POLI20532 Course Outline 1112 - School of Social Sciences

POLI20532: Course Guide 2011-12 

Faculty of Humanities 

School of Social Sciences 

Politics 

POLI20532: British Politics & Society since 1940: from 

Blitz to the ‘Big Society’… 

2011-12: semester 2 

Credit rating: 20 

LECTURERS 

Kevin Morgan 

Rm 4.056 Arthur Lewis Bdg; 0161-275-4907; kevin.morgan@manchester.ac.uk; office 

hours: Monday, 3-4; Wednesday 1-2 

Andrew Russell 

Rm 4.029 Arthur Lewis Bdg; 0161-275-4250; andrew.russell@manchester.ac.uk; office 

hour: Monday 10-11, Thurs 10-11 

TUTORS 

Brian Davies 

Clare Debenham 

Piers Legh 

Neil Redfern 

Lectures: 

Monday, 1-3 p.m., Chaplaincy Theatre, St Peter’s House 

Office hour bookings: http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/intranet/ug/sohol/ 

Tutorials: 

Allocate yourself to a tutorial group using the Student System 

Mode of assessment: Assessed essay of 2,000 words (= 40% of final mark); two-hour 

Administrators: 

examination (= 60% of final mark) 

Philippa Wilson & Julie Gandy, UG Office G.001 Arthur Lewis Bdg. 

***IMPORTANT INFORMATION – PLEASE READ*** 

Essay hand-in date: Monday 16 April 2012 (the deadline to hand in the essay is 2pm) 

Please note you must submit both a hard copy and an electronic copy of the same paper 

via the module’s Blackboard 9 site 

Communication: Students must read their University e-mails regularly, as important 

information will be communicated in this way. 

Examination period: 14.05.12 – 08.06.12 

Re-sit Examination period: 20.08.12 – 31.08.12 

This course guide must be read in conjunction with Part II: Course Unit 

Guide (available at www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/Politics ) 

1


CONTENTS 

Course information: aims, objectives, assessment p. 03 

Lecture and tutorial programme p. 05 

Reading guidance including weekly tutorial and reading guide p. 07 

Week 2 p. 11 

Week 3 p. 14 

Week 4 p. 17 

Week 5 p. 21 

Week 6 p. 25 

Week 7 p. 29 

Week 8 p. 32 

Week 9 p. 35 

Week 10 p. 38 

Essays and deadlines p. 42 

Sample exam paper p. 43 

2


COURSE INFORMATION 

Credit Rating: 20 credits: (The University of Manchester’s Academic Standards 

Code of Practice specifies that a 20 credit course is expected to require about 200 

hours work in total from every student). 

Taught in: Semester Two (January – June 2012) 

Pre-requisites: none 

Scope of the Course: 

This course will analyse the development of post-war British politics, and 

especially such themes as the nature and durability of the consensus over social 

and economic policy that may have existed. The fortunes and ideologies of the 

main parties of government will be examined, as will questions such as racism 

and immigration, the role of trade unions, the national question in Scotland and 

Wales. 

Aim of the course: 

The aim of this course is to provide an analysis of postwar British politics, looking 

especially at such questions as the nature and durability of the consensus over social 

and economic policy that may have existed. 

Objectives of the course: 

• By the completion of this course students will be familiar with the developments in 

government and party politics since 1940, and with the construction of political debates 

and agendas around such issues as affluence, social class, modernisation and national and 

ethnic identity 

• Students will have achieved an understanding of modern British politics and be able to 

express themselves in coursework and assessment assignments. 

• Students will have developed an ability to evaluate the changing fortunes and political 

character of the principal political parties and to locate these in relation to wider 

developments in politics, culture and society. 

• Students will develop skills in assessing both contemporary and secondary political texts 

and employing these in a critical way in both written assessments and class discussion. 

Course Organisation; There will be weekly lecture and tutorial. The lecture and tutorial 

programme is outlined below. Any general enquiries about course organisations may be 

addressed to Andrew Russell. 

Assessment of Work: This course is assessed via essay and exam work. There is a 

compulsory assessed essay of 2,000 words worth 40% of the final mark, and a single twohour 

examination worth 60% of the final mark. Assessment essay topics are drawn from 

part one of the course. The exam paper will comprise two sections corresponding to 

parts two and three of the course, and students will be required to answer two 

3


questions, one from each section. Assessed essay questions and a copy of a sample exam 

paper can be found towards the end of this course guide. Answers should draw upon the 

lectures and course readings and will be assessed accordingly. 

All essays should be fully referenced in accordance with the department’s standardised 

guidelines regarding footnotes and bibliography (copies available from the SoSS 

Undergraduate Office). 

ESSAY SUBMISSION PROCEDURE: 

The essay must be submitted by 2pm, Monday 16 April, 2 p.m. 

One copy (which must be typed, double-spaced, and properly referenced) must be submitted 

to the Politics Undergraduate Office (Ground Floor, Arthur Lewis Building). Ensure that 

pages are numbered and include a word count (the word count may vary by around 10% 

above or below the limit). The essay must be accompanied by the Essay Submission Form. 

Essays must not be faxed or emailed to any member of staff. No essay submitted in this way 

will be marked. 

We require that, in addition to hard copy submission, you must submit the same essay 

electronically through the module’s BB9 site and by the same deadline. Full instructions on 

how to do this are available on the module’s BB9 site. 

See the Part II Guide for all requirements regarding essay formatting, referencing, 

plagiarism, and submission. It is available on Blackboard. All submitted assignments should 

be double-spaced on one side of each sheet. Standardised rules for footnotes and 

bibliographies are available from the Undergraduate Office. If an assessed essay fails to 

satisfy these rules, the Discipline Area requires that it be penalised by the deduction of 

marks, normally to a maximum of 10 marks where the scholarly apparatus is entirely 

inadequate. 

Extensions: The Politics statement specifying criteria for granting extensions for assessed 

work is available from the Undergraduate Office. 

Unless the Undergraduate Office grants the student an extension, essays submitted after the 

specified submission date will be subject to a penalty of 10 marks for the first working day 

and 5 marks for each working day thereafter. Politics will not accept any assessed essay after 

the exam for the course has taken place; unless the student has such permission, any assessed 

essay which is submitted after the exam will be marked as 0. 

The lack of a proper bibliography and appropriate referencing for an assessment essay will be 

penalised by the deduction of marks - normally to a maximum of 10 marks if the scholarly 

apparatus is entirely inadequate. 

Essays must NOT be faxed or e-mailed to Politics or to a member of staff. No essay sent in 

this way will be marked. 

Statement on Plagiarism: Plagiarism is regarded as a very serious offence. Please note that 

all essays will be submitted to a plagiarism check using Turnitin software. Serious cases may 

result in expulsion from the University. Students should consult the University’s statement on 

plagiarism, which can be found in the Part II Guide, their programme handbooks, or 

obtained from the Undergraduate Office. 

4


2012 Lecture & Tutorial Programme 

Attendance at tutorials is compulsory. You are expected to make every effort to attend all tutorials 

on this course. If you know in advance that circumstances beyond your control will prevent you from 

attending a tutorial, you should contact the tutor with this information. If you are unable to do this, 

you should explain your absence as soon as possible. You should not wait to be contacted by the 

course tutor(s) for non-attendance. Unexcused absences can lead to unsatisfactory tutor’s reports at 

the end of the course (affecting future job references by other tutors), and may result in exclusion 

from this course or in refusal to allow you to resit a failed exam. 

Lectures take place on Mondays, 1-3 p.m., Chaplaincy Theatre, St Peter’s House. 

Lecture notes and/or slides will be made accessible via Blackboard in the week before the lecture. 

Introductory week: 

Lecture. 30 January 2012 

Introduction 

Part one: an age of consensus? 1940-64 

Week 2 

Lecture. 6 February 2012 

(i) 

(ii) 

The emergence of consensus? (KM) 

Politics and social change in 1940s Britain (AR) 

Tutorial: 

To what extent did Labour’s victory in 1945 represent the emergence of a new political 

consensus in Britain? Is this best characterised as a social-democratic consensus? 

Week 3 

Lecture: 13 February 2012 

(i) 

(ii) 

The British Labour tradition: ethos, organisation, ideology (KM) 

The Attlee Governments (AR) 

Tutorial: 

Were the Attlee governments the ‘most successful exponent of the British variant of 

democratic socialism’ (K.O. Morgan)? What was the British variant of democratic 

socialism? 

Week 4 


(i) 

The British conservative tradition: ethos, organisation, ideology (KM) 

(ii) 

Butskellism and affluence: Conservative Britain 1951-64 (KM) 

Tutorial: 

Was an age of affluence inevitably an age of Conservatism? Or is it a mark of 

Conservative success that we think of the 1950s as an age of affluence? 

Part two: the fraying of consensus 1964-79 

Week 5 


(i) 

(ii) 

The challenge of modernisation: the Wilson years 1964-70 (KM) 

The challenge of modernisation: the Heath experiment 1970-4 (AR) 

5

Tutorial: 


To what extent was modernisation the central political issue of the 1960s and 1970s, and 

why should this have been so? 

Week 6 

Lecture: 5 March 2012 

(i) 

(ii) 

Trade unions and the post-war settlement (KM) 

The forward march of Labour halted? Labour in the 1970s (AR) 

Tutorial: 

How useful is Eric Hobsbawm's concept of a 'forward march of Labour'? What had 

become of it by the 1970s? 

Week 7 


' (i) The post-war politics of national identity (KM) 

(ii) 

Race' and immigration in post-war Britain (AR) 

Tutorial: 

Is it accurate to refer to the ‘racialisation’ of British politics after 1958? If so, who 

or what was responsible? 

Part three: consensus dismantled – and renewed? 

Week 8 


(i) 

(ii) 

Thatcherism: conceptual approaches (KM) 

Thatcherism in power (AR) 

Tutorial: 

What was Thatcherism? 

Week 9 

Lecture: 16 April 2012 

(i) 

(ii) 

New Labour: conceptual approaches (AR) 

New Labour in power (AR) 

Tutorial: 

Did Labour’s victory in 1997 represent the emergence of a new political consensus as in 

1945? Or did it represent the adaptation to Thatcher’s consensus, as the Conservatives 

adapted after 1951? 

Week 10 

Lecture 23 April 2012 

(i) 

(ii) 

from two-party consensus to multi-party Britain? (KM) 

Cameron, Clegg and the coalition (AR) 

Tutorial 

Does coalition government address the democratic deficit of the old two-party system? Or 

merely reinforce it? 

Week 11 Revision week 

Lecture 30 April 2012 

Tutorial: 

Revision Tutorial 

6


READING GUIDANCE AND GENERAL TEXTS 

A. STRUCTURE AND INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS 

There is a vast literature on British politics and society since 1940. Reading guidance is 

organised in the form of a weekly ‘Tutorial and reading guide’ as follows. 

1. Questions 

To be read at the outset as indicating key issues to be addressed through reading and class 

discussion. 

2. Essential readings 

Required readings for tutorial discussion unless your tutor specifies alternatives. 

3. General texts and alternative readings 

Further items directly supporting the lecture that except as stated should be readily 

accessible. Where applicable references are also given to the recommended course textbooks 

by Morgan and Childs (see further details below). 

