Search

In 1973 the national conference of the National Union of Students (NUS) voted to campaign for gay rights, making NUS the first national organisation in the UK to make such a public commitment. Using archive material, this article outlines how NUS came to this decision, and the initial challenges it faced in taking up this work. It explains that NUS was influenced by early liberation politics, but faced difficulties when this clashed with the belief of some on the Left in the primacy of the class struggle. Nevertheless, some important progress was made in these early years, even if some of the wider societal change was still elusive. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The modern kitchen was emblematic of a cold war obsession with household consumer durables as a measure of national progress. Its roots lay in a largely American idea of the ‘new household’ and the modern housewife. The article explores how television advertising in Britain played its part in helping to promote these co-joined aspects of the cross-Atlantic domestic ideal. In pursuing this argument, the article emphasises the way American domestic ideals took distinctive directions in Britain. Contributing to this adaptation of American ideals was a range of home-grown influences that shaped the remaking of the post-war home and women’s social role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to deepen scholarly understanding of the special political and economic connection between Britain and Socialist China during the 1950s and the 1960s. After 1949, the British government had substantive reasons to preserve a link with Beijing, despite the unfolding of the Cold War. First, British assets in China were numerous. Second, the Crown colony of Hong Kong was an indispensable strategic enclave, although militarily indefensible. Third, the Foreign Office considered that Asia should represent an exception to unquestioned British loyalty to the Atlantic alliance, since the United Kingdom needed to prove that it was able to represent and preserve Commonwealth interests in the area. The article will point out that the United Kingdom maintained a privileged role as the main trading partner of the People's Republic of China (PRC) outside the Socialist bloc, thanks to the financial and commercial role played by Hong Kong. This is proved through an analysis of the fate of British financial institutions in China, which represented a favourable exception in the bleak scenario of the PRC nationalization process, as well as of the industrial development of the British colony, which was based on importing food and labour from the mainland, while serving as a financial hub in support of the PRC economy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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]

This article analyses the emergence of politically motivated acts of left-wing terrorism in Britain between 1967 and 1972. Through the case of the ‘Angry Brigade’, an ill-defined grouping which claimed responsibility for a number of attacks against property between 1970 and 1971, it analyses how protest and political violence emerged from discourses and events in the British New Left, the anti-war protest movements, the counterculture, and the underground press. Against common interpretations of ’68 as a watershed of naïve hopes that waned into inaction, this article identifies a consistency of political activity that developed beyond traditional party and class politics towards a more internationally aware and diverse network of struggles for civil equality. Among the shared political and cultural commitments of the counterculture, campaigns around squatting, women's liberation, or the necessity of ‘armed propaganda’ each became possible and at times overlapped. It analyses the group's development, actions, communications, as well as surrounding media discourses, subsequent police investigation, and the criminal trials of ten individuals for their involvement in the Angry Brigade. The article reappraises their overlooked historical significance among the wider countercultural militancy and discourses of political violence of the late 1960s to early 1970s. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article offers a new analysis of the Northern Ireland peace settlement through an examination of the pivotal relationship between two key actors: the British state and the Provisional Republican movement that included Sinn Féin and the IRA. It traces the negotiating relationship between these key parties and argues that the ending of violent conflict in the 1990s can best be understood as the outcome of a long bargaining process between these two actors that was conducted both tacitly and explicitly over a span of more than two decades. It concludes that the development of a cooperative relationship between the British state and the Provisional leadership and the active coordination of British policy and republican strategy were the crucial elements in securing an end to violence in the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the emergence of a vocal and influential pro-Palestinian campaign within the Labour Party in the 1960s and 1970s. In particular, it focuses upon the work of the Labour Middle East Council established by Christopher Mayhew in 1969. The article argues that Mayhew succeeded in laying the foundations for a network of pro-Palestinian organizations in the 1980s but that the note of anti-Zionist radicalism which he introduced provided a foothold for more controversial forms of activism within the mainstream Labour movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on Australia's response to the joint Anglo-American effort to expand military facilities on the island of Diego Garcia in early 1970s. The primary emphasis will be on the Whitlam government's rationale behind its diplomatic manoeuvre towards great power rivalries in the Indian Ocean and its supportive position towards the concept of building the Indian Ocean as a peace zone. It argues that the Whitlam government's policy towards the international diplomacy around Diego Garcia contributed to the shaping of a unique Australian foreign policy, one free from attachment to British and American considerations, although still mindful of the need to factor the interests of the UK and the USA into Australia's calculations of its own best interests. