obscene Publications Act 1959
• Suicide Act 1961
• Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965
• Abortion Act 1967
• Sexual Offences Act 1967
• Theatres Act 1968
• Divorce Reform Act 1969

All were presented as bringing legislation into line with existing social practices, but all could also be seen as undermining traditional morality by reducing the legal force in its favour.

Swinging London

The international perception of London as "the place to be" was boosted by a Time cover story of 15 April 1966 that launched the phrase "Swinging London". The opening paragraph runs:

In this century, every decade has had its city. The fin de siècle belonged to the dreamlike round of Vienna, capital of the inbred Habsburgs and the waltz. In the changing '20s, Paris provided a moveable feast for Hemingway, Picasso, Fitzgerald and Joyce, while in the chaos after the Great Crash, Berlin briefly erupted with the savage iconoclasm of Brecht and the Bauhaus. During the shell-shocked 1940s, thrusting New York led the way, and in the uneasy 1950s it was the easy Rome of la dolce vita. Today, it is London, a city steeped in tradition, seized by change, liberated by affluence, graced by daffodils and anemones, so green with parks and squares that, as the saying goes, you can walk across it on the grass. In a decade dominated by youth, London has burst into bloom. It swings; it is the scene.

The full text of the story can be read here.

With the devaluation of the pound sterling in 1967, London became more attractive to foreign visitors than ever.

Pop music, fashion boutiques and fashion photography were the main components of "swinging" London, an international image further underlined by the rather overheated Italian film Blow-Up:

Routemaster

The Routemaster was a bus specifically designed for London traffic. It went into production in the 1950s, and was decommissioned by Transport for London in 2005.

An important aspect of the design is the open access through a platform at the rear end of the bus. This enabled sharp-witted and able-bodied passengers to hop on and off almost as they pleased (paying a conductor who moved around the bus, rather than the driver), contributing to the sense of risk-taking and personal freedom that was so important in the "feel" of the period. It was to enable young women to hop on and off such buses unimpeded that Mary Quant designed the miniskirt. It was in part to prevent such "risk-taking" behaviour that the design was discontinued.

The design features on the Icons of England website and the 2009 British Design Classics stamp issue.

The Sixties

Britain in the 1960s looked rather like a country reinventing itself. From an imperial power renowned for stiffness, Stoicism, formality, hypocrisy, and clearly marked class divisions, it became an international trend-setter in popular youth culture. British bands topped the charts not only at home but across the Atlantic and even across the Channel - the Beatles and the Rolling Stones most famously, but lesser-known groups also produced songs which many will still recognise by ear, even if they don’t know the name of the band.

Popular youth culture began to become a media phenomenon in the 1950s, with public disturbances caused by gangs of Teddy Boys (who dressed in a parody of Edwardian gentlemen’s attire), or in the 1960s by the fights between Mods and Rockers (two radically alternative styles of youth culture). It was only with the Beatles, in the early 60s, that pop concerts became national news. Crowds of screaming teenage girls were very far from any traditional notion of typical British behaviour, but were the background noise to the popular music of the era - even that of Scottish singer-songwriters in the folk tradition (see here).

Some of the stereotypically "Sixties" sights on the streets of London were, besides the mini, the new Routemaster bus (which went into production in the late 50s, but was only a familiar sight on London streets from 1961) and the miniskirt.

The new sensibility was reflected in a swathe of permissive legislation, rolling back the power of the law over what were coming to be thought of as purely private affairs, on the grounds that it was not the business of the state to tell people how to live their lives.

The late 50s and most of the 60s were an era of economic prosperity, technological advance, and massive expansion of access to university education (which in Britain had been among the least egalitarian in the industrial world). The importance of education and technology was given strong emphasis by the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson (in office 1964-1970 and 1974-1976).

Miniskirts

In the mid-1960s London suddenly became a centre for international youth fashion.

One of the most characteristic fashion developments of Sixties London was the miniskirt designed by Mary Quant (at six inches - 15cm - above the knee, the shortest skirt in fashion history up to that time). These have become symbolic aspects of a new feeling of opportunity and freedom that marked the decade.

