The Conservative Party
changed forever on 4 May 1979 when Margaret Thatcher became the UK’s first
female Prime Minister. Her Conservative post-war predecessors, Winston Churchill,
Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan, and Alec Douglas-Home, each accepted Clement
Atlee’s post-war consensus, rekindling the spirit of Benjamin Disraeli’s ‘One
Nation Conservatism’, and continued along the lines of nationalisation, corporatism,
and welfare. The only exception was Edward
Heath, who between June 1970 and March 1974 introduced a number of policies
aimed at tackling the power of Trade Unions and privatising industry. His
attempts ultimately failed but they would be reignited only a few years later (Marr,
2007).
Thatcher’s eleven years
at the helm of the Conservative Party changed the UK’s economy beyond
recognition; the rate of Gross Domestic Productivity (GDP) growing 23%.
However, this increase did not come without consequence. The switch from a manufacturing to services
economy greatly affected the British population, some for better, but many for
worse. The Government’s desire to slash taxation and public spending, as well
as regain control of inflation, teamed with the switch in economic focus led to
record levels of unemployment, peaking at around 13% in 1986 (Trading
Economics, 2013). Alongside privatisation of major British industries, this
left over three million people out of work. During the same year, the British
Stock Exchange was reopened for trading with around 300,000 people working in
City jobs (Marr, 2007). The booming financial industry did much to tackle
Britain’s deficit, but little to endear the Conservative government to those
whom previously lived and worked in the industrial heartland. The seemingly growing divide between rich and
poor continued throughout the 1980s as the ‘Yuppy’ image popularised by
comedian Harry Enfield became a source of either admiration or hatred,
dependant on socio-economic allegiances.
William Green describes the legacy of Thatcher from a popular, Northern,
working-class, point of view when he says she left in her wake “communities
devastated, mass unemployment, huge social unrest and a generation condemned to
poverty” (Green, 2009).
Thatcher’s hard line
image was immediate, only a year after being elected and coming under
increasing pressure from both political and media opposition; she addressed the
Conservative Party Conference in Brighton and uttered the words:
“To those waiting with bated breath
for that favourite media catchphrase, the 'U-turn', I have only one thing to
say: You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning."
(Thatcher, 2007).
The phrase would go on
to encapsulate the spirit of Thatcherism and become her most famous soundbite
as she battled against domestic and international unrest.
Domestically, huge rises
in unemployment, the introduction of ‘Sus laws’- the ability to stop and search
on the basis of “reasonable suspicion”, and a feeling of increasing racial
division, led to the Race Riots of 1981. The eruption of violence across
England spread through areas of London, Birmingham, Leeds, and Liverpool, and
were the first example of great social unrest during Thatcher’s reign. 1981 also saw the death of ten IRA hunger
strikers in the Maze Prison, Northern Ireland, as Thatcher refused to concede
ground on the debate over their political status. Her conviction to remain
unturned steadfast. The next great
domestic fight would allow the Prime Minister to tackle one of her greatest
enemies head on, the Trade Unions. In
March 1984 the National Coal Board (NCB) proposed to close 20 of the 174 state
ran mines, a proposal that would leave 20,000 miners out of work (BBC, 2013). The
resulting strike, led by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) President
Arthur Scargill, peaked with nearly 200,000 workmen downing their tools (Marr, 2007). The conflict roared for a year, with
violence flaring between striking miners and those who crossed the picket line,
as well as with the swollen ranks of police officers shipped in from across the
country. Twelve months after the NCB’s
announcement, and with the striking miners struggling to survive, the NUM
conceded. Twenty five mines closed in 1985. The strike’s impact on the British
economy had been enormous with a predicted loss of around £3 billion; however,
once again Thatcher had saved face, the working classes defeated. Phil Wilson
MP summarises the impact on mining communities when he says:
“She [Thatcher] left a lot of broken
communities and that was the primary thing, but it was also the way she treated
people who were unemployed…. there was nothing done to help them” (Green, 2009).
