eignty. Attitudes were hardening against the
Conservative government and its whole European
strategy.
At home, October 1992 proved another dis-
astrous month for the prime minister and his
Cabinet. The announcement that thirty-one pits
were to be closed and thousands of miners left
without work, albeit with some compensation,
caused widespread anger well beyond the mining
communities. Facing defeat in the House of
Commons the government had to draw back.
The loss of contact with public feeling, the con-
tinuing recession and unemployment rising
towards 3 million, more than one in ten of the
workforce, brought the public approval rating of
the government to a new low. Most damagingly,
John Major’s leadership and good judgement
were being widely questioned. Rarely had a gov-
ernment’s fortunes been so quickly reversed after
an election victory.
There were close parallels between Reagan-
omics and the conduct of the economic policies
followed by the conservatives. These parallels
included a rising budget deficit as the costs of
unemployment increased while tax revenue fell
during the years of recession, the longest since the
war. House prices dropped steeply, the overhang
of the personal credit binge of the 1980s which
had showered plastic cards on virtually everyone,
and the continuing threat of unemployment
undermined the confidence of the man in the
street to spend money on anything other than
necessities. In 1993 a shift in economic policy had
become unavoidable. The number one problem
was now unemployment which once again was
three million. Special statistical measures and gov-
ernment training schemes disguised the true total
which was much higher. This time it affected not
just the Midland and northern industrial regions
but also the conservative heartlands of London,
eastern and southern England. The pendulum of
economic and social policies was swinging back
from ‘less government’ to the need for more inter-
vention and assistance. Thatcherite conservatism
proved to be no more the last word in British
politics than Reaganomics was in the US.
Governments in power during long periods of
recession are unpopular everywhere, blamed for
high unemployment and disappointing expecta-
tions of better standards of living. This was true
for John Major’s Conservative administration too,
but there were added difficulties. The party was
rent by differences over Europe – whether to
accept or reject closer union. The government’s
small majority after the 1992 elections made the
management of policy exceptionally difficult in
the face of the determined anti-European minor-
ity of the party. The rift extended to the Cabinet
itself; Major was left with no alternative but to try
to continue to work with those who opposed
him. Furthermore, the recession led to balloon-
ing public expenditure. The 1994 budget which,
for the first time, raised taxes on such essentials
as fuel for heating, was deeply unpopular. The
recession was slow to end and the feel-good factor
remained conspicuously absent; job insecurity and
years of falling house prices undermined public
confidence. Although John Major faced down a
leadership challenge in 1995 his majority in the
House of Commons narrowed to one the fol-
lowing year. His government came close to
having to depend for its survival on the Ulster
Unionist MPs, which reduced his flexibility in
handling the problems of Northern Ireland.
The Major administration’s important achieve-
ment was to bring about the virtual cessation of
violence in Northern Ireland in 1995. Secret con-
tacts and concessions on the one hand, and the
firmness of Britain’s handling of terrorism on the
other, brought rewards. Major succeeded in estab-
lishing close partnerships with successive prime
ministers of the Republic of Ireland. But in 1996
when the IRA was unable to win by democratic
process, it returned to bombing the mainland.
The problem that continued to split the Con-
servative Party was Britain’s future role in Europe.
In straddling the views of the pro- and anti-
Europeans, the government’s policy aims remain-
ed ambiguous and Britain’s influence in the coun-
cils of the European Union weak. The standing
of the government fell precipitously. Mad-cow
disease, and the fear that it could infect humans,
added to John Major’s woes and heightened
tension with Europe. Labour fortunes meantime
revived. Tony Blair, newly chosen leader of the
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