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The British paper and board industry opposed plans to establish the Western European free trade area and the more modest EFTA, arguing that British producers would be unable to compete successfully against their Nordic rivals. The paper industry did support British entry to the EEC, but only because this was considered to be a less bad option than continued membership of EFTA. It is argued that while the British government could not fundamentally change its European policy solely because it harmed the interests of one particular industry, pressure from business and fears that increased competition would lead to increased unemployment gradually persuaded it to find ways to reduce competition. However, this policy probably encouraged many companies to delay efforts to modernise production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents bibliographical indexes of the National Register of Archives which the British Historical Manuscripts Commission maintains as the central point for collecting and disseminating information about the location of manuscript sources relating to British politics.

A list of historical record groups accessioned to archives within Great Britain during 2008 including the records of parliamentary clerk Basil St. George Drennan from between 1920 and 1960 at the Parliamentary Archives in London, England; the papers of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection from between 1977 and 2006 at the Hull University Archives in Hull, England; and the papers of the trade unionist Len Edmondson from between 1940 and 2006 at the Tyne and Wear Archives Service in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England.

Attempts to modernise the working practices of the Foreign Office within the last half century have largely been successful. Technological advances have rendered the work of today's Foreign Secretaries and Diplomatic Service totally different from their immediate post-war predecessors. This has not only speeded up the pace of diplomacy but resulted in a more 'intimate' approach to diplomatic contact through the use of video and satellite links, for example. These changes have taken place against the backdrop of a decline of Britain as a world power and a realignment of the British relationship with Europe through the European Union. At the same time, however, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was anxious to preserve its architectural and historical heritage, and the author praises the Thatcher government's commitment to restoring Gilbert Scott's building in Whitehall to its original splendour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A list of accessions given to the British National Archives in 2009 is presented, including minutes and policy papers of the Avon Liberal Party between 1977-1995, minutes and notes of the Exeter Labour Party between 1963-1968, and the correspondence of the British communist figure Bill Moore between 1916-1999.

Presents a list of the manuscripts/record repositories concerning the history of Great Britain, collected by the National Archives: Historical Manuscripts Commission in 2004.

A list is presented of major accessions of documents relating to politics deposited with the National Archives of Great Britain in 2006.

This article presents a list of major accessions to repositories in 2004 relating to British politics. They include the Bristol Record Office, Bury Archives Service, Cambridgeshire County Record Office, City of Westminster Archives Center, and Cumbria Record Office and Local Studies Library.

Presents a list of major accessions to the repositories of the British National Archives Historical Manuscripts Commission in 2002 relating to 20th century politics. Birmingham University Information Services in England; Cambridge University Library in England; Glasgow University Archives and Business Records Centre in Scotland.

This paper makes a major intervention in the historiography of elites through analysis of the experience of women occupational elites born in post-war Britain. The paper draws on a new set of oral history interviews recently conducted with women born in the post-war decades with an entry in Who's Who which is the leading biographical dictionary of 'noteworthy and influential' people in the UK. The women we interviewed were all highly occupationally successful and those analysed here also attended one of twelve elite girls' schools. This article argues that our interviewees can be separated into two distinct post-war cohorts: one born between early 1940s and mid-1950s and the other born late 1950s to late 1960s. The shape and structure of the cohort's trajectories were different, their relationship to their careers were different, and, even though both groups faced sexual discrimination and unequal divisions of labour, the nature of these gendered inequalities changed too. By foregrounding elite women within this shifting historical context, this article illuminates broader trends in both classed and gendered experience and how this related to the changing nature of the economy in recent history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents the annual Accessions to Repositories relating archives and manuscripts of twenty-first century politics in Great Britain collected by the Historical Manuscripts Commission. Function of the National Register of Archives; Manuscripts maintained by the Churchill Archives Centre at Churchill College, Cambridge University; Records kept by the Derbyshire Record Office in England.