4. Supplementary reading 

The course recommends a wide variety of readings, from polemical articles to extensively 

documented monographs. These need using with discrimination: one of the course objectives 

is to develop skills of using rigorously, critically and effectively the different types of source 

from which build up our understanding of politics. These skills may be particularly important 

for students writing dissertations in their final year. For this reason we do not specify a 

particular number of items that should be consulted, cited or listed in essay bibliographies. It 

is clearly important to familiarise yourself with alternative arguments and interpretations. 

Though you are not restricted to these, is also important that your reading is centrally based 

on the literatures recommended in the course guide and discussed in lectures and tutorials. 

Beyond this, you are encouraged to use insight and discretion as to how you follow up the 

different themes and lines of argument you encounter and credit for this will be given in 

formal assessment. 

5. Essay/exam preparation 

Except where this is clearly indicated, the course does not have a prescriptive approach as to 

specific texts or arguments to be cited in assessed essays or exam scripts. You are therefore 

encouraged to engage imaginatively with a variety of reading and show initiative in how you 

present your own understanding of the issues discussed. There are, however, core issues 

which it would be unwise to overlook and general parameters within which an effective 

*answer will need to be constructed. Appropriate guidance is therefore provided in each case. 

B. CONTEMPORARY SOURCES 

A vast range of contemporary sources in diverse media are easily accessed via the internet. 

These can give a vivid sense of how political debates were constructed at the time, which is 

one of the key themes of the course, and can enhance both understanding and enjoyment of 

the issues discussed. Some suggestions for each topic will be made available on Blackboard 9 

at the same time as the relevant lecture slides. Recommendations are highly selective and just 

tip of the iceberg. Consultation isn’t a course requirement unless directed by your tutor as a 

form of class preparation. 

Another way of exploring some of the themes of the course is through the galleries of 

Manchester People’s History Museum. This is one of the country’s leading museums of 

social and political history and includes a wonderful collection of materials relating to the 

period covered in the course. Admission is free and the museum is well worth a visit (see 

7


http://www.phm.org.uk/). For anyone intending to write extended essay or dissertation in this 

area, the museum also maintains an archive and study centre holding extensive collections of 

periodicals and pamphlets as well as the national archives of the Labour Party and British 

Communist Party. Admission is by appointment only (http://www.phm.org.uk/archive-studycentre/) 

but the archivists are extremely helpful and approachable. 

On the themes of racialisation and race relations the University itself maintains an important 

collection of materials: the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre. Again, this 

is an invaluable resource for anybody planning extended essays or dissertations in this area 

and students visiting the centre have always found the staff extremely welcoming and 

knowledgeable. For details see http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/ahmediqbal/ 

C. GENERAL TEXTS 

There are a number of affordable texts covering the period of the course. Due to their 

chronological arrangement, the following providing appropriate introductory reading for 

weeks 2-6 and 8 of the course and available from Blackwell’s. The coverage in Morgan is 

probably more comprehensive. 

Kenneth Morgan 

Britain since 1945: the People’s Peace. 

David Childs Britain Since 1945 

Other overviews that may be worth consulting include the following: 

Peter Clarke Hope and Glory: Britain 1900-2000 

Andrew Gamble 

Britain in Decline (1994 edn). 

David Marquand 

Britain Since 1918. The strange career of British 

Democracy (2009; on order for JRUL Jan. 2012) 

Arthur Marwick British Society since 1945 (1982). 

Rodney Lowe 

The Welfare State in Britain since 1945 (1999 edn) 

More specifically, the theme of consensus figures prominently in the course and the 

following provide a useful survey and a stimulating commentary respectively 

D. Kavanagh & P.Morris Consensus politics from Attlee to Thatcher (1989) 


The Unprincipled Society 

C. LABOUR AND CONSERVATIVE PARTY TEXTS 

The first and second parts of the course deal centrally with the forms of party competition 

and contestation in what was predominantly a two-party system, and the role and function of 

the established parties of government is revisited in the final section of the course on Britain 

since the 1990s. While specific readings are indicated in the weekly topic guide, the 

following section therefore provides guidance and Labour and Conservative Party literatires 

going beyond particular periods or topics and providing a wide range of possible readings 

both for essay and for exam preparation. 

C(i) 

Labour Party texts 

There are several good commentaries, arranged broadly chronologically and covering roughly 

to the period of date of publication unless otherwise stated. The following items are the most 

8


useful texts organised by period and providing introductions to the different phases of Labour 

Party politics looked at in the course. 

John Callaghan Socialism in Britain since 1984 (1990). 

David Howell 

British Social Democracy (1979 edn). 

Andrew Thorpe 

A History of the British Labour Party (2008 edn). 

But if there is pressure on reading materials, there is no shortage of alternative accounts: 

David Coates 

The Labour Party and the Struggle for Socialism 

(1975) 

Steven Fielding 

The Labour Party : continuity and change in the 

making of 'New' Labour (2003) 

James Hinton 

Labour and Socialism: a history of the British 

Labour movement 1867-1974 (1983). 

Kevin Jefferys 

The Labour Party since 1945 (1993). (Very basic; use 

only as an introductory text.) 

Tudor Jones 

Remaking the Labour Party: from Gaitskell to Blair 

(1996) 

Ralph Miliband 

Parliamentary Socialism (1972 edn). (Marxist 

account by the father of the current Labour leader.) 

Henry Pelling 

A Short History of the Labour Party (1991 edn). 

Eric Shaw The Labour Party since 1945 (1996). 

Duncan Tanner et al. (eds) Labour's First Century (2000). (Includes essays on 

Labour and the constitution, welfare, gender, 

international affairs, its membership and electorate 

etc.) 

Willie Thompson 

The Long Death of British Labourism. Interpreting a 

political culture (1993). 

There are also a number of collections of biographical studies. Marquand's is the most 

illuminating. 


Kenneth Morgan 

Kevin Jeffreys (ed.) 

Kevin Jefferys (ed.) 

The Progressive Dilemma. 

Labour People. 

Leading Labour. From Keir Hardie to Tony Blair 

(1999) 

Labour Forces. From Ernest Bevin to Gordon Brown 

(2002) 

C(ii) 

Conservative Party texts 

One collection of essays covers Conservative Party organisation, policy and ideology and 

includes contributions on its relations with and attitudes to women, Scotland, trade unions, 

industry and much more. It also includes a 50-page bibliographical essay. 

A. Seldon and S. Ball (eds) The Conservative Century (1994). 

Other useful texts include the following. 

Alan Clark 

The Tories - Conservatives and the Nation State 

1922-97 (2000) 

A J Davies, We the Nation (1996) 

9


Robert Blake The Conservative Party from Peel to Thatcher (1985 

edn). 

Andrew Gamble The Conservative Nation (1974) 

Z.Layton-Henry (ed) Conservative Party Politics (1980). 

P Norton & A. Aughey Conservatives and Conservatism (1981), ch. 2: 

‘Varieties of Conservatism’ 

John Turner 

‘A land fit for Tories to live in: the political ecology 

of the British Conservative Party 1944-94’, 

Contemporary European History vol 4 pt. 2 (1995). 

David Willetts Modern Conservatism (1992), esp pt 1 

Philip Norton (ed.) The Conservative Party (1996). 

Frank Coetzee 

For Party or Country. Nationalism and the dilemmas 

of popular Conservatism (1990). 

B Evans & A Taylor 

From Salisbury to Major. Continuity and change in 

Conservative politics (1996). 

10


D. WEEKLY TUTORIAL AND READING GUIDE 

WEEK 2 

To what extent did Labour’s victory in 1945 represent the 

emergence of a new political consensus in Britain? Is this best 

characterised as a social-democratic consensus? 

2.1 Questions 

1. Should the 1940s should be viewed as a period of political consensus? Or as one 

of enhanced partisanship? 

2. If the former, what issues united the parties? And if the latter, what divided 

them? 

3. Commentators are divided as to whether the period from 1945 was one of 

constraint or opportunity for Labour. Were voters radicalised by the war or was 

the public largely unpersuaded by Labour’s wider ideological goals, as the 

revisionists of the 1990s claimed? 

2.2 Essential readings 

Rodney Lowe 

‘The Second World War, consensus and the 

foundations of the welfare state’,Twentieth Century 

British History, 1, 2, 1990. 

2.3 General texts and alternative readings 

David Childs Britain Since 1945, chs 1-2 

Kenneth Morgan Britain Since 1945, chs 1 

Paul Addison 

The Road to 1945, 1975 (several copies including HD; 

the introduction and ch. 10 give a sense of Addison’s 

argument; chs 5, 6 and 8 provide empirical support and 

analysis). 

Steven Fielding et al 

England Arise. The Labour Party and popular 

politics in 1940s Britain, 1995 (photocopies of ch. 3, 

‘Party politics in wartime’, in HD). 


The Unprincipled Society, 1989, ch. 1, 'Keynesian 

Social Democracy' 

Jim Fyrth (ed) 

Labour’s High Noon. The government and the 

economy 1945-1951, 1995 (photocopies of 

‘Introduction’ by John Saville available in HD – 

catalogued under Fyrth). 


Labour’s Promised Land? Culture and society in 

Labour Britain 1945-51 (1995); sequel to the above 

collection; see esp chapters by Fielding, Collette and 

Wood in part 1, also part 2 on the new welfare society 

Stephen Brooke 

Labour’s War, 1992. (Fullest account of the Labour 

Party in wartime; introduction, pp. 1-11, deals with 

issue of consensus; HD) 

D. Kavanagh & P.Morris Consensus politics from Attlee to Thatcher, 1989. 

11


2.4 Supplementary reading 

(i) 

Wartime politics and the emergence of consensus 

Trevor Burridge British Labour and Hitler's War (1976). 

Correlli Barnett 

The Audit of War (1986). (Controversial right-wing 

critique of Britain's 'New Jerusalemists'; part 1 

provides the essential arguments.) 

B. Brivati & H. Jones (eds) What difference did the war make? (1993). 


'Fundamentalists and revisionists. The Labour 

Party and economic policy during the Second 

World War', Historical Journal, 32 (1989), pp. 157- 

75. 

Angus Calder The People’s War (1969 and subsequent edns). (A 

readable and informative social history; ch. 9: ‘Never 

Again: December 1942 to August 1945’ deals with the 

politics of reconstruction.) 

Jose Harris 

‘War and social history: Britain and the home 

front during the Second World War’, Contemporary 

European History, 1, 1992, 17-35 

Jose Harris 

William Beveridge: a biography (1977, new edn 

1997). (See esp ch. 17 for the reception of the 

Beveridge report.) 

Kevin Jefferys The Churchill Coalition and Wartime Politics 1940- 

45 (1991). 

Kevin Jefferys 

'British politics and social policy during the Second 

World War', Historical Journal, 30 (1987), pp. 123- 

44. 

Arthur Marwick 

'Middle opinion in the thirties: planning, progress 

and political agreement', English Historical Review, 

64 (1964), pp. 285-98. (The roots of consensus? 

Compare with Addison, Road to 1945, ch. 1 which 

covers similar territory.) 

T. Mason & P. Thompson ‘“Reflections on a revolution?” The political mood 

in wartime Britain in Nick Tiratsoo (ed.), The Attlee 

Years (1991), pp. 54-70. (A product of the ‘apathy 

school; Ian Taylor’s essay in the same collection is 

useful on Labour Party policy.) 

Roger Middleton 

David Morgan & Mary Evans 

Kenneth O. Morgan 

‘Keynes’s legacy for postwar economic 

management’ in Anthony Gorst, Lewis Johnman and 

W. Scott Lucas, eds, Post-War Britain. Themes and 

perspectives (1989), pp. 22-42. 

