Britain's Affluent Years 1955-1976

The Age of
Affluence 1955 to
1976
N C Gardner MA PGCE
29/03/2016 Age of Affluence 1955 to 1976 1

‘You’ve never had it so good’
• After the General Election of 1955, which the
Conservatives won under the leadership of Sir
Anthony Eden, the number of British homes
with television sets nearly doubled.
• Eden’s successor, Harold Macmillan (prime
minister 1957 to 1963) set out to adapt his own
brand of showmanship to the potent new
medium of television.

Harold Macmillan, prime minister 1957 to
1963, presided over rising affluence and
standards of living.

1950s: rising prosperity
• In 1957, Conservative prime minister Harold
Macmillan had stated in a speech: ‘Let’s be
frank about it; most of our people have never
had it so good. Go around the country, go to
the industrial towns, go to the farms, and you
will find a state of prosperity such as we have
never had in my life time – nor indeed ever in
the history of this country.’

An affluent family in the 1950s.

Rising prosperity: a Conservative theme
• Rising prosperity became a theme of Conservative
politics in the 1950s.
• Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, RAB
Butler, had talked of the prospect of the British
standard of living doubling every twenty-five
years.
• Compared with the austerity years of 1940 to 1955,
a major shift in the key arguments of British
politics took place in the late 1950s.

Stable and traditional family life reached its
height in the 1950s.

Unprecedented prosperity
• Unprecedented prosperity derived from the
unparalleled growth rate of Gross Domestic
Product of, on average, more than 2% per
annum.
• The average Briton was to enjoy a growth in
consumption levels that by 2000 was to take
them to heights almost unimaginable in the
1940s.

Peace and Prosperity in 1950s Britain

But the perception was one of decline
• While people on average had ‘never
had it so good’ according to the GDP
and consumption figures, many of
them for much of the time perceived
the economy to be suffering from
‘decline’, a word that came to
dominate discussions of the British
economy.

The weekend retreat: champagne on tap.
Marking the rise of affluence for some lucky
people in modern Britain.

The postwar settlement of full employment
• In the postwar settlement the
determination not to return to the
conditions of the 1930s – economic
depression and mass unemployment
– led to a public policy focus on the
prevention of unemployment as the
key way to secure the welfare and
security of the masses.

Before the internet, newspaper reading was
widespread

1944 White Paper on Employment Policy
• The 1944 White Paper on Employment Policy
advocated ‘high and stable’ levels of
employment and was supported by both the
Labour and Conservative parties and
governments after the war until the 1980s.
• By the early 1950s the spectre of mass
unemployment had disappeared. Growth
seemed to offer an alternative route to
improved welfare.

Sales of fridges boomed in the 1950s and
1960s. Happiness is a full fridge.

The election in the Age of Affluence:
Macmillan triumphs in 1959.
• Macmillan stumped the country with energy in the
1959 General Election. The election was by no
means a foregone conclusion. The Guardian, the
Observer and the Spectator had all come out
against the Tories.
• However, Hugh Gaitskell, Leader of the Labour
Party, started to make rash, panicky, electoral
promises about vast sums of money which would
be earmarked by Labour for pensions and other
social reforms, and which would be raised by
cutting the allowance on business expenses.

Macmillan won decisively in the 1959 election
with a Tory lead over Labour of 107 seats.

Economic growth at the centre of political
debate
• By the early 1960s economic growth was at the
centre of the political stage.
• The Conservatives were devising a whole range of
policies to try to raise the growth rate, from the
National Economic Development Council through
to applying to join the Common Market.
• Labour was attacking the failure of the
Conservatives to achieve growth rates comparable
to those elsewhere in Western Europe.

Hugh Gaitskell, Leader of the Labour Party and
Leader of the Opposition, 1955 to 1963.

Labour’s defeat in 1959 and the affluent
society
• Labour suffered its third successive defeat in
the 1959 General Election (previous defeats had
been in 1951 and 1955).
• Some commentators argued that a large
section of the working class no longer saw
itself as working class, and that this process of
‘embourgoisement’ was loosening the ties
between Labour and its core support.

