Chapter 4: Great Britain I. The Blair Decade 1.

The origins of the British crisis lie largely in the financial service industry. a. Northern Rock had been Britain's largest building society. The government loaned it money in 2007. The next year, when it became clear that no one who could pay the state back would buy the bank, the government nationalized it and asserted more control over its operations than Washington has over the firms it bailed out. b. The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) was formed in the early eighteenth century to provide a bank that would have loyalties to the throne. It then expanded internationally and through insurance businesses. It lost 24 pounds during the last years of Sir Fred Goodwin's tenure. Goodwin resigned in 2008 when the government gained a majority of the seats on the RBS board of directors. 2. The entire economy shrank by 0.6 percent in the last six months of 2008. Thousands of immigrant workers left the country. 3. The government introduced a stimulus package similar to the US's. The national value added tax was reduced whereas taxes on the rich were increased. The government expected to borrow 75 billion pounds more in 2009 than 2008. 4. Similar to the US a. Obama came to power on a wave of personal and political popularity that helped him gain support for the various parts of the rescue package. b. The UK had been governed by the Labour party since 1997 and had to take political responsibility for the crisis. 5. Prime minister Tony Blair's for the Iraq war had cost the party dearly. When he stepped down in 2007, his approval rating was no better than George W. Bush's. The same is true of his successor Gordon Brown. II. Thinking About Britain 1. Incubator/originator of liberal democracy 2. Its democracy evolved over a number of centuries in a process scholars call gradualism, which resulted in a post-WWII collectivist consensus in favor of a mixed economy and welfare state. 3. Britain had been one of the world's great powers over the past five hundred years and was still strong enough in 1945 to warrant a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. 4. Its political system was similar in many ways to those in other English-speaking countries. A. Key Questions 1. Four themes

a. Gradualism. Britain has suffered from less unrest and has had a more consensual history than almost any other country, which has helped smooth its transition to democracy. It did have to face the challenges of creating the nation-state, overcoming religious and class conflict and the strife that often accompanies democratization. b. In some respects, Britain has had the most troubles of any of the major liberal democracies since the height of the collectivist period in the early 1960s. Britain's relative economic standing declined dramatically in the second half of the 20th century. 1. Not a poor country, but its economic growth long lagged. 2. Political implications of the economic decline c. The way the conservative governments led by Margaret Thatcher and John Major in the 1980s and 1990s redefined British political life and spurred the renewal of support for freemarket economics that has taken hold almost everywhere. 1. Thatcher & Co. rejected most of the premises of collectivist politics and pushed the country in a dramatically different direction. 2. Thatcher and Major privatized dozens of companies, reduced spending on social services, curbed the power of the unions, opposed further British involvement in Europe, and reasserted Britain's influence in global affairs. 3. Thatcher (iron lady) is controversial. Her supporters are convinced that she saved the country from bankruptcy and social chaos. Her opponents claim equally vociferously that she took it to the brink of disaster and left it a far more heartless place with a government that treats the disadvantagedThe Irish with disinterest and even disdain. d. The impact of Blair and New Labour 1. Labour lost four consecutive elections in large part because it veered too far to the Left to have a chance of winning. Reassessment of its goals and strategies led to the selection of Blair in its leader in 1994. 2. Radical restructuring New Labour as if it were a new party 3. Blair shed the party's commitment to nationalized industry and state-based solutions to most of society's problems. Instead, he endorsed some of the Thatcherite commitment to a market economy, though tempered with a greater concern for equality and a desire to forge more cooperative partnerships linking business, labor, and the government. 4. The momentum for reform evaporated with Blair's personal popularity. B. The Basics 1. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK) a. England is the historical core. b. Later, the English conquered Wales and Scotland. c. Together, they are all Britain.

d. Also includes the six predominantly Protestant counties of Northern Ireland. 2. The status of Northern Ireland, or Ulster, remains hotly contested though many hope that the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 will pave the way toward enduring political calm in the province. (RE: no violence) 3. Scotland has its own bank notes and legal system. 4. The UK is one of the most crowded countries in the world. a. 70% live in urban areas 5. Significant minorities in Wales and Scotland want autonomy, if not complete independence, from England though virtually no one there condones the use of violence to achieve such goals. 6. The Irish have relied on non-violent protest, but some Catholic and Protestant extremists carry out bombings and drive-by shootings, despite the Good Friday Agreement. a. 28 people were killed by a car bomb in Omagh in August 1998. 7. Regional differences overlap with religious ones. a. 2/3 belong to the Church of England 1. Receives funding and support from the state b. 10% Catholic c. No longer an all-white country between 5 and 10 percent are African, Asian, or Caribbean 1. Issue among conservative politicians 2. Call for an end to immigration and the repatriation of nonwhite residents 3. Few immigrants have been able to gain entry into the UK (fear from terrorist attacks) 8. The British Decline of the last half-century left it the poorest of the major liberal democracies, but few people are poor by reasonable definition. a. Welfare state is still strong health care, education, pensions b. Other public services in need of massive investment c. Most salaries are no more than 2/3 of what they would be in the US 9. Upper/middle classes arrogance III. The Evolution of the British State 1. Four great transformations: building the nation-state, defining the relationship between church and state, establishing liberal democracy, and dealing with the industrial revolution 2. The British were able to handle these crises individually, one at a time, unlike most of Europe. a. Came with a rough consensus for each (exception: Industrial Rev.) 1. Avoiding the lasting divisions that left France and Germany with large numbers of antagonistic political parties 3. One issue that wasn't solve: class didn't result to intense conflict