The Battle for Britain. Citizenship and Ideology in 

the Second World War (1993) 

‘The Second World War and British culture’ in 

Brian Brivati and Harriet Jones, eds, From 

Reconstruction to Integration: Britain and Europe 

since 1945 (1993), pp. 33-46. 

Harold Perkin, The Rise of Professional Society (1989). (Chapter 9 

sees in the post-war settlement the hegemony of the 

professional ideal.) 

12

H.L. Smith 

Andrew Thorpe 

Jim Tomlinson 


'Women in the Second World War' in H.L. Smith 

(ed.), War and Social Change (1986), pp. 66-89. 

Parties at War: political organisation in Second 

World War Britain (2009). (Esp ‘Introduction’ for an 

overview of key debates.) 

‘Planning: debate and policy in the 1940s’, 

Twentieth Century British History vol 3 no 2 (1992). 

(ii) 

The 1945 election 

Contemporary Record 

Vol, 9 no. 1 (1995), ‘Symposium: the 1945 election’, 

has four articles on the different parties incl Stephen 

Brooke, ‘The Labour party and the 1945 general 

election’, Contemporary Record, 9, 1, pp. 1-21 


'What did "the People" Want? The meaning of the 

1945 General Election', Historical Journal 35 (1992). 

(Strongest version of the case against wartime 

radicalisation.) 

Norman Howard A New Dawn - The General Election of 1945 (2005) 

R McCallum & A Readman The British General Election of 1945 (1947). 

Kevin. Morgan 

‘Away from party and into “the party”: 

communism in Britain and the election of 1945’, 

Socialist History, 37 (2010), pp. 73-5 (on Blackboard). 

(Takes issue with Fielding’s interpretation of the 

Liberal and Labour vote and argues that Labour voters 

were at least as likely to defect to the communists as 

the Liberals). 

2.5 Essay preparation 

‘Consensus is a mirage, an illusion which rapidly fades the closer one gets to it’ (B. Pimlott). 

Does the idea of a wartime consensus culminating in Labour’s election victory fade the closer 

you get to it? 

This question focuses on the emergence of a new politicak consensus and the so-called ‘road 

to 1945’. It is commonly recognised that a Labour victory could not have been anticipated 

before the outbreak of war; consideration of Labour’s electoral breakthrough therefore offers 

a way of exploring wider changes in the politics and society in wartime Britain. Key issues 

and interpretations are introduced in the lecture and an effective answer will show an 

awareness of competing interpretations and the ability to harness appropriate empirical 

evidence in evaluating ths character and significance of wartime radicalisation. Addison has 

been the most influential exponent of the idea of a wartime consensus, but it has been much 

contested in a particularly extensive literature. Rather than try to skim over too much may be 

better to identify key issues or debates offering insight and support for your arguments – but 

be sure these are clearly located within a broader context and related to the question. Detailed 

narrative for its own sake should be avoided. 

13


WEEK 3 

Were the Attlee governments the ‘most successful exponent of the 

British variant of democratic socialism’ (K.O. Morgan)? What was 

the British variant of democratic socialism? 

3.1 Questions 

1. Is it appropriate to judge the Attlee governments by their commitments to 

‘socialism’ or ‘democratic socialism’? What did they mean by this? What 

keywords or core values can we associate with Labour’s view of socialism. 

2. Should the government’s record be seen primarily as one of achievement? Or of 

promise unfulfilled? 

2. Did it make much difference to Britain that it elected a Labour government in 

1945? Did it make much difference that it didn’t in 1951? 


Martin Francis 

‘Economics and ethics: the nature of Labour’s 

socialism, 1945-51’, Twentieth Century British 

History, 6, 2, 1995. 


David Childs Britain Since 1945, ch. 2 

Kenneth Morgan Britain Since 1945, chs 2-3 

Steven Fielding et al 


politics in 1940s Britain, 1995 (photocopies of ch. 3, 

‘Party politics in wartime’, in HD). 


The Unprincipled Society, 1989, ch. 1, 'Keynesian 

Social Democracy' 


Labour’s High Noon. The government and the 

economy 1945-1951, 1995 (photocopies of 

‘Introduction’ by John Saville available in HD – 

catalogued under Fyrth). 


Labour’s Promised Land? Culture and society in 

Labour Britain 1945-51 (1995); sequel to the above 

collection; see esp chapters by Fielding, Collette and 

Wood in part 1, also part 2 on the new welfare society 


(i) 

Labour Party: ethos, organisation, ideology 

As well as the general Labour Party texts cited above, the following deal with Labour’s 

‘ideas’ and its development of a distinctive programme and ideology 

H.M. Drucker Doctrine and Ethos in the Labour Party (1979). 

14

Geoffrey Foote 

Jose Harris 

Raymond Plant et al (eds) 

John Saville 

Noel Thompson 


The Labour Party’s Political Thought, (1997 edn). 

‘Labour’s political and social thought’ in Duncan 

Tanner et al. Labour’s First Century, pp. 8-45 

The struggle for Labour's soul: understanding 

Labour's political thought since 1945 (2004) 

'The ideology of Labourism' in Robert Benewick 

(ed.), Knowledge and Belief in Politics, 1973 

Political Economy and the Labour Party. The 

economics of democratic socialism (1996) 

(ii) 

The Attlee governments 

T. Brett et al. 'Planned trade, Labour Party policy and US 

intervention', History Workshop 13 (1982). 


'Revisionists and fundamentalists, The Labour 

Party and economic policy during the Second 

World War', Historical Journal 32 (1989), pp. 157- 

75 

Jerry Brookshire Clement Attlee (1995) 

John Campbell 

Nye Bevan and the mirage of British socialism 

(1987), esp chs 12-13. (Study of the most outspoken 

socialist in the cabinet and the architect of the NHS; 

see also Foot’s biography below.) 

Peter Clarke 

The Cripps Version. The life of Sir Stafford Cripps 

(2002), part 6. (Labour’s second post-war chancellor 

and the personification of ‘austerity’.) 

S Fielding, et al. 


politics in 1940s Britain (1995). (Revisionist account; 

for a critique see Hinton below). 

S. Fielding ‘“Don’t know and don’t care”: popular political 

attitudes in Labour’s Britain, 1945-51’ in Nick 

Tiratsoo (ed.), The Attlee Years (1990), pp. 106-25 

(similar arguments to those in England Arise!) 

Michael Foot Aneurin Bevan 1945-1960 (1973), esp chs 3-4. 

Martin Francis, Ideas and Politics under Labour 1945-1951 (1997). 

Martin Francis 

'The Labour Party: modernisation and the politics 

of restraint' in Conekin, Mort and Waters, eds, 

Moments of modernity, pp. 152-70. 


Labour's High Noon (1995). (Essays providing a leftwing 

critique of the government's economic and social 

policies; as well as John Saville’s introduction, essays 

by Richard Saville and Nina Fishman on 

nationalisation are especially recommended.) 


Labour's promised land? : culture and society in 

Labour Britain, 1945-51 (1995). (Sequel to the 

above.) 

P.S. Gupta 

'Imperialism and the Labour governments 1945-51' 

in J.M. Winter (ed.), The working Class in Modern 

British History (1983), pp. 98-120. 

Robert Harris Attlee (1982), esp chs 17-20, 24-5 

Peter Hennessy, 

Never Again (readable general history). 

15

James Hinton, 

David Howell Clement Attlee (2006) 

Ross McKibbin 

16 


‘1945 and the Apathy School’, History Workshop 

Journal 43 (1997), pp. 266-73. (Perhaps the sharpest 

of the critiques of the ‘revisionist’ view put forward in 

the 1990s.) 

Parties and People 1914-51 (2010). (Ch. 5: ‘The 

English road to socialism’.) 

Kenneth Morgan Labour in Power 1945-1951. 

K. Paul '"British subjects" and "British stock": Labour's 

postwar imperialism', Journal of British Studies 35 

(1995), pp. 233-76. 

Henry Pelling The Labour Governments 1945-51. 

Jim Phillips 

The Great Alliance: economic recovery and the 

problems of power 1945-51 (1996). (Strong on 

government’s relations with the unions.) 

Ben Pimlott 

Hugh Dalton (1985), esp. chs 23-8. (Excellent 

biography of Labour’s first post-war chancellor.) 

Jonathon Schneer Labour's Conscience. The Labour Left 1945-51. 

Kevin Theakston 

Nick Tiratsoo 

Jim Tomlinson 

Peter Weiler Ernest Bevin (1993). 


The Labour Party and Whitehall (1992), ch. 2: ‘The 

Attlee government and the reform of the civil service’. 

Industrial Efficiency and State Intervention: Labour 

1939-51 (1993). 

Democratic Socialism and Economic Policy. The 

Attlee years 1945-51 (1997) (chs 1, 5 and 11-13 esp 

helpful). 

‘The 1945 election put democratic-collectivist étatisme into the saddle’ (D. 

Marquand). Is this a fair assessment of what the 1945-51 Attlee governments stood 

for? 

Few British governments have had so clear a programme and acted upon it so promptly as the 

incoming Attlee government. The explicit rationale for the government’s reforms was the 

commitment to democratic socialism embodied in successive Labour programmes and 

encapsulated in Let Us Face the Future. Debate, however, has focused on both the extent and 

the political character of this commitment to socialism. Much of the literature, like 

contemporary debate, has focused on international policy: atlanticism, imperial policy, the 

commitment to a global military presence. This engendered acute conflict within Labour’s 

Party and manifestly had an impact on domestic issues which needs to be acknowledged. 

Detailed discussion within the course nevertheless focuses primarily on the government’s 

social and economic reforms at home. Consider their effectiveness in key areas like welfare, 

health, economic management and public ownership. What interests, groups or values were 

meant to benefit from these policies? How far did Labour’s advocacy of such policies employ 

the language of socialism, and what sort of socialism was this? David Marquand, who has 

written extensively on the social-democratic consensus, refers to the governments’ 

democratic-collectivist étatisme in his book Britain Since 1918, ch. 5. Democraticcollectivist 

suggests possible links with the earlier welfare and political reforms of the 

pre-1914 Liberal governments. Étatisme suggests that the state was at the centre of its 

social vision (Chambers Dictionary defines as ‘extreme state control over the individual 

citizen’). As well as the specific readings indicated here, see the general section on Labour 

Party texts for discussions of the nature of Labour’s socialism.


WEEK 4 

Was an age of affluence inevitably an age of Conservatism? Or is 

it a mark of Conservative success that we think of the 1950s as an 

age of affluence? 

4.1 Questions 

1. Was the 1950s really an ‘age of affluence’? And why was affluence such a potent 

concept politically? 

2. Was it affluence that led to Conservatives electoral success; if so why? Was 

aspirationalism and consumerism more compatible with Conservative values? Or was it 

Conservative good fortune to be holding office in a period of rising living standards and 

general material security? Does Conservative success – even after Suez – show that the 

economy is the key to winning elections? 

3. Why was Labour unable to consolidate its record vote of 1951? Were its internal 

divisions and apparent drift major factors in the Conservatives’ success? Why was Labour so 

divided? Did affluence itself pose it new challenges; or had the old Labour project run out of 

steam? How important respectively were personal, ideological and organisational factors? 

