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Last night's final episode of Red Riding, the Channel 4 trilogy based on David Peace's novels of crime and corruption in Seventies and Eighties Yorkshire, marked a fine end to a splendid, if terrifyingly dark, piece of television entertainment.
But Eighties addicts will not have far to look for their next fix, for the Thatcher years seem to be everywhere these days, from BBC2's recreation of the last days of the Iron Lady's premiership to the innumerable retro pop acts.
The thought of an Eighties revival is amusing enough in its way, although the prospect of a return to stonewashed jeans and mullet haircuts is frankly terrifying. But as I regularly find myself pointing out to my Eighties-addicted wife — who was barely into her teens when the decade ended — few periods make less suitable candidates for the canonisation granted by nostalgia.
For the Thatcher years were not just the years of synthesiser pop and ridiculous hairstyles; they were also years when millions were thrown out of work, football fans were held in steel cages to prevent them storming the field, and police and strikers fought pitched battles in the streets of Wapping. They were tough, bleak, grim years — decisive years in the making of modern Britain, to be sure, but also ones that saw tremendous suffering and social conflict.
Why, then, are we suddenly so keen on turning back the clock? Just a few years ago, the prospect of Eighties nostalgia would have provoked guffaws. The 20th anniversary of the miners' strike went little-noticed.
One reason is simply generational. People who were children and teenagers in the Eighties, like me, are now in their thirties and forties, writing books and commissioning TV dramas about the supposedly halcyon days of their youth.
History has finally caught up with the Eighties, just as it did with the Sixties 20 years ago, and the Thirties 20 years before that. The wheel has come full circle: what once seemed irredeemably naff (a great Eighties word itself overdue for a comeback) now seems bizarrely fresh and fashionable.
There are also serious political reasons for looking back to the days when Margaret Thatcher and Arthur Scargill fought for the soul of Britain. For the first time since that troubled decade — or least since it really ended, in 1992 — we live in an age of extraordinary economic anxiety, with negative equity and unemployment looming as the biggest worries for millions.
And for the first time since then, too, the Tory party is back in vogue and ahead in the polls. Next year may well see David Cameron handed the keys to No 10 — the first Tory prime minister to win back power from Labour since Mrs Thatcher rather incongruously promised to bring harmony in place of discord in 1979. No wonder that so many Tories are so keen to look back for inspiration.
Oddly, though, the Right are not the only ones keen to turn the clock back. In Left-leaning circles, too, the days when aspiring Yuppies used to push up the sleeves of their shiny polyester suits are back in vogue — not because Labour supporters want to rehabilitate Margaret Thatcher, but because they insist that the current economic mess is actually all her fault.
The New Statesman even published a special Thatcher issue a few weeks ago, with many contributors queuing up to blame her for economic meltdown. Why demand an apology from Gordon Brown, they argued, when you should really be asking the lady herself?
Of course re-examining the ideological clashes of the Eighties is useful. It was in this period that our contemporary political culture was born, as Britain moved from the rigid, ossified collectivism of the strike-bound Seventies to the globalised, cut-throat neo-liberalism of the Thatcher and Blair years. And from home computers to mobile phones, from listening to your own private soundtrack on the morning commute to grabbing a quick sandwich at lunchtime, many of the daily habits we now take for granted first caught on in the Thatcher years.
But there are two serious problems with the way we like to remember the Eighties. The first is that like any other period in modern history, it was not self-contained. Thatcherism did not spring into life in 1979: it emerged after years of debate and argument, and in some ways was actually foreshadowed by the much-maligned Callaghan government of the Seventies, which drew up plans to sell off council houses, slashed public spending, and began the fightback against progressive education.
There has always been a lot more continuity in our modern history than we think — and Thatcherism also included a much bigger element of caution and compromise than many Tories like to remember.
Labour supporters, too, however, are deluding themselves if they seriously think they can blame Margaret Thatcher and the 1980s for our current economic mess. Yes, the Eighties ushered in an age of deregulation and free markets, a winner-takes-all society with a cruel disregard for history's losers. Yet it was Tony Blair and Gordon Brown who ran Britain for the past 12 years — often travelling further down the neo-liberal road than Thatcher herself would have ever dared.
Blaming Thatcher for the banking crisis makes about as much sense as holding Harold Macmillan responsible for the 1984 miners' strike.
So dig out your old compilation tapes, squeeze into your skinny jeans and dust off your Ray-Bans if you must. An era is indeed ending, and we should remember that many of its roots are in the 1980s.
But don't imagine that the political battles of the Eighties hold the answers to the present crisis of direction and faith in British politics. Our current problems are of our own making, and we will have to resolve them on our own.
Whatever Michael J Fox might have thought, there is no going back to the future.
Reader views (13)
This was the era when the banks and it's senior managers allowed Casino Banking to start.