Smoking was seen as a glamourous pursuit
in the 1950s

1959 election defeat post-mortem
• Increasingly after its third successive election
defeat in 1959, Labour was being seen as an
outdated party representing ‘the poor’ at a time
when many workers, regardless of their politics, no
longer saw themselves as working class.
• Even worse, young people were alienated from
Labour in large numbers.
• However, other surveys contested the view that
Labour was in serious trouble.

Labour won in 1964.
• A 1963-64 study of Luton, a town dominated by
the motor industry, found that, despite
affluence, there was no evidence of any shift in
working-class political loyalties away from the
Labour party.
• On the whole, it seems that the picture of
Labour in decline due to broad sociological
factors was overdone.

The underlying strength of Labour in the
1950s
• Labour had underlying strength in the 1950s;
the party polled very well, and lost elections by
relatively narrow margins.
• The basic cause for Labour’s defeat in 1959 was
that enough voters continued to believe that
the Conservatives were and would remain
successful in government.

George Brown and Harold Wilson, Deputy
Leader and Leader of the Labour Party. Labour
won the 1964 election albeit by a narrow
margin.

The scapegoat for the 1959 defeat:
Clause IV
• The scapegoat for Labour’s defeat in the 1959
election was found in a small passage in the
Labour constitution, drafted in 1918 by Sidney
Webb, ritually ignored by every leader since
1918, a passage whose only function was to
reassure the idealists in the party’s ranks.
• Clause IV called for the public ownership of all
means of production by a Labour government.

Hugh Gaitskell, Labour leader 1955 to
1963, challenged Labour theology,
namely Clause IV, in 1959.

Clause IV retained
• Tony Blair, Labour leader 1994 to 2007, was able
to drop Clause IV of Labour’s constitution in
the 1990s, but in 1959 Britain was a different
country and was run on mixed economy and
progressive taxation lines.
• The Thatcher Revolution had not happened
and hence neo-liberalism was not around in
the 1950s and 1960s. After a fierce debate at
the 1959 party conference, it was decided that
the existing Clause IV would be retained.

The politics of affluence, 1951 to 1964
• After their election victory in 1951, the
Conservatives throughout the 1950s and
early 1960s, sought to sustain the welfare
of the British people by managing
capitalism at home and protecting Britain
from the menace of the Soviet Union.
• The economy grew in the 1950s and
living standards steadily improved.

Cold War Britain, 1946 to 1989: the main
international threat was the Soviet Union

Full employment secured in the 1950s and
early 1960s
• Full employment was secured by the Conservative
governments of 1951 to 1964 and household
incomes increased.
• Harold Macmillan, as housing minister from 1951 to
1954, fulfilled the Conservative election manifesto
promise to build 300,000 houses a year.
• The Conservatives were also conciliatory towards
the Trade Unions during 1951 to 1964.

The Cold War influence on British politics
The Cold War was highly influential in
British politics in the 1950s and 1960s.
The Labour Party was divided between
robust anti-communists and an equally
determined left-wing, which regarded the
Soviet regime as a model of socialism.

Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. The Cold
War with the USSR supplied the
international context for British politics
from 1946 to 1989.

The Labour left and the Cold War
• The left-wing of the Labour Party led by
Nye Bevan, opposed the re-armament of
West Germany in the early 1950s.
• The Labour left-wing also embraced the
idea of unilateral nuclear disarmament
from the late 1950s.

The post-war consensus
• The 1950s and 1960s were the decades of the
post-war consensus and it has been argued
that there was little difference between the
Conservative and Labour parties and
governments of 1951 to 1970 on having:
• The welfare state
• Full employment
• A mixed economy
• Consultations with the Trade Unions

RAB Butler, Conservative
Chancellor of the
Exchequer 1951 – 55;
Home Secretary 1957 –
62; Deputy Prime Minister
1962 – 63; Foreign
Secretary 1963 – 64.
Butler was one of the
leading representatives of
the post-war settlement
and consensus politics. He
was very much a ‘One
Nation Tory’.

