AHC: Thatcher as a "consensus" politician and Prime Minister

Extremely difficult as the state sector was losing £60 billion a year when she came to power. Remember that Thatcher closed fewer coal mines than either Wilson or Callaghan.
Thatcher saw neoliberalism as a solution certainly, but to a large extent she was making a virtue out of necessity. The privatisation policy might have been less popular and populist and the divestment more reluctant, but a rolling back of the state there still would have to have been. The only alternative to getting rid of the state owned industries would have been savage cuts to health and welfare spending which would have meant electoral suicide for any party.
 
Extremely difficult as the state sector was losing £60 billion a year when she came to power. Remember that Thatcher closed fewer coal mines than either Wilson or Callaghan.
Thatcher saw neoliberalism as a solution certainly, but to a large extent she was making a virtue out of necessity. The privatisation policy might have been less popular and populist and the divestment more reluctant, but a rolling back of the state there still would have to have been. The only alternative to getting rid of the state owned industries would have been savage cuts to health and welfare spending which would have meant electoral suicide for any party.

Thanks for explaining, is there any sources you can provide on Harold Wilson closing the mines?
 
Not sure where exactly I read this but good standard works are Nicholas Crafts, Britain's Relative Economic Performance 1870-1999, Dormois and Dintenfass (eds.), The British Industrial Decline, B.W.E. Alford, British Economic Performance 1945-1975, Roderick Floud and Paul Johnson, The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain or Sidney Pollard, Development of the British Economy 1914-1990.
 

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Thanks for explaining, is there any sources you can provide on Harold Wilson closing the mines?

Just looked it up myself, don't know if it's 100% accurate but there's this:
http://www.healeyhero.co.uk/rescue/individual/Bob_Bradley/PM-Closures.html

"Harold Wilson closed 253 pits as against Margaret Thatcher’s 115, more than twice as many. However because there were fewer pits left it is without doubt that Yorkshire was decimated by Thatcher in the ratio of about 1 Labour closure to 10 Conservative."
 
Thanks. That provides a succinct source and does tally with my reading so is probably more or less accurate. I was obviously slightly inaccurate in my recollection. Should have been Wilson and Callaghan, not Wilson or Callaghan. But the point remains. Arguably, of course that was because there were fewer left to close!
Seriously, however, a British government which attempted to maintain the nationalised industries in state hands would have had to stem their massive losses by retooling, substantial redundancies and much tougher management. Whether or not that could have been sustained or politically possible as the economy moved out of desperate straits is questionable. Under Thatcher yes (arguably and ironically the most successful PM/government at running the nationalised industries) but would Kinnock or Major, Smith, Blair or Brown (or Steel or Owen) have been up to it? Needed a degree of toughness, intellectual self-confidence and willingness to take unpopular decisions that most politicians do not possess.
 
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