- Mike Melbourne, Bedford England
From the Conservative Campaign guide 1989.
Removing Controls. Immediately after taking office the Government removed many of the damaging controls and restrictions – on prices, dividends and incomes – that limited the wealth-creating capacity of the British economy. The abolition of exchange controls in 1979 opened up a whole new range of investment opportunities for those who wished to invest abroad; and, by improving the rate of return on investment in the UK, it also encouraged foreign investment in this country. The ending of controls on banks and building societies, particularly those governing consumer credit and the composition of banks' assets have widened consumer choice and brought an end to mortgage ‘rationing’. ‘Big Bang’, the deregulation of Britain's financial markets in October 1986, has given our financial services sector the freedom it needs to maintain and enhance London's role as a world leader in this field (see p. 108).
I rest my case.
- David1, London UK
The article being accompanied by a recent photo of a beautiful Lindsay Duncan rather than the actual Mrs Thatcher, wryly signals the misrepresentation and attempted prettification of that ugly decade and its long-term destructive consequences for Britain. Former 'Evening Standard' editor Simon Jenkins was much nearer the mark with his 'Thatcher & Sons' about her and those of her mind who have held office in Number Ten ever since. People note the differences between parties and politicians, but that needn't and doesn't prevent people from arriving at fairly jaundiced views about the striking similarities between policies and parties in government. It's been a long and winding road to our present pathetic state, yet it's been the one road. And all along the route there have been plenty of people warning of the possible consequences of 'Big Bang', financial deregulation, deindustrialisation and the sale of national assets to private interests, with the headstrong types in political office refusing to listen to those warnings.
- Peter, London W11
history evidences that each and every era lays the foundation for the next, no event or series of events is ever isolated. what we sow we eventually reap, although the law of unexpected consequences means we are rarely prepared, or expecting what occurs.they do say the road to heaven is paved with good intentions, although few politico's appear to lay much stock in good intentions.
- M.O'Brien, london.uk
Under Maragret Thatcher, "Big Bang" was ushered in as the saviour of the British financial institutions and markets. In fact all it did was to deregulate them and allow US bankers to take over many of them, subsequently introducing the greed and malpractices perpetuated by them.
- David, London
Northern Rock, Halifax and B&B did not fail beause they demutalised. They failed because the regulation failed.
Talk about comparing apples with pears.
- Ian Gilbertson, Newcastle
So how many old-style building societies failed then? No major ones. How many ex-building societies? Loads. Without Tory deregulation allowing these institutions to demutualise and run out of control, none of this could have happened in the first place.
- Robert C, London UK
Former bank of England Governor Eddie George warned us in 2005 that busts follw booms, and this was going to be a biggie.
He was ignored, because boom and bust had been eradicated!
- Dave Davies, Basingstoke, Hants
z-z-Z
Everything is derived from what went on earlier. You can change things when you're in power yourself, though!
- Roz, Chamonix, France
Yes it did. The reforms of the banks that Thatcher introduced alongside America, opened Pandora's box. Where are the effects being most felt? Britain and America. Enough said.
- Bruce Edwards, London
That ok as that fool who Chairs the Trseaury Ctte was banging on the 80's and neo-liberalism ... this bunch of half wits have no idea a) what they have done and b) how to gets us out of it.
Bring on May / June next year ... but then we get the 'roons who is shaping up to be TB MkII
- Dave, herts
My God the Left are truly desparate! Trying to blame the current mess on Mrs T is truly amazing! Firstly these idiots do not actually understand what has happened and secondly if they actually do [highly doubtful], they cannot comprehend that actually it really is a Labor government which has ruled the country for a decade and therefore it completely, utterly and entirely to blame for it!!
Cameron announcing a 45p tax rate [actually 46% after NI], is really quite amazing. He will now tip many lingering doubters over the edge and the flight of talent & capital out of Britain. The point of this is that the tax take will not be a plus 2 billion but more likely it will fall. It is a pure sop to wet Tories and will not work. Screwing wealth creators is a really dumb thing to do .. proven time and time again.
- James Macleod Ritchie, Oyster Bay Cove
The current crisis is a failure of regulation. Born introduced the FSA. He was repeatedly warned but chose to ignore them.
Northern Rock, Halifax and B&B did not fail beause they demutalised. They failed because the regulation failed.
Talk about comparing apples with pears.
- Ian Gilbertson, Newcastle
"Blaming Thatcher for the banking crisis makes about as much sense as holding Harold Macmillan responsible for the 1984 miners' strike."
Don't try to rewrite history. She was in power when the Building Societies Act 1986 was passed, which was a direct cause of demutualisation catastrophes like Northern Rock, Halifax, Bradford & Bingley. The Conservatives sowed the wind of deregulation and now we are reaping the whirlwind.
- Robert C, London UK
