Christian Stensrud writes:  In the week of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral, it is perhaps worth reflecting on one of the most contentious policy areas influenced by the Thatcher government  – that of welfare.

The Thatcher government’s objectives were to revive market liberalism within the public sphere, and to create the appropriate conditions for a ‘free’ economy by limiting the boundaries of the state while strengthening its authority. It was to be expected, therefore, that Thatcherism would conflict with the redistributive and, some would say, leftist ideology of the welfare state.  When Margaret Thatcher came into office in 1979, radical cutbacks to the welfare state (which she saw as an indicative source of the economic and social problems of the U.K.) were anticipated.

But was this talk of ‘rolling back the state’, of less state intervention and lower levels of public spending actually translated into practice?

There were instances of significant welfare retrenchment, primarily in pensions policy and housing, but not to the extent that was expected,  and it was no way near a complete dismantling of the welfare state.

The NHS, for example, though a constant target for the Thatcher government, was one that it had to back off from due to growing public discontent. Indeed, by 1989 the Thatcher government promised ‘the NHS is safe with us’, which was a remarkable turn.

Interestingly, public spending, as a percentage of GDP, actually rose during the first 3 years of Thatcher’s government.  And total social expenditure as a share of GDP remained almost unchanged from 1979-1990. Even more surprisingly her last term ended with more of the workforce employed in the public sector (23.1%) compared to today (20%). Why was this? Surely one of the key tenets of the Thatcher operation was to reduce the role and size of the state.

The Monetarist polices of the Conservatives led to a record high in unemployment of 11.9% in 1984 (not seen since the Great Depression), and this clearly meant more people claimed benefits. But it does not explain the growth in, say, health spending during the Thatcher administration, so let’s dig a bit deeper.

In the post-war years the expansion of the welfare state, and its increasing generosity, created enduring popular support. This huge popular support was primarily aimed at core programmes such as pension initiatives and unemployment benefits. But, interestingly expansion also created a constituency in the form of interest groups, such as pensioner organisations and disability groups, who could mobilise against threats to the status quo,   Politicians intent on  cutting welfare expenditure, had to pursue unpopular policies under scrutiny from voters and newly entrenched interest groups created by the previous 30 years of welfare expansion.

The two major welfare cutbacks implemented by the Thatcher era government add foundation to this claim. The privatisation of public council housing was the exception to the rule that all welfare cut backs are unpopular (it was promoted as a gain rather than a cut), and cuts in pension allocation were not faced by a huge public outcry because the pain  was reduced by personal pensions. Perhaps these were simply ‘low hanging fruit’ and the Thatcher government was unable to  inflict as much change on the welfare state as it wished,  for fear of being held accountable for initiatives that were vastly unpopular.  After all,  the Community Charge (Poll Tax) , which would have crippled the social spending of local authorities by cutting their finances, can be seen as a plan for welfare retrenchment. It was certainly a major influence on Thatcher’s decreasing popularity.

Welfare curtailment was not nearly as severe as promised by the Thatcher cabinet and the changes enforced pale in comparison to the changes the administration made within the industrial sector and privatisation of the nationalised industries. But the lesson of the Thatcher administration for future governments was that welfare retrenchment is possible so long as you transform it into a tangible benefit – as was the case in the privatisation of housing and the pension reforms.

Editor’s note:  you may also be interested in looking at a paper by economist, Stewart Lansley, Fellow of the Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research at Bristol University and author Joanna Mack, on The Thatcher Inheritance.  Lansley and Mack say, “What is clear is that the levels of inequality and poverty have both increased substantially. Since 1979, a greater share of the nation’s income and wealth has gone to top income groups, and in particular the very top, than in the period before 1979.”

Levels of deprivation today are worse in a number of vital areas – from basic housing to key social activities – than at any point in the past 30 years, according to a report published today by Poverty and Social Exclusion in the United Kingdom, a major research project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). 

The key findings are:

• About one third of people in the UK suffer significant difficulties and about a quarter have an unacceptably low standard of living.
• Levels of deprivation today are worse in a number of vital areas, from basic housing to key social activities, than at any point in the past 30 years.
• The number of households unable to heat the living areas of their homes has risen from 5% in the 1980s to 11% now.
• Overall, around 13 million people aged 16 and over in Britain cannot afford adequate housing conditions, up from 9.5 million in 1999.
• In households that can’t afford an adequate diet for their children, 93% of adults in the household ‘skimp` on their own food to protect their children.

ITV’s ‘Tonight’ programme broadcasts ‘Breadline Britain’ on ITV1 at 7.30pm tonight (28 March). The programme features some of the first results from the PSE: UK 2012 study.

PSE:UK is a major collaboration between the University of Bristol, Heriot-Watt University, The Open University, Queen’s University Belfast, University of Glasgow and the University of York working with the National Centre for Social Research and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency.

So, at last the politicians have come off the fence and struck a deal on press regulation in the wake of the Leveson Inquiry.  An independent regulator will be set up by Royal Charter with powers to impose fines on newspapers of up to £1million.

There is cross party agreement that the charter is the best way of preserving press freedom and protecting victims of press intrusion. But will the press play ball?  Many national newspapers are taking ‘high level legal advice’ on whether or not they have to take part in this new regime. They complain that they were not present at the meeting where the deal was struck, whereas Hacked Off, the group representing victims, was there.

Here, in a blog that first appeared last week on the Media Reform website, Angela Phillips, senior lecturer in journalism at Goldsmith, University of London and a member of the Pod Academy board explains why reform is badly needed, but why a Royal Charter is not the answer:

‘As four more journalists are arrested in connection with phone hacking it is worth remembering that it is commercial pressures, not great journalism, that brought us to this place.

