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British History > Topic 3: Heath's government (1970-74) > Flashcards

Topic 3: Heath's government (1970-74) Flashcards

1
Q

5

Describe the promises of Heath’s government in 1970

A
  • A break with interventionist policies
  • Market solutions would be sought
  • Legal reform of trade unions to bring them under control
  • Taxpayer money would no longer be spent on helping ‘lame duck’ industries
  • The rejection of compulsory wage control
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2
Q

6

List notable figures in Heath’s cabinet

A
  • Ian MacLeod (CX) died 1 month after appointment
  • Relatively unknown Anthony Barber (CX) who succeeded him
  • Douglas-Home (FS)
  • Maulding (HS)
  • John Davies (trade and industry)
  • Thatcher (Edu) - only woman in cabinet
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3
Q

2

Describe Heath’s personality

A
  • ‘Wooden’
  • Nicknamed the ‘grocer’ for working class background
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4
Q

4

Describe initial economic policies under Heath

A
  • March 1971 budget
  • ‘Competition and Credit Control’
  • High growth
  • Decimilisation in 1971
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5
Q

4

Describe the March 1971 Budget

A
  • Replace purchase tax with VAT
  • Relaxed exchange controls
  • Both prerequisites for EEC membership
  • Reduction of direct taxes -> led to high levels of economic growth and low unemployment

Purchase tax - tax on luxury goods
VAT - tax placed on product at each stage of production when value is added
Exchange controls - controls imposed by govt on purchase/sale of foreign currencies

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6
Q

2

Describe the liberalisation of the banking system under Heath

A
  • Under title ‘Competition and Credit control’
  • led to high lending and increase in money supply
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7
Q

3

Describe decimilisation 1971

A
  • Agreed in 1965 under Wilson
  • Previously 144p in £1
  • Brought in line with other European currencies
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8
Q

6

Describe the problems the economy faced 1970-73

A
  • Increasingly powerful trade unions
  • Inflation had rose from 5% in 1969 to 10% by mid-1971
  • Productivity remained low - growth rate decreased from 2.5% (1969) to 1.7% (1971)
  • Record balance of payments surplus of £1bn in 1971 -> deficit of £1 billion in 1973
  • Unemployment reached 1m in 1972
  • Stagflation
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9
Q

3

Describe initial inflationary policies under Heath/Barber

A
  • Abolished Price and Incomes Board
  • Reduced standard rate income tax
  • Signalled age of intervention was over
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10
Q

2

Describe initial deflationary policies under Heath/Barber

A
  • Cuts in subsidies to council house rents and school milk expenditure (Thatcher ‘milk snatcher’)
  • Signalled age of intervention was over
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11
Q

2

Describe nationalisation U-turns 1970-1974

A
  • Rolls Royce nationalised in 1971 - major car manufacturer and symbolic of global status
  • Upper Cylde Shipbuilders nationalised in 1971 after threat of unemployment
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12
Q

6

Describe the 1972 Barber Boom

A
  • March 1972 budget cut taxes and inc public expenditure
  • Dubbed ‘last Kenesian fling’ in Treasury
  • Barber Boom pushed up growth rate to 7.4% by 1973
  • Contravened Heath’s pledge to solve inflation
  • Voluntary wage control was impossible to maintain in face of inflation
  • Heath forced into an economic u-turn
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13
Q

1

Describe the cause of 1972 economic policy u-turn

A
  • By Summer 1972, Heath had failed to secure trade union co-operation on wage restraint and anti-inflation measures
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14
Q

3

Describe the policies of the 1972-73 economic u-turn

A
  • 90 day freeze of pay and prices
  • Creation of Prices Commission and Pay Board to control inflation (Counter-Inflation Act 1973)
  • Government had introduced own statuory incomes policy -> complete abandonment of Selsdon Man
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15
Q

4

Describe the floating of the pound in 1972

A
  • Pound overvalued
  • ‘temporary measure’
  • Currency set by supply and demand rather than fixed rate
  • Pound immediatley plunged in markets
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16
Q

2

What were the unemployment in figures in early 1972 and 1973 respectively?