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Following the Munich Olympics massacre of September 1972, the British government conducted a series of contingency plans to ensure that Whitehall, police constabularies and the armed forces were prepared for similar crises affecting the UK and its citizens. This article examines the evolution of British counterterrorist planning during the 1970s, which still shapes Whitehall's crisis management procedures for responding to international terrorism, and also procedures for calling for military support in response to hijackings, hostage-taking and similar incidents both domestically and overseas. It demonstrates that while there are differences in the character of the terrorist threat 40 years ago and today, there are also parallels between the practical and political challenges of counterterrorism in the era of the Baader-Meinhof group and Carlos the Jackal, and the struggle against al-Qaeda and its affiliates today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines talks that took place between British government officials and loyalist paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland at a critical moment in the most recent Troubles. In particular, this article describes talks that took place secretly at the Northern Ireland Office's ‘Laneside’ building, a secluded suburban house used by British diplomats and MI6 officers on the shores of Belfast Lough between 1971 and 1976. Drawing on both recently released archive material as well as interviews with those who worked at and visited Laneside, this article explores what went on at these talks and analyses their outcomes from three different perspectives. This article demonstrates that the most accurate perspective from which to view what occurred in these meetings is neither top-down (government led) nor bottom-up (paramilitary led), but one that looks at what went on there as part of a conversation which both sets of participants for a time found useful. For the loyalists, Laneside had a role as a venue to think about strategy (rather than negotiate ends). For the British these were conversations that were useful in furnishing their understanding of loyalism, and as a place where policies could be explained and problems better understood. Looking at what occurred at Laneside as a semi-autonomous governmental body in Northern Ireland reveals key insights into both the loyalist paramilitaries' political ideas as well as the aims of British policy in Northern Ireland. Furthermore, this middle perspective holds a mirror up to the more familiar talks then occurring between the very same British officials and the Provisional IRA. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Angered by an unprecedented rise in house and land prices and by the depredations of property developers such as Harry Hyams, who built Centre Point, the Labour Party unanimously embraced land nationalization at the 1972 and 1973 conferences. In the event, the Labour government that came to power in 1974 did not nationalize the land, but it did pass the Community Land Act empowering local authorities to acquire at ‘use value’ land that could be used for development. This was the third and, as it turned out, last time since 1945 that the Labour Party enacted legislation to limit the free market in land and property. This article examines why Labour in spite of its previous failures tried again to secure a permanent change in land ownership and why this last attempt also failed because of a combination of external economic pressures and the inherent limitations of Labour's reform effort. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 1977 Housing (Homeless Persons) Act provided the first statutory definition of homelessness. This article examines who should be credited with inspiring the legislation. This article shows that the homelessness lobby, co-ordinating their activities through the Joint Charities Group and Campaign for the Homeless and Roofless, interposed themselves between Whitehall and Parliament and the public, mediating a message about the changing nature of ‘hidden’ homelessness and its growing scale. At the same time elements of the civil service, particularly within the Department of Environment, sought to harness this lobby in order to help promote its agenda for improving the utilization of, and uniformity of access to, the housing stock within Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article reconstructs British constitutional policy in Northern Ireland after power-sharing collapsed in May 1974. Over the following two years, the British government publicly emphasised that Northern Ireland would decide its own future, but ministers secretly considered a range of options including withdrawal, integration and Dominion status. These discussions have been fundamentally misunderstood by previous authors, and this article shows that Harold Wilson did not seriously advocate withdrawal nor was policy as inconsistent as argued elsewhere. An historical approach, drawing from recently released archival material, shows that consociationalists such as Brendan O'Leary and Michael Kerr have neglected the proper context of government policy because of their commitment to a particular form of government, failing to recognise the constraints under which ministers operated. The British government remained committed to an internal devolved settlement including both communities but was unable to impose one. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the political situation in Great Britain after the general election in 1974 during which the Labour Party won the most seats in the House of Commons. Topics mentioned include the unpredictability of the victory of the Labour Party of the Conservative Party, the country's need for a political coalition, and the report of the elections in the British journal "The Times."

