ABSTRACT
In the battle for the hearts and minds of the working class – leading to four successive victories at the polls by the Conservative party between 1979 and 1997 – the popular tabloid press assisted in the ideological construction of a number of generalisations and myths. In the 1980s these included the view that ‘loads of money’ was available to anyone who was prepared to step on the face of the scrounger next door to get on. A move which involved buying council houses at a knock down price and private houses at a seriously inflated price – made easy by ‘loads of money’ being available as credit and as mortgages. It involved share options being targeted at small investors as privatised utilities – like gas, electricity and water – came under the hammer. Market economics helped transform the notion of standardised markets (based on labour intensive production systems) into mass niche markets via systems of franchising, flexible specialisation, new technologies, Japanese business practices, deregulation and globalization (Hall and Jaques 1989). As the economy was being effectively restructured and hundreds of thousands of people were being down-sized in the guise of
increased efficiency, greater flexibility, modernisation and lean competition, the mystique of an economic bonanza was being cultivated by the creation of conspicuous consumption – offering apparent freedom and more choice – to a generation which was becoming addicted to shopping as a principal ingredient of happiness, success and leisure activity.
