Автор: Пользователь скрыл имя, 11 Февраля 2012 в 11:37, курс лекций
However complicated the modern industrial state may be, land and climate affect life in every country. They affect social and economic life, population and even politics. Britain is no exception. It has a milder climate than much of the European mainland because it lies in the way of the Gulf Stream, which brings warm water and winds from the Gulf of Mexico.
Later, Asian immigrants started to arrive from India and Pakistan and from East Africa. Most immigrants lived together in poor areas of large cities. Leicester's population became 16 per cent immigrant, Wolverhampton and Bradford about 8 per cent each. By 1985 there were about five million recent immigrants and their children out of a total population of about fifty-six million. By 1985, too, almost half this black population had been born in Britain. Even so, there were still white people who, in the words of one newspaper, "go on pretending ... that one day the blacks can somehow be sent 'home', as though home for most of them was anywhere else but Britain."
As unemployment grew, the new immigrants were sometimes wrongly blamed. In fact, it was often the immigrants who were willing to do dirty or unpopular work, in factories, hospitals and other workplaces. The relationship between black immigrants and the white population of Britain was not easy. Black people found it harder to obtain employment, and were often only able to live in the worst housing. The government passed laws to prevent unequal treatment of black people, but also to control the number of immigrants coming to Britain.
The old nineteenth-century city centres in which black immigrants had settled were areas with serious physical and economic problems. In the 1980s bad housing and unemployment led to riots in Liverpool, Bristol and London, worse than any seen in Britain since the nineteenth century. Black people were blamed for causing these riots, but they were in fact mainly the result of serious and longstanding economic difficulties, which affected the black population living in the old city centres more than the white.
There were other signs that British society was going through a difficult period. The Saturday afternoon football match, the favourite entertainment of many British families, gradually became the scene of frightening and often meaningless violence. British football crowds became feared around the world. In 1984 an English crowd was mainly responsible for a disaster at a match in Brussels in which almost forty people were killed. People were shocked and ashamed, but still did not understand the reason for the violence. The permissive society and unemployment were blamed, but the strange fact was that those who started the violence were often well-off members of society with good jobs.
Women, too, had reasons for discontent. They spoke out increasingly against sexism, in advertising, in employment and in journalism. They protested about violence against women and demanded more severe punishment for sexual crimes. They also tried to win the same pay and work opportunities as men. This new movement resulted from the growth in the number of working women. Between 1965 and 1985 the number of wives with jobs increased from 37 per cent to 58 per cent. In 1975 it became unlawful to treat women differently from men in matters of employment and pay. But this law was not fully enforced, and it continued to be harder for women to take a full part in national life.
Unemployment increased rapidly at the end of the 1970s, reaching 3.5 million by 1985. In many towns, 15 per cent or more of the working population was out of work. Unemployment was highest in the industrial north of England, and in Belfast, Clydeside and southeast Wales, as it had been in the 1930s depression. Things became worse as steel mills and coal mines were closed. In 1984 the miners refused to accept the closing of mines, and went on strike. After a year of violence during which miners fought with the police the strike failed.
The defeat of the miners showed how much power and confidence the trade unions had lost. This was partly because they faced a government determined to reduce the power of the unions. But it was also because they seemed unable to change themselves to meet changed circumstances, and they seemed afraid of losing their power.
Inflation had made the situation more difficult. Between 1754 and 1954, prices had multiplied by six. Then, they multiplied by six again in the space of only thirty years, between 1954 and 1984. In such circumstances it proved almost impossible to make sure that all workers felt that they were fairly paid.
Industrial problems also increased the differences between the "comfortable" south and the poorer north. It is easy to forget that this division already existed before the industrial revolution, when the north was poorer and had a smaller population. The large cities and towns built during the industrial revolution have had great difficulty in creating new industries to replace the old.
