This edition tells of the radicals in the political wilderness after World War II who saw the foundation of the Welfare State as the thin end of a totalitarian wedge. At first they were seen as cranks, but gradually they attracted supporters within the political mainstream. It was only when Margaret Thatcher became leader of the Conservative Party that they saw a champion. The re-emergence of classical liberalism began with Antony Fisher, an old Etonian chicken farmer, who made a fortune by introducing battery cage farming into the UK. Fisher had lost his younger brother fighting against Nazi Germany in the Battle of Britain and was determined to use his fortune to combat what he saw as the totalitarian tendencies of the Labour Government's policies like nationalisation, price controls and the welfare state. Influenced by the Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek he established the Institute of Economic Affairs under the directorship of Ralph Harris. Harris and his Research Director Arthur Seldon were both economists from working class backgrounds who had grown to support the free market. After being warned by Fisher that their task could take 20 years, they grew old together beavering away at their small Westminster office churning out a stream of pamphlets designed to influence academics, journalists and politicians to the view that the free market is the most efficient and liberal way to organise social affairs, and that government intervention is often wasteful. They were widely dismissed until 1964 when Edward Heath championed their policy in his abolition of price controls. The Editor of The Times, William Rees-Mogg, sent Peter Jay to the U.S. as economic correspondent where he learned of the Monetarist theories of Milton Friedman. Enoch Powell became the champion of free market economics in British politics, fighting with Heath, a more centrist politician, for control of the party: he was the second biggest loser from Heath's election win, as it prevent
This edition tells the story of a collection of mavericks and outsiders who set out to help Margaret Thatcher kick start a political revolution. The monetarist policies used to defeat inflation caused large-scale unemployment. Riots broke out across Britain, there was growing dissent even inside the government. How would Mrs Thatcher survive her plummeting popularity? Merchant banker John Gouriet, convinced of an imminent Soviet takeover of Britain through the trade union movement, works with T.V. personalities Ross and Norris McWhirter to establish the Freedom Association dedicated to fighting the left. Their early campaign against the Provisional Irish Republican Army linked to the Soviet Union, resulted in the assassination of Ross, which they blamed on the KGB. The resulting publicity boost drew support from important figures including Thatcher the new leader of the opposition. Thatcher, unpopular within her own party, appointed moderates to her cabinet including Shadow Employment Secretary Jim Prior who was charged with trade union policy. The Grunwick dispute became a cause celebre as the Freedom Association saw their opportunity to take on the unions directly. The mail order business was crippled by the Post Office’s refusal to collect the post but the Freedom Association saved the business and broke the strike by smuggling out the films in a midnight raid. Divisions within the shadow cabinet were heightened when Thatcher’s close ally Sir Keith Joseph Bt. established the independent Centre for Policy Studies where John Hoskyns and Norman Strauss produced a strategic plan that called for a revolutionary free market government to tackle the problems caused by the trade unions. Thatcher distributed the plan to senior colleagues and seized the opportunity to push it forward following the crippling union actions of the Winter of Discontent that resulted in the Conservative victory in the 1979 general election. Thatcher placed allies in key economic
This edition describes how Margaret Thatcher and her supporters rode on her popularity after the Falklands War to roll out a series of radical policies that would transform Britain and how this ideological crusade would divide Britain and her own party to end with her booted out by own friends and allies. After winning a massive majority in the 1983 general election Thatcher no longer had to move cautiously. Under the direction of the Treasury the Director of the Number 10 Policy Unit John Redwood MP drew up a revolutionary plan for the privatisation of Britain's state-owned industries. An initially cautious Thatcher was convinced by the loss making industries effects on the national debt. Despite business and public scepticism the 1984 privatisation of British Telecom proved to be an emboldening success and electricity, gas, airline and even council housing (through the Right to buy scheme, whereby council-house residents were given the chance to buy their homes) privatisations followed. Margaret Thatcher hated the influence of trade unions on government; with particular vengeance as whilst Secretary of State for Education and Science in Sir Edward Heath's 1970-74 government the unions had brought down the Heath government of which she was a cabinet minister of, this made her determined to curtail their power for all successive governments. When the government announced a series of pit closures the Leader of the National Union of Mineworkers Arthur Scargill called for a strike initiating a titanic political struggle. Conflicts, exemplified by the Battle of Orgreave, erupted between strikers and police but the miners were finally defeated by Thatcher's will and returned to work. The No Turning Back Group at the IEA pushed for the privatisation of health and education but Thatcher rejected this idea, instead trying to introduce some market-based reforms into these services. The immensely unpopular Community Charge, which replaced the Rates system with a Poll