The aim of this paper is to study the evolution of Britain's involvement in the EU's foreign and security policy in order to highlight the reasons that led the issue to be left out of talks on the post-Brexit future relation. The paper argues Europeanisation or de-Europeanisation largely depends on the degree of politicisation of issues both in the EU, the EU-27 and in the UK. As long as foreign and security issues remained relatively low key, the UK was able to enjoy the magnifying effect of its participation in the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and contributed to the decision-making process in order to successfully influence EU policies. Politicisation of foreign and security issues was due both to developments in EU-led or national initiatives and to the reaction they provoked in the UK. The EU insisted the UK was to be considered as a 'third country' and stressed the need for future cooperation to be institutionalised. On the contrary, in the UK, public distrust against a putative European 'super state', led successive governments to avoid any formal commitment to new EU initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical far-right organisations have long proved pervasive, but are rarely interpreted as competitive political parties. While these minority parties and movements never secured significant representation, they influenced municipal and constituency political activity. Focusing on the 'textile belt' of Eastern Lancashire and West Yorkshire, this article seeks to understand how far-right organisations engaged in local electoral politics. It considers the influence of regional economic changes, caused by industrial realignment, and how opponents, primarily local Labour parties, interpreted post-war fascism and the concerns it engendered. The article then examines the growing influence of Labour's anti-fascist campaigns, the popular appeal of far-right politics, and the composition of such group's memberships. As far-right institutional archives are limited, the article uses material produced by predominant local Labour parties. Alongside providing new perspectives, it encourages scholars to interpret far-right organisations as electoral actors, rather than mere cultural and political pariahs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Place of Strife came closer to dividing the labour movement than any event since Ramsey McDonald formed his national government in 1931. Drawing on recently released government papers, political and trade union archives, as well as interviews with many of the key personalities, this article examines three general propositions that have emerged from the historiography of In Place of Strife: that Barbara Castle was unduly influenced by anti-trade union officials; that the contents of the White Paper were an ill-thought-out, knee-jerk reaction to the Conservative proposals contained in Fair Deal at Work; and that neither Castle or Harold Wilson were of, or understood the trade union movement. It concludes that, rather than being unduly influenced by her officials, Castle was the main instigator of the White Paper. Similarly, whilst the White Paper was influenced by the publication of the Conservative proposals, it was grounded in a well-thought-out philosophy of trade union rights and responsibilities. Finally, whilst confirming that Castle and Wilson demonstrated considerable naivety in failing to anticipate the extent of the opposition within the labour movement, the article demonstrates the true extent of trade union intransigence that came close to challenging the government's right to govern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the decades since the Conference on Devolution's proceedings concluded in stalemate in April 1920, the Conference has been consigned to the margins of political and constitutional history. However, within this limited literature, one interpretation of the Conference's proceedings has been universally held: that the subject of the powers the devolved legislatures should enjoy was a rare source of consensus. This article challenges this orthodoxy, using archival evidence from the Conference to demonstrate that while a consensus on powers may have existed on paper, such agreement certainly did not exist in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores how the Greater London Council (1981–1986) deployed community focused cultural policy initiatives to disseminate cultural forms of nuclear scepticism during its 'GLC Peace Year 1983' campaign. Drawing upon archival sources and interviews, this paper will present an overview of Peace Year's cultural programme, which promoted London's 'nuclear-free zone' through arts commissions, poster campaigns, pop concerts, murals, documentary films and photography exhibitions. Focusing on two GLC funded projects aimed at promoting positive representations of women's peace activism, this paper will reflect upon the emotional and political impacts of the GLC's radical cultural strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In April 1921, J.H. Thomas, the Labour Party MP and National Union of Railwaymen (NUR) leader, initiated libel proceedings against the Communist—journal of the Communist Party of Great Britain. He cited defamation in the form of cartoons and words depicting the events of ‘Black Friday’—when he allegedly betrayed the locked-out Miners' Federation by leading the withdrawal of NUR solidarity. To Thomas, the framing of his image by indigenous Bolsheviks threatened to fatally define his character and career within popular imagination, and undermine Labour's rise. In this paper, I argue that during the domestic and international crises surrounding the First World War, innovative left-wing editors and cartoonists tested the boundaries of newspaper cartooning, and gave dissident cartoons renewed menace before the Law. The case was the first for over a century in which graphic satires of a national political figure were successfully prosecuted. