Churchill 1929 - 1940

Question 1

What did Churchill think about the independence movement in India?

Answer 1

• Churchill believed that India was the ‘jewel in the crown’ of the British Empire
• Churchill supported imperialism

Question 2

How did Churchill’s attitudes affect his relationships with those in parliament?

Answer 2

• Churchill’s attitude towards proposals to introduce reforms in India led to a tension between him and Baldwin and the conservative leadership
• Churchill disagreed with a proposal from the Viceroy of India Lord Irwin who was a former conservative minister

Question 3

What did the constitutional reforms of 1909 and 1919 do?

Answer 3

• This led to the creation of a Round table conference to discuss giving India the status of Dominion within the empire
• This allowed India to govern itself along the legislations from the self-governing ‘white’ dominions
• This followed a Parliamentary report from a committee which was in line with constitutional reforms of 1909 and 1919 that had introduced measures of self-government for India

Question 4

Who was Gandhi and what was his importance?

Answer 4

• He was a radical independence movement Indian who tried to allow Hindus and Muslims the same rights and in 1932, Gandhi started his ‘epic fast’ as protest
• Dressing like a poor person helped develop his ‘satyagraha’ characteristic, meaning to ‘hold onto the truth’, representing the poverty population in India
• He pursued freedom through non-violent protests and Britain responded to these protests with a mixture of repression and reform

Question 5

In the 1910s and 1920s how did Britain rule India?

Answer 5

• British rule in India was coming under increasing pressure in the 1910s and 1920s from an Indian population that wanted self-government and representation
• In 1930, Gandhi led a mass march to the sea of 322km to protest about the salt tax by gathering natural sea salt deposits

Question 6

What were the Rowlatt Acts?

Answer 6

• The Rowlatt Acts of 1919 increased the police powers by allowing imprisonment without trial to protestors
• In April 1919, Gandhi led a mass campaign against the Rowlatt Acts and troops fired at a protesting crowd, killing 400 and wounding 1200 which gave Indian nationalism a huge number of new supporters

Question 7

What did the Indian Councils Act of 1909 do?

Answer 7

• These Acts called the Morley-Minto reforms directly introduced the elections to membership in the imperial and local councils in India
• The Liberal party in the UK had scored an electoral victory in 1906 that allowed the secretary of State of India could introduce several important legislation
• Morley appointed two Indian members to his council and persuaded Lord Minto the British Viceroy of India to appoint to the Viceroy’s executive council the first Indian member

Question 8

What did the Government of India Act of 1919 do?

Answer 8

• It was passed to expand the participation of Indians in the government of India
• It considered the reforms noted by Edmund Montagu and the Viceroy and the Act made an introduction to direct elections in the country and bicameralism

Question 9

What happened at the Round Table conference between 1930-1932?

Answer 9

• Baldwin, the Liberals, and all of the Labor government had taken joined stands in supporting decisions and discussions while Churchill was trying to control the whole British establishment
• Viceroy Irwin released Gandhi from prison and invited him to the Round table conference to negotiate.

Question 10

What was the Government of India Act and what did it do?

Answer 10

• This provided the establishment of an Indian federation and separated India from Burma, The right to vote was increased from 7 million to 35 million, and direct elections were introduced for the first time
• There were more representatives in the Indian government although some powers were kept by British governors, elections took place in 1937 and congress did form local governments until the war

Question 11

What happened after 1935 in India?

Answer 11

• After 1935, India Concerned Churchill less than German rearmament but was a concern again in 1940 when he became Prime Minister because in 1940 and after his colonial secretaries Lord Lloyd and Oliver Stanley shared his conservatism
• The declarations in the belief of freedom such as the ‘Atlantic Charter’ were only seen as symbols of white freedom for Churchill

Question 12

What happened to India after 1939?

Answer 12

• Under the 1935 Government of India Act, only 8 provinces had any form of self-government which was dominated by the Congress party
• Indian political leaders were not consulted when the Viceroy declared war on India’s behalf in 1939
• After the war, the cabinet rejected the congress demands for a constitution and the congress party resigned ending the power-sharing in 1935

Question 13

What was Cripps mission?

Answer 13

• Because there were collapsing British powers in Malaysia in 1942 there had to be concessions
• Clement Atlee proposed a post-war constitution to stop a revolt in India to please America
• Churchill agreed to send a Labor figure, Stafford Cripps into India in April 1942 in order to discuss giving control over most of the administration of India to the Indians

Question 14

What did Churchill do in the end about Cripps?

Answer 14

• Churchill didn’t like Cripps or the Viceroy and got the cabinet to reject an agreement that Cripps had negotiated about Indian control of defense
• The congress took up a ‘Quit India’ campaign and in August 1942 the congress party was made illegal and Gandhi was arrested

Question 15

Who was King Edward VIII?

