Grammar School and White Heat

When Labour came to power in 1964 it was a small majority of four seats under the promise that Wilson promised that he would keep up with the ‘white heat’ of technology. A second general election called in 1966 gave Labour a huge majority of 98 seats; this would have allowed Wilson to have more confidence in his government however he continued to struggle making decisions, lacking any decisiveness.

Wilson did not have a straightforward turn in office, as there were many disruptions as Britain changed its structure, which he claimed to have ‘blown him off course’ however this cannot excuse all the things Wilson did.When Wilson came to power his major aim was to modernise the economy and to keep up with the white heat of technology, as Britain was falling behind compared to its competitors. To do this when Wilson came to power Labour developed a ‘national plan’ which was designed to increase Britain’s output by a quarter by 1970. The main focuses were to lower government and private funding abroad, spend more money on industrial training in Britain and increase co-operation between government, management and trade unions.However few of the targets set had been met and it was abandoned in 1967.

George Brown also helped create a new ministry of technology. This shows that the government was truly intent on modernising however the failure of the National Plan, and then its abandonment shows that the government had not managed to modernise to the extent it had for seen. However when the Labour government came to power in 1964 it inherited a number of problems, one of which was a balance of payments deficit of ? 400 million.To fix this problem previously the options were devaluation of deflation. Although economists of the time believed a devaluation was the best option, Wilson tried to avoid this so that Labour did not become the ‘party of devaluation’ after Attlee was forced to devalue in 1949.

Instead Wilson tried to trigger economic growth to get out of the deficit. This led to the creation of the department of economic affairs (DEA) lead by George Brown. However this overlapped with the Treasury and the Chancellor, and so the DEA was dissolved in 1966.Once again this shows the government’s intention to modernise the economy and catch up with its international competitors however their action was indecisive and did not result in nearly as much as they intended. During this time the government had a large problem with trade unions, with the ‘National Plan’ this was supposed to be resolved. During the post war consensus governments had aimed at keeping unions’ happy and keeping high employment, but during 1966-7 strikes by Dockers and seamen.

This saw the rise of ‘wildcat strikes’ which were unorganized strikes usually caused by local activists. The economic minister, Barbara Castle intended to deal with this by introducing in place of strife, which was a document to try and stop wildcat strikes and reduce the overall number of them. However it was not supported by the left of Labour left. Eventually the government had to reach a compromise which was clearly in favour of the trade unions. This shows failure of the government to control the trade unions as they were allowed to act as they wished.Socially, in 1964-1970 Labour had been education, and to allow equal opportunities to everyone, to understand this the previous eleven plus system, where a child would take a test at eleven, and depending on their results be sent to one of three types of school; Grammar, secondary modern and technical schools.

There was some success in this policy, as from 1965-1970 the number of comprehensive schools quadrupled and exceeded the number of grammar schools. As well as this for every two students at a grammar school there were three at a comprehensive.1969 saw the start of the Open University, which Wilson saw to be his greatest achievement, this allowed people to study for degrees by listening to radio broadcasts and television which taught the courses. However Labour was also responsible for many social reforms from 67-70. These included the abortions act, which allowed a woman to have an abortion if two doctors agreed there was serious risk to the health of the mother or there was a high chance the baby would be born with serious abnormalities.There was also the sexual offences act, which allowed homosexuality and the divorce act in 1969 which meant a couple could divorce if they had an irretrievable breakdown in their marriage.

Labour also had a number of acts aimed at immigration and racism. The first of which were the Race Relations acts of 1965 and 1968, these prohibited racial discrimination, made incentment to racial hatred a crime as well as founding commissions and boards to try and combat racism. The commonwealth immigration act cracked down on immigration, this was because of growing tensions shown by Enoch Powell in his Rivers of Blood speech.The act stopped people from immigrating from the commonwealth unless the already had family ties.

This was to try and preserve the race relations acts and prevent racism as many working class areas were becoming discontented. Internationally, Wilson’s main aim was to join the EEC, which Macmillan had already applied for in his term. This was because economically Britain was falling behind internationally and so it appeared at the time the way to fix this was to join the EEC to make British goods more competitable in the European market. Labour was fully backed by Conservatives and Liberals however were opposed by 36 Labour MP’s.

This application was rejected because of Britains relationship with America, which De Gaulle vetoed for the same reason as in the Macmillan had been in his office. However the rest of Europe did not agree with his decision and were discontented by his decision. Wilson did not manage to achieve what he said he would, the unions were out of control and wildcat strikes were a common occurrence which upset the economy. He was rejected from the EEC, however this was not due to him alone as previous governments had been rejected for the same reason and the rest of Europe did not agree with De Gaulle’s decision.Economically the abandonment of the National Plan showed a failure by Labour to fulfil their promise to modernise the economy. However socially Wilson’s government did make progress, the move towards comprehensive education took a great leap forward and the Open University was said to be Wilsons greatest achievement.

As well as this there was liberation for people with acts such as the Divorce act or the Abortion act which made steps forward to give Women equality.