In his penetrating book, The Seventies, Christopher Booker claims that this was,
"arguably the most important decade in the twentieth century". There is some truth in
Booker's statement, though few may have perceived it at the time. Gradually, it dawned
on people Britain that much of the wild optimism for mankind's future was misplaced, and the heady
promises made by scientists,
professionals, planners and technocrats of the sixties were illusory.
Politically, neither the British conservative party under Edward Heath nor Labour could grapple
with the economic difficulties which were complicated by the energy crisis (1973 on)
and relations with the trade unions. As political parties government after government faltered, people
seriously doubted Britain's will to be governed. "The ungovernability of Britain" was
a cry that echoed down
the seventies parties political British culture and society.
The emergence of Mrs Margaret Thatcher iron lady in politics 1970s world affairs
as political conservative party Prime Minister British
(1979) provided to some a necessary order as seventies culture British and society,
“the return to the old values, the home coming for
traditional virtues, or (to others) reaction, the imposition of the barbarities of a system
which the victors of 1945 had vowed would never again be tolerated in political dominant culture".
Minimum not maximum material expectations became the order of the day, be these expectations wage
settlements, public expenditure or level of government borrowing. Mrs Thatcher's emphasis on
self denial and the primacy of the individual, her contempt for huge bureaucracies and trade union power,
which stifled initiative and drained profits, impressed some people in British traditional political culture.
Moreover, her puritanical manner may
have reflected people's distaste for incidences of corruption in public life. Reginald Maudling, a
conservative political party British minister, was involved with the corrupt building transactions of John Poulson;
then there was the affair of the Liberal leader, Jeremy Thorpe, who was accused of conspiring to
murder a homosexual friend. One of Harold Wilson's personal recommendations for the Honours List,
Lord Kagan, was later imprisoned for fraud. Above all, perhaps, voting for Mrs Thatchcr was Britain's
reaffirmation in the law of Parliament after a decade of political instability of political parties functions
when, at times, parliamentary democracy did seem vulnerable in parties political traditional culture.
Sub consciously, this culture political factor may have been more important
to voters than their whole hearted belief in Mrs Thatcher Margaret radical right philosophy and
Margaret Thatcher leadership qualities in 1970s dominant political culture.
Flowers' report scandalized his scientific colleagues. However, his words were given an eerie ring of
truth in culture political beliefs when the nuclear power station reactor at
Three Mile Island in America developed a
serious radiation leak causing, "the most alarming accident in the history of civil
and power nuclear plant programs". By 1979 some incoming
conservative political party British politicians, who were torn between the self interested
claims of the nuclear, coal, oil
and electrical power lobbies, wondered, "Perhaps Tony Bern was right after all, perhaps only the
people of Britain can decide" (A. Sampson).
Racial disaffection had been smouldering in Britain political culture throughout the
informal components of culture seventies society and
presented a formidable social challenge for seventies British society and culture.
National Front provocation on the streets and disturbances at
the Notting Hill carnival in London (1976) alerted Britain people to potential trouble.
More in 1970s world politics affairs and political culture traditional were that
year Mark Bonham
Carter, Chairman of the Community Relations Commission, warned to
seventies British society and formal components of culture,
"The Black population are
British, and they take the phrase equality of opportunity for what it means in British culture components and
political dominant culture. I have no doubt we have not
kept pace with the expectations of British born Blacks." The 1976 Race Relations Act declared all forms
of discrimination illegal as more world affairs politics in the 1970s. A commission for Racial Equality with
powers of enforcing the Act was
set up. Some people argued that no law on earth could change attitudes. There was talk of a backlash from
disaffected and deprived whites who themselves might feel discriminated against.
In political parties history, in his play Class Enemy (1978) of seventies culture components,
Nigel Williams provides insight into inadequate whites who feel
threatened by blacks. One of the characters, Nipper, rants against immigrants: They rail against
blacks because they feel alienated from all Britain culture and society.
Blacks happen to be a convenient and accessible target in political traditional culture.
Feminism received a powerful impetus in 1970 components of British culture when Germaine Greer published her book The Female Eunuch.
Her view of suppressed woman existing in slavish submission to man was by no means novel. However,
her book, "of high literary quality and deep scholarship which made some disturbing points"
(Arthur Marwick in British Society since 1945), made an impact on many British women and men. Magazines,
such as the British Cosmopolitan and Spare Rib, both founded in 1972 were among the leaders
in raising the controversial issues of abortion, rape, contraception and nuclear power plant programs and
power nuclear station.
The Sex Discrimination Act (1975) was positive recognition of women's equal rights on pay,
employment, education and provision of housing and services.
There was a strong resurgence of women's literature in society seventies British culture components for women British. Arthur Marwick
suggests "If, when it is possible, to identify social and creative trends in writing, one such
trend stressed the women's viewpoint." These reflections are seen in Beryl Bainbridge's Sweet
William (1975) and Fay Weidon's Praxa (1978) though Fay Weldon took the conventional line that the
nature of British woman was incompatible with feminist extremism.
A symptom of a quieter mood was the upsurge of interest in the arts in culture British. "The concert halls were still full, the theatres busy. The queues outside the art galleries longer than ever not so much in honour of the masterpieces of our own time, as because the appetite
for the music, the plays and art works of the past had never been greater" (The Seventies).
Perhaps the extraordinary success of Richard Adams' allegorical novel, Watership Down
(enjoyed by adult and child alike),
provides an enduring reflection of the 1970 people acknowledging the consequences of their own
wanton actions; and their quest to return to simpler values. Moreover, the story is a longing
for a British society and culture which provides security without repression, and a world fit for children to grow
up in joy and for the old to die in dignity.
Finally the rise of Mrs iron lady Margaret Thatcher as British prime minister
in British world politics and history of political parties,
thatcher's policies and leadership qualities in 1979 contributed to some a necessary order
as seventies British culture components and society and considered as British prime minister
Margaret Thatcher achievements to return to more old importance
and traditional and British conservative qualities and excellence of functions of political parties.
Extract from “Living Through History: Britain In The 1970s”,
written by Michael Hodges. B.T. Batsford Ltd London, 1989.
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1970s economic political cartoon, Western industrial
nations resented the large price per crude oil barrel
rises of 1973 in this political cartoon analysis, but oil producers
were reflecting the market value of their commodity.