Answer 15

He was the eldest son of George V. King George died on the 20th January 1936, and Edward ascended to the throne as King Edward VIII. He was the uncle of Elizabeth II

Question 16

What was the bad reputation of Edward VIII?

Answer 16

• The prince of Wales had shown many affairs and bad judgement in his time, including his preference for older women and mistresses, and His most notable attachment was Mrs. Wallis Simpson whom he met in 1930
• David, his eldest son was seen as neurotic and unstable and he had a reputation of being a ‘playboy’, and he also tended to make remarks which could be seen as a political interference and some believed that he was an admirer of Nazi Germany
• Her liaison with the prince may have been encouraged by her previously being divorced before marrying Mr. Simpson

Question 17

What was the problem with Simpson and Edward?

Answer 17

• Wallis Simpson was a divorced American woman married to a wealthy banker and she made a liaison with King Edward VIII
• The British press was trying to not intrude on Royal private life and privacy, but the question of a future queen became a matter for concern
• When Wallis applied for a divorce from her husband, he obliged and agreed to have started and ‘caught’ conducting an affair

Question 18

What did Edward VIII want to do with Mrs. Simpson?

Answer 18

• In November 1936, prime Minister Stanley Baldwin told the king that public opinion would not accept Wallis Simpson as queen
• Edward proposed a morganatic marriage where she would be merely a consort, and not Queen, but this required parliament’s approval from both Britain and the cabinet and the cabinet didn’t give any approval
• There were profoundly serious constitutional and imperial issues at a time of economic difficulties and from abroad

Question 19

How did this effect Churchill?

Answer 19

• The attitudes between Churchill’s opinion on the abdication and India are similar, as they both support the King and the colonialism and imperialistic point of view
• Both events made him seem out of touch of public opinion, as the public had the opposite view than him in both cases and the people wanted the King to not abdicate and not marry Mrs. Simpson, while Churchill and the ‘king friends’ wanted to protect his interests
• In both events, Churchill got involved in ways parliament disliked, for example in India he tried to nullify agreements made at the Round Table Conference and during the abdication he wanted to make the royal situation public to call for a vote

Question 20

How did Churchill Intervene?

Answer 20

• Churchill was fighting with Baldwin over the establishment of India and its government and he now accepted the establishment of India to support the king
• Baldwin didn’t want to intervene in royal life, but he had to express his view that marriage with Simpson wouldn’t be acceptable and he persuaded the king to change his mind
• Churchill was willing to make public speeches supporting the king, and he demanded that parliament and the public should be consulted before any decision is made

Question 21

How did Edward deal with his abdication?

Answer 21

• In 1936, it would have weakened the monarchy considerably to marry someone like Mrs. Simpson, although Churchill and a group of ‘King’s friends’ saw themselves as loyal knights defending the right of the young monarch to marry for love
• The King abdicated by December 11th 1936 and he went off to France to marry Mrs. Simpson in Exile
• Edward refused to discuss business and made unwise commitments, so It is doubtful that he would have been a popular and effective monarch

Question 22

How did Baldwin react to the abdication?

Answer 22

• When Edward fell in love with Mrs. Simpson, Wallis Simpson was already married to Ernest Simpson
• Edward decided to marry her, and in 1936 after his ascension, Wallis Simpson began the divorce proceedings
• Baldwin determined that Edward couldn’t remain king and also be married to Wallis Simpson at the same time and Baldwin tried to persuade the king to remain on the throne and not influence public opinion

Question 23

What did Churchill think about rearmament and appeasement?

Answer 23

• In January 1933 Hitler’s views on the need to rearm and the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles were well known
• Churchill did not object to the idea of nationalist dictatorship, as he praised Mussolini on his rule in Italy in the 1920s
• Churchill was worried about the dangers of German rearmament when Hitler recommenced it

Question 24

What was Churchill fearing?

Answer 24

• Churchill feared a repeat of 1914 when Germany became a threat to the peace of Europe and had challenged Britain by building a new naval fleet
• Churchill had been a member of the government that had agreed to the Treaty of Versailles and Churchill was especially worried about the fact that Germany may build a new air force and air fleet
• As colonial secretary, he had approved air attacks on Iraqi rebels in 1920 and had known the effect of aerial bombing

Question 25

What was the Four-Power Pact?

Answer 25

• In December 1932, after the Geneva disarmament conference Britain, France, the USA, and Italy conceded to Germany’s demands for equal rights in armaments
• They tried to defuse German aggression and MacDonald presented a plan giving those countries equal conscript armies over 5 years, where France was allowed to have large amounts of troops stationed in colonies for emergencies
• This was the four-power pact, and the pact was signed in Rome in July 1933 but was never implemented and in October 1933, Germany withdrew from the disarmament conference and the League of Nations

Question 26

What happened after the Four-Power Pact?