4. What was Butskellism? Is this an accurate way of characterising the politics of the 

1950s? Should this be regarded as the heyday of a social-democratic consensus? 

5. How accurate was Labour’s claim of ‘thirteen wasted years’? Did the rise in living 

standards disguise the fact of relative decline and the continued failure to modernise either 

the British economy, the British state, or its relations with the world outside it? 


(i) Harriet Jones 

OR 

(ii) Harriet Jones 

‘The Cold War and the Santa Claus syndrome: 

dilemmas in Conservative social policy-making 

1945-57’ in in Francis and Zweiniger-Bargielowska, 

The Conservatives and British Society 1880-1990, pp. 

240-54; 

‘New Conservatism’ in Coneckin, Mort and Waters, 

Moments of Modernity (HD; also on Blackboard). 


Kenneth Morgan Britain since 1945, chs 4-6. 


Kevin Jeffreys, Retreat from New Jerusalem. British politics 1951- 

1964 (1997) 

17

Michael Pinto-Duschinsky 


'Bread and circuses? The Conservatives in office 

1951-64’ in Bogdanor and Skidelsky, The Age of 

Affluence, pp. 55-77. 


(i) 

On ethos, organisation, ideology 

The following texts deal with ideas and ideology; see also general texts on Conservatism 

cited above 

John Barnes 

‘Ideology and factions’ in A. Seldon & S. Ball, The 

Conservative Century, 1994. 

E.H.H. Green 

‘Conservatism, the state and civil society in the 

twentieth century’ in idem, Ideologies of 

Conservatism (2002). 

W.H. Greenleaf 

The British Political Tradition. Volume two: the 

ideological heritage (1983), ch. 7: ‘Tory paternalism 

and the welfare state’. 

W.H. Greenleaf 

‘The character of modern British Conservatism’ in 

Benewick, Berki & Parekh, eds, Knowledge and 

Belief in Politics: the problem of ideology (1973). 

Kevin Hickson (ed.) 

The Political Thought of the Conservative Party 

Since 1945 (2005) 

David Willetts Modern Conservatism (1992), esp. ch. 3 

(ii) Conservatism and the post-war settlement 1945-64 

Paul Martin 

‘Echoes in the wilderness: British popular 

Conservatism, 1945-51’ in Ball and Holliday, Mass 

Conservatism (2002), pp. 120-38. 

Paul Addison 

'Churchill in British politics 1940-55' in J.M.W. 

Bean, The Political Culture of Modern Britain (1987). 

Beatrix Campbell The Iron Ladies. Why do women vote Tory? (1987), 

ch. 3: ‘The new world’. 

Peter Dorey 

‘Industrial relations as “human relations”: 

Conservatism and trade unionism, 1945-64’ in Ball 

and Holliday, Mass Conservatism (2002), pp. 139-62. 

Martin Durham 

‘Defeat and renewal: the ideology of the right’ in 

Jim Fyrth, ed., Labour’s Promised Land? Culture and 

society in Labour Britain 1945-51 (1995), pp. 100-11 

E.H.H. Green 

‘Searching for the Middle Way: the political 

economy of Harold Macmillan’ in idem, Ideologies 

of Conservatism (2002), ch. 6 

J.D. Hoffman The Conservative Party in Opposition 1945-1951 

(1964). 

Mark Jarvis 

Conservative Governments, Morality and Social 

Change in Affluent Britain 1957-64 

Harriet Jones 

'New Conservatism?' The Industrial Charter, 

modernity and the reconstruction of British 

Conservatism after the war' in Conekin, Mort and 

Waters, eds, Moments of modernity, pp. 171-88. 

18


Harriet Jones 

'The Cold War and the Santa Claus syndrome: 

dilemmas in Conservative social policy-making 

1945-57' in in Francis and Zweiniger-Bargielowska, 

The Conservatives and British Society 1880-1990, pp. 

240-54. 

Harriet Jones 

‘“This is Magnificent!”: 300,000 houses a year and 

the Tory revival after 1945’, Contemporary British 

History, 14, 1 (2000), pp. 99-121. 

Rodney Lowe 

'The replanning of the Welfare State, 1957-64' in 

Francis and Zweiniger-Bargielowska, The 

Conservatives and British Society 1880-1990, pp. 240- 

54. 

Peter Oppenheimer 

'Muddling through: the economy 1951-1964' in 

Bogdanor and Skidelsky, The Age of Affluence, pp. 

117-67. 

Michael Pinto-Duschinsky 'Bread and circuses? The Conservatives in office 

1951-64´in Bogdanor and Skidelsky, The Age of 

Affluence, pp. 55-77. 

L. Black & H. Pemberton (eds) An Affluent Society? Britain’s post-war ‘golden age’ 

revisited? (2004) 

John Ramsden 

The Making of Conservative Party Policy: the 

Conservative Research Department since 1929 

(1980). (Chs 5-7 on the rethinking of Conservative 

policy in the war and post-war years.) 

John Ramsden 

‘Winston Churchill and the Leadership of the 

Conservative Party 1940-1951’, Contemporary 

Record vol. 9 no. 1 (1995). 

John Ramsden, The Age of Churchill and Eden 1940-1957 (1995). 

John Ramsden, The Winds of Change to Macmillan to Heath, 1957- 

1975 (1996). 

N. Rollings 'Poor Mr Butskell: a short life wrecked by 

schizophrenia?', Twentieth Century British History, 5 

(1994), pp. 183-205. 

Bill Schwarz, 

David Seawright 

Andrew Taylor 

Jim Tomlinson 

Robert Walsha 

R Walsha 

‘The tide of history: the reconstruction of 

Conservatism 1945-51’ in N. Tiratsoo, The Attlee 

Years (1991), pp. 147-66. 

‘One Nation’ in Kevin Hickson, ed., The Political 

Thought of the Conservative Party Since 1945 

(2005), ch. 4 

‘Speaking to democracy: the Conservative Party 

and mass opinion from the 1920s to the 1950s’ in 

Ball and Holliday, Mass Conservatism (2002), pp. 78- 

99. 

'"Liberty with order": Conservative economic 

policy, 1951-64' in Francis and Zweiniger- 

Bargielowska, The Conservatives and British Society 

1880-1990, pp. 274-88. 

‘The One Nation group and One Nation 

Conservatism, 1950-2002’, Contemporary British 

History, 17, 2 (2003), pp. 69-120. 

'The One Nation Group: a Tory approach to 

backbench politics and organization, 1950-55', 

19


Twentieth Century British History, 11, 2 (2000), pp. 

183-214 

Peter Weiler 

'The Conservatives' Search for a Middle Way in 

Housing, 1951-64', Twentieth Century British 

History, 14 (2003), pp. 360-390 

David Willetts 

‘The New Conservatism? 1945-1951’ in Anthony 

Seldon & Stuart Ball (eds), Recovering Power: The 

Conservatives in Opposition since 1867 (2005), ch. 8 

Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska 'Explaining the gender gap: the Conservative Party 

and the women's vote, 1945-1964' in Francis and 

Zweiniger-Bargielowska, The Conservatives and 

British Society 1880-1990, pp. 194-223 

Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska 'Rationing, austerity and Conservative Party 

recovery after 1945', Historical Journal 37 (1994), 

pp. 173-97. 

Richard Lamb The Failure of the Eden Government (1987) 

Richard Lamb 

The MacMillan Years 1957-63; The Emerging Truth 

(1996) 

Philip Norton (ed.) 

The Conservative Party (1996) - especially Chapters 

1-4 written by Norton himself. 

G.E. Maguire 

Conservative Women. A history of women and the 

Conservative Party 1874-1997 (1998), part 3. 

Henry Pelling Churchills' Peacetime Ministry 1951-1955 (1997) 

(iii) 

Useful biographies of leading Conservatives 

David Dalton Anthony Eden. A life and a reputation (1997). 

Anthony Howard Rab; the life of R.A. Butler (1987). 

R Rhodes James Anthony Eden (1986), esp chs 9-10. 

Nigel Fisher Harold Macmillan (1982). 

Alastair Horne Macmillan (2 vols, 1988-89). 

John Turner Macmillan (1994) (esp. ch. 10) 


‘Conservatives often say with pride that their party is the prisoner of no rigid set of 

principles’ (R. Hornby MP). Were the Conservative governments of 1951-64 a proof 

of this? 

Few in 1945 could have anticipated the extent of Conservatives’ political recovery in the 

1950s. There are a number of possible lines of explanation. One is the modernisation of 

Conservative policy, which may be linked with ideas of the post-war consensus and what 

some see as the inbuilt electoral pragmatism and adaptility of the Conservatives. Another is 

the strength of Conservative organisation and the social and material resources it could 

command. As in any question of competitive party politics, the credibility and vitality of 

potential rivals – the marginalised Liberal tradition as well as the divided Labour Party – 

might also merit consideration. Beyond these specificities, some would see the 

Conservatives’ appropriation of the post-war consensus as a classic case of the pragmatic 

adaptability identified by Hornby. In compressing a complex period into a relatively short 

essay, particular themes, personalities or areas of policy can be used to illustrate broader 

themes. Key personalities include Butler and Macmillan; while there are excellent readings 

on housing, welfare or the economy, any of which might provide a case-study component 

20


within the context of a broader discussion. A degree of selectivity is not only indispensable 

but the key to a well-focused argument. However, the focus should be explained and the 

broader context and debates clearly indicated: a strong, clear introductory paragraph, as 

always, is the key to a really effective answer. 

WEEK 5 

To what extent was modernisation the central political issue of the 

1960s and 1970s, and why should this have been so? 

5.1 Questions 

1. Why did the need for modernisation loom so large in British politics by the 1960s? 

How important wasLabour’s modernising agenda in securing its return to power in 1964? 

2. Did the Wilson governments of 1964-70 betray the promise of modernisation? Did 

they, as critics alleged, betray their own supporters? If so, was this due to constraints, events, 

expediency or just a lack of vision? Is it time to make the case again for the government’s 

achievements? 

3. What was Heath’s variation on the theme of modernisation? Was this only a ‘bogus 

alternative’ (Samuel Brittan) to Wilson? Or was the ‘Heath experiment’ a dry run for 

Thatcher’s neo-liberalism, and if so why was it so rapidly abandoned? Was Heath the last of 

the One Nation Tories or the first of the Thatcherites? 

4. By 1974 the vote for both main parties was declining. Why did the promise of 

modernisation not fulfilled? Was it a failure of leadership? Or did it go deeper than this? 


Contemporary British History 

Gregory Elliott 

21, 3, 2007: special issue on Wilson governments 

including articles on economic policy, industrial 

relations, the machinery of government and the 

creative industries. For an overview see especially 

Glenn O’Hara and Helen Parr, ‘Introduction: the Fall 

and Rise of a Reputation’, pp. 295-302, and the same 

authors’ concluding feature. 

Labourism and the English Genius, 1993, ch. 3 (HD 

and Blackboard). An acerbic statement of the critical 

view. 


Kenneth Morgan Britain Since 1945, chs 7-9 


Richard Coopey et al, eds. The Wilson Governments 1964-1970, 1993. (Copies 

of David Horner’s chapter ‘The road to Scarborough: 

Wilson, Labour and the scientific revolution’ also in 

HD). 

Andrew Gamble 

Britain in Decline, 1994 edn, ch. 4 (copies in HD). 

21


David Howell 

British Social Democracy, 1976, ch. 9: ‘The second 

time as farce’. 