The new politics
Few of the problems of the 1980s were entirely new. However, many people blamed them on the new Conservative government, and in particular, Britain's first woman Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher had been elected in 1979 because she promised a new beginning for Britain.' The need for such a break with the past had been widely recognised for some years. As a result the old Conservative-Labour agreement on the guiding principles of the welfare state had already broken down. In the Conservative Party there had been a strong movement to the right, and in the Labour Party there had been a similarly strong move to the left. Both moved further away from the "centre" of British politics than they had done in living memory.
This basic change in British politics caused a major crisis for the Labour Party. Labour was no stranger to internal conflict, nor to these conflicts being damagingly conducted in public. In the 1930s the party had turned against its own first Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, when he formed a national government with the Conservatives to handle the financial crisis of 1931. Four years later it had again been split between its traditional antiwar members and those who recognised the Nazi danger. In 1959 Labour had again publicly disagreed about two issues, nationalisation and nuclear weapons, which a large section of the party wished to give up, whether other nuclear armed nations did so or not. This time, however, the disagreements between the party's left and right were far more damaging. The 1979 election result was the worst defeat since 1931. Worse, however, was to follow, and as the bitter conflict continued, many people ceased to believe in the party's ability to govern itself, let alone the country.
Labour suffered a further blow when four senior right-wing members left the party to form their own "Social Democratic Party" in 1981, in alliance with the small but surviving Liberal Party. For some years the Liberal Party had been calling for a change in the electoral system. It had good reason to do so. In 1974 the Liberals had received 20 per cent of the national vote but only 2 per cent of the seats in Parliament. By March 1982 the new "Alliance" was gaining ground both from the Conservative and Labour parties.
Margaret Thatcher had come to power calling on the nation for hard work, patriotism and self-help. She was not, however, a typical Conservative. As one of her ministers said, "I am a nineteenth-century Liberal, and so is Mrs Thatcher. That's what this government is about." There was much truth in the remark, for she wanted free trade at home and abroad, individual enterprise and less government economic protection or interference. However, she was more of a Palmerston than a Gladstone. She wanted more "law and order" but was a good deal less willing to undertake the social reform for which later nineteenth-century Liberals were noted.
Not everyone in the Conservative Party was happy about the change in policy. The discontented members became known as "wets", one of whom argued that "people . . . must at least feel loyalty to the state. This loyalty will not be deep unless they gain from the state protection and other benefits", and he warned against the state's "failure to create a sense of community". Thatcher, however, ignored these views, saying that she "could not waste time having any internal arguments."
By the beginning of 1982 the Conservative government had become deeply unpopular in the country. However, by her firm leadership during the Falklands War Thatcher captured the imagination of the nation, and was confidently able to call an election in 1983.
As expected, Thatcher was returned to power with a clear majority of 144 seats in the 650-seat Parliament. It was the greatest Conservative victory for forty years. In part Thatcher's victory was a result of the "Falklands factor". Far more, however, it was the result of a split opposition vote, between Labour and the Alliance, and the continued weakness of the Labour Party, which suffered its worst result since the early 1920s. Once again the Alliance had the disappointment of gaining 26 per cent of the national vote, but only 3.5 per cent of the seats in Parliament. A clear majority had voted against the return of a Conservative government, showing dissatisfaction with Thatcher's policies. It was not difficult to see why this was so.
Thatcher had promised to stop Britain's decline, but by 1983 she had not succeeded. Industrial production since 1979 had fallen by 10 per cent, and manufacturing production by 17 per cent. By 1983, for the first time since the industrial revolution, Britain had become a net importer of manufactured goods. There was a clear economic shift towards service industries. Unemployment had risen from 1.25 million in 1979 to over 3 million.
However, Thatcher could claim she had begun to return nationalised industries to the private sector, that she had gone even further than she had promised. By 1987 telecommunications, gas, British Airways, British Aerospace and British Shipbuilders had all been put into private ownership. She could also claim that she had broken the power of the trade unions, something else she had promised to do. In fact, the trade unions had been damaged more by growing unemployment than by government legislation. She could be less confident about increased law and order. In spite of increasing the size of the police force, there was a falling rate of crime prevention and detection. In addition, the rough behaviour of the police in dealing with industrial disputes and city riots had seriously damaged their reputation.
