1926, 1984. .. And All That!
13 Steve Humphries, A Secret World of Sex: Forbidden Fruit: The British Experience, 1900–1950, London, 1991, p. 9. 14 Humphries, Secret World, p. 16. 15 Judy Giles, ‘ ‘‘Playing Hard to Get’’: Working-class Women, Sexuality and Respectability in Britain, 1918–40’, Women’s History Review 1: 2, 1992, p. 243. 16 As note 15. 17 Giles ‘‘Playing Hard to Get’’, 16, p. 250. 18 See Eustace Chesser, The Sexual, Marital and Family Relationships of the English Woman, London, Hutchinson, 1956. Geoffrey Gorer, Exploring English Character, London, 1955.
The policy processes and the decline of the British deep-mined coal industry from the mid-1960s to 1995
The thesis develops a multi-theoretic framework which has the network approach at its centre but brings in elements from rational choice and complexity theory. Policy- making in the coal industry is seen as being conducted by a number of institutions which have rational interests, are interacting in networks and are a part of complex systems. The thesis also adopts an historical approach and attempts to link the different eras in a more dynamic way than is achieved by the current literature. In two substantive chapters it is argued that: in 1967 fuel policy was captured by the economists working in the Ministry; the reversal of policy in 1974 followed the shift of the power relationships within the policy network; and that the primary objective of the Conservative Governments was the establishment of an efficient and financially viable coal industry within the context of a competitive energy market. The industry's decline to its 1995 level was neither planned nor foreseen until the early 1990s. The thesis also explores why two Plan for Coal investment programmes, 1950 and 1974, failed to halt the industry's long-run decline Indeed it is argued that the implementation of those programmes contributed its problems. It is argued that investment decisions were driven by the short-term interests of the NCB/BC Areas and collieries, often against the long-term interests of the industry. The thesis concludes that the industry was badly served by closed policy processes which failed to take account of rational interests. It also argues that Political Scientists need to include in their analysis the theoretical frameworks used by policy makers.
An Open Conspiracy: Conservative Politics and the Miners' Strike 1984-5
A convenient starting point for the chronology of the Tory offensive against trade unionism is the publication by the Economist in 1978 of the final report of the Ridley committee on the nationalised industries. This report was part of the preparations which the Thatcher shadow cabinet were making in anticipation of a return to a parliamentary majority at Westminster. During the previous years Conservative politicians and businessmen in general had become acutely aware of the strengthening of trade union defences in most areas of industrial life, and in particular the two successful miners' strikes in 1972 and 1974 had exercised a powerful and lasting influence. The mass picket of the Saltley Coke Works in February 1972-which closed the gates and effectively determined the outcome of the strike-was never forgotten by the miners, the Conservative Party and the police; and it was followed, two years later, by another miners' strike which persuaded Heath to appeal, unsuccessfully, to the electorate. These events badly scarred Conservative interests in the country, and the development of reactionary ideas, and reactionary organisations, was greatly encouraged; and it was after the fall of the Heath government in 1974 that the extreme Right in the Conservative Party began to develop further organisations and support groups. There were already a number of well-established bodies in the field such as the Economic League, Common Cause, IRIS, with many years of experience, including the services of some right-wing trade unionists, and there were a number of ideological bodies which provided sophisticated materials for what was to become the new Toryism. The most influential of these was probably the Institute of Economic Affairs which went back to the late fifties. The most prominent of the new organisations was the National Association for Freedom (NAFF) an umbrella group for an assortment of Conservative reactionaries. Its initial establishment was a response to the killing of Ross McWhirter by the IRA in December 1975, and its original Council was composed of industrialists and politicians including Norman Tebbitt, Rhodes Boyson and Peregrine Worsthorne. The working brains behind NAFF were Robert Moss and Brian Crozier: Cold War warriors who were fanatical supporters of American foreign policy and specialists in Latin American affairs, including Chile. From the time of its establishment until the Tory victory in the summer of 1979 NAFF was involved in a growing number of anti-trade union actions; and it encouraged or started a series of smaller pressure groups with particular limited aims of their own but all with a specific anti-working class content.