Answer 26

• April 1935 the countries met in Stresa to discuss events in Germany and reaffirm the Locarno treaties, but the USSR was interested in cooperating with countries threatened by Hitler and in May 1935 made pacts with France and Czechoslovakia
• March 1935, the British Foreign secretary met in Berlin and in June agreed to separate a naval treaty with Germany undermining the Stresa front
• The front felt that its fatal blow in 1936 by Mussolini invading Ethiopia, but the Hoare Laval pact failed to make concessions to Italy, and machinery of the League of Nations invoked against Italy

Question 27

How did this affect relations?

Answer 27

• This alienated Italy from Britain and France, and Italy became allied to Hitler, and in October 1936 Mussolini made an agreement with Hitler called the Rome-Berlin Axis Pact
• Germany signed the Anti-Communism pact with Japan and Italy joined the pact in November 1937

Question 28

How did the invasion of the Rhineland complicate matters?

Answer 28

• On Saturday 7th March 1936 German forces crossed north-west Germany along the French and Dutch border and so on 11th March 1936 there was a cabinet meeting about the invasion of the Rhineland
• The Rhineland was supposed to be demilitarized according to the TOV, and the aim was to increase French security and the demilitarized zone had been created by the ‘diktat’ and Treaty of Versailles as a guarantee of French and Belgium security
• The Rhineland was first occupied then demilitarized by the Allies at Versailles and Hitler made a speech attacking Bolshevism before claiming that the Franco-Soviet Pact had been broken by the treaty of Locarno

Question 29

What happened with the Sudetenland?

Answer 29

• When Hitler became ruler, he wanted to unite all Germans into one single country, and to move civilians to Czechoslovakia
• September 1938 Sudeten Germans began protests and provoked violence from the Czech police and Hitler claimed 300 Germans had been killed as an excuse to place German troops along the Czech border
• Neville Chamberlain flew over to Hitler to talk to him about the crisis and how to deal with it

Question 30

What deals did Hitler and Chamberlain make in Czechoslovakia?

Answer 30

• Chamberlain went to Munich on 29th September 1938 and there, Chamberlain got an international agreement from Hitler that he should have the Sudetenland in exchange for Germany making no further demands for land in Europe, called the Munich agreement
• By now, many thoughts though that appeasement wouldn’t be enough to stop Hitler and even while the Munich Agreement was being signed, a huge increase was being held for spending on increasing Britain’s armament
• In March 1939, all of Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Germans and Chamberlain made an agreement with the poles to try to protect them as far as Britain could

Question 31

How did this affect things?

Answer 31

• Churchill had criticizers who claimed that he thought himself was responsible for the disarming in the 1920’s and for maintain the ten-year rule, and the ten-year rule was a rule that said defense planning should not consider a war likely for the next ten years and justified cutbacks in defense
• When the 1934 means tests imposed stringent conditions on any public help for the unemployed or people in poverty, there would need to be a really justified reason for the beginning of an arms race with Germany, and many thought that as the WW1 had originated from an arms race, this would be dangerous and unnecessary
• There was still support strongly for the league of nations, and people thought that international disputes should be left to negotiations organized on an international scale and not just to individual countries and their armed forces

Question 32

How were Neville Chamberlain’s opinions different from Churchill’s?

Answer 32

• Neville Chamberlain didn’t approve of British policy as he felt reacting to events afterwards was dangerous, and he felt Germany did have legitimate reasons and wanted to negotiate, and Chamberlain didn’t believe in international acts like the League of Nations and the vague agreements like the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928
• He felt as though a negotiation with Germany was better than leading Britain to war to allow Britain time to build up defenses and to recover economically and Public opinion was against war anyway with Army Chiefs stating that they didn’t believe Britain was capable of total war

Question 33

What happened after Munich?

Answer 33

• Conscription and planning for air raids and the formation of the air force made war possible
• A guarantee and a treaty with Poland would mean that if war started an invasion of Poland would be guaranteed
• Hitler and Stalin made non-aggressive agreements and Hitler originally thought that Britain and France wouldn’t react quickly enough

Question 34

What did Anthony Eden do about the appeasement?

Answer 34

• Anthony Eden went to Hitler in February 1934 and he was a supporter of the League of Nations and he met Hitler at the British embassy
• Anthony Eden said that he liked Hitler but Baldwin didn’t
• Hitler said he would honor the Locarno treaty and guaranteed the non-military ways of the SA and the SS and he promised not to return to the League of Nations

Question 35

What did Chamberlain do in the end?