The politics of affluence: the post-war
consensus, 1951 to 1970
• Both the Labour and Conservative parties
accepted the ‘mixed economy’, an economy
which was not socialist, but was not neo-liberal
either.
• Instead Labour accepted a measure of private
enterprise and did not advocate socialism; and
in return the Conservatives accepted a measure
of nationalised industries and planning of the
economy.

Harold Wilson, Labour prime minister 1964 – 70;
1974 – 76. Wilson accepted the role of private
enterprise in the economy but also advocated a
measure of national planning. Like the
Conservatives, Wilson wished to modernize
British industry.

The expansion of education, 1944 onwards
• Britain after the 1944 Education Act experienced
the expansion of secondary and higher education
in the 1950s and 1960s.
• RAB Butler in the early 1960s set out the
Conservative policy towards education thus:
• ‘For on the future of education not only the
efficiency of our society but the fulfilment of our
ideals depends. In 1944 I played my part in
opening the doors of secondary education to all.’

The expansion of secondary and higher
education in the 1950s and 1960s
• Butler continued: ‘Now a fresh challenge and
opportunity awaits us. Already seven new
universities are being created, and plans are in
hand to increase substantially the capacity of
existing universities, colleges of advanced
technology and teacher training colleges.
• Our aim is higher education for every boy and
girl in the land who can benefit from it.’

List of universities built from 1952 to 1963
• Southampton 1952
• Hull 1954
• Exeter 1955
• Leicester 1957
• Sussex 1961
• Keele 1962
• East Anglia 1963
• York 1963
• Newcastle 1963

Southampton University, built 1952: one of
its newer buildings

Southampton University student room: carefully note
the teddy bear on the bed, the slippers and multi-
coloured curtains.

The success story of modern Britain:
university education

university education

The expansion of the universities
• At the end of the 1970s one in eight 18 year olds
was in higher education; by 1990 it was one in five;
by 1994 one in three.
• On the one hand, this was a welcome development
in modern Britain: with regard to their working
lives, an educated population is more flexible and
less fearful of change.
• With regard to personal growth, an educated
person is more open to a wide range of intellectual
and social experiences and cultures.

However, resources for universities were
limited
• On the other hand, successive governments
wanted the expansion of the numbers of
students achieved using relatively fewer staff
with substantially fewer resources.
• Student numbers went up by 88% between
1989 and 2002, while the money provided per
student fell by 37%. Spending on university fell
sharply.

expansion of further education and better
and better A-Level results.

The haunting ghosts of Stockton in the
1930s
• The haunting ghosts of Stockton in the 1930s Great
Depression were never to leave Harold Macmillan,
prime minister 1957 to 1963. As a young
Conservative MP for Stockton-On-Tees in the
Thirties, Macmillan had witnessed the
unemployment of his constituents first-hand.
• In the 1957 – 63 period of his government, if there
had been a choice between modest inflation and
the threat of a return to chronic unemployment,
Macmillan would not have hesitated – he would
have tackled unemployment.

The affluent society 1955 to 1973
The affluent society of 1955 to 1973, from the
end of rationing in 1955 to the OPEC oil price
rises of 1973, was threatened to be undermined
by the balance of trade deficit or by rising price
inflation.
However, the economist Peter Oppenheim,
pointed out that in 1952 – 1964, retail prices
rose by only about 3 to 4 per cent per annum,
which was almost entirely due to the normal
functioning of the UK economy.

Elvis Presley. The King of Rock n Roll and
also the megastar entertainer of the new
youth culture of the 1950s.

The youth explosion
• Very much part of the affluent society was the rise
of youth culture, a completely new situation for
western society including British society.
• The new high-wage society of the Fifties gave new
spending power to youth.
• Popular entertainers and fashion-setters were also
15 or 20 years younger than previously, and Elvis
Presley above all represented this new experience.

Elvis Presley (1935 – 1977). Cultural icon and the
biggest-selling solo artist in the history of
recorded music. Elvis was the leading
entertainer of the new youth culture, of
‘teenagers’ in the Fifties.