The availability of pantyhose (rather than stockings) and of roll-up leggings made it possible for women to wear short skirts without fear of unintended flashes of thigh. While there may have been some aspect of sexual liberation in young women showing off the shapes of their legs, there was also an important element of women's liberation: the design was inspired by the desire for a skirt that wouldn't hamper a young woman running for a bus.

A Rank cinema newsreel about Sixties fashion, with a characteristically Sixties sneer:



A collage of images of Sixties fashion:



Extensive pages on the fashion and fabrics of the period can be found on the website of the Victoria & Albert Museum

The Mini

The Arab oil embargo at the time of the Suez Crisis had stimulated demand for small cars that were economical to run, such as the Citroën 2CV and the Volkswagen Beetle. British manufacturers had not previously considered the market for cars with low fuel consumption, so were in a hurry to build something to compete.

The most successful design for a low cost car was the mini, designed by Alec Issigonis and produced by the British Motor Corporation. Like the miniskirt, pop music, and buses that passengers could hop in and out of at will, the mini became an icon of the new, young, stylish Britain. In 2009 it was one of the "British Design Classics" celebrated on a special stamp issue.

Foreign manufacturers could not understand how Morris was making the Mini so cheaply, but in fact poor costing meant that the mini was initially being sold at a loss. This is bleak testimony to the general inefficiency of postwar British industry.

Pop becomes national news

British Pathe News reports on The Beatles playing at the ABC Ardwick, Manchester, 1963.



Note the audience reactions, the Stoicism of the cinema staff, the lone policeman as security, and the length of hair that passed for "long hair" in the early 1960s.

Apartheid

The racist attitudes that had prevailed at the high point of European colonialism were, in much of the world, eroded in the late 1950s and the 1960s with the creation of independent Black African states and the movement for Civil Rights in the U.S.A. The first postcolonial African state was Ghana, which became independent in 1958 under President Kwame Nkrumah.

Recognition of the legitimate aspirations of African Nationalism was signalled by the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in 1960, in a speech given in Cape Town that got the name "The Winds of Change" (even though the phrase he actually used was "a wind of change" - click here for an extract). By the end of the 1960s, Britain's imperial presence in Africa had become negligible.

In Southern Africa, however, racist attitudes became more entrenched and institutionalized. In 1961 South Africa (which then included Namibia) broke away from the Commonwealth to preserve minority White rule, and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), did the same in 1963. What had been known in British English as the "colour bar", and in American English as "segregation", reached its furthest development in the Republic of South Africa under the Afrikaans name "Apartheid". While African Nationalists were calling for Black rule in Africa, the first president of the Republic of South Africa held that it was only fair that white people should be in charge because they were more civilized.

Almost every facet of life in Southern Africa was dominated by the institutionalized racial classifications, separations, and inequalities of the Apartheid system, an injustice that put South Africa increasingly at odds with international opinion throughout the 1960s, 70s and 80s. The symbolic face of the struggle against Apartheid was Nelson Mandela, leader of the African National Congress militia, who was in prison from 1964 to 1990, and served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999.

Decolonization

Ireland was the last predominantly "white" part of the Empire to become self-governing, with the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922, and it was one of the first parts of the Empire to break with Britain completely, with the creation of the Republic of Ireland in 1949.

In 1947 India was partitioned into a Hindu-majority state (India) and a Muslim-majority state (Pakistan), both of which became independent. Pakistan, initially made up of two parts on either side of India, was later to separate into Pakistan and Bangladesh (previously East Pakistan). Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Burma became independent in 1948. There were no more significant moves towards independence for almost a decade, when Malaya and Ghana became independent in 1957 and Singapore in 1959. In the intervening years, the Suez Crisis of 1956 had demonstrated that Britain could no longer function as an independent imperial power.

In the 1960s there was a total withdrawal from Empire in Africa, a policy exemplified by Harold Macmillan's "Winds of Change" speech. At much the same time, the most viable territories of the West Indies were also granted independence: Jamaica (1962), Trinidad and Tobago (1962), Barbados (1966), Guiana (1966), the Bahamas (1973).

British withdrawal from Kenya (1963) and from Yemen (1967) were particularly bloody and traumatic (although nothing like as bad as the French withdrawal from Algeria or the Belgian withdrawal from Congo). Also problematic was the continued maintenance of minority White rule in Southern Africa after the end of British control (see here).