Answer 35

• Chamberlain had no choice but to begin British rearmament and to accept appeasement as a failure
• Baldwin however was eager to avoid this and any confrontation with Germany
• Land being returned to Germany against the TOV as part of German reparations boosted Hitler’s prestige and this made Nazi Germany more attractive and setback French democracy and diplomacy

Question 36

What were Churchill’s views on rearmament and appeasement?

Answer 36

• Churchill proffered the idea of building up a strong alliance and increasing Britain’s defenses, and he opposed the governments policy of appeasement
• After 1918, the British navy was really strong, and Britain had some oil-rich possessions in the Far East and Britain had to only maintain its reputation but Britain did have however a lot of casualties and threats of disturbances in Europe and Germany and Russia were wanting to recover their lands
• Neither public opinion or Britain’s economic strength permitted the policy to maintain enough force to keep the gains and meet any threats, and British statesmen instead believed in international agreements like the Locarno Pact and in membership of the new League of Nations

Question 37

How did Hitler start rearmament again in the 1930s?

Answer 37

• Hitler reintroduced conscription in 1935, breaking the Treaty of Versailles and he remilitarized the Rhineland in March 1936 and Britain was anxious to stop another war
• They left the League Of Nations in 1933 and Mussolini was no longer an ally after 1935 because Britain was forced by public opinion to condemn Mussolini’s invasion of the African state of Ethiopia in 1935
• The government agreed to try and limit German rearmament by agreement, as it could never fully stop it

Question 38

What was the Sudetenland crisis?

Answer 38

• Czechoslovakia had a democracy and had alliances with the Soviet Union and France, and there was an issue of whether or not to move the border
• Moving the border would remove fortifications, making it defenseless and Britain couldn’t act but France could, and if it supported the Czechs there would’ve been a European War
• Chamberlain put pressure on Czech to make concessions, and there was an increasing amount of Germans in Czechoslovakia

Question 39

What happened in the end about the Sudetenland crisis?

Answer 39

• Hitler refused more and more to make concessions, and Hitler become more war-like
• Chamberlain managed to come to agreements with Hitler where there was an area of self-government within Czechoslovakia not owned by the Germans

Question 40

Why was Churchill elected Prime Minister in 1940?

Answer 40

• Churchill remained loyal to Chamberlain and when the war started, Britain couldn’t save Poland or France
• The unexpected Nazi - Soviet Pact in 1939 which meant that German forces took Western Poland whilst the Soviets took the East
• Britain considered sending help to Finland as it was waged war against, but Britain decided to instead protect Norway

Question 41

What happened with Norway?

Answer 41

• The debate in the House of Commons about Norway led to major political change and since September 1939, Britain’s achievements had been limited and the war got called the ‘phoney war’ by a US commentator
• On the first day of the debate there was a powerful intervention by Sir Roger Keyes and on the 7th and 8th May 1940, Chamberlain faced unexpected attacks from his own side, especially from Leo Amery

Question 42

What happened with the bombing campaigns?

Answer 42

• There was a direct appeal to the USA when saying that the Empire would continue the fight if Britain was invaded
• There was an offer of union which would’ve meant that France and Britain would’ve combined their forces, but this couldn’t have worked as France had already surrendered
• On 3rd July 1940 the British attacked the French fleet which they swore to protect initially in order to prevent it from falling into German hands

Question 43

What happened when the Germans started bombing?

Answer 43

• In August 1940 Germany started to launch a huge air offence to attempt to destroy the RAF
• Hitler and the German RAF thought it was more important to bomb British cities than to destroy their own RAF
• They thought that civilian populations would lower their Morales from bombing, and this would make a continuation of British war effort impossible, and in September the Germans diverted the attention of from the RAF airfields to the bombing of cities

Question 44

Who was Harold Macmillan?

Answer 44

• Macmillan became prime Minister in 1957 and he appointed Butler as the home secretary who took a liberal approach towards social issues
• The Homicide Act of 1957 ended the death penalty

Question 45

What was budget politics ?

Answer 45

• This is when budgets were often use to earn short term votes for elections and by cutting taxes
• High inflation suggested that financial restraint would’ve been more appropriate because the result was increased consumer spending, leading to more inflation and a wider trade gap
• The net result was that by the end of 1964 Britain had a balance of payments deficit of over £800 million because then deflationary measures including tax and interest rate rises and out public spending to try to limit wage increases

Question 46

What is stagflation?

Answer 46

• This is inflation where industry declined and inflation increased
• It is a compound word between stagnation and inflation
• Stagnation is where there is no development in industry or growth in businesses

Question 47

What are stop-go policies?