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The failed attempts that Harold Wilson made to rest the Labour Party leadership from Hugh Gaitskell in 1960, and the Deputy Leadership from George Brown in 1962, had confirmed his reputation for disloyalty and divisiveness, and secured him the hostility of 'social democratic right'. As they constituted the majority of the parliamentary Labour Party and ideology was assumed to be the dominant influence in any future party leadership contest, this seemed to undermine the chances of the 'socialist left' candidate Wilson succeeding Gaitskell. This paper examines how Wilson defied these assumptions and acquired the party leadership in 1963 following the death of Gaitskell. It attributes his success to the following. First, the fact that the minority left only put one candidate forward, ensured that they coalesced around one candidate. Second, the fact that the majority social democratic bloc fractured between Brown and James Callaghan gave Wilson a first ballot lead and second ballot momentum. Third, the naive campaigning by Brown meant he was perceived to be a divisive candidate whilst Wilson, the devious, disloyal and defeated challenger to Gaitskell, was amazingly the unity candidate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how Edward Heath utilised the Prime Ministerial power of ministerial appointment between 1970 and 1974. It does so within the context of the difficulties that Heath experienced in managing the ideological tensions within his party during his leadership tenure and his subsequent removal from the leadership of the Conservative Party in early 1975. Critically, by utilising Cabinet Office papers (PREM 5), the article demonstrates how his Chief Whip, Francis Pym, made a series of recommendations on how ministerial allocation could be used to aid party management and address backbench criticism about his leadership, and how Heath disregarded much of this advice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

E. P. Thompson's work on the making of the English working class is recalled in this paper for its continued relevance to historical materialist perspectives on global movements and class formations. Much commentary on Thompson's work confirms divisions between a first and second British New Left and largely confines the working class to an insular, English phenomenon, one which may present significant insight to a particular account of historical movement and change, but lacks wider spatial and conceptual resonance. This paper questions this view, and its wider implications for the writing of contemporary British history, while pointing towards the greater significance and application of Thompson's work on the making of the English working class than previously acknowledged. This has further implications for recent expressions of ‘global class formation’ as seen in the work of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores the transnational nature of the British movement Friends of National Spain and contributes to the study of organised pro-Franco support in Great Britain and Canada during the late interwar and the early post-war periods. Specifically, it considers the influence of British reactionary imaginaries upon Montreal's extreme-right discourse on the Spanish Civil War, Francoism, and democracy. Overall, the paper uses the case of the Canadian Friends of Spain branch to disclose the international significance of the British Friends of National Spain and its branches in England and Scotland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1987 Myra Hindley submitted a petition to the Home Office requesting permission to undergo hypnosis in an attempt to locate the grave of Keith Bennett. Whilst the request was initially declined, the issue continued to be an administrative challenge for the Home Office for the fifteen years that followed. Drawing on her 'prison records' currently held in The National Archive, this paper details the reasons for the request, how the policy response to it was developed, maintained, and then changed, and how it shaped broader orientations to the use of hypnosis in criminal investigations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modernity and the rise of mass democracy are intertwined. This contribution to this special issue on Christian modernities therefore focuses on how the churches responded to this key aspect of modernity. This paper addresses this through exploring the framing of ideas about democracy expressed by leading figures in the British churches, particularly Nonconformity, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the process claims about the religious roots of democracy and their role in preserving Britain from the slide to totalitarianism experienced elsewhere in Europe in the early twentieth century are critically examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An upsurge of historical research in this century has assessed various campaigns that promoted European Community (EC) membership to the British people. This article, concentrating on the Labour government’s approach to the 1975 referendum on the EC, uses sources such as official records at The National Archives and political papers of some of the key agents; these sources have hitherto been underused for investigating public opinion-related activities on Europe in 1975. Although acknowledging that the interpretation of a government-controlled referendum applies up to a point, the article emphasises, as its key theme, the government’s difficulties in controlling events during the campaign itself. Despite having much support from newspapers, the government often had difficult relations with the mass media as a whole, and the article challenges the belief that it was effective