Technological change and youth in the
Fifties and Sixties
• The rise of the affluent society in the western
world also accompanied technological
developments which were essential for the new
youth culture – faster cars, improved record-
players and huge sales of television sets.
• The new youth culture was independent of
upper and middle class influences. The working
classes were no longer a stereotype but were
achieving success and a presence on their own
terms.

Moral panics about youth
• With the growth of youth culture and sub-
cultures, moral panics took place. There were
media reactions to particular social groups or
activities which were defined as threatening
‘mainstream’ social values, creating anxiety
amongst the general population.
• Teddy Boys, Mods and Rockers, hippies
smoking marihuana, led to moral panics from
the mid-1950s to late 1960s.

The expansion of the media during the
affluent society
• The high and consistent economic growth rates
of the 1950s and 1960s, and technological
developments led to expansion of the media.
Britain gained a second television channel in
1954 (ITV) and a third channel in 1964 (BBC2).
• With only three TV channels, viewing figures
ran into millions. National newspapers had
large circulations of millions since the Internet
had not been invented.

Serving ruling-class ideology
• The media served an ideological function
according to Marxist academics:
1) Turning the White working class against the Black
working class (i.e. ‘divide and rule’)
2) Diverting attention away from the
mismanagement of capitalism by the capitalist
class
3) Justifying repressive laws and policing that could
be used against other ‘problem’ groups.

The Rolling Stones in concert

Low levels of social mobility
• The stubborn persistence of low social mobility led
in 1965 to a nationwide shift towards
comprehensive education.
• Eleven Plus selection tests and Grammar School
entry was weighed in favour of middle-class
children at the expense of the lower-classes.
• Fashionable utopian theories about the repressive
nature of discipline and of formal methods of
learning had fatal consequences.

Public spending on housing rose
dramatically
• Public spending on new housing, often high-
rise flats, and on subsidies to council tenancies
rose dramatically in the late 1960s, but even so
was increasingly outstripped by tax relief on
mortgage interest payments to owner-
occupiers.
• Owner-occupation accounted for more than
half of all housing stock by 1971.

Arsenal won the Double in 1971: the League
Championship and the FA Cup. Arsenal’s
captain was Frank McClintock, goalkeeper Bob
Wilson and star striker Charlie George.

Changing social mores
• Changing sexual and social mores were
signalled by the tentative introduction of sex
education in schools, contraceptive services
through the National Health Service, and the
legalization of abortion on medical grounds
(1967).
• Between 1969 and 1973 a series of cross-party
measures introduced major changes in the law
relating to marriage breakdown, including a
shift towards ‘divorce by mutual consent’.

“Revenge is a dish best served cold” The
Godfather (1972), an iconic movie of the
Seventies

High public spending
• Labour’s social legislation and high tax rates of
the late 1960s carried public expenditure to
over 50% of national income and there was a
significant increase in social mobility.
• There had been a marked increase in white-
collar at the expense of manual employment; a
marked decline in the percentage of those
following the same occupations as their fathers
and many more people were regularly moving
in and out of different classes.

Becoming a more equal society
• The proportion of wealth owned by the top 5%
of wealth-holders fell from around 60% in 1960
to just under 50% in the early 1970s.
• Meanwhile the proportion of wealth owned by
the bottom 50% was steadily rising largely
through pension funds and the increase in
mortgage-financed owner-occupation.

Love Story (1970), a hit movie of the Seventies
starring Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw.

Greater class mobility and rising crime
rates
• Greater class mobility and more widely
dispersed ownership of property did not,
however, lead to social peace and tranquillity.
• On the contrary, the late 1960s and early 1970s
saw rising crime rates, increasing family
breakdown, and widespread industrial unrest,
with days lost in strike action running at five
times the average for the preceding 25 years.

Borrowers or Lenders
• Both popular and elite opinion appeared
volatile and confused, and when the
Conservatives defeated Labour in the election
of 1970, it was with no clear mandate for
addressing the mounting symptoms of
underlying crisis.
• The accelerating inflation of the period had the
effect of transforming class and status
positions into a vast public lottery, in which
personal prosperity largely turned upon
whether individuals were borrowers or lenders.