Answer 47

• Many people thought that Britain didn’t have a proper economic strategy and policies made by the government weren’t very great
• Stop go policies tries to encourage the development of policies that would create a well performing economy
• The ‘stop’ part of the term described the situation arising when consumption and prices rose too quickly, and the ‘go’ part referred to the situation where production and exports declined, prompting the government to cut taxes

Question 48

How was Britain’s industrial growth rate changing?

Answer 48

• It’s GDP rate was the lowest in Western Europe, because there was heavy defense spending, and it still tried to run nuclear defense development programmes
• By 1964, Britain had spent £1.7 billion on defense, 10% of its GDP
• Compared with major industrial competitors, Britain was spending too much on defense and only the USA spent more

Question 49

How did wages improve?

Answer 49

• There was a continuous rise in wages ahead of price - The average weekly wage of a male worker more than doubled from £8 in 1951 to £18 in 1964
• Income stayed higher than prices and people were more able to buy more

Question 50

What did the introduction of financial credit do?

Answer 50

• It was enabled by banks and finance companies to allow people to save more and borrow larger amounts of money from the bank
• this enabled more loans so people could pay for more expensive things
• Access to credit enabled consumers to buy and purchase an unprecedented range of manufactured goods and a consumer boom began

Question 51

What was the unemployment problem?

Answer 51

• In the 1950s unemployment rates were at around 250,000 people and this rose rapidly until the 1960s
• It fell in 1960 but quickly rose rapidly back up in 1963
• There was continuous high unemployment levels despite the general increase in wealth

Question 52

How did housing rates improve?

Answer 52

• More housing was available for cheaper but more reasonable prices and people were more bale to pay back their mortgages over longer pieces of time
• But those renting on low wages were hit hard from the Rent Act which abolished rent control
• 1.7 million homes were built between 1951 – 1964

Question 53

What disputes were there between parties?

Answer 53

• Although Hugh Gaitskell was a talented Labor politician he didn’t unite the party together very well at all
• The party was unsure if they wanted to move more to the right or left in British politics and Gaitskell was unable to resolve this

Question 54

What was the issue with socialism?

Answer 54

• Those on the very left of the Labor Party believed that the welfare measures introduced between 1945 to 1951 were only the first step
• Some people thought that should there should be much more of a central control over the economy and disagreed with the ideas of Clement Atlee
• Some also believed that the unions should have most of the say in the development of party policy whilst others however wanted policy to be decided by the parliamentary party and not by the unions

Question 55

What were the opinions about nuclear policy?

Answer 55

• The left of the Labor party wanted unilateral nuclear disarmament so more money was available for social reforms, whilst others argued disarming so that the Soviet Union couldn’t fall too far behind the arms race with the West
• The other side of the party were opposed to unilateralism and wanted Britain to maintain its independent nuclear deterrent
• Bevan however was here less radical and rejected the policy of unilateralism at the Party Conference in 1957 but he opposed the party’s approval of the rearmament of Germany and its inclusion in NATO, which he believed would alienate the Soviet Union

Question 56

What was the EEC and what did Britain think of it?

Answer 56

• It was an economic organization that was run politically and was driven by both France and Germany because Germany was trying to reestablish itself and France was worried too
• They created a European Union organized like a federation, although the two main parties in Britain at the time had both rejected the idea of joining Europe
• At the party Conference in October 1962 Hugh Gaitskell dismissed the idea of Britain becoming part of the EEC and he warned that if Britain joined it would undermine its position as an independent state

Question 57

How did Britain slowly move more towards the idea of joining the EEC?

Answer 57

• Britain remained convinced that its economic future was to be part of the USA and the commonwealth and not with Europe and in the 1950s and 1960s Britain’s economy was low compared to the EEC
• The failure of EFTA to match the economy of the EEC was also equally disturbing which was set up in 1959 to be a free trade counterbalance of the EEC
• By 1972 most EFTA members instead joined the EEC and the Suez Crisis questioned if Britain really was an independent power and it put doubts on the Anglo- American relationship

Question 58

Why did the French Veto Britain in 1963?

Answer 58

• Due to Macmillan’s belief in independence and the commonwealth with the USA earlier, after the sudden change in mind the rest of Europe found this grudging
• De Gaulle made a veto to the EEC in 1963 in order to block Britain’s first formal application to the EEC in 1963
• De Gaulle didn’t like the counterbalance of the USA and Britain joining the EEC as he thought it would disrupt the other EEC members

Question 59

What were the attitudes or Sir Alec Douglas Home and Harold Wilson?

Answer 59

• Macmillan resigned in 1963 and Butler didn’t become leader after Macmillan because Macmillan wanted Alec Douglas Home to become Prime Minister
• Douglas Home was an aristocratic member of the House of Lords and Harold Wilson was the new Labor leader who joined in February 1963 and he had a 60% approval rating
• Harold Wilson presented the Labor party as modern, dynamic and impressive, whilst Douglas Home presented the Conservatives as quite weak

Question 60

What were the general attitudes towards the Conservatives?