here. This article also contests the idea that the campaign made much impression on the public. These findings further apply to other campaigns on the EC in the 1960s and 1970s and potentially in contemporary British politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In September 2007, the University of Reading hosted a conference based on papers relating to the New Party established by Sir Oswald Mosley in 1931. This short introduction outlines the reasoning behind such a conference and introduces the themes that emerged from the papers given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The histories of the relationship between government policy and the direction of social science research, and of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), have begun to attract attention in recent years. In this work, the SSRC's research programme on transmitted deprivation (1974-82) has generally had a minor role. Most often, it has been argued that it was the disappointment of Sir Keith Joseph with the research programme that fuelled his contempt for social science and his attempt, as Secretary of State for Education and Science, to abolish the Research Council. However, while the programme has recently been investigated in relation to other themes, the significance of the SSRC's involvement has neither been fully drawn out, nor integrated with the broader secondary literature on the history of social science research. The argument of this paper is that there is very little hard evidence that it was Joseph's dissatisfaction with the research programme that led to his attack on the SSRC. More interesting is the way the episode provides insights into the SSRC and the outlook of a generation of social scientists. The Research Council took the programme on for political reasons, it remained embarrassed about its ideological origins and it faced difficulties in promoting multidisciplinary research. Thus, this study shows the problems that can emerge when social scientists engage in research commissioned by their political masters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the rather neglected role played by committees of the Church of England in rewording and promoting a set of arguments that facilitated the reform of a number of repressive laws in mid-twentieth century England and Wales. It is in part a comment on the manner in which the Church provided a clear-eyed understanding of some of the major moral upheavals of the time, drawing on classic utilitarian principles. It is also a comment on our propensity to lose sight of interesting and influential passages in the history of criminal justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines a case of social conflict in an overlooked corner of England (Lincolnshire) in the late 1980s when self-described 'local' people opposed private housing developments and the migration of 'southerners', 'townies' and 'commuters' into their towns and villages. Protestors lamented change and disliked newcomers. This was a reaction to the arrival of affluent, 'post-industrial' workers on the back of a booming service sector. They personified a series of complex, interconnected socioeconomic and cultural changes which disrupted patterns of life rooted in disappearing productive industries and destabilised communities amidst factory closures, agricultural mechanisation, job losses and now suburbanisation. This affected meanings ascribed to places and introduced hierarchies and conflicts structured around Britain's transition towards a service economy. Opposition was expressed through nostalgia, conservationism, inverse snobbery, anti-metropolitanism, attachment to 'local' identities, and concerns about declining independence, community and power. This paper argues that these protests demonstrate the emergence of new ideas about social relations, difference and distinction in post-industrial England. The findings also highlight feelings which would slowly seep into a new, reactionary politics foreshadowing the way that many towns and rural areas (including Lincolnshire) embraced a new political right in the first decades of the next millennium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By the end of the Second World War, thanks to government encouragement and support, Britain's aero-engine manufacturers had a series of world-beating axial jet engines. By tracing institutional changes, this paper will show how the Royal Aircraft Establishment's remit expanded during the second world war to include state design of components of aero-engines for the first time. Overlooking the contributions of civil servants to innovation has made us blind to the many ways in which the British state supported and shaped new technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores how the concern with the apparent 'Americanization' of British commerce and culture played out within the world of London advertising in the post-war period. In doing so, it engages with, and partly challenges, a pervasive line of argument within economic and cultural history that has emphasized the influence of American commercial power over Europe's economies in the immediate post-war decades. Historians of this period, like contemporary commentators before them, have tended to privilege the dominance of what Victoria de Grazia has recently termed America's irresistible 'Market Empire' in their exploration of trans-Atlantic relations. In this paper, I take the case of JWT London, a US-owned multinational advertising agency, and its relationship with its parent company in order to revise claims about US commercial domination. JWT is an instructive case because it was a classic example of an international advertising agency in the era of high American commercial expansion. Yet the organization of its London office and the relations between London and New York reveal a picture of business