1973 - The year it all went to shit

Two years ago there was little coverage of the 40^th anniversary of the year when ‘The Sixties’ were finally dead and buried, 1973. Perhaps the media are waiting for the Golden Jubilee, or more appropriately, the Rust and Shit Jubilee that the year deserves. It may by then be recognised how significant 1973 was and how it marked a watershed. Many of the events of that year may have largely passed from immediate memory but have echoed since. For example, Britain was recovering from the after-effects of a boom, which had been fuelled by cheap credit and consumer confidence, followed by a banking crisis. As the UK Government announced its economic recovery policy the Opec nations, aggravated by the latest Arab-Israeli conflict, quadrupled the price of oil. Sound familiar?

Some things have of course changed dramatically but can be seen to flow from the events of that year. The response of the Miners Union to the counter-inflationary wage capping proposed by the government was a 40 per cent pay claim which triggered a State of Emergency. When asked by the Prime Minister, Edward Heath, what he wished to achieve in that dispute the Scottish miners' leader, Mick McGahey, is supposed to have replied that his aim was to effect a change of government. In the event a hasty general election was called and fought on the issue of "Who governs Britain?"  The people’s choice then was a minority Labour government. 12 years later the issue was to be decided more conclusively in favour of a Conservative government. Thirty years after that, in the wake of this week’s general election, a pair of maps have been circulating on the internet illustrating the coincidence of the remaining Labour vote and the former coalfields of the UK 

 (https://twitter.com/VaughanRoderick/status/596967966647971840?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=fb&utm_campaign=VaughanRoderick&utm_content=596967966647971840)

It can be argued that 1973 signalled the rise of middle-class dissatisfaction and that the subsequent wage and price inflation of the following five years contributed to this. That impacted on middle-class living standards, effectively eroding the differential between white-collar and blue-collar salaries during the decade and the determination of the trade unions to preserve or close wage differentials was then perceived to be a form of ‘proto-communism’. Were those who voted for Thatcher in 1979 thus drawn into a class war?

 “If the 18 years of Conservative government that followed had an animating force, then it was the resolve of the affronted British bourgeoisie to get a little of its own back, and the explanation lies here in the world of Slade singing "Merry Christmas Everybody", Edward Heath's barking voice resounding over the radio, the television set suddenly failing, and the curious sensation invoked in the breast of every civilised person by the sight of a street-full of houses at dusk where, mysteriously, no light shines.” (DJ TAYLOR Independent Sunday 29 December 2013)

The antics of the Far Left certainly assisted the paranoiac rantings of the right wing press through the 1980’s. As they could only portray the hapless Miliband as ‘slightly weird’ rather than ‘Loony Lefty’ the recent election campaign saw new bogey-men emerge to engage the attention of an Even Further Right. However, among these is the old stalwart Europe. On January 1st 1973 Britain officially joined what was then called the Common Market - the EEC. What was perhaps most depressing about last week’s election results was the apparent vote in favour of kicking Europeans out of Britain rather than Britain getting out of the EEC. The cold comfort is that the latter issue might serve to rip the guts out of the Conservative party over the next few years. The harsher truth is that within the former coalfields UKIP came in second to Labour in several constituencies.

1973 presaged an uglier and less optimistic world and the release of The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd that year was remarkable in that it anticipated rather than reflected the zeitgeist of the following decade. Roger Waters’ sixth-form doggerel does not of course match the gravitas of ‘September 1 1939’ by WH Auden (who died in 1973) whose words still reverberate from a year more widely accepted as changing the world forever.

They certainly came to my mind watching last week’s election results;

" Exiled Thucydides knew

All that a speech can say

About Democracy,

And what dictators do,

The elderly rubbish they talk

To an apathetic grave;

Analysed all in his book,

The enlightenment driven away,

The habit-forming pain,

Mismanagement and grief:

We must suffer them all again."

In short, to paraphrase Auden, we face the prospect of another lower and more dishonest decade. As suggested above, the decade of 'The Sixties' started around 1963 and was finished off in 1973. There was demarcation, depressingly so in the USA with the assassination of JFK in the USA, but in Britain The Beatles first number one, 70,000 people marching from Aldermaston  and the slide of the Conservative party during the Profumo affair gave cause for optimism. It appeared to signal a new and better era and Harold Wilson led the Labour party to victory the following year. For those of us who were fortunate to spend our childhood or teens in that decade the future appeared bright. Wilson's first Labour government introduced an era of liberalisation and social change including the relaxation of laws on censorship,homosexuality, abortion, immigration and divorce. Capital punishment was abolished. The emphasis was on social change and increasing social opportunity, particularly through improvement and expansion of the education system and developing rapid scientific progress - the 'White Heat of Technology'. It seemed possible that one day everyone would have a Ford Cortina and eat cheese fondue.

However, what Wilson's governments failed to do in that and later tenures was significantly improve the long term economic performance of Britain. Whilst not personally committed to nationalisation Wilson presided over an era which saw public ownership of badly managed major industries. These and other sections of the economy were badly hit in the global economic crisis precipitated in 1973. Those who had acquired homes in the prosperity of the 1960's were left exposed by inflationary interest charge rises following the Secondary Banking Crisis of that year. The sixties were over and the rot was in. Those who had prospered were keen to conserve what they had gained. Wilson eventually resigned in 1976 with a peerage, littering honours on his cronies in the infamous Lavender List. 

The altogether more malignant strain of Tory that emerged under Thatcher in 1979 threatened all of the aforementioned social advances of the 1960's. The consolidation of the power of their successors in last week's election will almost certainly lead to further social division.  If the Labour party is to defend what was achieved until 1973 it has to rebuild from the bedrock of support in its traditional heartlands. These, as suggested above, are the former coalfields and industrial centres of Britain. The traditional values and objectives of the Labour Party remain relevant in these areas. They are not conservative because they have fuck all to conserve. The harsh statistics presented by the poll are not the whole picture. Other measure affirm a more optimistic picture, not least the fundamental sense of decency, fair play and social commitment evidenced by levels of voluntary work and charitable giving in Wales which, per capita, shame the Conservative constituencies of middle England. 

In Wales there is therefore a very specific challenge given the measure of regional devolution and a Labour party in control of the Assembly. The fightback needs to start here with a labour party that can demonstrate to the rest of the UK that social, if not socialist, policies are in everyone's best interests. We have to deliver the best healthcare, education and an enviable environment. Those who oppose such aspirations must be viewed as enemies of this infant state.  Last week's vote suggests that the Conservative party may not be the principal object of concern. The whingeing scum who voted for UKIP in the valleys need to be told that immigration is not the problem - they are. The Labour party needs to be committed to the pursuit of excellence in Wales, to social justice and the ideals that led to the 1964 election victory. We have to be tough on UKIP - tough on the causes of UKIP.