Joni Mitchell, Canadian singer-songwriter,
whose album ‘Blue’ (1971) was a hit record of
the Seventies and is rated one of greatest
albums of 20th century popular music.

Trade union militancy
• Much of the trade union militancy of the early
1970s was fuelled by fear that the relative status of
organised labour was being hopelessly devalued,
and that, without acceptance of their wage claims,
they would be ‘better off on the dole’.
• The Heath government’s attempts to curb these
inflationary pressures by a mixture of voluntary
and statutory incomes policies were torpedoed by
the international oil crisis of 1973, which led to
further widespread industrial unrest, and the
defeat of the Conservatives in the two general
elections of 1974.

Thatcher’s diagnosis of what was wrong
with Britain
• For Conservatives such as Margaret Thatcher,
Enoch Powell and Sir Keith Joseph, Britain by
the 1970s was in the soup.
1) There were too many public servants, almost 8
million, over 29% of the total UK workforce.
2) The Civil Service, employing 738,000, was
twice as large as in 1939.

Margaret Thatcher, Leader of the Conservative
Party 1975 to 1990; Prime Minister 1979 – 90.
Thatcher thought that Britain in the 1970s was
in the soup and needed radical free-market
reforms to solve the problem.

Thatcher’s diagnosis
1) The National Health Service employed 1.5 million by
the 1970s.
2) Nationalized industries employed over 2 million,
nearly half of the entire number in manufacturing
industries.
3) Local government employed no less than 3 million.
4) The subsidies (£4.6 billion) and borrowing (£2.5
billion) of the nationalized industries in 1979 were
almost equal to the cost of servicing the national debt
(£8.4 billion).

Thatcher was influenced by the free-market
writings of the economist Professor Freidrich
von Hayek. Hayek preached the need for a free
and competitive economy unbound from
government interference.

Thatcher’s diagnosis about Britain in the
Seventies
1) The public subsidies to nationalized industries
were not going to growing industries such as
electricity, whose supply had grown tenfold
since 1938, but to old, declining industries
such as coal, whose output had declined by a
third, and railways, with half the miles of
service as in 1938.
2) National per capita income – 40% above the
West European average in the late 1950s – was
below average by 1979.

Thatcher’s diagnosis of Britain’s ills of the 1970s
1) Britain had the lowest growth of productivity of
any major industrial economy, with an eight-fold
increase in strikes compared with the 1930s.
2) The currency was declining fast, with the pound
worth one twentieth of its 1938 value.
3) A loaf of bread which cost 1.5 p in 1938 cost 65 p
in 1979, an increase of 4,200% in the most basic of
commodities in just 40 years.

Reform of the post-war settlement
• Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson tried to
bring the trade unions under some control with
the help of Barbara Castle, Minister for
Employment and Productivity. They introduced
a White Paper, ‘In Place of Strife’ in 1969.
• When the unions protested, Wilson and Castle
backed down, setting the scene for the 1970s, a
decade when government policy often seemed
to be determined in TUC Congress House.

Barbara Castle, Labour’s Employment Minister,
1968 – 70, who tried and failed to gain some
government control over the trade unions. Where
Castle failed, Thatcher succeeded in the 1980s,
with the defeat of the most powerful union, the
National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in 1984 –
1985.

The unions as part of government, mid-
1970s
• By the time James Callaghan succeeded Harold
Wilson as Labour Prime Minister in April 1976,
the unions were very much part of governing
Britain and by 1979, Cabinet papers were being
sent to the TUC for approval.
• Callaghan said to the TUC General Council at 10
Downing Street, “We are prostrate before you
but don’t ask us to put it in writing.”

Jack Jones, General Secretary of the Transport
and General Workers Union (TGWU) was
regarded by 1977 as “the most powerful person
in Britain”. The unions had 13 million members
including within key industries. Strikes took
place in the key industries and the country was
deprived of vital services.

Britain's Affluent Years 1955-1976

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