The Prime Minister Andy ‘burn the country down’ Burnham seems to have a rosy view of the 1970s. Whilst there were good bits about it, some decent music, there was still industry in Britain and I got my first snog with a girl (she said that I kissed like she imagined Donny Osmond would kiss which I took as a win), it was also a time of strife and economic disaster. There was horrific levels of inflation caused in part by the Arab oil crisis but also by excessive wage demands by very powerful trade unions. Our industry although still functioning could not modernise in the way it needed to in part because of the power of the unions, there were regular electricity blackouts because of miners strikes and we had to go cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund for a line of credit because our economy was beyond buggered. The main positive about the 1970s is that Britons had a considerably greater amount of free speech rights than they have now and that Britons were not suffering from the current Great Immigration Disaster. The 1970’s were for some the best of times but also they were very much the worst of times.

Burn’em’s rosy view of the 1970’s is the view of someone who was not politically aware of the period either because they lived through them with political awareness or they have read extensively about that period. I was one of those teenage weirdos who took an interest in politics during the 70’s so I can recall impotent governments both Tory and Labour having to negotiate with Trade Union leaders in order to avoid yet more crippling strikes just to keep the economy staggering on. The car industry, which was extremely important for Britain at the time was notorious for wildcat industrial disputes over pay and conditions and what were called demarcation disputes which were disputes over what worker did what. If an employer tried for example to get a worker who was in place to do one particular task moved to a job that was the preserve of members of a different trade union then a dispute could kick off. In the print game for example a National Union of Journalists member was not allowed to operate a photo wire machine even though it’s merely a glorified fax machine, that machine had to be operated by an expensively employed print union member.

Whilst there were great cultural achievements that happened in the 1970’s and there was much more freedom than there is today, there was also a floundering economy, powerful but out of control trade unions, a state that ran sclerotic public services, crippling taxes and a general sense of a national malaise that could not be cured. If Burn’em wants to bring back the bad bits of the 1970’s because it’s what his activist base wants then count me out. I’d be happy to get the cultural stuff back such as music and decent TV and freedom of speech but not the rest.

When Burn’em says ‘back to the 70’s’ he’s not talking about returning to 1970’s levels of freedom of speech and a vibrant and creative musical and artistic culture, but returning to the worst of the 70’s. Burn’em’s plans will give us the sclerotic national services, communists embedded in the education sector, powerful but unrepresentative trade unions, 25% inflation and much else that is unwanted besides that. The problem is not only will we get all these nasties but also hundreds of thousands of third world dross and no freedom of speech with which to complain about it all.

Would I return to Burn’em’s 1970’s? Maybe to be a teenager and to see how far I could have got with the girl I mentioned earlier or to go and see the Sex Pistols, but I would not return for the economic problems or the arrogant unions or the shit public services or the feelings of hopelessness that Britain’s problems back then engendered in its people.

Link

It’s now fifty years since Britain went bust and had to go cap in hand for a credit line from the International Monetary Fund.

How Britain went bust, 50 years ago today