The most serious accusation against the Thatcher government by the middle of the 1980s was that it had created a more unequal society, a society of "two nations", one wealthy, and the other poor. According to these critics, the divide cut across the nation in a number of ways. The number of very poor, who received only a very small amount of government help, increased from twelve million in 1979 to over sixteen million by 1983. In the meantime, reductions in income tax favoured the higher income earners.
The division was also geographical, between prosperous suburban areas, and neglected inner city areas of decay. Although the government sold many state-owned houses and flats to the people who lived in them, it also halved the number of new houses it built between 1981 and 1985, a period in which the number of homeless people increased.
More importantly, people saw a divide between the north and south of the country. Ninety-four per cent of the jobs lost since 1979 had been north of a line running from the Wash, on the east coast, to the Bristol channel in the west. People were aware of growing unemployment in the "depressed" areas, and fewer hopes of finding a job. Indeed, by 1986 41 per cent of those unemployed had been out of work for over a year, compared with only 25 per cent in 1979. As a result, it was not surprising that Labour continued to be the stronger party in the north, and in other depressed areas. In the more heavily populated south, the Alliance replaced Labour as the main opposition party.
The black community also felt separated from richer Britain. Most blacks lived in the poor inner city areas, not the richer suburbs, and unemployment among blacks by 1986 was twice as high as among the white population.
In spite of these problems, Thatcher's Conservative Party was still more popular than any other single party in 1987. In the national elections that year, the Conservative Party was returned to power with a majority of 102 seats. This was partly because since 1979 personalities had become politically more important. Thatcher was seen as more determined and more convincing than the Labour or Alliance leaders. It was also because the opposition to Conservative policy remained split between Labour and the Alliance, and it appeared permanently so.
There were other reasons why the Conservative Party, with only 43 per cent of the national vote, won so convincingly. Its emphasis on personal wealth and property ownership had begun to change the way many traditional Labour supporters voted. It may be that many lower income people living in the Midlands and south shifted their loyalties to the right. On the other hand, in Scotland the Conservatives lost half their seats, mainly to Labour or the Scottish National Party, an indication of the increased sense of division between richer and poorer Britain, and an indication that Scottish radicalism was as strong as ever.
Thatcher's victory caused concern for both opposition parties. Labour had done better than many had expected. However, it still had to face the fact that Thatcher's policies were creating a society which seemed decreasingly interested in Labour philosophy, and it had to decide how it could make this philosophy more attractive without giving up its principles. The Alliance also faced serious problems. It had done worse than expected, calling into question its claim to replace the two-party system with a three-party one. It now seemed that it would take two or three national elections before this question, and the connected question of proportional representation, would be decided.
The 1987 election brought some comfort, however, to two underrepresented groups. In 1983 only nineteen (3 per cent) of the 650 members of Parliament had been women, almost the lowest proportion in western Europe. In 1987 this figure more than doubled to forty-one women MPs (6.5 per cent), a figure which suggested that the political parties realised that without more women representatives they might lose votes. Blacks and Asians, too, gained four seats, the largest number they had ever had in Parliament, although like women they remained seriously underrepresented.
Britain: past, present and future
By the late 1980s most British people felt that the future was full of uncertainty. These doubts resulted from disappointment with lost economic and political power. Many people looked back to the "Swinging Sixties" as the best ten years Britain had had this century.
However, people were divided concerning the nation's future possibilities. Some, those who had voted for Thatcher, were optimistic. They believed that material wealth was vital for national renewal, and that economic success was about to happen.
Others were unhappy with the direction the nation was taking. They believed that the emphasis on material wealth encouraged selfishness, and a retreat from an ideal of community to a desire for personal gain. They were worried by the weakening of the welfare state, particularly in the educational and health services.