4. Revolution occurred without recourse to a written constitution. The UK has a constitution, but it consists of laws and customs that just about everyone accepts. a. The relative gradualism that led to a consensus that allowed the British to move from one potentially divisive issue to another without provoking the lasting antagonisms that were so common elsewhere. A. The Broad Sweep of British History 1. In 1215, a band of nobles forced King John to sign the Magna Carta. This agreement declared that the king was not an absolute monarch and stated that he had to rule in parliament and would need the consent of the nobility before imposing taxes or spending money. a. The Great Council (nobles) was created. 2. Nobility and commoners split, leading to the creation of the two houses of parliament. 3. Next four centuries a very loose and decentralized state. The English people did not have a sense of national identity and the government institutions in London lacked the power of a modern state. 4. 16th and 17th centuries: rough understanding that the king had to share power with Parliament 5. 16th century- Reformation and the split between Catholics and Protestants that tore the European continent apart. a. King Henry VIII broke with Rome and established the Church of England. depoliticized the church and removed religion as a deeply divisive issue by the end of the 17th century 6. During the civil war of the 1640s, Oliver Cromwell led a group of members of Parliament, businessmen, Puritans, and soldiers who overthrew the monarchy and beheaded Charlies I. 7. 1660: Charles II was restored to the throne on the condition that he accept an expanded role for Parliament. Tried to reassert royal power, Catholicism Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the understanding that the king would be Anglican and accountable to Parliament. 8. Bill of Rights: made it illegal for the monarch to impose taxes or enfore any law without the consent of Parliament. 9. In 1701, the Act of Settlement regularized procedures for succession to the trhone and asserted that the king and queen had to govern Britain in accordance with laws passed by Parliament. 10. 1707: Queen Anne failed to give her royal assent to a bill passed by Parliament, so King George I stopped attending cabinet meetings. a. People began to refer to Sir Robert Walpole (chaired the cabinet) as the prime minister. 11. In the 19th century, the rise of capitalism disrupted British life more than any of the other events. It brought untold wealth to the capitalists and to the country as a whole. a. Country city b. Trade unions < friendly societies c. New working and middle classes = powerful

d. Political life remained in the hands of a tiny elite 1. 1% of white men could vote e. Parliament overrepresented rural districts (rotten boroughs) because they had so few constituents that a single lord could control who was elected. 12. Number of movements demanded political change in the first third of the 19th century a. Luddites (artisans and workers) broke into factories and smashed the machines. b. The Great Reform Act of 1832 gave only 300,000 more men the right to vote. 1. Showed that the British elite was willing to adapt to changing circumstances rather than cling to power and run the risk of widespread political disruption, if not revolution. c. A second Reform Act in 1867 increased the size of the electorate to nearly 3 million. d. 1870: Secret Ballot was introduced e. The Representation of the People Acts of 1884 and 1885 expanded the suffrage to the point that working-class men constituted the majority of the electorate. f. By the early 20th century, all men had the right to vote. Most women won suffrage in 1918, and all women in 1928. 13. After the reforms, the first modern political parties were formed by parliamentary leaders who needed to win support from the newly enfranchised voters. a. Conservative National Union and the National Liberal Federation b. Gradually, the party began to determine who would run for office and who would serve in cabinets. c. 1911: the House of Lords was stripped of its remaining power FINAL STEP in the evolution of British parliamentary democracy 14. There was a division of Great Britain into supporters of the Labour and the Conservative parties largely across class lines. a. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) called for a general strike, and British workers walked off the job en masse. Instead of fighting, policemen and strikers played soccer together. b. Workers demands were not satisfied during the 1920s, but their frustration was channeled via the TUC and the Labour Party 1. Labour Party surged past the Liberals and became the main competition for the Conservatives 15. Two changes that reshaped British politics: a. Labour solidified itself as the major alternative to the conservatives b. The liberal/free-market wing of the Conservative Party was discredited because of its failure to solve the economic crisis a new generation of Tory politicians who were more willing to turn to the state in shaping the country's economic future an meeting the needs of the poor and unemployed

B. The Collectivist Consensus 1. 1945-1970s = Golden Era of British politics leaders agreed on almost everything 2. The Liberal-Labour coalition government of 1906-11 introduced limited unemployment and health insurance programs, but the most important origins of collectivist consensus laid in WWII... fear of Germany. 3. Parliament called on Sir Winston Churchill to replace the ineffectual Neville Chamberlain as prime minister. Churchill chose to head an all-party coalition. a. Opposition parties agreed to suspend normal politics. b. Conservatives agreed to establish a commission headed by the civil servant William Beveridge. Its task was to propose an overhaul of the social service system that would be turned into legislation after the Allied victory. 1. 1942: the Beveridge Report called for a social insurance program in which every citizen would be eligible for health care, unemployment insurance, pensions, and other benefits. 4. Election of 1945 was fought largely over the issue of social and economic reform. Both major parties endorsed the broad outlines of the Beveridge Report, although Labour was committed to going further and faster. Labor won and turned party program legislation. 5. 1949: the surge of reform had come to an end. Labour decided to dismantle most of the planning boards that had brought government, the unions, and business together. Its popularity began to wane conservative comeback 6. The Conservatives maintained the welfare state Labour had so greatly expanded in the first few years after the war. 7. Electorally, the British populace remained divided along class lines. a. 70% working class Labour b. Larger proportion of the middle class Conserviative c. The two main parties routinely won over 90% of the vote and an even larger share of the seats in the House of Commons. 8. The collectivist consensus did not survive for two reasons a. Needed steady economic growth b. Deeply divisive issues