Answer 60

• The Conservatives were blamed for the increasing amount of economic issues highlighted in the 1960s - The Tories didn’t have the answer to unemployment, inflation, and economic inequality
• The Conservatives seemed out of touch with the modern democratic society and Alec Douglas Home wasn’t as ready as Harold Wilson

Question 61

How did British society change?

Answer 61

• The economic growth in the 1950s made people less willing to accept traditional authority
• There were more criticisms of parties and cultural and social separations
• This gave the Labor party a chance for action whilst the Conservative felt useless to change what they had done

Question 62

What where the difficulties for the Labor party?

Answer 62

• Labor had a small majority after the 1964 election and only won by 4 more seats, and it wasn’t until 1966 that Wilson was winning by a 90 seat majority
• However Labor was changing the country from an industrial into a post industrial economy so industries were decreasing whilst financial services were increasing
• Britain wasn’t investing enough and was spending too much

Question 63

What was the economy like in the 1960s?

Answer 63

• There was a balance of payments deficit of around £800 million inherited from the conservatives
• They believed this could only be solved by competing with industries and by promoting denationalization and by producing cheaper goods
• The economic of Britain was far behind the other countries in Europe and was lacking lower than the EEC nations, and trade unions presented a challenge

Question 64

What was the economic record of the Labor party?

Answer 64

• Due to the focus on the balance of payments deficit and the devaluation, Labor was still incredibly poor at solving economic problems
• The rate of inflation had not been solved, and unemployment was higher in 1970 than before
• Britain kept on giving more of its natural resources and research into developing the military therefore not much investment was actually done

Question 65

What was deflation in 1964?

Answer 65

• There are tax rises and cuts in government spending used to reduce peoples spending
• This helped reduce the gap between imports and exports, but Wilson knew it would reduce the savings of working class people
• Wilson knew it was the ‘cheap way out’ and would eventually lead to long term disadvantages and the US treasury was worried about UK devaluation

Question 66

What were the issues with the trade unions?

Answer 66

• As early as 1963, Wilson had warned the Labor party and trade unions they needed to become more realistic in their wage demands
• Wilson knew that inflation and the balance of payments deficit were the key major threats to the economy of Britain
• After the 1966 election, Wilson demanded his government to cut their spending and a Price and Income board was set up with the power to regulate pay settlements

Question 67

Why did the Labor party lose the 1970 election?

Answer 67

• An opinion poll before the election suggested that Wilson had a 51% approval rating, compared to just 28% for the Conservatives
• Wilson was way too overconfident, and too many Labor supporters were complacent and didn’t bother to vote, so membership of the party fell from 830,000 in 1964 to 680,000 in 1970
• Many MPs and the rest of the government believed that the Labor government had been too right wing, as foreign policy was too supportive of the USA, too much money had been spent on defense

Question 68

Why did the Conservatives win?

Answer 68

• The Conservatives had developed specific proposals and methods to help them win, and they promised to change industrial relations in order to reduce the number of strikes
• They wanted attempts to control prices and income by investment to end, and for Britain to apply to join the EEC
• During the election campaign Heath attacked the economic record of the Labor party and said since 1964, inflation had risen by 33% and unemployment by over 200,000

Question 69

What were the main aims of Heath?

Answer 69

• Heath promised to strengthen the economy and to develop stronger industrial relations, and to ensure faster economic services, full employment, and better services
• He knew that in order to accomplish these aims, joining the EEC was essential and investment was key to the future economy rather than government spending
• The Conservatives had however inherited a 5% inflation rate and this reached 10% four years later, and the number of strikes drastically increased too

Question 70

How did Britain join the EEC?

Answer 70

• Britain became a full member of the EEC on 1st January 1973, despite there being a split debate between the idea of joining in October 1971
• In the Conservatives, 39 MPs voted against entry, whilst 69MPs voted to enter, and Heath was passionate about European entry, and believed it would allow further access to Europe’s markets
• There was now a better chance for Britain to join the EEC because Pompidou wasn’t as concerned with British applying to join than De Gaulle

Question 71

What was the Industrial Relations Act of 1971?