John Callaghan Socialism in Britain since 1884, 1990, ch. 13. 

John Campbell 

Edward Heath: a biography, 1993. (Ch. 15, copies in 

HD). 

Brendan Evans and Andrew Taylor From Salisbury to Major. Continuity and change in 

Conservative politics, 1996, ch. 6; ‘Heath and the 

Heathmen’ (copies in HD). 


(i) 

the context to the modernisation debate 

The following all provide some general context on the sense of decline and the challenge of 

modernisation. Wiener’s account, published in the early years of Thatcherism and recently 

reissued, generated particular controversy – Rubinstein’s book is one response. 

Matthew Grant 

‘Historians, the Penguin specials and the “state-ofthe-nation” 

literature, 1958-64’, Contemporary 

British History, 17, 3 (2003), pp. 29-54 

H. Pemberton 'A taxing task: combating Britain's Relative 

Decline in the 1960s', Twentieth Century British 

History, 12, 3 (2001), pp. 354-375. 

W.D. Rubinstein Capitalism, Culture and Decline in Britain 1750- 

1990 (1993), ch. 1: ‘The British economy since 

industrialisation and the “cultural critique”’ 

Martin J. Wiener 

English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial 

Spirit 1850-1980 (1981), ch. 8: ‘An overview and an 

assessment’ 

(ii) 

The 1964-70 Wilson governments 

Jad Adams Tony Benn: a biography. (Chs 12-24.) 

Tim Bale 

'Dynamics of a non-decision: the 'failure' to 

devalue the pound, 1964-7', Twentieth Century 

British History, 10, 2 (1999), pp. 192-217. 

David Blaazer 

‘“Devalued and Dejected Britons”: The Pound in 

Public Discourse in the Mid 1960s’, History 

Workshop Journal 47 (1999). 

Christopher Clifford 

‘The rise and fall of the Department of Economic 

Affairs, 1964-1969: British government and 

indicative planning’, Contemporary British History, 

11 (1997), pp. 94-116 

R. Coopey, et al. (eds) The Wilson Governments 1964-1970 (revisionist 

collection, putting a case for Wilson's defence). 

Richard Coopey 

‘The white heat of scientific revolution’, 

Contemporary Record 5, 1991, pp. 115-27 

Peter Dorey (ed.) The Labour governments, 1964-1970 (2006) 

David Edgerton 

‘The “White Heat” revisited: the British 

government and technology in the 1960s’, Twentieth 

Century British History vol 7 no 1 (1996). 

22

David Edgerton 



Warfare State: Britain, 1920-1970 (2006), ch. 6: ‘The 

warfare state and the “white heat”, 1955-70’, pp. 230- 

69 

Labour and cultural change: The Labour 

governments 1964-70 ; vol.1 (2003), esp. chs 1 & 9 

Steven Fielding ‘Rethinking Labour’s 1964 campaign’, pp. 309-24, 

Contemporary British History, 21, 3, 2007 (the most 

useful of several contributions in a special issue on 

1964 general election) 

Geoffrey Goodman 

The Awkward Warrior: Frank Cousins, his life and 

time (1979). (TGWU leader whose elevation to the 

cabinet symbolised Labour’s special relationship with 

the unions – and whose resignation symbolised its 

fragility; see chs 19-24.) 

Ben Pimlott Harold Wilson (1992), chs 14-24. 

Clive Ponting Breach of Promise (1989) 

John W.Young International policy: The Labour governments 1964- 

70 ; vol.2 (2003) 

Philip Ziegler Wilson: the authorised life (1993). 

Kevin Theakston The Labour Party and Whitehall (1992), ch. 3: 

‘Labour and the Fulton report’. 

R Rhodes James, Ambitions and Realities: British politics 1964-70 

(1972). (A sceptical Tory viewpoint.) 

Kevin Jefferys, ‘British politics and the road to 1964’, 

Contemporary Record, vol 9 no 1 (1995). 

Helen Parr 

D McKie & C Cook (eds), 

‘A Question of Leadership: July 1966 and Harold 

Wilson's European Decision’, Contemporary British 

History, vol.19, no.4, December 2005 

The Decade of Disillusion: British politics in the 

sixties (1972). 

(iii) 

The 'Heath experiment' 

R Behrens 

The Conservative Party from Heath to Thatcher 

(1980) 

Mark Wickham-Jones ‘Right Turn: a revisionist account of the 1975 

Conservative leadership election’, Twentieth Century 

British History, 8, 1 (1997). 

Mark Garnett 

‘Planning for power: 1964-70’ in Anthony Seldon & 

Stuart Ball (eds), Recovering Power: The 

Conservatives in Opposition since 1867 (2005), ch. 9 

Jim Tomlinson 

‘Conservative modernisation 1960-64: too little, too 

late?’, Contemporary British History, 11, 3, 18-38. 

Andrew Roth Heath & the Heathmen (1972) 

John Campbell Edward Heath: A Biography (1994) 

S. Ball & A. Seldon (eds.) The Heath Government 1970-1974. A reappraisal 

(1996) 

5.5 Exam preparation 

23


The focus here should be on the modernising agendas either of the 1964-70 Wilson 

governments or of the 1970-4 Heath government. The economy is central and 

dominates much of the literature. The abandonment in both cases of the governments’ 

initial expectations will need discussion in any satisfactory answer. However, a 

balance sheet should at least flag up other dimensions. In Wilson’s case, for example, 

education; international relationships; industrial relations; government and the state; 

and the tolerant or ‘permissive’ society. In Heath’s case, the commitment to Europe is 

obviously a crucial one. Without becoming submerged in detail, a sense of different 

forms of modernisation can help provide a more measured evaluation. Material 

presented in the course also allows a longer sense of perspective on the governments’ 

relative achievements and failings. Though you will be expected to focus on one or 

other of these attempts at modernisation, the very best answers will also be able to 

employ them as comparators and in setting an overall context. 

24


WEEK 6 

How useful is Eric Hobsbawm's concept of a 'forward march of 

Labour'? What had become of it by the 1970s? 

6.1 Questions 

1. Was there ever a ‘forward march of Labour’? If so, when and why did it come to 

halt? Was it primarily a reflection of post-war social change? Or should it be seen in terms 

of ideological exhaustion? 

2. Many have seen the Wilson-Callaghan governments of 1974-9 as a breaking-point for 

post-war Labourism and the wider post-war settlement. Was this true? What were the key 

issues facing British government and why were they so intractable? 

3. Why was industrial relations such a major issue in British politics in the 1970s? And 

why did Labour believe that it was better able to work with the unions than Heath had been? 

What went wrong? 

4. By 1979, 84% per cent of respondents in Gallup polls agreed that the trade unions 

had too much power. Were they right? 


Eric Hobsbawm ‘The forward march of Labour halted?’ (1978) 

http://www.amielandmelburn.org.uk/collections/mt/ind 

ex_frame.htm.. 

Colin Hay 

‘The winter of discontent thirty years on’, Political 

Quarterly, 80, 4, 2009, 545-552 (with roundtable 

discussion 553-61) 


Kenneth Morgan Britain Since 1945, chs 10-11. 

David Childs Britain Since 1945, ch. 8 

Leo Panitch and Colin Leys The End of Parliamentary Socialism. From New 

Left to New Labour, 1997, ch. 2 ‘Origins of the party 

crisis’, copies in HD 

David Howell British Social Democracy, 1980 edn., ch. 10 

Alastair J. Reid 

‘Labour and the trade unions’ in Tanner et al. 

Labour’s First Century, pp. 221-47. 

M. Artis et al ‘Social democracy in hard times: the economic 

record of the Labour government 1974-1979’, 

Twentieth Century British Century, 3, 1 (1992), 32-58. 

Robert Taylor 

Trade Unions in British Politics, 1993. (‘Conclusion: 

Governments and Trade Unions Since 1945’, on 

25


Blackboard; also ch. 7: ‘Labour and the Social 

Contract’). 

E. Hobsbawm ‘The 1970s: syndicalism without syndicalists’ in his 

Worlds of Labour, 1984. 


(i) 

Labour's crisis in the 1970s 

Jad Adams Tony Benn: a biography. (Chs 25-33.) 

M Artis & D Cobham (eds) Labour's Economic Policies 1974-1979 (1991). 

K Burk & A Cairncross Goodbye Great Britain: the 1976 IMF crisis (1992), 

David Coates 

Labour in Power? A study of the Labour government 

1974-79 (1980). 

R Coopey & N Woodward Britain in the 1970s: the troubled economy (1986). 

I Crewe & A King The Birth, Life and Death of the SDP (1995) 

Radhika Desai Intellectuals and Socialism, 1994, chs 6-7 


The Labour Party’s Political Thought, 1997 edn: ch. 

11: ‘Revisionism in crisis’. 

Denis Healey The Time of My Life (1989). 

Eric Hobsbawm Politics for a Rational Left: political writings 1977-88 

(1989) [This collection includes ‘the forward march 

essay’] 

Eric Hobsbawm 

Martin Holmes 


'The 1970s: syndicalists without syndicalists?' in his 

Worlds of Labour (1984), pp. 273-81. 

The Labour Government 1974-1979: political aims 

and economic reality (1985). 

‘The decline of post-war consensus’ (with 

commentaries by Andrew Gamble, Peter Clarke, John 

Turner and Keith Middlemas) in Anthony Gorst, 

Lewis Johnman and W. Scott Lucas, eds, Post-War 

Britain. Themes and perspectives (1989), pp. 1-21. 

Kenneth Morgan Callaghan: a Life (1997), part 3. 

B Sarlvik & I Crewe Decade of Dealignment (1983) 

A. Seldon & K. Hickson, eds New Labour, old Labour : the Wilson and Callaghan 

governments, 1974-79 (2004) 

Noel Thompson 

Political Economy and the Labour Party. The 

economics of democratic socialism (1996), chs 14, 16 

Paul Whiteley The Labour Party in Crisis (1983). 

Mark Wickham-Jones 

Economic Strategy and the Labour Party. Policy and 

policy-making 1970-83 (1996), esp chs 1 & 6 

(ii) 

Trade unions and/as the problem of government 

McIlroy et al.(eds) British Trade Unions and Industrial Politics 1945- 

1979 (2000), esp ch. 5: ‘The Labour Party and the 

Trade Unions’ 

James E Cronin Industrial conflict in modern Britain (1979) 

Keith Middlemas Politics in Industrial Society (1979), pts 2-3 

Peter Dorey The Conservative Party and the Trade Unions (1995). 

26

Peter Dorey 

Peter Dorey 

Timothy Heppell et al 


‘From "policy for incomes" to incomes policy’ and 

‘Industrial relations imbroglio’ in Dorey (ed.) The 

Labour governments, 1964-1970 (2006) 

Wage politics in Britain : the rise and fall of incomes 

policies since 1945 (2001) 

‘Ideological alignments within the parliamentary 

Labour Party and the leadership election of 1976’, 

British Politics, 5, 1 (2010) 

Ben Pimlott & C Cook Trade Unions in British Politics (1982). 

Peter Jenkins 

The Battle of Downing Street (1970). Contemporary 

account of the In Place of Strife episode. 

John Kelly Trade Unions and Socialist Politics (1988). 

Ross Martin The TUC: the growth of a pressure group 1868-1976 

(1980), esp. pp. 298-324. 