A

1m
500k

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17
Q

3

Describe the causes of the 1973 Oil Price Crisis

A
  • Yom Kippur War
  • War prompted OPEC to declare oil emabrgo at nations percieved to be supporting Israel (inc UK and US)
  • Oil exports suddenly stopped

OPEC - club of Arab oil nations

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18
Q

5

Describe the effects of the 1973 Oil Price Crisis

A
  • Price of oil increases to 4x usual levels (reached $12 by end of crisis)
  • Severe shortages of fuel for industry and petrol for transport
  • £1 fell to $1.50
  • Imports became more expensive - huge deficits
  • Inflation grew to 16% by 1974
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19
Q

4

List industrial disputes when Heath came to office in 1970

A
  • dockers strike
  • large pay settlement for dustmen
  • postal workers’ strike
  • ‘go-slow’ by power workers which led to power cuts
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20
Q

5

Describe the Industrial Relations Act 1971

A
  • Very similiar to In Place of Strife - Labour still opposed bill in August 1971
  • Had abolished National Board for Prices and Incomes in 1970
  • Agreements between employers and workers were to be legally enforceable
  • Closed shop was to be banned
  • Industrial Court was set up to try cases
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21
Q

4

Describe the failure of the Industrial Relations Act 1971

A
  • Public standing of unions at highest level in 3 years at time of act passage
  • TUC exploited legal loophole - if union refused to register they would remain beyond the reach of the new Industrial Court
  • Immense political capital wasted
  • Industrial Court had virtually no business as employers were fearful of consequences to labour relations
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22
Q

2

Describe the Pentonvile Five 1972

A
  • 5 shop stewards arrested in London Docks in 1972 after threatening to provoke paralysing strike
  • Political deadlock led to release

Shop stewards - employees who were also union representatives

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23
Q

3

Outline industrial relations in 1972

A
  • Returned to policy of trying to manage wage demands through 1972 industry act
  • 23m working days lost to strikes in 1972
  • Highest since General Strike of 1926
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24
Q

3

Describe the 1972 industry act

A
  • Involved Government, TUC, CBI
  • Would agree wages, prices, etc
  • policy criticised by Powell and right-wing MPs
25
Q

5

Describe the causes of the 1972 miner’s strike

first miner’s strike

A
  • National Coal Board had cut jobs from 700k (1957) to 300k (1972)
  • Miners wages were increasing much less than all other industrial workers
  • Moderate NUM President Joe Gormley under pressure from younger militants like Arthur Scargill of Yorkshire miners
  • Gormley secured a 14% miners wage increase in 1971 but then lodged for a bigger claim in 1972
  • 8% pay offer in winter 1971-72 rejected

NUM - National Union of Miners

26
Q

6

Describe the 1972 miner’s strike

A
  • Began in January 1972
  • Considered miners ‘could not possibly win’
  • ‘Flying pickets’ soon cut off the movement of coal to power stations
  • 1972 Battle of Saltley Gate
  • 1.2m workers laid off
  • Wilberforce committee set up to examine demands and came out in favour of miners
27
Q

2

Describe the Battle of Saltley Gate 1972

A
  • Birmingham
  • Mass picketing blockaded distribution of tens of thousands of coke fuel
28
Q

3

Describe Heath’s response to the 1972 miner’s strike

A
  • Declared State of Emergency
  • Rationed electricity
  • (Enforced 3 day week?)
29
Q

2

Describe the results of the 1972 Miners’ Strike

A
  • Settlement worth between 17-24% negotiated by NUM President Joe Gormley
  • Another u-turn for Heath’s government
30
Q

4

Describe the causes of the 1973 Miners Strike

Second Miner’s Strike

A
  • Yom Kippur War -> high inflation and deficit rose from £1bn in 1973 to £3bn in 1974
  • Coal became cheap energy source overnight due to spike in price of oil
  • November 1973, Pay Board offered the miners a 13% rise to counter rising dissatisfaction with the pay freeze
  • NUM even refused to ballot its members and rejected the offer and imposed an overtime ban
31
Q

3

Described Heath’s response to the 1973 Miners’ Strike

A
  • Drafted in Whitelaw from NI Sec to Employment Sec - unable to break impasse
  • Three Day Week
  • Snap election
32
Q

2

Describe the 3 day week

A
  • December 1973, imposed three day week for british industry
  • Despite predicitions, 1st quarter of 1974 saw manufacturing production at 95% of normal (blow to unions)
33
Q