Answer 71

• The Industrial Relations Act aimed to balance the rights of workers, and it reduced the chance of strikes, whilst also meaning workers had the legal right to join a Trade Union
• It established the NIRC (National Industrial Relations Court) and IRC (Industrial Relations Commission), which trade unions had to register with
• The Act gave the government power to order a before strike ballot, and to impose a period of around 60 days, but instead the Act only increased tension between the trade unions and the workers

Question 72

The January 1972 Miners’ Strike

Answer 72

• The miners wanted a 47% pay increase, which was far above the law of the government’s wage and income policy
• In January 1972, 280,000 coal miners went on strike, and the government had to close the coal plants and cut power regularly whilst pits were closed
• In February, to stop the strikes the government had to negotiate a compromise of a certain pay increase to the miners

Question 73

The 1972 U-turn policy

Answer 73

• In January 1971, the aircraft division company was facing bankruptcy, and it was nationalized as it was regarded as important for Brittan’s national defense industry
• Heath didn’t want unemployment to increase any further, as this would increase even more government spending
• In February 1972 the government gave £35 million to shipbuilders to help keep provide its 3000 jobs, and a new ministry for Industrial Development was appointed in April to help industry in poorer areas

Question 74

What happened during the oil price shock?

Answer 74

• The government established statutory policies in November 1972 to regulate both prices and income and these had some success
• The oil producing industry in the Middle East cut back supplies and quadrupled their prices, as a result of oil producing countries being angry with the Western support for Israel during the Egypt Israeli War in 1973
• Britain at the time depended on oil for 50% of its energy, which had a huge impact on prices, so in November 1973 the miners began an overtime ban trying to get more pay that went past the limit

Question 75

What happened during the three-day week?

Answer 75

• On 13th December 1973, Heath announced a three day week to take effect from 31st December 1973
• It meant that electricity would be provided to industry only and businesses only could gain electricity three days per week
• To save petrol a 50mph limit was introduced on all roads and television was required to shut off at 10.30 pm every evening

Question 76

What were relations with trade unions like under Harold Wilson and Callaghan?

Answer 76

• The Industrial Relations Act was unnecessary, which was shown from the Labor party and Trade Union agreement called the Social Contract in 1973
• This is were unions agreed to cooperate by controlling wage increases and the government promised to reduce prices and increase welfare benefits
• They abolished the statutory income policy, although wage increase still was higher than the rapid inflation rates

Question 77

What were the different beliefs about Europe?

Answer 77

• Wilson promised to keep the terms of British membership to the EEC and promised to reduce Britain’s budgets to the rest of the EEC
• Wilson allowed cabinet ministers to campaign for either leaving or staying in the EEC and the result was a 2:1 vote in favour of membership
• Voters believed that the success of the EEC offered a way to overcome economic difficulties and this preserved Labour party unity and it hid for the moment the issue with Europe

Question 78

What economic difficulties did Wilson face?

Answer 78

• Inflation rose to around 30% by 1975 and the trade unions therefore demanded even higher wage increases which would even further increase inflation and British exports stopped for Britain and unemployment increased from 542,000 in 1974 to over 1.3 million in 1976
• Denis Healey wanted to cut government spending massively and to increase taxes, and he hoped by reducing prices enough by 1975 inflation would stop
• In July 1975 the government created the formal income policy, which meant that a £6 per week stop on wage increase was issued, and the Trade Unions were forced to agree

Question 79

What help came from the IMF in 1976?

Answer 79

• In September 1976 Healey suggested he could stop the value of the pound from falling by asking the IMF for a loan of around $3.9 billion, and government spending would have to cut by $2 billion
• Callaghan persuaded the Cabinet to accept the terms in December 1976
• The crisis deepened the tension between the Labour party and the left of the Labour Party, though Callaghan still managed to prevent an economic crisis and he preserved the unity of Cabinet

Question 80

What was the 1977 Lib-Lab Pact?

Answer 80

• The economic problems made the public not trust the government more, so in November 1976, an opinion poll gave the Tories a 25% lead over Labour
• Losses in byelections meant that the governments majority often disappeared
• In March 1977 Callaghan negotiated a deal with the new Liberal leader in order for the Liberals to help support the government called the Lib-Lab Pact

Question 81

What happened during the ‘winter of discontent’?

Answer 81

• In order to control inflation, the government had to force Trade Unions to pay around 5% rises to the government
• There was a general feeling that the government hadn’t kept their Social Pact promises, and even more strikes came after the National Union of Public Employees demanded a 40% pay increase
• Callaghan was out of touch and this further added to the public opinion that Labour couldn’t control the economy

Question 82

Why did Thatcher Win the 1979 election?

Answer 82

• Around 40 seats went from supporting Labour to supporting the Conservatives, and people wanted to punish Labour for its constant disappointing failures
• The middle class were very opposed to strikes and trade unions
• Although the Liberal Party maintained all of their seats, their vote dropped by over 1 million and this gave the Conservative party more of a chance

Question 83

Why did Thatcher win the 1983 election?

