Talk:Social history of post-war Britain (1945–1979)/Archive 1

This archive is of discussions between 2015 and 2020 when the article covered the entirety of the post WW2 period of UK social history. The decision to split the article was taken to align with a decision to split the equivalent political article the discussion to so can be seen here.

1950s
The 1950s are described as an era of prosperity but is that so? Or was it's prosperity on the back of either Government borrowing, increased taxation, or QE (printing money)? LeapUK (talk) 14:25, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
 * By the early 1950s the situation had improved, although the UK was still surpassed by France and West Germany. (79.67.110.251 (talk) 15:11, 3 December 2015 (UTC))


 * That actually happened slightly later than tends to be remembered - Germany overtook the UK in the late 1950s (obviously Germany had been ahead between the 1880s and WW2) and France in the early 1960s. In the early 1950s it seemed for a while that Britain was getting back on track (the "new Elizabethan Age" and all that) and her pretensions to be the Third Superpower did not seem entirely ridiculous until Suez. The Macmillan era was was the point when people realised there was a serious problem and by the 1960s people started talking about the "British Disease" etc. It was all relative to other countries - average economic growth was actually higher in the 1960s than in the 1980s.Paulturtle (talk) 12:29, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Britain sure pissed away money like a drunken sailor in the 40s and 50s, and considering it was totally broke, it is a rather suprising thing. First it created the National Health and the Welfare State, then it Nationalised almost everything--railways, coal, steel. All these things needed money. Then it spent oodles of money building Atom and Hydrogen bombs and wars in Malaya, Kenya, Korea and Suez. Then it went completely daft and dieselized and electrified the railways at great cost and little return. All a strange program considering it did not have money. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.92.135.36 (talk) 03:42, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 22 January 2017
– With Post-war Britain turned into a disambiguation page, accordingly. Pinging discussants from Articles for deletion/Post-war Britain, the WP:AFD discussion closed by with the recommendation of such a move request. . --Nev&eacute;–selbert 23:57, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Post-war Britain → Social history of the United Kingdom (1945–present)
 * History of the United Kingdom (1945–present) → Political history of the United Kingdom (1945–present)
 * yes these 2 moves = a consensus reached by numerous editors over the last few days. Rjensen (talk) 00:08, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Ok, seems sensible if that's how people'd like to organise it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:25, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Contents of the lead
The lead should summarize the article, which focuses overwhelmingly on social cultural and economic themes. Politics and diplomacy are thoroughly covered in the sister article on political history, and are only briefly covered in the main text here. They tended to dominate the older version of the lead, which gives a misleading idea of the actual contents of this article. The guideline at CITELEDE is " Complex, current, or controversial subjects may require many citations; others, few or none." The deleted footnotes did not cover complex, current, or controversial subjects. Numerous footnotes were added from rather weak sources are likely to divert the readership, and have little serious value to the article. Rjensen (talk) 13:36, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Split article pre- and post-Thatcher?
I think it might be a good idea to split this article, with the epoch being 1979 and the election of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister, with added information about the end of the post-war consensus.--Nev&eacute;–selbert 18:00, 18 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Well, the choice of epochs seems basically arbitrary to me, but certainly the article is becoming rather long, so if it's convenient, go for it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:22, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Yep, fine with me. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 19:11, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
 * 1979 seems like a logical split date, so I would support this. Dunarc (talk) 19:25, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes I agree re split at 1979. Rjensen (talk) 01:38, 19 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I am not sure that we need a split. However, if we do, 1979 is a good date.  The period before was dominated by an agenda set by the post-WWII Labour  government.  The period after was dominated by privatisation and later public-private partnerships.  Nevertheless this is more political history than social history.  Peterkingiron (talk) 21:56, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Transcription error?
Can anyone clarify "Social class rigidities interence with progress"? Interference? "Rigidities" meant to be possessive? Google doesn't help. Thanks. Jessicapierce (talk) 05:31, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

References are shoddy
The referencing on this article is sorely lacking. There are various undefined short citations, and page numbers missing from many other citations. DuncanHill (talk) 11:06, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Northern Ireland
According to this article the only things that happened in Northern Ireland for 70 years were The Troubles and the Good Friday Agreement. I can't help having a nagging suspicion that a bit more than this was goin on in terms of social history there. DuncanHill (talk) 11:13, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Possible breakup of article?
The article now covers a relatively long period of time that seems to fall into two fairly distinctive sections, the post-war period (1945-1979) and more recent history (1979 to present). Any thoughts on splitting the page into two shorter articles?Llewee (talk) 15:39, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
 * no need for that. People can stop reading when they have covered what they want. People seeking a broad overview will get it in one place. Historians generally treat 1945 to present as a single unit focused on issues such as deindustrialization, welfare state, relations w Europe etc. Rjensen (talk) 15:49, 23 February 2020 (UTC)