Ted Heath’s Agenda

Question 1

What was the Selsdon Park agenda?

Answer 1

• January 1970
• wanting to move away from Wilson’s left wing, high tax and ‘big’ government policies (big government means that the government plays huge role in economy and society with high levels of spending)
• prefers a laissez faire approach - moderate move to the right rather than ‘hard move’ as thatcher would do

Question 2

What was in the Selsdon Park Agenda

Answer 2

• free market forces
• sink or swim businesses
• law and order
• tax and spending cuts
• control of union power

Question 3

What were Free Market Forces

Answer 3

• government did not intervene with setting wages
• market forces allowed to bargain with employers - free collective bargaining
• if bosses thought they worked hard, and if the company was profitable, they could pay them more but of course the opposite could also happen
• suited unions in theory HOWEVER were clearly circumstances when companies could not do pay rises
• unions may strike again

Question 4

What is meant by ‘sink or swim’

Answer 4

• Lame Duck Industry - A company or industry that is only able to survive with the help of government support
• By the early 1970s much of the UK economy was nationalised
• Coal, gas, electricity, the post office, telephones, airlines were all owned by the government, to be run for the common good and not for profit also to maintain high employment levels
• But by the 1970s a lack of competitive forces meant that most were inefficiently run and were losing money
• Heath pledged to end heavy subsidies – sink or swim
• At some point this would mean job losses, and a confrontation with the unions.

Question 5

Law and order reform

Answer 5

• clamp down on the ‘permissive society’ that developed in the 1960s
• so busy getting dragged into industrial disputes that he barely had time to address this

Question 6

How did he plan on controlling the unions

Answer 6

• In Place of Strife had failed by Labour in 1960s
• determined that he would not be pushed over by trade unions and their rising power

Question 7

Spending and tax cuts

Answer 7

• too much money had been spent on ‘big government’
• taxes too high and restricting spending power
• pledged to reduce both in the hope of a reduction in inflation