David Marsh 

The New Politics of British Trade Unionism: union 

power and the Thatcher legacy (1992), chs 1-3 

John McIlroy Trade Unions in Britain Today (1995 edn), ch. 2, 

Lewis Minkin 

Leo Panitch 

Jim Phillips 

Andrew Taylor 

Andrew Taylor 

Robert Taylor 

Robert Taylor 

Richard Tyler 

Noel Whiteside 

'Unions, economy and society', photocopies in HD 

The Contentious Alliance. Trade Unions and the 

Labour Party, 1986. (Broad historical overview with 

more detailed analysis of 1970s-80s.) 

Social Democracy and Industrial Militancy. The 

Labour Party, trade unions and incomes policy 1945- 

1975 (1976). 

‘The 1972 Miners' Strike: Popular Agency and 

Industrial Politics in Britain’, Contemporary British 

History, 20, 2, 2006, 187-208 

The Trade Unions and the Labour Party (1987), esp. 

ch. 7: 'Voters, policy and the unions'. 

'The [Conservative] Party and the Trade Unions' in 

Seldon and Ball, The Conservative Century. 

The Trade Union Question in British Politics since 

1945, 1993. (Excellent on the attitudes of politicians 

and opinion-formers as well as the TUC itself). 

‘The Heath government and industrial relations. 

Myth and reality’ in Ball and Seldon The Heath 

Government 1970-1974, pp. 161-90. 

'Victims of our History'? Barbara Castle and In 

Place of Strife, Contemporary British History, 20, 30, 

2006, 461-76 

'Aiming at consensus: social welfare and industrial 

relations 1939-79' in Chris Wrigley, ed. A history of 

British industrial relations, 1939-1979 (1996). 


By the mid-1970s, some commentators claimed Britain was becoming ungovernable. 

Most of them had in mind issues of social and political order or ‘authority’, and the 

threat allegedly posed this by currents of unrest or subversion from below. Another 

way of looking at it might focus on the inability of successive governments to deliver 

on commitments made within the terms of the post-war settlement, and on the forms 

27


of conflict and contestation to which this gave rise. As always there are different 

views; but by common consent this marked the crisis of the post-war settlement and a 

period of relative polarisation, political and social. Though this had many aspects, we 

focus particularly on the issue of industrial relations. As suggested at the beginning of 

the course, the unions were embedded in the post-war settlement and the increasing 

volatility of industrial relations may be seen as a measure of its breakdown, 

culminating in the industrial conflicts of the 1970s. The focus here is particularly on 

the ’74-’79 Wilson-Callaghan governments, and appropriately so: for the crisis in 

industrial relations was more particularly a crisis for the Labour Party and for British 

social democracy, and it went to the heart of the party’s identity in a way that could 

not have ben true for Heath or Thatcher. Eric Hobsbawm’s lecture on ‘The forward 

march of labour halted?’ was an influential discussion of the issue from the left which 

you need to be familiar with. However, problems in industrial relations had been 

mounting for a decade or more, and the earlier Wilson and Heath governments had 

both tried and failed to address them. 

28


WEEK 7 

Is it accurate to refer to the ‘racialisation’ of British politics 

after 1958? If so, who or what was responsible? 

7.1 Questions 

1. Do you agree with Shamit Saggar that the late 1950s saw a ‘significant advance in 

the racialisation of British politics’? Why was this particular period so decisive? Did the 

politicians lead public opinion or were they led by it? What were, or should have been, the 

limits to electoral pragmatism? And can the preceding period be regarded as an age of more 

tolerant race relations? 

2. Are left-right or Labour-Conservative dichotomies the best way of explaining 

approaches to immigration and race relations? Which, if either, party had the better record 

on these issues? And which do you think stood to gain the greater advantage from them? 

Did the British party and electoral system serve to dampen or increase the salience of racial 

politics? 

3. Why did the far right appear to have had such a limited impact on British politics (or 

did it)? To what extent should its real impact be regarded as the pressure and leverage it 

managed to exercise on the mainstream political parties? 


EITHER 

(i) Shamit Saggar 

Race and Politics in Britain, 1992. (Ch. 7: ‘The 

politics of race, nation and culture’.) 

OR 

(ii) Zig Layton-Henry The Politics of Immigration, 1992. (Ch 2, 4 and 7 

especially) 

Paul B. Rich 

‘Ethnic politics and the Conservatives in the post- 

Thatcher era’ in Shamit Saggar, ed., Race and British 

Electoral Politics, 1998. 


(i) 

on the politics of race 

John Solomos Race and Racism in Britain, 1989 edn, chs 3-4 

R. Miles and A. Phizacklea White Man’s Country, 1984. 

S. Saggar “Immigration and the politics of public opinion in 

Britain” University of Yale Politics Papers [online 

http://www.yale.edu/cpworkshop/Saggar%20Paper.pdf] 

Kalbir Shukra 

‘New Labour debates and dilemmas’ in Shammit 

Saggar, ed., Race and British Electoral Politics, 1998 

Paul B. Rich Race and Empire in British politics, 1990 edn, ch. 8: 

‘End of empire and the rise of “race relations” 

R Eatwell & M Goodwin (eds) The New Extremism in Twenty-First Century Britain. 

29

Nigel Copsey 

Nigel Copsey 


Contemporary British Fascism: The British National 

Party and the Quest for Legitimacy 

‘Changing course or changing clothes? Reflections 

on the ideological evolution of the British National 

Party 1999-2006’, Patterns of Prejudice, 41(1), pp.61- 

82. 


N.J. Crowson 

‘Conservative Party activists and immigration 

policy from the late 1940s to the mid-1970s’ in 

Stuart Ball & Ian Holliday, eds, Mass Conservatism, 

1998 

D Dean 

‘The race relations policy of the first Wilson 

government’, Twentieth Century British History, 11, 3 

(2000), pp 259-283. 

Roger Eatwell 

'Fascism and political racism in post-war Britain' 

in T. Kushner and K. Lunn (eds), Traditions of 

Intolerance (1989). 

Nigel Fielding The National Front in British Politics (1982). 

Paul Foot Immigration and Race in British Politics (1965). 

Rob Ford and Matt Goodwin “Angry white men: Individual and contextual 

predictors of support for the British National 

Party”, Political Studies, 58(1), pp.1-25, 2010 

Peter Fryer 

Staying Power: the history of black people in Britain 

(1984). 

Matt Goodwin 

“Activism in contemporary extreme right parties: 

The case of the British National Party (BNP)”, 

Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, 

22(2), pp.31-54 (2010) 

Yumiko Hamai 

‘“Imperial burden” or “Jews of Africa”? An 

analysis of political and media discourse in the 

Ugandan Asian crisis (1972)’, Twentieth Century 

British History, 22, 3 (2011), 415-36 

James Hampshire 

‘Immigration and race relations’ in Dorey (ed.) The 

Labour governments, 1964-1970 (2006) 

Colin Holmes 

A Tolerant Country? immigrants, refugees and 

minorities in Britain (1991). 

Zig Layton-Henry 

The politics of immigration: immigration, 'race' and 

'race' relations in post-war Britain (1992). 

Zig Layton-Henry The Politics of Race in Britain (1984). 

Zig Layton-Henry (ed.) Race, Government and Politics in Britain (1986). 

Kenneth Lunn 

'"Race" and immigration. Labour's hidden history 

1945-1951' in Fyrth, Labour High Noon, pp.227-42. 

Kathleen Paul 

‘The politics of citizenship in post-war Britain’, 

Contemporary Record vol 6 no 3 (1992). 

Edward Pilkington 

Beyond the Mother Country. West Indians and the 

Notting Hill white riots (1988) 

Shamit Saggar Race and Politics in Britain (1992). 

Muhammed Anwar 

Race & politics: ethnic minorities and the British 

political system (1986) 

Muhammed Anwar Black and ethnic leaderships in Britain (1991) 

30


Zig Layton-Henry 

‘Immigration and the Heath government’ in Ball 

and Seldon The Heath Government 1970-1974, pp. 

215-34. 

Martin Walker The National Front, 1977. 

S.Saggar Race and British Electoral Politics (1998). 

Bill Schwarz 

'Claudia Jones and the West Indian Gazette': 

Reflections on the Emergence of Post-colonial 

Britain', Twentieth Century British History, 14 (2003), 

pp. 264-285 

S. Taylor The National Front in English Politics, 1982. 

A. Messina Race and Party Competition in Britain, 1989. (Also 

article of same title in Parliamentary Affairs, 38, 4, 1985, 

423-36). 

Frank Reeves 

British Racial Discourse, A study of British political 

discourse about race and race-related matters, 1983, esp. 

ch. 5: ‘British political values and race relations’ 

(ii) 

on the politics of national identity 

Political Quarterly special issue on ‘The End of Britain’, vol 71, 1, 

2000, pp1-67, esp articles by Parekh, ‘Defining British 

national identity’, Kearney, ‘The importance of being 

British’, Harvie, ‘The moment of British nationalism 

1939-70’ and Lynch, ‘The Conservative Party 

nationhood’ 

Keith Robbins 

Great Britain: identities, institutions and the idea of 

Britishness, 1998 

Paul Ward Britishness since 1870, 2004, ch. 6 

Wendy Webster Englishness and Empire, 2005 

Wendy Webster 

‘“There’ll always be an England”: representations 

of colonial wars and immigration’, Journal of British 

Studies, 40, 2001, 557-84 

Richard Weight Patriots: national identity in Britain, 1940-2000 


This section of the course is concerned with facing-up to Britain’s multi-ethnic, multinational 

culture. The subject of ‘racialisation’ covers the historical context of industrial 

recovery and labour shortages, pragmatism and populism and the contemporary reality of 

multi-racial Britain. You should be able to analyse the reaction of fringe and mainstream 

political parties to the politics of ‘race’ and immigration. The lecture will outline the different 

approaches to the issues of race since the 1950s and the potential for the growth of extremist 

right-wing parties explored. You should familiarise yourself with the approaches to 

‘racialisation’ and the contemporary reaction to Europeanisation, non-EU immigration and 

the popular expressions of racial politics in Britain. 

31


WEEK 8 

What was Thatcherism? 

8.1 Questions 

1. Is it helpful to think of Thatcherism as a political project? What exactly does this 

signify and how distinctive was this within both the Conservative and the wider British 

political tradition? 

2. If Thatcherism can be regarded as a political project, how is it best characterised? 

Consider the rival intertpretations of Gamble, Jessop, Hall and Bulpitt – and familiarise 

yourself with at least one of these. 

3. How did the character of the Thatcher governments change over time? Were they 

essentially reactive to problems and opportunities as they arose? Was ‘Thatcherism’ planned 

out from the start or developed incrementally? 

4. Should Thatcherism be regarded as a break with an older Conservative tradition? Or 

as a return to it? 

5. Do we now live in a post-Thatcherite society? Did Thatcherism represent the deathknell 

for the post-war settlement? 


