LAUSR

The reasons for that apparent shift are not difficult to discern. From the 1960s onwards, and especially after Thatcherism came to power, the working class on which the Labour party had depended for most of its electoral support and towards which most of its policies were aimed was in decline, both absolutely and relatively. Major industries were destroyed and the trade unions, which mobilised both support and money for Labour, went into decline. There were several decades of substantial social mobility as generations of young people from workingclass backgrounds obtained educational qualifications formerly denied to them and filled many of the – often relatively lowly in pay and status – new types of job in the burgeoning middle class.