practices that complicates assumptions about American commercial domination. JWT London was not the bold apostle of the American vision of its parent company, but rather it sought to soften and not aggressively assert the corporate identity and commercial ethos of its American parent. In this regard, JWT London, like other US companies before it and since, worked to shed its Americanness and go native. To insist on this process of indigenization is not to deny the authority of US models of commercial life in this period. Rather it is to suggest that even within a US-owned company like J. Walter Thompson, American commercial influences took particular forms in Britain and that the American domination over Europe was neither monolithic nor homogeneous nor irresistible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nineteenth century Foreign Office has long been regarded as the epitome of 'old diplomacy'. A closer examination of the evidence, however, suggests a different picture. Although for much of the century before 1914 the Office remained a compact and uncomplicated organisation, its procedures were subject to repeated reforms. In modern sociological parlance, the Office was a knowledge-based organisation with efficient information management procedures geared towards informed policy-making. The conduct of business lay in the hands of a relatively small and homogenous elite. This helped to produce some degree of uniformity of outlook, the 'Foreign Office mind'. The foreign policy calculations of this elite revolved around concerns for the European equilibrium and Britain's global interests in the geo-strategic periphery. This involved a nuanced balancing act, which came to an end only in 1914, thus bringing to an end also Britain's 'old diplomacy' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Imperial War Museum is a multi-branch national museum founded in 1917, with a distinct Department of Documents created in the early 1970s with the purpose of acquiring and preserving an extensive collection of British and Commonwealth private papers. The Department also acts as an official place of deposit for large holdings of foreign documents of mainly German origin. This archival material is available for study by members of the public, and is regularly used in books, newspaper articles and television and radio broadcasts concerning the personal experience of warfare since 1914. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The propagandistic machine of the military dictatorship that ruled Greece between 1967 and 1974 has provided a focal point of scholarly inquiry in recent years. However, research has focused on the domestic front—the role of radio, television, and cinema—and has completely neglected the issue of public relations in the foreign policy arena. Nothing is known about how the dictatorship, which held an exceedingly weak reputational hand, strove to remake its image to the outside world. This article addresses this historiographical lacuna, exploring the Greek junta's attempts to improve its international reputation by enlisting the services of foreign public relations (PR) firms. By demonstrating the interplay of nation branding and foreign policy in this way, this article highlights the underappreciated role of transnational non-governmental actors such as PR firms in the 'nation branding' of authoritarian regimes. In the process, it reveals how the lobbying activities of a London-based PR firm enlisted by the junta vitiated UK–Greek relations during Harold Wilson's Labour government, and culminated in an important, and underexplored, flashpoint in political discourse concerning the outside interests of parliamentarians and standards of integrity in British public life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes an innovative analytical framework for understanding memory work in oral history interviews with migrants who experienced the Troubles in Northern Ireland before migrating to Britain. Integrating theories of diasporic subjectivity from migration studies with conceptual developments in oral history and current research on memory, temporality and the history of emotions, it focuses on transnational dynamics in 'travelling memories' of the Troubles brought to Britain by first-generation migrants; the long temporal 'afterlife of feelings' attached to conflict memories; and the process of 'associative diffraction' whereby chronologically sequential memories are interrupted, fragmented and recombined in achronological sequences linking diverse temporal moments and spatial locations. The utility of these concepts is explored in an intensive analysis of memory dynamics and subjectivity in a single interview, with Siobhán O'Neill, who grew up Catholic, working-class and queer in nationalist/republican West Belfast at the epicentre of conflict violence, and moved to London in 1986. The article argues that the specificities of individual migration stories such as Siobhán's resist conventional generalisation, and offers a new theoretical and methodological framework for the systematic investigation of quotidian experiences, memories and silences that are unexplored in the established historiographies of the Troubles and the Irish diaspora in Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the siting and construction of a Magnox nuclear power station on the Suffolk coast. The station was initially welcomed by local politicians as a solution to unemployment but was criticised by an organised group of local Communist activists who predicted how the restriction zone would restrict future development. Oral history interviews provide insights into conditions on the construction site and the social effects on the nearby town. Archive material reveals the spatial and development restrictions imposed with the building of the power station, which remains on the shoreline as a monument to the 