A reprint of an article which was published in 1975 is presented. Topics mentioned include the political crisis faced by Great Britain at that time, the referendum which took place in 1975 regarding the country's support to the European Economic Community (EEC), and the evolution of the concept of sovereignty.

The article focuses on the political situation in Great Britain in 1977. Topics mentioned include the representation of political matters in the British press, the economic crisis faced by the country, including the increase of unemployment and inflation, and the uneven quality of the different political books published at that time.

The article focuses on the evolution of the periodical throughout the 1970s. Topics mentioned include the possibility to purchases previous issues, the social and political situation of Great Britain at that time, and the future of the Labour Party, a British political party. The author also discusses the social issues faced by the country the ones related to education and housing.

A reprint of an article which was published in 1975 is presented. Topics mentioned include the work of British journalist and politician Dick Leonard regarding the political situation in Great Britain during the 1970s, the financial issues of the main political parties Labour Party and Conservative and Unionist Party, and the fact that memberships to those parties are decreasing.

The availability under the Thirty Years Rule of the Northern Irish and UK state papers for the start of the Troubles has made it possible to reassess what happened on 5 October 1968 in Derry. This article uses these files, other primary sources such as newspapers, and the ‘Flashpoints Model of Public Disorder’ to examine how the civil rights march and the police reaction transformed the contexts within which people in Derry and Northern Ireland as a whole thought and acted. It goes on to explore the three days of rioting that followed the violent scenes on Duke Street and the ‘collective remembrance’ of the event, which reached its climax during the Stormont general election campaign of February 1969. The article argues that the existing literature has overlooked not only the complexity of what happened on 5 October 1968 in Derry, but also the conflicting readings that were subsequently developed by contemporaries. The struggle to control the narrative helped drive the fragmentation and polarization in the second city that was encouraging certain individuals and groups to adopt violent strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article reassesses the neo-liberal shift within British economic policy-making and the international political economy, focusing especially the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the 1960s. The IMF has always used the conditions attached to its lending to try and shape borrower's policy; here we explore the evolving content of that conditionality and the economic ideas underpinning it. Using recently released IMF records, as well as other archives, we argue that the negotiations between the IMF and the UK Government in the 1960s can be seen as part of the Fund's drive towards a crucial change from discretionary to rules-based approaches to macroeconomic policy making. This drive took place within a struggle over a specific policy instrument, domestic credit expansion (DCE), at that time regarded as an important measure of monetary policy. The article locates the IMF advocacy of DCE within an attempt by the Fund to constrain discretionary policy-making through increasingly specific and binding rules. In response, UK Government officials began to pre-empt and even deceive the Fund to avoid being tied down. Our analysis unpacks which neo-liberal economic ideas the Fund embraced, noting its rejection of monetarism. In the period charted here (1965–69), the rules-based regime remained compatible with Keynesianism. However, the UK Government's grudging acceptance of this approach provided a crucial condition of possibility for a significant qualitative shift in macroeconomic policy-making when rules later became infused with an increasingly neo-liberal character. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 19 March 1969 a small force of British policemen and paratroopers occupied the tiny Caribbean island of Anguilla. The ostensible purpose of this invasion was to secure the island’s allegiance to the larger island of St Kitts to which it had been joined two years earlier as part of a new Associated State. The Associated States remained within the ambit of the residual British empire and the particular circumstances of the invasion mark it as a distinctive episode in the history of decolonization which attracted much satirical comment at the time. An examination of the policies pursued by the Wilson government illustrates some significant ways in which it was representative of British attitudes at the end of empire. There was a persistent concern that once imperial power had withdrawn, local populations would turn to nationalist demagogues and Ronald Webster of Anguilla, who led the secessionist campaign against the Kittitian connection, was viewed in this light. Doubts about the quality of local leadership were exacerbated by fears about the pernicious effect of the new foreign influences which would replace the British. In the case of Anguilla, this led to exaggerated estimates of the likelihood of the island falling under the influence of the American mafia. Following the reoccupation of the island, the Wilson government reconsidered the tenets which had governed policy and concluded that the attempt to force the Anguillans back under Kittitian control was impractical. Anguilla’s connection to St Kitts was eventually severed in 1980 and the island became a British Dependent Territory. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article addresses the nature, intensity and impact of debates and divisions over British membership of the European Community on Labour party and social democratic politics, and their significance for understanding both the fragmentation of Labour's traditional 'dominant coalition' and the later social democratic split from the party and schism of British social democracy. The article suggests that arguments and tensions in the debate over Europe cut across traditional party political lines. Contrary to conventional accounts of the gradual demise of Labour's centre-right coalition and the formation of the Social Democratic party in 1981, which emphasize the importance of arguments over more immediate intra-party constitutional factors in the new party's evolution, dimensions of internal conflict rendered by Labour's European discourse had already raised awareness of the potential need for the creation of an alternative vehicle of social democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article will look at one of the key aspects in the role of local government in post-war Britain by considering how local authorities adopted broadly entrepreneurial strategies, working in partnership with the private sector, to attract investment and redevelop large sections of Britain’s major city centres from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. Focusing on some of the traditional industrial cities, it will examine the idea of the entrepreneurial city and how, while it has come to partially define the role of local government from the 1980s onwards, broadly similar approaches and attitudes to city-centre development were a marked feature of the role of local government policies from a much earlier period. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The so-called ‘Ugandan Asian Crisis’ (1972) is a case that crystallizes the complexity of British immigration policies in the 1960s and the 1970s. It has also been labelled as an affair that symbolizes the relatively liberal nature of the Heath government concerning issues of immigration and ‘race’. The aim of this article is to re-examine the British government’s reaction to this crisis and evaluate the claim that the British government made a prompt, humanitarian decision to admit some 28,000 British passport holders of Asian origin. It also tries to analyse the national press discourse concerning the crisis and its impact on public opposition to accepting the Asian population who were British citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article concentrates almost entirely on the events of 1971 and the author's involvement in the 'sometimes complicated and frustrating negotiations and consultations' which led up to the signing at the end of 1971 of the various Treaties of Friendship as Britain withdrew from the Gulf, leaving behind a number of independent states, including the United Arab Emirates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes how the intention of the Arab League announced in January 1965 to open a development office in the Trucial States resulted in a major crisis for Great Britain's informal empire in the Persian Gulf. It explains why the British Government regarded the Arab League's plan as a significant threat to its interests in the Persian Gulf and describes the strategy the British employed to counter it. The article argues that the British determination to prevent an extension of Arab League influence to the Gulf dominated Great Britain's relations with the rulers of the Trucial States from January to June 1965, and led to the creation of the Trucial States Development Office and eventually the deposition of Shaikh Saqr of Sharjah. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of planning and social housing in post-war Britain has been dominated by the role of the state, local government, professionals (planners, architects, civil servants) and developers. This is hardly surprising, given that the partnerships created around these groups dominated the slum clearance and building process. The tenants have been absent from the 'history' because they were missing from the process. However, in the 1960s and 1970s the concept of participation began to emerge. It grew from broader social and cultural changes brought about through the emergence of welfare, consumerism and an ever greater awareness of 'rights'. The idea of participation was to increase participatory democracy by involving people in the planning process, by recognizing their rights to be involved in decisions which impacted on their lives. The state promoted the idea through legislation, but in practice the concept proved difficult to implement. Local authorities saw participation, at best, as a means of smoothing the planning process through the dissemination of ideas, thus limiting any scope for meaningful participation schemes. This article will look at the tension between the ideal and practice. It will also consider the reaction of many tenants who, frustrated at the attitude and policies forced on them by local government, became galvanized into action, creating tenant groups that would give their communities a voice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous historical accounts have simplified the Labour government's decision to commission a four-boat strategic nuclear deterrent, or 'Polaris force', in early 1965. Utilising previously classified sources, this article shows that a number of key strategic concerns led the