2

Describe Heath’s decision to call a snap election

A
  • At 11th hour, TUC pledged that other unions would not exploit a prospective special settlement with miners -> Heath rebuffed offer
  • Heath called snap election in where Conservatives relished confrontation with unions
34
Q

4

Give a summary of declining industrial relations

A
  • Became more militant
  • Use of more radical tactics like flying pickets
  • Informed by dissaproval of Conservative government
  • Reaction to long-term industrial change, particularly in coal industry
35
Q

2

Describe Heath’s progressive Sex Discrimination policies

A
  • Attachment of Earnings Act 1971 - husband liable for financial maintenance
  • Guardianship of Minors Act - women had joint responsibility with men over upbringing of children
36
Q

3

Describe Heath’s social services policy

A
  • Large increase in education budget (e.g. raised school leaving age to 16 in 1972, salvaged Open University)
  • Increases to health, agricultural, environmental budgets
  • Added to inflationary pressure before Yom-Kippur War
37
Q

4

Describe race relations under Heath

A
  • Powellism became influential in 1970s
  • Intertwined with ascension to Common Market (freedom of movement)
  • Immigration Act 1971 acted as successor to 1968 legislation
  • Race relations hampered with looming recession
38
Q

5

Describe the Immigration Act 1971

A
  • passed in 1971, operative from 1973
  • Unrestricted entry for those with patrial status
  • Elaborated on patriality, defining it as those who have lived in UK for at least 5 years
  • Entry for non-patrial citizens dependent on visa
  • Thus all non-patrial Commonwealth citizens who sought UK employment reduced to status of contract labourer

patrial - British citizen (or substantial connections)

39
Q

6

Describe Heath’s policy towards Ugandan Asians

A
  • Triggered when Uganda’s eccentric dictator Idi Amin in 1972 announced he had a dream which instructed him to give all Ugandan Asians 3 months to emigrate
  • Under 1968 quota, 3k were allowed to enter Britain in any one year
  • Government set up Ugandan resettlement board using military caps as holding centres
  • Linked with volunteer groups which helped find immigrants homes
  • 28.5k Ugandan Asians arrived
  • 30k new jobs created in Leicester -> became model-city for multi-ethnic integration
40
Q

6

Describe the situation in Northern Ireland in 1970

A
  • Growing sectarian clashes between Catholics and Protestants
  • July 1970, army shot dead Catholic teenager during North Belfast riot
  • At first, Heath backed UUP leader Brian Faulkner, who led Belfast Govt
  • Operated under system of FPTP with political gerrymandering
  • Faulkner went along with night-time curfews and internment
  • 30k people and 4k shipyard workers marched in Belfast to demand internment in 1971
41
Q

5

Describe Home Secretary Maudling’s policies towards Northern Ireland

A
  • Curb growing power of IRA
  • Night-time curfews introduced
  • August 1971, introduced internment without trial
  • 95% of those interned between 1971-1975 were Catholics
  • Jim McVeigh (IRA Commander) is quoted saying internment was ‘among the best recruiting tools the IRA ever had’
42
Q

4

Describe Bloody Sunday 1972

A
  • 30th January 1972, Catholic Bogside area of Londonderry
  • Triggered by effective ban on civil rights march
  • Led to violent clashes with troops of Parachute Regiment
  • 13 catholics died
43
Q

4

Describe the effects of Bloody Sunday 1972

A
  • British Embassy in Dublin was burned down
  • Support for the IRA grew as did funding from America
  • Grew from small force to mass organisation
  • 1972 marked bloodiest year for troubles (1382 explosions, 10k shootings, 480 deaths)
44
Q

6

Describe direct rule from Westminster

A
  • March 1972 (6 weeks after Bloody Sunday), Heath suspended Stormont Government
  • Replaced by direct rule from Westminster with Whitelaw as NI Secretary
  • 200k Ulster Vanguard Movement members staged 2-day strike to protest abolition of Stormont
  • Situation continued to polarise with ‘security forces’ (British troops) detested by Catholics
  • IRA escalated campaign and carried out random civillian attakcs
  • Reinforced ungovernability in Ulster
45
Q

6

Describe the provisions of the Sunningdale Government

A
  • December 1973, Whitelaw secretly negotiated power sharing agreement
  • Both nationalists and unionists guaranteed representation
  • catholics had role in govt for first time since 1920s!
  • New 78-member NI Assembly with system of PR
  • A Council of Ireland, with input from ROI executive, would have consultative role
  • British govt would retain control over law and order, finance
46
Q