Answer 83

• The rise in unemployment and economic problems reduced popularity of the government in 1981, but in 1983 the Conservatives still won the election
• The Falkland war victory increased Thatcher’s popularity and it increased national confidence
• The split in Labour and Michael Foot being appointed as Labour leader in November 1980 meant that Foot seemed old fashioned and his policies didn’t appeal much at all

Question 84

Why did Thatcher win the 1987 election?

Answer 84

• The Conservatives won more votes in 1983 but still lost 21 seats, but there were popular Conservative policies that helped them win the 1987 election
• The government policies of selling council houses and shares in privatised industries appealed to many middle class people
• The pound was stronger and unemployment was falling, whilst the Labour party had no yet fully recovered from 1983

Question 85

How did Thatcher deal with inflation?

Answer 85

• Retail prices doubled between 1973 and 1979 and also Thatcher knew that economic recovery relied on defeating inflation
• It was created by government spending, a lack of control over money circulation, and Keynesianism had to be abandoned because that led to higher prices and taxation
• It could only be tackled by reducing money in circulation, called ‘monetarism’ were there would be no more attempt to control wages and prices by the government, which had been unpopular and had largely failed

Question 86

What taxation policies were put into place?

Answer 86

• In June 1979 the Chancellor of the Exchequer shifted taxes from being direct to indirect tax which helped a lot, but also they increased wages and VAT increased the price of goods, which didn’t help as much
• After this the Chancellor of the Exchequer used deflationary measures and cut government spending, reduced government borrowing, and increased taxes even higher
• The policies of the Chancellor of the Exchequer had a positive impact on inflation, because the rate at which prices rose decreased from 18% in 1980 to 4.5% in 1983, although many firms went out of business due to the increase competition and privatisation

Question 87

Economic problems

Answer 87

• Unemployment more than doubled between 1979 and 1983 to over 3 million, and Thatcher refused to help industries going bankrupt because she needed to ensure there was competition in order to help the economy recover overall
• Higher interest rates increased debt for people with loans to pay
• The value of the pound increased which was good, but this decreased the number of selling and exports

Question 88

What did Thatcher do with privatisation?

Answer 88

• The government increased the sale of Britain’s state owned enterprises and facilities to private hands, and Thatcher believed privatisation was essential to improve Britain’s economic performance
• Privatisation raised revenue, increased investment capital, and could boost enterprises
• When Thatcher came to power Britain had 3 million private shareholders and by 1990 there was around 11 million
• The government often undervalued the importance of each industry being privatised, so the value of the shares usually climbed rapidly, which forced many shareholders to sell their products quickly to bigger financial operations, rather than to smaller shareholders

Question 89

What did tax cuts and deregulation do?

Answer 89

• Nigel Lawson, Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1983 to 1989, continued the policy of shifting revenue from direct to indirect taxes to reduce rates of income tax
• Capital gains were reduced so that British incomes were much more lightly taxed than other countries in Europe, and inheritance taxes were cut
• Indirect taxes such as VAT and petrol tax were increased, and the Financial Services Act of 1986 deregulated the stock market in the Big Bang of October 1986

Question 90

How did Thatcher deal with the NHS?

Answer 90

• The government tried to make the NHS more employable and they wanted to apply businesses principles to its administration
• Hospitals were allowed to become self-governing NHS trusts in control of their own budgets and NHS services were expected to compete with each other to provide the most efficient and cost effective services and health care to GPs
• GPs also held funds and had their own budgets to manage
• It helped to put financial discipline into the NHS and it helped create change, however some people argued that a business method was inappropriate for a public service and finance would take priority over patient care

Question 91

What happened with schools and education?

Answer 91

• The quality of Britain’s education and the two tier O-level qualification was out of date, and there was a feeling Britain was behind other countries and teachers weren’t giving quality education
• This was replaced in 1986 with GCSEs, the qualification open to all levels of ability and in 1988 the government introduced a national curriculum with national regular testing
• State schools were given the right to opt out of control from the local education authority and become grant maintained schools with complete control over their budgets and operations

Question 92

Universities

Answer 92

• Thatcher promised that universities needed to be more economically self-sufficient and do more to serve the economic needs of the country
• She cut university budgets in 1981, and forced universities to seek alternative sources of revenue and to accept more students, and in 1988 a University Funding Council was created to ensure that university education reflected the needs of the economy rather than on research
• Some university staff lost their security of tenure and the government removed polytechnics from universities
• The government didn’t abolish grants for younger people to attend places of higher education

Question 93

Council House Sales

Answer 93

• Thatcher wanted to create a property owning democracy by rewarding people who worked hard with their own homes
• She believed owning property helped people gain a stake in the community and made them likely to support Conservative in the future
• She allowed long term council tenants the right to buy their houses and to encourage home ownership she also wanted home owners to get more tax relief on their mortgages
• During her premiership the amount of government spending on subsidising mortgages doubled and property ownership increased by 12%