ABSTRACT
In 1979 Pope John Paul II visited his native Poland and was given the kind of welcome that must have disturbed the communist rulers in Poland and elsewhere. In May 1979 Margaret Thatcher won a convincing victory in the general election: 339 seats against Labour 269, Liberals 11 and others 16. In June, Jeremy Thorpe, former leader of the Liberals, was found not guilty on a charge of conspiracy to murder his ex-lover. The Thatcher years witnessed an unprecedented volume of educational legislation, and, more importantly, a significant change of ideology in education. The 1984 Education Act allowed central government to allocate money to LEAs for specific purposes, thereby reducing LEA financial autonomy. Public opinion had been shifted towards a more critical position on education: comprehensive schools and progressive methods were treated with great suspicion in the press.