FAMILIARISE YOURSELF WITH AT LEAST ONE OF THE FOLLOWING 

Stuart Hall 

The Hard Road to Renewal. Thatcherism and the 

crisis of the left, chs 8-9 

Jim Bulpitt 

“The Discipline of the new democracy: Mrs Thatcher’s 

Statecraft, Political Studies, 34, 1, 1986, 19-39 

Andrew Gamble 

The Free Economy & the Strong State: The Politics 

of Thatcherism (1994 edn), esp. ch 7 

Bob Jessop et al Thatcherism: A Tale of Two Nations, esp. chs 1-2 

Jessop/Hall 

‘Authoritarian populism, two nations and 

Thatcherism’, New Left Review 147 (1984), pp32-60; 

also Stuart’s Hall’s reply (NLR 151; also collected in 

The Hard Road to Renewal) and Jessop’s rejoinder 

(NLR 153) 


Kenneth Morgan Britain since 1945, chs 12-13 

David Childs Britain since 1945, chs 9-10 

S. Hall & M. Jacques The Politics of Thatcherism (1983) 

R Skidelsky (ed) Thatcherism (1988) 

E.H.H. Green 

‘Thatcherism: a historical perspective’ in idem, 

Ideologies of Conservatism (2004) 

Dennis Kavanagh 

Thatcherism and British politics: the end of 

consensus? (1987), esp. ch. 1 

B Evans & A Taylor 

From Salisbury to Major. Continuity and change in 

Conservative politics (1996). 

Hugo Young One of Us (1991 edn), esp chs 4-8 

32



Norman Barry 

‘New Right’ in K Hickson, The Political Thought of 

the Conservative Party Since 1945 (2005), ch. 2 

Stephen Evans 

‘The Not So Odd Couple: Margaret Thatcher and 

One Nation Conservatism’, Contemporary British 

History, 23, 1, 2009, 101–121 

Andrew Gamble 

“The Conservative Party” in H. Drucker (ed) Multi- 

Party Britain (1979) 

Andrew Gamble 

The Free Economy & the Strong State: The Politics 

of Thatcherism (1994 edn) 

Ian Gilmour 

Dancing with Dogma, 1992 (critique of Thatcher’s 

politics by the most articulate of the Tory ‘wets’) 

R.W. Johnson 

The Politics of Recession (1985), pp. 224-55: ‘Pomp 

and circumstance’ 

D Kavanagh 

‘The making of Thatcherism’ in Anthony Seldon & 

Stuart Ball (eds), Recovering Power: The Conservatives 

in Opposition since 1867 (2005), ch. 10 

David Marsh 

The New Politics of British Trade Unionism: union 

power and the Thatcher legacy (1992), chs 5, 10 

K Minogue & M Biddiss Thatcherism: personality and politics (1985) 

P Riddell The Thatcher Era and its Legacy (1991) 

D Marquand The Unprincipled Society (1988) 

Nigel Lawson 

The View from No. 11 (1993 edn) (one of several 

autobiographies by members of Thatcher’s cabinet; 

Lawson as chancellor was a key figure in the later 

phases of Thatcherism) 

S Ludlam & M Smith Contemporary British Conservatism, 1996. 

Mark Wickham-Jones, ‘Right Turn: a revisionist account of the 1975 

Conservative leadership election’, Twentieth Century 

British History, 8, 1 (1997). 

The 1984-5 miners' strike alone generated a substantial literature: 

Huw Beynon (ed.) Digging Deeper: issues in the miners' strike (1985). 

Peter Gibbon 

'Analysing the British miners' strike of 1984-5', 

Economy and Society, May 1988. 

Geoffrey Goodman The Miners' Strike (1985). 


In the first weeks of the course successive phases of British politics has been associated with 

a particular theme or problematic, namely consensus (1940s), affluence (1950s), 

modernisation (1960s) and ungovernability (1970s). In the same way, the 1980s was 

indisputably the decade of ‘Thatcherism’. What Thatcherism represented, however, has been 

a matter of some dispute. The lecture introduces four early readings that have had a 

considerable influence on subsequent discussions. You will need to be familiar with these at 

least in the summary form presented in the lecture and should also familiarise yourself with at 

least one of these readings in greater depth. However, an effective exam answer will not 

merely describe competing interpretations; it will also provide the sorts of empirical evidence 

33


by which their relative merits can be assessed. Identify episodes or areas of policy which get 

us to the heart of what Thatcherism in government was all about. Remember too that there 

was no clear break between the political phases discussed in the course, and that each in itself 

was a period of conflict, flux and adaptation. Attlee’s reforms may have been prefigured in 

the wartime coalition, and a period of initial legislative activism gave way one of 

‘consolidation’. Wilson’s promise of modernisation gave way to disillusionment in the 

government’s capacity to deliver on its core commitments. Thatcher’s governments bear 

comparison with Attlee and Wilson as a reforming administration, but this time of the right. 

However, a careful assessment will also try to acknowledge the different phases of 

Thatcherism in government, as flagged up in the lecture and the literature. 

34


WEEK 9 

Did Labour’s victory in 1997 represent the emergence of a new 

political consensus as in 1945? Or did it represent the 

adaptation to Thatcher’s consensus, as the Conservatives 

adapted after 1951? 

8.1 Questions 

1. After the election defeat of 1979, why did Labour find it so hard to regain power? 

2. What was the point of New Labour? What were the sociological and political drivers 

behind the New Labour project? 

3. Did the age of New Labour represent a new dominant consensus in British politics? 

If so, what were its defining features? And were those critics right who emphasised the 

continuities with Thatcherism? 

4. Did New Labour represent the adaptation of an older Labour tradition or its 

abandonment? Identify significant ruptures and continuities? What were the consequences of 

the revision of Clause IV? Why was Blair able to succeed where Gaitskell had failed? How 

did the resulting vision of Labour affect the party’s ‘soul’? 

5. What explains New Labour’s initial electoral success? And what of its subsequent 

failure? Has this been an age of realignment, or of dealignment? What was left of New 

Labour once Blair ceased to be party leader? After electoral defeat in 2010 what is the future 

for Labour? Is the party still ‘New’ Labour or is a new vision of contemporary social 

democracy required? 


Eric Shaw 

Richard Heffernan 

David Coates & Colin Hay 

Losing Labour’s Soul? New Labour & the Blair 

government (2007), esp. ch. 8: ‘What does New Labour 

stand for?’ (on Blackboard) 

New Labour and Thatcherism. Political change in 

Britain (2000), esp chs 7-9 

‘The Internal and External Face of New Labour’s 

Political Economy’, Government and Opposition, 36 (4), 

447-71, 2001. 


Kenneth Morgan Britain Since 1945, ch. 14 


Matt Beech & Simon Lee (eds) Ten Years of New Labour (2008) 

Raymond Plant, et al (eds) 

Eric Shaw 

The Struggle for Labour's Soul 

Losing Labour’s Soul? New Labour & the Blair 

government (2007), esp. ch. 8: ‘What does New Labour 

stand for?’ (on Blackboard) 

Andrew Thorpe A History of the British Labour Party (2008 edn), ch. 12 

‘Blair and New Labour in Power’ 

35



The Labour Party : continuity and change in the making 

of `New' Labour, ch. 1: ‘Introduction: What is New 

Labour?’ 


(i) 

New Labour: the party and the government 

Brian Brivati (ed.) New Labour in Power: Precedents and prospects (1997), 

esp ch. 3 Nick Ellison, ‘From welfare state to post-welfare 

society’ 

D Butler & D Kavanagh The British General Election of 2001 

D. Coates & P. Lawler (eds) New Labour in Power (2000) 

James Cronin 

New Labour’s Pasts. The Labour Party and its 

Discontents (2004) 

S. Driver & L. Martell New Labour: Politics After Thatcherism (1998) 

A Geddes & J Tonge (eds.) Labour’s Landslide (1998) 

P. Gould The Unfinished Revolution: How the modernisers saved 

the Labour party (1999) 

Anthony Heath et al 

The Rise of New Labour: party policies and voter choices 

(2001) 

A. Heath et al. 'Can Labour Win?' in Heath et al.Labour’s Last 

Chance? 

A King (ed.) New Labour Triumphs (1998) 

S. Ludlam and M. Smith (eds) New Labour in Government, 2001, esp. ch. 12 

‘Interpreting New Labour’ 

S. Ludlam and M. Smith (eds) Governing as New Labour : policy and politics under 

Blair (2004) 

M Mullard & R Swaray 

‘New Labour Legacy: Comparing the Labour 

Governments of Blair and Brown to Labour 

Governments since 1945’, Political Quarterly, 81, 4 

P Norris & C Wlezien (eds) Britain Votes 2005 (2005) 

Peter Riddell 

‘The end of Clause IV, 1994-95’, Contemporary British 

History, 11, 2, 1997. 

Eric Shaw 

The Labour Party Since 1979: Crisis & Transformation 

(1994). (Excellent for background to New Labour and the 

role of communications. See esp. ch. 7 ‘The determinants 

of party transformation’) 

Jon Sopel Tony Blair; the moderniser (1996) 

Dominic Wring 

The Politics of Marketing the Labour Party (2005), chs 

5-7 

(ii) 

New Labour: ideas and programme 


The Labour Party’s Political Thought, 1997 edn, chs 

14-15 

Michael Freeden 

‘True blood and false genealogy: New Labour and 

British social democratic thought’ in A Gamble and T 

Wright, eds, The New Social Democracy, 1999, pp. 151-65 

A. Giddens The Third Way: the renewal of social democracy (1998) ; 

and Beyond Left and Right: the future of social 

democracy (1998). (Defining expositions by figure 

regarded as New Labour’s intellectual guru.) 

36


Colin Hay The Political Economy of New Labour (1999) 

Will Leggett 

After New Labour. Social theory and centre-left politics 

(1994), part 1: ‘New Labour and the Third Way’ 

Noel Thompson 

Left in the wilderness : the political economy of British 

democratic socialism since 1979 (2002) 

David Coates & Colin Hay ‘The Internal and External Face of New Labour’s 

Political Economy’, Government and Opposition, 36 

(4), 447-71, 2001. 

Matt Beech and Simon Lee Ten Years of New Labour 

Colin Hay 

‘Negotiating International Constraints: The 

Antinomies of Credibility and Competitiveness in the 

Political Economy of New Labour’, Competition and 

Change, 5 (3), 269-90. 

Will Hutton 

‘New Keynesianism and New Labour’, Political 

Quarterly, 70 (1999. 

(iii) 

Conservative responses 

Tim Bale 

The Conservative Party: From Thatcher to Cameron. 

Daniel Collings and Anthony Seldon ‘Conservatives in Opposition’ in Pippa Norris (ed.) 

Britain Votes 2001 (2001) 

Mark Garnett and Philip Lynch (eds) The Conservatives in Crisis (2003) 

Tim Heppell and Michael Hill ‘Ideological Typologies of Contemporary British 

Conservatism’, Political Studies Review (2005), pp. 335- 

55 

Anthony Seldon & Stuart Ball (eds) Recovering Power: The Conservatives in Opposition 

since 1967 (2005) 

Anthony Seldon and Peter Snowdon ‘The Conservative Campaign’ in Pippa Norris and Chris 

Wlezien (eds) Britain Votes 2005 (2005) 

Simon Walters Tory Wars - The Conservatives in Crisis (2001) 

Geoffrey Wheatcroft The Strange Death of Tory England (2005) 


The phenomenon of New Labour is perhaps one of the most widely discussed aspects of 

recent political history. Yet insightful analysis of New Labour has often been elusive. The 

lecture will look at the psephological imperatives behind the move as sociological changes 

meant that Labour needed to broaden its electoral appeal in order to win power. However you 

will need to analyse the extent to which the New Labour project was an inevitable reaction to 

this societal change and Britain’s economic strategy or if New Labour should be seen as an 

ideological attempt to take Labour away from its socialist –or even social democrat – 

traditions. You should familiarise yourself with the triple crisis Labour faced after 1979 as 

well as the programmatic and symbolic reform embarked on by Kinnock, and Smith prior to 

Blair. The reform of Clause IV might be important here why did Blair succeed where 

Gaitskell failed? What did this show about the nature of intra-party opinion. You might 

explore New Labour in a similar fashion to Thatcherism, what was left of it once the leader 

most associated with it was removed? 

