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The thesis examines the responses, as articulated in language, of the trade union movement in the UK (especially, the TUC) to changes in labour legislation introduced by the Conservative Government between 1979 and 1990. The research attempts to identify and interpret key words, themes and repertoires within union discourse by analysis of TUC pamphlets, 'campaign' literature, policy documents and speeches at the annual Congress, supplemented by information obtained from informal interviews with several union figures involved in constructing a response to the legislation. The nature and extent of changes in patterns of union language are explored through consideration of the materials over two distinct time periods - 1979-1983 and 1986-1990 - thus allowing examination of the rhetorical responses of the TUC/unions throughout the duration of the Thatcher Government. In order to place such responses in context, and to examine the extent to which the vocabulary of the unions was both shared with and shaped by other participants in the policy process, consideration has also been given to the language of Government in documents such as Green Papers and in Parliamentary debates, in addition to that of 'New Right' commentators who may have influenced the making of policy on labour legislation. Particular attention is paid to the way in which the characterisation of union immunities from legal liability as 'privileges' shaped the linguistic response of the unions and their strategy towards the presence of law in industrial relations. Union language during the period 1979-1990 is found to exhibit characteristics both of change and continuity. Those alterations which occured are considered in the light of theories of Thatcherism as a hegemonic project and in the context of wider changes in the discourse of the Left. The problem of isolating causative factors is also addressed.

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This PhD thesis asks how ‘neo-liberal’ was the Thatcher government? Existing accounts tend to characterise neo-liberalism as a homogeneous, and often ill-defined, group of thinkers that exerted a broad influence over the Thatcher government. This thesis - through a combination of archival research, interviews and examination of ideological texts - defines the dominant strains of neo-liberalism more clearly and explores their relationship with Thatcherism. In particular, the schools of liberal economic thought founded in Vienna and Chicago are examined and juxtaposed with the initial neo-liberals originating from Freiburg in 1930s and 1940s Germany. Economic policy and deregulation were the areas that most clearly linked neo-liberal thinking with Thatcherism, but this thesis looks at a broad cross section of the wider programme of the Thatcher government. This includes other domestic policies such as education and housing, as well as the Thatcher government’s success in reducing or altering the pressures exerted by vested interests such as the trade unions and monopolies. Lastly, while less associated with neo-liberal theory, foreign policy, in the area of overseas aid, is examined to show how ideas filtered into the international arena during the 1980s. Although clearly a political project, the policies of Thatcherism, in so far as they were ideological, resonate most with the more expedient, or practical, Friedmanite strain of neo-liberalism. This encapsulated a willingness to utilize the state, often in contradictory ways, to pursue more marketorientated policies. As such, it sat somewhere between the more rules-based ordoliberalism and the often utopian Austrian School.

This thesis explores the figure of Margaret Thatcher and how, as a cultural icon, she has been central to a range of political and media representations from the mid-1970s to the 1990s. Underpinning this thesis is the argument that gender is one of the persistent signs through which political power is conceived, authorised and popularly understood. This thesis interrogates how Thatcher, the first female Conservative Party leader and then British Prime Minister, disrupted the dominant discourses of mainstream politics and the conventionally understood masculine status of high political office. I argue that Thatcher's political persona gained its political force and broader cultural resonance from the disruption of conventional gender roles and from an ambiguous play on conventionally understood masculine and feminine attributes. This disruption of gender and paradoxically the endorsement of certain forms of masculine authority and feminine common sense were integral parts of Thatcherism's central political imagery of social insurrection and potential chaos. Through the analysis of political commentary, biography, press articles and political speeches I propose that Thatcher's significance can only be understood fully through the fantasies of authority, violence, war, independence, freedom and gender difference which sustained her powerful symbolic status in the Conservative political imagination. The biographical construction of Thatcher's path to power and the significance of her father are interrogated through Joan Riviere's psychoanalytical concept of the 'masquerade'. A textual analysis of unconscious anxiety about feminine vulnerability and the seizure of masculine power that accompanied Thatcher's masquerade is developed to consider the relevance of her precarious middle-class Methodist background in 1930s Britain. The interrelated facets of class, gender and religion are drawn upon to argue for the centrality of propriety and self-policing respectability to Thatcher's persona and to her political discourse. This analysis of political and personal history then broadens to a consideration of key concepts in Thatcherite discourse and significant moments in Thatcher's premiership. I chart the links between Thatcherite and New Right endorsement of social authoritarianism, morality and the 'traditional' nuclear family. Focusing specifically on the child as a repository of adult hopes and fears, I argue that Thatcher envisaged a 'privatisation' of the child that symbolised a broader extraction of Thatcherite subjects from the dependency of the Welfare State and into consumer self-sufficiency. Finally, this thesis explores the 1983 general election campaign and the Conservative Party's support of nuclear armament as a prerequisite of national survival and aggressive symbol of national strength. I unpack how Thatcher, as 'war leader', was set up as the barrier to impending chaos and social disarray and as supporter of legitimate force and state control. Oppositions between freedom and thraldom, liberation and restraint were central to Thatcherite discourse. I investigate the placing of her persona and by implication Thatcherite Britain, on the cusp of these oppositions and how this dialectic was played out in political speeches and reportage. An analysis of the varied political and media accounts of social chaos emanating from or turned against Thatcher in 1983 lead to an interrogation of Thatcher as 'super-ego'. I argue that the psychoanalytical concept of the super-ego provides a key way of understanding how Thatcher's imaginary power was consolidated through an ambivalent engagement with imagery of illegitimate violence and also a counter-investment in the extreme authority of the state and the law in the modern British nation.