decision-making process. Nevertheless, broader economic and diplomatic considerations were also important in determining the size of the Polaris force. A tremendous balance of payments deficit and ongoing debates regarding levels of conventional and nuclear involvement in NATO certainly influenced the government's final decision. Moreover, competing strategic and economic interests resulted in continued debate throughout the decision-making process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is the purpose of this article to illustrate how the British government reached its decision to upgrade the Polaris strategic nuclear deterrent in 1973. Using British and American documentation it is demonstrated that the strategic imperatives for upgrading Polaris were fundamental to the project. Existing accounts of the Polaris Improvement Project, however, have not given the appropriate attention to the wider US-UK political differences in this period. By doing so it is shown how in addition to the wider economic, strategic and political factors, this was of paramount significance in the Heath government opting for the 'Super Antelope' method in upgrading Polaris.1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the little-known plans formulated by Harold Wilson's Labour government to deploy Polaris submarines in the Indo-Pacific region. The scheme was first proposed in 1965 as a response to several problems faced by British policy-makers, including China's acquisition of a nuclear capability, Britain's wish to maintain a meaningful position 'East of Suez' at reduced cost, and German pressure for equal treatment within NATO on nuclear matters. Despite extensive high-level discussion, the plans were finally abandoned in mid-1968, as Labour moved more decisively to forsake the world role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to a growing literature on working-class suburbanization by arguing that both the residualization and privatization of council housing need to be properly historicized. This case study of housing policy in the borough of Brighton demonstrates that council house sales between the 1950s and 1970s were important in the residualization of inter-war estates well before the ‘right to buy’ legislation of the 1980s. Concerns about excessively affluent tenants can also be traced to the inter-war period, although it was not until the late 1950s that local Conservatives sought to push affluent council tenants into owner occupation via capping incomes and encouraging council house sales. The article shows that slum clearance had long been central to the local council’s provision of municipal housing and that apart from two short periods following the First and Second World Wars, council housing was conceived of primarily as a residual tenure by those in control of policy implementation. It further demonstrates that slum clearance between the 1920s and 1960s altered the social constituency for council housing and, combined with selective privatization, specific allocation policies and disinvestment, led to the stigmatization of certain inter-war estates. The article suggests that further case studies are needed in order to test the wider applicability of these arguments during the middle years of the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article demonstrates how the Cabinet Office was able to isolate rogue ministers as a means of reinforcing collective Cabinet responsibility and enforcing the will of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. Harold Wilson returned to Number 10 Downing Street in 1974 promising to renegotiate the terms of Britain's entry into the European Community. The renegotiation effort was coordinated by the Cabinet Office's European division, which aligned itself to Wilson's strategy of engineering the renegotiation to ensure Britain would remain a member of the Community. Benn was opposed to Community membership and in his capacity as Secretary of State for Industry sought to use the renegotiation items of regional development and the steel industry to cause its disruption. The Cabinet Office, in close collaboration with Wilson and Foreign Secretary Jim Callaghan, frustrated his attempts by utilising the machinery of government it operated against him to help push their preferred policy through. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1971 South Asia crisis demonstrated that Britain, despite the contemporaneous discussions which were taking place over British accession to the European Economic Community, continued to possess global interests. After a brief period of neutrality in the growing conflict between India and Pakistan, the government of Edward Heath leaned decisively towards the former. This contrasted with the American 'tilt' in the other direction, towards Pakistan. The resulting differences of approach between the Heath government and the Nixon White House reflected a wider pattern of division between British and American policy makers over Asia rather than any attempt by Heath to underscore his European credentials by distancing himself from the USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The British general election on 10 May 2010 delivered Britain's first hung Parliament since February 1974, and in the run-up, the Conservative party made much of the economic difficulties Britain faced in the second half of the 1970s in order to try and convince voters that anything other than a Tory vote would risk exposing the nation to the discipline of financial markets. The question of how well equipped an exceptional kind of British government is to deal with exceptional economic circumstances is therefore