The most recent major withdrawal, and presumably the last for some time, is the handover of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China in 1997.

There are still a number of British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean, the South Atlantic (most significantly the Falkland Islands), the Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean (Gibraltar, and an exterritorial military base on Cyprus).

From Empire to Commonwealth

In the immediate postwar period Britain still thought of itself as an imperial nation. At its height the British Empire was the largest empire the world has ever known, comprising territories in North America, the Carribean, the South Atlantic, West Africa, Southern Africa, East Africa, South Asia, South-East Asia, parts of China, and most of Oceania. After 1919, parts of the Middle-East were also ruled by Britain under mandate from the League of Nations.

Each of these territories had its own status and method of government, varying according to how it had become part of the British Empire, pre-existing customs (as the British understood them), the strength and cohesion of native elites, and other local or regional conditions. The five most important parts of the Empire were Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa (sometimes called the "four pillars" of the Empire) and India. Queen Victoria’s two most important titles were Queen of Great Britain and Empress of India. Victoria’s successors also bore the title Emperor of India until renouncing it in 1948, the year after India became independent. The only 20th century British monarch never to have been emperor or empress of India was Elizabeth II.

Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa were settler colonies: large numbers of British and Irish (and other European) settlers emigrated to these territories. These were the first colonies to attain significant measures of self-government: Canada from 1867, Australia from 1901, New Zealand from 1907, and the Union of South Africa from 1910. They remained tied to Britain in various ways, for instance supplying troops during the two world wars, recognising the British monarch as Head of State, and (until 1967) often holding their currency reserves in Sterling.

As more and more imperial territories became self-governing, the Empire was transformed into a free international association, the Commonwealth of Nations. This is an international organisation, currently of 53 states (listed here), all of which (with the exception of Mozambique) were once part of the British Empire.

Elizabeth II is not only the head of the Commonwealth, she is also head of state in 16 of the states that are members of the Commonwealth: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, and Saint Kitts and Nevis (listed in order of independence). She is also Lord of Man, and titular Queen of Fiji.

Commonwealth countries are often proud to have legal systems, armies, educational institutions, and structures of government and administration modeled on British examples, although they are equally proud of the fact that the British are no longer running them.

The Commonwealth also provides sporting exchanges in the Commonwealth Games (a sort of mini-Olympics), and part of the legacy of Empire is the way that the games cricket and rugby are played across the globe, primarily in Commonwealth countries (unlike Association Football, which has been adopted by many countries that were never part of the British Empire).

One of the legacies of the Empire is the existence of a collection of nations around the world in which the English language is widely spoken in everyday life and is used as a literary language, not simply a lingua franca for negotiation and exchange. Even the U.S.A., the main English-speaking country outside the Commonwealth, was originally a collection of British colonies in North America. The Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded to the Nigerian novelist Wole Soyinka (1986), the West-Indian poet Derek Walcott (1992), the Irish poet Seamus Heaney (1995), the Indo-Trinidadian travel writer V.S. Naipaul (2001), and the Southern African novelists Nadine Gordimer (1991), J.M. Coetzee (2003), and Doris Lessing (2007). All these, and many others who have not received the same accolade, write in English for a world-wide readership, and contribute to an international literary culture that cannot be described by any model that simply puts Britain at its "centre".

Imperial and Commonwealth history is also important in determining post-war patterns of mass migration into the British Isles, creating a much more multiracial and multicultural society there, as well as earlier patterns of migration in other parts of the world (such as from India to the West Indies and to East Africa).

Wind of Change

The key part of Harold Macmillan's famous speech on "African national consciousness" in February 1960:

In the 20th century, and especially since the end of the war, the processes which gave birth to the nation states of Europe have been repeated all over the world. We have seen the awakening of national consciousness in peoples who have for centuries lived in dependence upon some other power. Fifteen years ago this movement spread through Asia. Many countries there, of different races and civilisations, pressed their claim to an independent national life. Today the same thing is happening in Africa, and the most striking of all the impressions I have formed since I left London a month ago is of the strength of this African national consciousness. In different places it takes different forms, but it is happening everywhere. The wind of change is blowing through this continent, and whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact, and our national policies must take account of it.