'atomic age'. This material is contextualised in the longer economic and social history of a town that moved from the shadow of nineteenth century paternalistic industry into the glare of the nuclear construction programme and became an early example of the eclipsing of local democracy by the centralised nuclear state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his monumental treatment of class formation inThe Making of the English Working Class(New York: Vintage Books, 1966), E. P. Thompson presented a view of class as a ‘happening’ and attacked the liberal and ‘orthodox’ Marxist views of class as a ‘thing’. This paper argues that Thompson's book was primarily attempting to answer political questions of his own time, and more specifically the question of modern socialism. Exploring the theoretical arguments of class formation that influenced Thompson's oeuvre, the paper will also explore the connections between Thompson and ‘orthodox’ Marxism and challenge those who see Thompson's work as only a counterargument to scholars who treated class merely as an economic structure. For Thompson,The Makingwas not only a historical treatise, but an answer to both ‘Old’ and New Leftists who saw the working class mainly as an economic and cultural phenomenon, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the relationships between space, ethnic identity and anti-state violence in twentieth century London. It will do so by comparing the Spitalfields violence of 1906 and the Brixton unrest of 1981. The association of physical metropolitan space with 'difference' in the Edwardian East End and post-consensus South London, and how this 'othering' was influenced both by the state and the anti-migrant far right will be analysed. The paper will then dissect relationships between the police and working class Jewish and Caribbean communities, and how these deteriorating relationships exploded into extreme violence in 1906 and 1981. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new universities of the 1960s were innovatory, in their curricula, architecture, independence and academic ambitions. They also marked a different relationship between universities and their localities. For a century, new universities had been predicated on local demand, whereas the 1960s universities were conceived of as national institutions meeting a national demand. This new approach to university–civic connections was sudden, novel and contributed to a sense of remoteness attached to the new universities. This paper examines how the different policy was formulated, predominantly by the UGC, and considers some examples of how the policy played out in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines how and in what ways workplace 'sexual harassment' achieved social and legal recognition in the UK news press following its importation from North America in the mid-1970s. It assesses the role of feminist campaigners working within institutions (trade unions, human rights advocacy, the Equal Opportunities Commission and journalism itself) in shifting public discourse and in using the media to educate and promote social change. We demonstrate that the trajectory was far from a linear progression. Initial hostility within the popular press in the early 1980s was replaced with sympathetic coverage across the party-political spectrum by 1990. However, this consensus broke down in the 1990s as a result of politicised and polarised coverage of a series of claims brought by women in the services and armed forces against the backdrop of debates about 'compensation culture' and membership of the European Union. Whilst change was effected at the level of employment law, formal practice and in the human resources policies of larger employers, 'sexual harassment myths' were resilient as a thread within 'everyday cultural discourse' and, by implication, within informal workplace cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In February 1947, the British government made a number of policy decisions which led to withdrawal from India, Palestine and Greece. The paper seeks to demonstrate that although economic constraints highlighted the need to reduce overseas commitments, these pressures did not predetermine the choice or timing of the withdrawal decisions. The consequences of the retreats in terms of reduced military overstretch, balance of payments alleviation and the diminution in Britain's international status are also examined. It is concluded that the Attlee administration shed a range of military burdens as rapidly and in as orderly a fashion as political and strategic circumstances permitted. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper charts the history and emergence of the 'senior police voice' within the UK. Before the 1990s, that voice was fragmented, hostile and contradictory. Cultural and political change plus a desire from within the senior echelons of the police service to professionalise began a long process of acceptance of the centrality of politics and the media within policing. The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO, representing the senior ranks of the police service) in particular moved from the relative safety and anonymity of a 'private' organisation to a body, which was much more centre stage within criminal justice policy making. This paper analyses the development of a more corporate senior police voice through the Association's media activity and cultural change. It does this through an analysis of interviews with the members of ACPO, in particular its Presidents, who served as ACPO members from the late 1950s onwards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the mid-1960s, the Labour government established a Commission to devise the best way of integrating Britain's elite independent schools with the state-financed school system. Despite-and because of-the left's scepticism of