The final domestic
uprisings initiated by Thatcher were the Poll Tax riots of 1990, the largest of
which occurred in London on 31 March. The
introduction of the ‘Community Tax’, otherwise known as ‘Poll Tax’, switched
from a system of taxation related to the market value of a property, to one
linked with the number of inhabitants. The change sparked an angry response
from those on middle to low incomes and resulted in the violent scenes in and
around Trafalgar Square (Kavanagh, 1987).
Internationally,
Thatcher was held in a similar regard as to on her own shores. Her attitude towards the European Economic
Community, which Edward Heath’s Conservative government took the United Kingdom
into in 1973, was one of scepticism. In a 1988 speech in Bruges, she said:
“We have not successfully rolled back
the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them reimposed at a European
level, with a European superstate exercising a new dominance from Brussels.” (BBC News, 2000)
Her attitude towards the
Soviet Union and communism was similarly outspoken, having earned the nickname
‘The Iron Lady’ in 1976 before she was even Prime Minister. Thatcher’s relationship with President Reagan
remained ‘special’ throughout the remaining years of the Cold War, and she
welcomed the reformist policies of Mikhail Gorbachev. However, her foreign
policy was set long before the collapse of the Soviet Union, outlined by a
conflict on a number of remote islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. The Falklands War was fought out over 74 days
between April and June 1982 and was a resounding military and PR success for
Thatcher (Jackson & Saunders, 2012). The Great British public may not have
liked Thatcher an awful lot, but along with the international community, they
certainly respected her.
Thatcher’s image as a
hard liner would supersede her own reputation and following her resignation in
November 1990, would add to the issues surrounding the Conservative Party
leading towards their landslide election defeat in 1997. It was in many regards
her own bullishness which led to her downfall in government; the same
bullishness much of the public refuse to forget.
John Major followed
Thatcher in to Downing Street and set about the abolition of the unpopular Poll
Tax and putting Britain “at the very heart of Europe”. Moving the party in a different
direction to his predecessor briefly worked for the new Prime Minister as his
handling of the recession, as well as the Persian Gulf War, placed the
Conservative Party back on top of the opinion polls for the first time in over
a year (Major, 1999). However, the
scandals which dominated the remaining years of Major’s premiership have
clouded his legacy, beginning in September 1992. After battling to keep the
Great British Pound above the agreed lower limit of the European Exchange Rate
Mechanism, Major’s Treasury were forced to withdraw it; accumulating total
losses of £3.5 billion (Major, 1999). However,
arguably more damaging to the Conservative Party’s reputation were the internal
scandals between 1990 and 1997. Europescepticism within the cabinet led to
vehement infighting with leading figures opposing Major’s pro-European stance,
whilst others were involved in the ‘Cash for Questions’ scandal. A newspaper
sting involving a number of MP’s, including Neil Hammond, who accepted money
from businesses to pose questions in the House of Commons. Finally, and perhaps
most embarrassingly, after revealing the ‘Back to Basics’ campaign at the 1993
Party Conference, a drive which sought to return Britain to the family values
of a bygone era, a host of Tory MP’s and associates were exposed to having been
involved in a number of sexual scandals; ranging from homosexual acts, death by
auto-erotic asphyxiation, with one MP even involved in an extra-marital affair
with a mother and her two daughters (Marr, 2007).
The election defeat
which followed Major’s time in Downing Street led to thirteen years in the wilderness
for the Conservative Party, during which time they appointed four different
leaders. William Hague was the first tasked with updating the Party’s image,
albeit from a Eurosceptic point of a view. He drew upon the ‘Compassionate
Conservatism’ being utilised by George W. Bush as the Governor of Texas and
created the ‘Listening to Britain’ campaign, attempting to re-introduce the
party of Thatcher and Major. The party which had turned away from the ‘One
Nation’ conservatism of Disraeli and embarked on a neo-liberal ideology, laced
with scandal. His attempts resulted in impressive results in the European
Parliament Election, but little else. An appearance at a theme park sporting a
‘HAGUE’ baseball cap and revealing that as a teenager he would drink “14 pints
an evening” did little to combat the ‘Cool Britannia’ image which had won New
Labour the election (BBC News, 1999). The election results of 2001, in which
they gained only one more seat than 1997, confirmed Hague’s inability to
modernise the party and led to his resignation.