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This doctoral thesis traces the various forms in which ordinary people engaged in the stock market across twentieth-century Britain. It asks how and why previously stigmatised forms of investment and speculation came to be regarded as socially, politically and economically desirable. I argue that financial and economic historians, preoccupied with the growing dominance of financial institutions over British security markets during this period, have neglected the social and cultural relevance of popular share ownership. Consequently investment is seen as more than an economic activity. Understanding the ways in which social and cultural attitudes towards finance relaxed over time, allows us to better understand the arrival of neoliberalism in Britain. After World War I, Britain witnessed a significant expansion of private stock market investment. However, in comparison to the United States, Britain’s financial establishment took a more conservative stance on universal share ownership and restrained much of the potential for a “democratisation of investment”. After 1945, private share ownership continued to grow gradually across classes due to higher living standards and in spite of nationalisation, high taxation and the institutionalisation of securities markets. Politics was not the main driver of this trend as efforts to widen share ownership were difficult to square with the interventionist postwar economic settlement. More importantly, the rapidly expanding trade of financial journalism increasingly educated multiple audiences about stock market affairs. By widening the analytical scope beyond socioeconomic conditions, it becomes apparent that the sweeping social and cultural changes during the 1950s and 1960s helped to loosen older reservations against financial speculation, thereby drawing evermore investors into the market. The key shift of this period was that ‘playing the stock market’ became a popular and socially acceptable hobby, predominantly among middle-class households. Tracing these developments to the 1970s and 1980s, this thesis concludes that market populism had a powerful appeal to savers and investors hit by inflation, thereby accelerating the growth of economic individualism long before the Thatcherite Revolution unfolded in Britain.

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In January 1979, Stuart Hall claimed to have identified a new ‘radical Right’ ideology he termed ‘Thatcherism’, which was attempting to ‘command the space’ occupied by the social democracy of the then Labour government and the ‘moderate wing’ of the Conservative Party. In short, the Thatcher Conservative Opposition was detaching itself from ‘traditional’ Conservatism. This thesis examines the validity of the claim at the time it was made, through a detailed scrutiny of the positions taken up between 1974 and 1979 by those identified as being on the ‘radical Right’ of the Party and those designated as ‘moderates’. In particular, it analyses the programme proposed by Sir Keith Joseph, the leading advocate of New Conservatism, within the context of the policy-making processes adopted by the Party in those years and the outcome of those processes. It concentrates on efforts to formulate policies in the key economic and industrial relations fields and examines how what emerged was shaped by the opposing views of those involved and by outside events. It considers how Margaret Thatcher, in order to keep the Party intact, contrived to avoid entering into potentially unsustainable policy commitments and, at the same time, impressed herself sufficiently on the electorate that when the opportunity arose, it was prepared to vote her and her Party into office. It became possible, once the first Thatcher government started its work, to regard much of what it did as ideological and radical. However, so inchoate was the programme developed in opposition that one can only conclude that there was no body of doctrine at the time of the 1979 election which warranted the name of ‘Thatcherism’ and that victory was achieved by acting in accordance with ‘traditional’ Conservatism – by doing what was necessary in the circumstances to attain power.

Secessionist movements have been found historically on both sides of the political spectrum, and sometimes have tried to remain apolitical completely, but because of the rise of partisan politics, secessionism has inevitably become politicized. Variations in Western European secessionism can be noticed, and as such, explanations put forward may be deemed insufficient, or incomplete. In my thesis I tested the hypothesis that secessionism varied on the political spectrum because it has been consolidated against ideological Others (in Scotland against Thatcher’s Conservatives between 1974 and 1990). I tested this methodologically through process tracing and theoretically by looking at the consolidation of the Scottish National Party through reactive nationalism. Specifically I analyzed the nationalist discourse used to justify ideological positioning in the 1970s and 1980s in propaganda materials and archival documents, and if and how this ideological choice was reflected or interpreted in newspapers (for opinions on how this consolidation was perceived by the electorate).