Let us be clear: these arrests are in nobody’s interest. The fact that the police feel free to put the press under surveillance should be a matter of enormous concern to all of us. This is not what we expect in a democratic society. Democracy requires journalists who are able to work, free from interference from the state.

But that is precisely why the Leveson reforms are so desperately required: they should provide a regulator strong enough to protect the press from its own worst instincts and strong enough also to protect it from the worst instincts of others.

In any industry where there is fierce competition (such as there is among British national newspapers), there is the ever-present fear of being undercut by new entrants into the market.  This market disruption is the means by which capitalism renews itself. However it cannot do so without casualties and that is why, in a civilised democracy, we do not allow this process to run rampant. We use regulatory machinery to control it.

Newspapers across the world are suffering the most seismic market disruption since the introduction of television. Proprietors are seeing their share value collapse, and there have been massive lay-offs and closures. The remaining publications are desperate to maintain market share and hold their businesses as steady as they can while the market shakes.

For most, the way forward has been to cut staff numbers and rely ever more heavily on the research short-cuts that technology allows them. The hacking of mobile phones was the easiest and fastest way to pick up celebrity gossip and when it became clear that their own regulatory body was not interested in preventing them, it was open season.

Just as Lance Armstrong ruined cycle racing for anyone unwilling to use drugs, so the News of the World made it impossible for anyone to compete with them for stories unless they also hacked phones.  What the tabloids needed (just as cycling did) was an honest regulator ready to step in and knock heads together as soon as it became apparent that illegal methods were being employed to gather material.  Unfortunately the PCC (which no longer regards itself as a regulator) was simply too weak to stand up to the press barons and so the scandals were allowed to run unchecked.

Just as honest cyclists need a regulator to protect them, so do honest journalists. That regulator should be free from both the Government and the proprietors.  That is why a Royal Charter is not the right vehicle. It would allow the press to be interfered with in the future by ministerial fiat.  That is why it is essential also that the regulator is entirely independent – to prevent the biggest and strongest of the media barons from calling the shots.

Some news organisations realise this. That is why the Guardian, Independent Financial Times and now also the Mirror Group have broken ranks with the rest of the industry to call for a compromise solution which would allow for legal underpinning to ensure independence.

We have not got what we really wanted from the Leveson inquiry but we can still retrieve something. Lobby your MP to vote for amendments that will provide legal underpinning for a regulator to ensure that it is free of ministerial interference in perpetuity. Lobby also for a truly independent regulator that has the power to prevent the press from damaging itself.  That is the only way to preserve press freedom and protect real journalism.’

Angela Phillips is the Ethics Chair of Media Reform and a senior lecturer in Journalism at Goldsmiths, University of London.

A longer piece on Angela Phillips’s analysis of the case for media reform is contained in our earlier podcast, on the Leveson Inquiry

New research from Northumbria University suggests that Irish people feel compelled to drink alcohol to celebrate St Patrick’s Day – whether they want to or not .

Marketing lecturer, Matthew Kearney, from Coleraine in Northern Ireland, asked a sample of 70 Irish women and men in their 20s and 30s, to keep shopping diaries and analyse their feelings about their spending. He then conducted in-depth interviews with a third of those who took part. Each participant said they celebrated St Patrick’s Day. Some who had not anticipated celebrating felt compelled, due to mockery and cajoling from Irish friends, to spend considerable amounts of money on the day. One woman recalled spending £350 and many reported reaching credit card limits and borrowing from friends and family to support the celebrations. Participants who spent the day outside Ireland recalled being pressured to join in the celebrations by their English counterparts

Participants who declared themselves as teetotal the rest of the year also mentioned  feeling obliged to drink alcohol to celebrate St Patrick’s – a day when it is estimated that more than 13,000,000 pints of Guinness will be consumed around the world. Kearney explained: “Alcohol consumption, when placed in the context of Ireland becomes instantly romanticised, attributed to one’s underlying Celtic soul” and many Irish people regard drinking on the day as patriotic.

Kearney elaborates “many of the people who took part in the research seemed to feel an inescapable pressure to drink as part of Irish culture and heritage. When this is combined with the expectations of others, created by the concerted efforts of marketeers, the result appears inevitable”. He continues, “many of those I interviewed expressed extreme regret in the aftermath of the day while others demonstrated a learned helplessness towards stopping drinking on the day. There seems to be a perception that it’s their duty”.

Sara Mohr-Pietsch of Radio 3 learned 8 chords on the cello in 7 days then invited her friends into the studio to make a comic mash-up of Pachelbell’s Canon.

It’s great, watch it here and then please make a donation to Comic Relief.

And if you have something you’d like to promote for Comic Relief this weekend, just let us know by emailing thepod@podacademy.org, or put a note in the comments below.

Did you know that there are now more deer in the UK than at any time since the ice age?

Researchers at the University of East Anglia have just published the results of a unique survey in Journal of Wildlife Management.   It suggests that, in the absence of natural predators, current management efforts are not enough to stop the population of deer spreading out of control.

It may be enjoyable to see a herd of deer racing across nearby fields when you are driving along a road, but the growth in their numbers causes a serious threat to biodiversity, as well as road traffic accidents and crop damage.

The researchers found that while deer management appeared to control numbers at a stable level, this was only because thousands of deer are ‘pushed out’ to the surrounding countryside each year, helping drive the further spread of deer.  Significantly larger culls will be needed.

Lead researcher Dr Paul Dolman, from UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences (one of the longest established,largest and most fully developed of its kind in Europe) says deer management is often based on guesswork. This is the first time that a population has been quantified and studied in terms of how the deer are breeding – to measure the effectiveness of deer management.

.So expect to see more venison at the butchers…….