Hague was briefly
followed by Iain Duncan Smith between 2001 and 2003; the ‘Quiet Man’ of the
Party defeated pro-European Kenneth Clarke in the battle for the
leadership. Duncan Smith’s reign
continued the Euroscepticism of Hague, but saw a return to the scandal of
Major. In 2002 it was revealed that the Conservative Party leader had doctored
his CV in earlier life and a year later it was found that he had abused the MP’s
expenses system (BBC News, 2002). A vote
of no confidence followed. His successor was Michael Howard, elected to the
role unopposed; he too lasted only two years in the job. Crime, immigration,
and gay marriage, were all major policy issues during his time in opposition,
as well as the war in Iraq. However the Conservative agenda failed to remove
the government in the 2005 election, although their performance was much
improved. Howard’s inability to take advantage of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s
mistakes over the invasion of Iraq resulted in a third successive Labour
victory.
The first four men to
walk in the shoes of Thatcher undoubtedly did so in her shadow. A legacy of
social conservatism proved hard to shake for each of them, with the Party
seemingly out of touch with major issues such as immigration, crime, and gay
marriage. In 2005 Michael Ashcroft found that most voters thought the
Conservative Party “wasn’t like them and didn’t understand them” (2005). The lasting impact of a number of scandals,
including Black Wednesday, Cash for Questions, and the Back to Basics campaign,
also continued to affect the Party’s image up to 2005. Despite an economic
policy similar to the incumbent government, and a largely Eurosceptic agenda-
popular with the electorate; the general opinion of the Conservative Party
remained one of distrust and dislike.
The Conservatives were in
desperate need of rebranding, and so in December 2005 elected 39-year-old, former
PR man, David Cameron. The MP for Witney defeated David Davis with almost two
thirds of the postal ballot, issuing him with a mandate to modernise the Party.
The impact was immediate with
comparisons drawn between himself and a young Tony Blair, leading to the
headline ‘Heir to Blair’. The ‘spin’ which had long been associated with New
Labour men such as Alastair Campbell and Phillip Gould was now to be seen
within the opposition as costume changes and informal interviews became the
norm. A change of the official party logo, switching from torch to tree, also
exemplified the new Tory consensus; the flame of Conservative continuity
extinguished by a “more environmentally friendly” image (BBC News, 2006). Few
policies were attributed to the early life of Cameron as Conservative leader;
however a change in the Party image was distinct. Though increasingly popular
with the public, the Party’s strategy was not appreciated by all Conservatives.
Former Chairman of the Party Norman Tebbit suggested Cameron was “intent on
purging even the memory of Thatcherism before building a New Modern Compassionate
Green Globally Aware Party" (Tebbit, 2006). The increasingly socio-liberal
rhetoric of Cameron was seen by many as the Party’s final shift to the centre
ground, a return to ‘One-Nation Conservatism’ exemplified by such policies as the
“A-List” of parliamentary candidates. Drawn up following his appointment, the
list aimed to revolutionise the identity of the Party by prioritising female
and ethnic minority candidates. The Party Chairman in 2006, Francis Maude,
exemplified the new spirit of his contemporaries as opposed to predecessor Tebbit
when he said:
“Far too many Conservative MPs are
like me: white, middle-class, English, based in the south-east - identikit
Tories… And it doesn't look like modern Britain, where 52% of the electorate
are women and 8% are ethnic minorities. If we don't look like we are capable of
representing that 52% of the electorate who are women, we won't secure their
support." (Woodward & Branigan, 2006)
The new-look, socially-responsible
Conservative’s also eased their tone on issues such as immigration and gay
adoption, whilst maintaining a sceptical stance on Europe. However a speech
given by Cameron to the Centre for Social Justice in July 2006, in which he
urged people “to think before labelling teenagers in hooded tops ‘gangsters’”,
led to the newspaper headline “Hug a Hoodie” (BBC News, 2007). The term was used against Cameron by
both New Labour and the Liberal Democrats in an attempt to show the
Conservative Party as remaining out of touch- however the impact was minimal.