The government said much about maintaining "traditional values", particularly law and order. Respect for the law, it argued, was rooted in British tradition. It also spoke of a return to Victorian values. On the other hand, its opponents argued that the tradition of broad popular agreement on the management of the nation's affairs was in grave danger. Neither side was wholly right in its claim. For example, the Conservative argument forgot that in the past, the law had been frequently broken not only by criminals but also by those for whom it was oppressive, like the Tolpuddle Martyrs. It forgot, too, that the Victorians had valued not only enterprise and hard work but had also cared about social reform to assist the weaker members of society. In the same way, when Labour accused the Conservatives of putting broad national agreement in danger, it forgot that its own party origins lay with the radicals who stood against accepted national political practice. But such awkward facts were easily placed on one side, and the political parties appealed to "history", as this fitted their view of modern Britain and the glorious future they offered if the people supported them.
There was nothing new in this. People have always looked at history in the way that suited their system of beliefs. In 1988 Britain celebrated two major anniversaries, the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, and the Glorious Revolution in 1688. One was about Britain's successful military and foreign policy, the other about its successful constitutional development. The popular view is that both were truly glorious events. However, the truth is less simple. The Spanish Armada was defeated more by the weather than by the English navy, the Spanish navy became stronger rather than weaker after 1588, and the war with Spain seriously damaged the economy of England. Nevertheless, the defeat of the Armada has remained a symbol of Britain's seafaring success. It was given particular importance in the late nineteenth century, when British worldwide command of the seas was at its height. By 1988 it was harder to think in the same way, because British foreign policy had shrunk in recent years, with a decline in its interests beyond Europe and the United States.
There was also something slightly uncomfortable about celebration of the Glorious Revolution. The Glorious Revolution was about the sovereignty of Parliament in the nation's affairs. But not everyone was happy with parliamentary life by 1988. Was its constituency system truly democratic? Was Parliament itself too powerful? There was another reason for discomfort. The Glorious Revolution had been a disaster for Ireland. In 1988 there was a reminder of this side of Britain's history in the conflict in Northern Ireland, where even the Protestant "Loyalists" were unhappy with rule by the Westminster Parliament. In Scotland, Wales, and parts of England, too, there were people who disliked the centralised power of Westminster, which had increased in the Thatcher years.
Britain has more living symbols of its past than many countries. It still has a royal family and a small nobility. Its capital, cities and countryside boast many ancient buildings, castles, cathedrals, and the "stately homes" of the nobility. Every year there are historical ceremonies, for example the State Opening of Parliament, the Lord Mayor's Show, or the meeting of the Knights of the Garter at Windsor each St George's Day. It is easy to think these symbols are a true representation of the past. Britain's real history, however, is about the whole people of Britain, and what has shaped them as a society. This means, for example, that the recent story of black and Asian immigration to Britain is as much a part of Britain's "heritage" as its stately homes. Indeed more so, since the immigrant community's contribution to national life lies mainly in the future.
When looking at Britain today, it is important to remember the great benefits from the past. No other country has so long a history of political order, going back almost without interruption to the Norman Conquest. Few other countries have enjoyed such long periods of economic and social wellbeing.
It is also important, however, to remember the less successful aspects of the past. For example, why did the political views of the seventeenth-century Levellers or nineteenth-century Chartists, which today seem so reasonable, take so long to be accepted? Why did the women's struggle to play a fuller part in national life occur so late, and why was it then so difficult and painful? Why is there still a feeling of division between the north and south of Britain? Is Britain, which in many ways has been a leader in parliamentary democracy, losing that position of leadership today, and if so, why?
The questions
are almost endless, and the answers are neither obvious nor easy. Yet
it is the continued discussion and reinterpretation of the past which
makes a study of Britain's history of value to its present and its future.
Task 1.
Answer the following questions.
1. Was Great Britain a powerfull state during the begining of XIX century?
2. Describe the Britan’s foreign policy.