The making of modern Britain, 1951–2007

Section A Source A (source written for this paper; the author is fictional but typical of the period): from a letter by a Liverpool docker to his MP, 1972. 'You call us wreckers. We are defending jobs our fathers did and their fathers before them. Containerisation may suit the shipping lines, but it is turning the docks into a graveyard.' Source B (source written for this paper; the author is fictional but typical of the period): from a speech by a Conservative candidate in the 1979 general election. 'Britain has become ungovernable. The rubbish lies in the streets and the dead lie unburied. We will restore the authority of government and give power back to the people, not the union bosses.' Source C (source written for this paper; the author is fictional but typical of the period): from an interview with a former miner, recorded for a local history project in 2004. 'The strike split the village down the middle. Twenty years on there are families who still don't speak. We lost, and then the pits went anyway.' With reference to these sources and your understanding of the historical context, assess the value of these three sources to an historian studying industrial relations in Britain in the years 1970 to 1985.

Section B 'Macmillan's governments of 1957 to 1963 were more successful at home than abroad.' Assess the validity of this view.

Section B To what extent did New Labour transform British society in the years 1997 to 2007?