37


WEEK 10 

Does coalition government address the democratic deficit of the old 

two-party system? Or merely reinforce it? 

10.1 Questions 

1. Why were the smaller parties so effectively marginalised in early post-war 

Britain? How should one explain the growing challenge of the parties since the 1960s? 

Should it be seen as an erosion of the post-war settlement, and if so how? 

2. Does this represent a case of emerging multi-party politics – or of fractured 

two-party politics? 

3. Do Liberal Democrats have more in common with Labour, the Conservatives – 

or are they genuinely ‘equidistant’? Does their recent electoral success suggest the 

attenuation of left/right or class-based political alignments? Or their persistence in 

different forms? 

4. Do past precedents in British history, and recent arrangements in Scotland, 

Wales and the regions, suggest that the experiment of coalition government is likely to 

work? 


Colin Hay 

'“Things can only get worse ...”: The political and 

economic significance of 2010’, British Politics, 5, 4 

(2010) 

Andrew Russell ‘Inclusion, exclusion or obscurity? The 2010 

general election and the implications of the Con-Lib 

coalition for third-party politics in Britain’, British 

Politics, 5, 4 (2010) 


Philip Lynch 

Fran Bennett and Ruth Lister 

Stuart McAnulla 

‘Party System Change in Britain: Multi-Party Politics 

in a Multi-Level Polity’, British Politics, 2, 3 (2007), 

323-46 

‘The new “champion of progressive ideals”? 

Cameron's Conservative Party: poverty, family 

policy and welfare reform’, Renewal, 18.1-2 (2010), 

pp. 84+ 

‘Heirs to Blair's third way? David Cameron's 

triangulating conservatism’, British Politics, 5, 3 

(2010) 


(i) 

Coalitions and minorities 

David Butler Coalitions in British Politics (1978) 

38


Alastair Machie & Simon Hoggart The Pact: the inside story of the Lib-Lab Government 

1977-8 (1978) 

Chris Rogers 

‘The Economic Consequences of a Hung Parliament: 

Lessons from February 1974’, Political Quarterly, 81, 4, 

2010, pp. 501-10 

David Steel 

A House Divided: the Lib-Lab Pact and the Future of 

British Politics (1980) 

H. Drucker (ed.) Multi-Party Britain (1979) 

(ii) 

The revival of the centre and multi-party politics 

Ian Bradley 

Chris Cook 

David Crewe 

David Dalton 

Kevin Hickson (ed.) 

The Strange Rebirth of Liberal England (1988), chs 

12-15 

A Short History of the Liberal Party (1998 edn) 

‘The Liberal Democrats in “constructive 

opposition”’ in Anthony King, ed., Britain at the 

Polls 2001, 2001 

A History of the Liberal Party in the Twentieth 

Century (2004) 

The Political Thought of the Liberals and Liberal 

Democrats since 1945 (2009) 

Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher ‘Another (small) step on the road towards a multiparty 

Britain - turnout and party choice at the 2009 

local and European Parliament elections’, British 

Politics, 4, 4 (2009), 463-77 

John Stevenson 

Third Party Politics since 1945: Liberals, Alliance 

and Liberal Democrats (1993) 

David Walter The Strange Rebirth of Liberal England (2003) 

Stuart White 

'Revolutionary liberalism'? The philosophy and 

politics of ownership in the post-war Liberal 

party’, British Politics, 4, 2 (2009), 164-87 

(iii) 

The nationalist challenge 

H. Elcock & M. Keating, eds Remaking the union : devolution and British politics in 

the 1990s, 1997 

A Birch 

Political Integration and Disintegration in the British 

Isles 

Christopher Harvie 

Scotland and Nationalism. Scottish Society and Politics 

1707-1977, 1998 edn 

Laura McAllister Plaid Cymru. The emergence of a political party (2001) 

Keith Webb 

The Growth of Nationalism in Scotland 

Jack Brand The National Movement in Scotland, 1978 

Neil Davidson The Origins of Scottish Nationhood, 2000 

Murray Leith 

‘Elite and Mass Conceptions of the Scottish Nation 

in 1997’ (2004) (online: 

http://www.sharp.arts.gla.ac.uk/esharp/Murray_Leith_scottishnationalism.htm) 

Jonathan Bradbury 

Union and Devolution. Territorial politics in the United 

Kingdom from Thatcher to Blair. 

39

A Birch 

R Rose 

W Miller 

Peter Dorey 

James Mitchell 

H Elcock & M Keating (eds) 


Political Integration and Disintegration in the British 

Isles 

Governing Without Consent 

The End of British Politics ? Scots & English Political 

Behaviour in the Seventies 

‘Welsh nationalism and demands for devolution’ in 

Dorey (ed.) The Labour governments, 1964-1970 (2006) 

‘Scottish nationalism and demands for devolution’ in 

Dorey (ed.) The Labour governments, 1964-1970 (2006) 

Remaking the Union; devolution and British politics in 

the 1990s (1998) 

L Bennie et al. How Scotland Votes (1997) 

D. Denver et al. Scotland Decides: The Devolution Issue and the 

Scottish Referendum (2000) 

H.M. Drucker & Gordon Brown, The Politics of Nationalism and Devolution, 1980 

Gerry Hassan (ed.) 

J Bradbury and J Mawson, eds 

The Modern SNP: From Protest to Power 

British regionalism and devolution : the challenges of 

state reform and European integration, 1997 

(iv) 

Cameron’s coalition 

Tim Bale 

'A Bit Less Bunny-Hugging and a Bit More Bunny- 

Boiling'? Qualifying Conservative Party Change 

under David Cameron’, British Politics, 3, 3 (2008), 

270-99 

Tim Bale ‘From doldrums to downing street?, Renewal, 18.1- 

2 (2010), pp. 67+ 

Matt Beech & Simon Lee (eds) The Cameron-Clegg Government: Coalition Politics 

in an Age of Austerity 

Peter Dorey 

‘A New Direction or Another False Dawn? David 

Cameron and the Crisis of British Conservatism’, 

British Politics, 2, 2 (2007), 137-66 

Stephen Evans 

‘“Mother’s boy?”: David Cameron and Margaret 

Thatcher’, British Journal of Politics and 

International Relations, 12, 3, (2010), pp. 325-43 

Jane Green 

‘Strategic Recovery? The Conservatives Under 

David Cameron’, Parliamentary Affairs, 63, 4, (2010) 

667-688 (see also the other articles in this issues on the 

campaigns of the other main parties and other aspects 

of the 2010 election) 

Kevin Hickson 

‘Conservatism and the poor: Conservative party 

attitudes to poverty and inequality since the 1970s’, 

British Politics, 4, 3 (2010), 341-62 

Akash Paun & Robert Hazell ‘Hung Parliaments and the Challenges for 

Westminster and Whitehall: How to Make 

Minority and Multiparty Governance Work’, 

Political Quarterly, 81, 2, 2010, pp. 213-27 

Howard Reed ‘Osbornomics’, Renewal, 18.1-2 (Spring 2010): p74+ 

Jonathan Rutherford 

‘Fraternity without equality, and other 

Conservative ideals’, Soundings 38 (2008), pp. 98+ 

40

Martin J. Smith 


‘From Big Government to Big Society: Changing 

the State–Society Balance’, Parliamentary Affairs, 

63, 4 (2010), 818-833 


It may be too soon to reach a verdict on the longevity of the present coalition, the possible 

prospects for electoral reform or future alignments between (and within) the three main 

parties. However, on the basis of the course it is possible to offer some historical perspective 

on this latest phase of British party politics. Crucially, this is a story of the recovery of the 

political centre, following its near extinction in the early post-war period. One can in theory 

imagine at least three possible roles for the Liberal Democrats should the system of multiparty 

politics persist, or be consolidated by a measure of electoral reform. Doubtless favoured 

by many Lib Dems themselves is the role of the pivot party, manoeuvring between potential 

allies and coalition partners to their left and right. Another possibility, periodically revisited 

in recent decades, is that of a centre-left realignment of British politics and the healing of the 

inter-war breach between Liberals and the ascendant Labour Party. More immediately 

striking is the inter-war example of anti-socialist majority governments in which the Liberals 

became largely subsumed within the dominant Conservative elements – at the cost of internal 

divisions and a resurgence of extra-parliamentary politics. Experiences in local government 

and in Scotland and Wales provide further insight into the current prospects of a long-term 

political realignment in Britain. If you do attempt this question, it is particularly important to 

demonstrate good knowledge and understanding of materials discussed in the course and of 

how these can help illuminate the politics of the coalition. Answers that show no such 

evidence of detailed reading will be marked accordingly. 

41


Compulsory Assessed essays 

2012 Essays and deadlines. 

A compulsory assessed essay will count for 40% of your final mark. 

The Assessed Essay Deadline is 16 April 2012. 

Assessment essay topics are drawn from the topics covered in part one of the course. (Please 

note that the exam will cover the rest of the course). 

Essay length should be around 2,000 words and the content should show evidence of reading 

beyond the essential and alternative readings indicated in the weekly tutorial guide. You are 

strongly advised to begin on a topic in good time so that you can ask for further suggestions if 

you have difficulty finding appropriate reading. All essays should be fully referenced in 

accordance with POLITICS’s guide to the scholarly apparatus of footnotes and bibliography 

(copies available from the Undergraduate Office). 

Assessment Essay questions: 

1. ‘Consensus is a mirage, an illusion which rapidly fades the closer one gets to it’ (B. 

Pimlott). Does the idea of a wartime consensus culminating in Labour’s election 

victory fade the closer you get to it? 

2. ‘The 1945 election put democratic-collectivist étatisme into the saddle’ (D. Marquand). Is this 

a fair assessment of what the 1945-51 Attlee governments stood for? 

3. ‘Conservatives often say with pride that their party is the prisoner of no rigid set of principles’ 

(R. Hornby MP). Were the Conservative governments of 1951-64 a proof of this? 

42


SAMPLE TWO HOUR EXAM PAPER 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

The use of electronic calculators and dictionaries is not permitted. 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Answer TWO questions, one from each section. 

Section One: the fraying of consensus 

1. Modernisation was the challenge; failure to meet it meant electoral defeat. Is this a fair assessment 

of either (i) the Wilson governments 1964-70 or (ii) the Heath government 1970-4? 

2. Why did commentators like Eric Hobsbawm feel so pessimistic about Labour’s prospects even 

before 1979? 

3. Did the trade unions threaten the achievements of the post-war settlement, or did they provide the 

best guarantee that these achievements would be maintained? 

4. To what extent can we speak of 'racialisation' of British politics between 1958 and 1978 and do you 

agree with Richard Crossman that this represented an 'appalling violation of [the] deepest 

principles' of the main political parties? 

Section Two: consensus dismantled – and renewed? 

5. What distinguished New Labour in power from the record of previous Labour governments? 

6. Was Thatcherism a “two-nations project”? 

7. Do you agree that the age of single-party government has now ended in Britain? 

43

POLI20532 Course Outline 1112 - School of Social Sciences

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