private education, the Commission faced enormous obstacles and their solution of state-subsidised boarding places was seen as unworkable, unaffordable and unpopular. Government papers help to explain the various reasons why the Commission's proposals were not implemented: in particular, the public schools were regarded as a low spending priority. The lack of reform is key to understanding the continuing importance of independent schools in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little has been written about the history of drink driving. This paper interrogates the issue in interwar Britain. It focuses on the problems facing reformers determined to rouse the public to the dangers posed by drink-associated impairment, as distinct from gross drunkenness. The contribution begins with an outline of earlier twentieth century anti-drink-driving law. This is complemented by an account of the activities of an informal and distinguished scientific pressure-group, with close links to the temperance-influenced Society for the Study of Inebriety. In conclusion, this paper examines the failure of the reform movement and the manner in which the Ministry of Transport and the Home Office subverted and blocked pressure for legislative change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on correspondence and other material in the National Archives at Kew, London, to provide an historical narrative of town twinning in Cold-War Britain. In doing so, it supplements a literature on town twinning that has little to say about international municipal partnerships involving British localities. It also supplements a literature on municipal internationalism that tends to focus on either municipal connections around the turn of the twentieth century or the perceived 'new localism' of the last few decades. The argument developed is that twentieth-century municipal internationalism was shaped in Britain by continuities of desire and interest at the local level and discontinuities of opportunity at the national and international levels. Various models of town twinning became available to British localities after the Second World War. During the Cold War, the British Government intervened in the availability of some of these models, not least because of fears about Communist penetration through town twinning. By the late 1970s, such intervention had ensured that town twinning in Britain was associated with civic and cultural exchanges within Western Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an overview of the London School of Economics' "Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament" archive. Details are given outlining the history of the special archives library, noting its creation in the 1950s and its use throughout the following decades to document and assist in the anti-nuclear movement in Great Britain. Comments on the ideology and trajectory of the social movement in Great Britain are given. Further information for contacting and using the archives for research is also included.

The article introduces various reports published within the issue on the topic of affluence and social change in Great Britain.

The controversy surrounding the September 2002 dossier on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction has been pivotal in the decline of trust in the New Labour Government. The absence of a comprehensive, detailed and diachronic analysis of this episode therefore stands out as an issue that needs to be addressed. In doing so, this paper diverges from conventional narratives of the 'September dossier' affair in several respects. It argues that New Labour's desire for regime change in Iraq pre-dated the rise of the neo-conservative Bush administration and the events of 9/11; that the British Government were fully willing and active participants in the policy of regime change and that the production of the dossier was one of the key components of a broader political strategy designed to achieve this aim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interrogating the Wilson administration's cultural agenda seems key given the seismic shifts assumed to characterise British society and particularly cultural life in the 1960s. Yet historians have given this little attention. Exploring Jennie Lee's tenure as Arts Minister this article discloses cultural besides financial tensions over the status and definition of the arts, both within government and between government, a vibrant artistic community and the public. Besides interpreting Wilson's government outside the declinist mainstream, it hints at links with New Labour's penchant for the creative industries and at post-industrial contexts for understanding British politics and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Curzon succeeded Balfour as Foreign Secretary in October 1919. However, during Balfour's absence from London during the Paris Peace Conference, Curzon was responsible for a substantial amount of the decision-making on British foreign policy. Curzon's period as Acting Foreign Secretary is crucial to understanding his general approach to the job as whole, especially his relationship with the Prime Minister, Lloyd George, and with the Cabinet. It also provides a mind map of Curzon's approach to British diplomacy towards Europe and the Empire. The essay is an extension of the author's earlier work on the relationship between Curzon and Lloyd George, and suggests once again that their relationship was more harmonious than has often been portrayed in the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the thinking behind the program of railway closures set out in the 1963 report 'The Reshaping of British Railways,' by Richard Beeching. Increase in railways' operating deficits between 1956 and 1962; Failure of the Treasury to exercise the role of banker to the British Transport Commission; Information on 1961 White Paper.