Law and Order, Moral Order. The Changing Rhetorics of the Thatcher Government

Abstract

The new interest being shown by socialists in the development of a socialist and democratic, law and order policy is welcome, though oierdue. I have tried to contribute to this project of socialist re-thinking elsewhere but that is not my concern in this paper. Here I want to focus on the way in which our political opponents have popularised the law and order issue over the last decade, but to do so with the particular purpose of understanding the problems that their earlier missionary zeal has created, in terms both of the ideological and practical, strategic options now confronting the Thatcher Government. This examination of the evolution of the law and order issue will be the basis for some qualifying comments on existing left analyses of 'Thatcherism'. I also want to try and understand the implications of what has been called 'the renaissance of puritanism' in the Conservative Party in terms, particularly, of what that tells us about Thatcherism in 1986. My concern here, will be to suggest that the dominant frame in which 'law and order' is constructed in Britain is not static and unchanging in its empirical reference-the political meaning of the term has always been heavily underwritten by the shifts of strategy adopted by the Thatcher Government. These shifts in Government policy and rhetoric are certainly to be understood as attempts on the part of the Government to connect with, and to appear to respond, to 'popular fears'. But the shifts are also important for what they tell us about the changing strength and influence of the social forces represented in the Thatcher Government.