5

Describe the opposition to the Sunningdale Agreement

A
  • Basic social and economic problems of Catholic minority had not been addressed
  • Extremists on both sides denounced agreement
  • UVF and UDA opposed
  • UUP pulled out in Jan 1974
  • Prospect of settlement undermined by second miners strike and Feb 1974 elec campaign on mainland Britain

UVF - Ulster Volunteer Force
UDA - Ulster Defence Association

47
Q

3

Describe the 1973 Northern Ireland Assembly elections

A
  • Pro-agreement parties won clear majority (52 to 26)
  • UUP split into pro and anti white paper parties
  • Faulkner replaced as UUP leader by hardline anti-agreement Harry West
48
Q

4

Describe the 1974 general election in Northern Ireland

A
  • UUUC (UUP, DUP, VUPP) formed electoral pact to field a single anti-Sunningdale candidate in each constituency
  • pro-Sunningdale supporters (Faulkner’s supporters, SDLP, Alliance, NI Lab party) fielded candidates against each other
  • 11/12 constituencies returned anti-Sunningdale candidates
  • agreement dispute meant Con could not rely on UUP in hung parliament
49
Q

2

Describe reform of local government under Heath

A
  • Local Government Act 1972 abolished historic counties like Rutland and imposed new boundaries like Cleveland
  • Housing minister Peter Walker refused partisan gerrymandering, as had been pleaded by CCO (Conservative Central Office)
50
Q

3

Describe Death and Scandals under Heath

A
  • Death of Tory heavyweight Ian Macleod in 1970 proved devastating blow
  • Most senior figure, Home Sec Maulding, forced to resign in mid-1972 after his corrupt involvement with jailed architect, John Poulson
  • Enoch Powell became fierce critic of govt
51
Q

3

List heath’s successes and failures

general summary card

A

Successes:

  • EEC entry
  • Raising school leaving age to 16
  • Dealing with stagflation (Barber Boom led to 5% economic growth)

Failures:

  • Northern Ireland policies
  • Industrial relations
  • Nationalisations and backtracking on Selsdon Park
  • Economic failures (deficit, inflation, unemployment)
52
Q

5

Describe Labour in opposition (1970-74)

A
  • Wilson seemed inert figure
  • Membership decline paved way for radical groups to influence local constituencies
  • ‘Militant’ - Trotskyite faction
  • Divide between left and right
  • ‘Social Contract’
53
Q

4

Describe the left in Labour opposition (1970-74)

A
  • Selsdon Man economic policy pushed party to left
  • Spurred by union leader such as Hugh Scanion, who was highly critical of 1964-70
  • Further divide between uncompromising ‘old left’ (e.g. Benn) and ‘soft left’ (e.g. Foot)
  • Benn sought plan to nationalise 25 major companies (accepted by NEC by one-vote majority)
54
Q

2

Describe the right in Labour opposition (1970-74)

A
  • Crossland attacked first Wilson adminsitration for failing to regenerate economy in Socialism Now (1974)
  • Jenkins and Williams isolated over defence, Europe and incomes policy
55
Q

4

Describe the ‘social contract’

A
  • Wilson negotiated it with Vic Feather, TUC General Secretary
  • Repeal of 1971 Industrial Relations Act, food subsidies, and a freeze on rent increases
  • In return, TUC members would cooperate with a programme of voluntary wage restraint
  • Would ensure Benn’s plan to nationalise 25 major companies were not included in the manifesto
56
Q

3

Describe the February 1974 election campaign

A
  • Conservative support stricken by militant unions and barren economy
  • Labour’s ‘Let us work together’ manifesto contained just 10 pages
  • Denounced as half-baked by Crossland
57
Q

4

Describe the February 1974 election results

A
  • Liberal increase in support to 19%, up 12 points
  • Liberals had won series of by-elections amid strikes
  • Led by Jeremy Thrope
  • Hung Parliament: Hung Parliament: Lab 301, Con 297
58
Q

2

Describe the February 1974 election aftermath

A
  • Heath’s offer to extend coalition to Liberals failed
  • Wilson governed from minority govt
59
Q

What were diplock courts?

A

Non-jury courts to prevent intimidation by IRA

British History (36 decks)

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