Harold Hill
The Right to Buy
Harold Hill
Now when historians tell the story, they often concentrate on the dramatic final months before the general election. I think Mrs Thatcher's victory
was the culmination of forces that had been gathering strength since the beginning of the 1970s. It was the crescendo of a kind of national mood
music, that was as much cultural as it was political.
But for a long time, Mrs Thatcher herself was merely humming along, building confidence for she felt ready to lead the orchestra.
Take, for instance, council house sales. The right to buy is remembered as one of Mrs Thatcher's radical new policies, but the truth is, she was
marching to a borrowed tune. This is Harold Hill in Essex, a huge suburban housing development, built after the Second World War.
Estates like this one where precisely the kinds of places where many council tenants were desperate for the chance to buy their own homes. Today
about half the houses on Harold Hill are privately owned and often, it's not difficult to spot which ones.
Presenting The Deeds
On 16 August 1980, after she had become prime minister, Margaret Thatcher paid a visit to this house on Amersham Road to see Mr and Mrs Patterson.
The Pattersons had just bought their own home. They were the 12,000th council tenants to do so and Mrs Thatcher was delighted to present them
with the deeds.
But this was hardly something new. The local Tory council had sold off its first house in 1967. But the most surprising thing about right to buy, is
that it was a policy the labour government has seriously considered after winning power in 1974. Polls showed massive public support for the idea.
Eight out of ten council tenants liked it and Labour activists reported that on the doorstep, tenants would often bring it up themselves.
The Good Life
One senior Labour minister even admitted that council tenancy carried with it the whiff of welfare, of subsidisation and generally of second-class citizenship.
Of course the right to buy was never really likely to get past the closed ranks of the Labour left. At the party conference in 1976, the comrades
actually voted to make the sale of council houses illegal.
And so an idea that chimed perfectly with ordinary families' desire for more personal freedom was handed to Mrs Thatcher on a plate.
It was the perfect way to attract a new class of recruits to the Tory banner.
Mrs Thatcher's target voters where a group known as the C2s. They were skilled workers many of them trade union members, and most were Labour voters. But
they weren't really interested in ideology. What they wanted was a government that kept prices down and strikes to a minimum. They dreamed of paying less
tax, taking more foreign holidays and getting onto the property ladder. But with inflation eating away at their earnings, they saw their dreams of the
good life slipping further and further out of reach.
New Car
In an age of rising prices, as Thatcher's talk of balancing the family budget struck a powerful chord. The people worried that rising prices were
eating away at their living standards, there was an obvious answer.
If you belonged to a big trade union, then it would protect you from the ravages of inflation. Even the threat of a strike was often enough to get
you a handsome pay rise, effectively protecting your new affluence. This wasn't so much socialism as self-interest. Unions might not have built the
new Jerusalem, but at least we can get you that new Cortina.
But by the late 70s, millions of ordinary people were beginning to wonder if the endless routine of strikes and walkouts really deliver lasting
prosperity. Still, Britain entered the bleak and bitter winter of 1978, unions were once again making the headlines.