After nearly five years
in opposition, and with the New Labour government self-imploding, Cameron was
given his first opportunity to fight a general election as leader of the
Conservative Party in May 2010. Live televised debates, contested by Prime
Minister Gordon Brown, leader of the Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg, and Cameron,
gave the former Granada TV executive the chance to present himself as the
viable alternative to the boom and bust of recent years. Of the three debates, Cameron placed second
on domestic affairs, joint winner on international affairs, and importantly,
outright winner on the economy (Wintour, 2012).
The election resulted in
the first hung parliament since 1974. Cameron had succeeded in gaining more
seats than the incumbent Labour party, but failed to earn a majority large
enough to form a government. The
coalition which followed pitted the Conservative’s as the senior partner
alongside the Liberal Democrats, and made Cameron the youngest Prime Minister
since Lord Liverpool in 1812 (Hough, 2010). The image of the Conservative Party
destined to change once again.
As the leading party
within the coalition, the Conservatives have since been seen by many to have
returned to a Thatcherite agenda. The austerity measures implemented since
2010, including large increases in university tuition fees, part-privatisation
of the NHS, and the capping of state benefits, each exemplify the desire of
Cameron’s party to roll back the state, as was the case post 1979. However,
although the economic policy may have, and continue to be, Thatcher like, the makeup
and social outlook of the party is dramatically different with nine ethnic minority
MPs. Nonetheless, the economic cuts, reminiscent of Thatcher’s time in
government are once again seen as the Conservative Party “attacking the poor” (Lawson,
2012). An opinion not only made by the left-wing media, but by Conservative MP
Nadine Dorries who criticised the Prime Minister and Chancellor George Osborne
when she said:
“…not only are Cameron and Osborne two
posh boys who don't know the price of milk, but they are two arrogant posh boys
who show no remorse, no contrition, and no passion to want to understand the
lives of others.” (BBC News, 2012)
Such opinions were
expressed at large when George Osborne was booed by a crowd of 80,000 at the
Paralympic games in London during the summer of 2012 (The Telegraph, 2012).
Sleaze has also once
again returned to damage the Conservatives since 2010. The phone-hacking
scandal, leading to the resignation and arrest of Director of Communications Andy
Coulson, damaged the Prime Minister’s image dramatically, an inquest into the
extent of his relationship with Rebecca Brooks, the former News of the World
editor, further extenuating the impact. Accusations of Party collusion in
sexual assault during the 1970s and 80s, as well as the Andrew Mitchell
‘Plebgate’ affair, proved reminiscent of a Conservative Party many had hoped
would not return. However, the appointment of Lynton Crosby to mastermind the
next Conservative election campaign signifies that Cameron realises the Party
needs to change it’s image once again. The Australian behind Boris Johnson’s
two London Mayor election victories has already impacted the Prime Minister’s
response to pressure on a European referendum, the Scottish referendum, as well
as his handling of revelations regarding the Hillsborough inquiry. His response
to which drew many plaudits (Muir, 2012).
There is no doubt that
the image of the Conservative Party has changed since 1979, never more
dramatically than between 2005 and 2010, when David Cameron drastically modernised
the Party. The impact of which returned them to power for the first time in
thirteen years. However, the role of Cameron has changed since forming the
coalition. Whereas prior to the election, Cameron was seen to be the man
dragging the Party towards the centre ground, that role is now fulfilled by the
Liberal Democrats, leaving Cameron and the Conservatives to push through the
hard line policy, reminiscent of Thatcher.
When concluding whether
the Conservative Party have an image problem, we must consider the larger
picture. The Party’s approval rating dramatically fell in the 1990s as Major’s
government began to tear itself apart. This was only remedied by the
re-branding and modernisation of Cameron post 2005, work which ultimately won
him a premiership. However, the image which was built in the years between his
election as Party leader and Prime Minister, is dramatically different to the
image the Conservative Party currently has; an image which currently has Labour
13% ahead in the polls (UK Polling Report, 2013). The Conservative Party has
undoubtedly had image problems before, they have one now. However, they also
have the man responsible for the Party’s rebranding only a few years ago, a
change which won them an election. Who’s to say he can’t do it again?
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