ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces some of the key themes in data gathering that began with the arrival of the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher in 1979. The first of these was the acceleration of the centralisation of the Government Statistical Service already evidenced under previous governments since 1964. This chapter details the stages of this process leading up to the formation of the Office for National Statistics in 1996. The argument here shows that this centralisation of structures was propelled by a desire to centralise and link the data itself. This chapter also shows how it was under Thatcher’s governments that data became focused on monitoring and combatting both immigration and fraud and that these rhetorical devices gave the government’s data drive some level of political legitimacy. It also illustrates how this foregrounding of immigration led to protests against the inclusion of questions on race/ethnicity and national origins in the 1981 census.
