Britain in crisis, 1970-1979

Britain in crisis (1970-1979)

Looking back on the 1970s today the overwhelming image is one of a country in crisis and seemingly irreversible decline. Following on from the swinging sixties and the emergence of the permissive society, the seventies were marked instead by a disastrous series of strikes culminating with the « Winter of Discontent » in 1978-1979, failed attempts to control either inflation or unemployment, both of which reached levels not seen for more than a generation, of power cuts and a « three- day week », and a rate of economic growth that still left the country lagging behind its major international rivals.

These years also brought to an end the period of (relative) consensus in the country that regarded state intervention in the economy, to keep unemployment within bounds, and in society via the welfare state, to ensure a degree of social justice, as necessary parts of any government's policy. The gradual collapse of this consensus, within and between the leading political parties, and in society as a whole, paved the way for a radically new vision for the country that was to come to the fore in the 1980s under the guidance of Margaret Thatcher and the New Right.