of paramount importance. This paper argues that the Conservative party made too much of the impact of the 1974 hung Parliament in precipitating subsequent economic crisis and suggests that as such, there is no reason to assume that the Conservative-Liberal coalition government is ill-equipped to manage British economic affairs in difficult circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This communication follows the evolution, reception, and implications of the parliamentary commissioner's critical 1968 report on Foreign Office 'maladministration' regarding compensation for British concentration camp inmates. It explores officials' and ministers' attitude to the investigative techniques associated with this new office, as well as their hostile reaction to the publicity and parliamentary controversy to which his work gave rise. It concludes by exploring the wider implications of the case, especially the inherent problems faced by governments seeking closer and more harmonious relationships with the governed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing accounts of British efforts to achieve a nuclear non-proliferation treaty between 1964 and 1968 largely overlook the later stages of decision making within the Labour government. Scrutiny of previously classified sources reveals that a desire for entry into the European Economic Community had a much larger influence on the content and conduct of British non-proliferation policy than previously suggested. By 1967, Prime Minister Harold Wilson sought a secondary role in treaty negotiations, and left the running to the superpowers. This avoided unnecessary conflict with the countries of the Community, resentful of the Treaty's discriminatory terms, and helped to protect Britain's application to join the EEC. Although this bid was unsuccessful, ambitions for future membership continued to influence non-proliferation policy in 1968. Indeed, a desire for future entry into the EEC helps to explain why Britain became the first nuclear weapon state to ratify the Treaty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1974 and 1979 the British Labour Government, led first by Harold Wilson and then by James Callaghan, developed a programme of improvements to the British Polaris Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) system initiated during Wilson's first government between 1964 and 1970. This Polaris improvement programme was known from 1974 onwards as Chevaline. Chevaline offered Britain an indigenous solution to meet the 'Moscow Criterion' - the requirement that British strategic missiles had to be capable of penetrating Moscow's 'Galosh' Anti-Ballistic missile defence system (ABM) even in the absence of US support. This came during a time of economic austerity in a changing strategic environment which led Labour to explore nuclear cooperation with the French. It also led to calls from within the party to renounce nuclear weapons through unilateral disarmament. This article will shed fresh light on the bitter internal debates that ensued and how a select band of senior ministers responded to this dilemma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article documents a landmark dispute between British Petroleum (BP) and the Nigerian tax authorities that occurred over a N130 million (£100 million) capital gains tax assessment arising from an intra BP Group transfer of its 50 per cent shareholding in Shell/BP Nigeria. This was necessitated by a BP transaction in Abu Dhabi. This tax assessment, which was more than twice the yearly cash flow of BP's Nigerian operations at the time, ignited a chain of events and schemes that saw the British government covertly and overtly providing support to BP, with the primary goal of influencing the outcome of the dispute in order to protect the interests of both the British government and BP. Evidence in this article highlights the complexities of postcolonial relationships between centre countries and African ex-colonies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thirty years on, and in the context of a new crisis, it is time to return to the Winter of Discontent and to the mythology that it has generated. In this paper, I show that the Winter of Discontent was in many respects a manufactured crisis—lived, experienced and responded to through a very particular construction of the events. And I show that such a construction of events is difficult to reconcile with the evidence itself. The Winter of Discontent, I suggest, did mark the passing of Keynesianism, corporatism and the post-war consensus. But it did so not because the events of the winter of 1978–1979 were precipitated by union power nor by the inherent contradictions of the Keynesianism economic paradigm, but because the crisis that it was seen to symbolise was constructed in precisely such terms. Keynesianism's death in Britain was not economically given, but politically orchestrated. The implications of this for our understanding of the present crisis are highly significant and are explored in the final section of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As Leader of the Opposition, Margaret Thatcher undertook visits across the Atlantic, establishing an international profile and formulating a political narrative that would offer a new economic approach to the British electorate. This article will use Thatcher's visits to the America/USA as a case study of how domestic Opposition leaders can establish an international profile. It will examine how Thatcher's transatlantic trips were conducted and reported; how Thatcher negotiated the politics of meeting foreign leaders; and, finally, it will assess how far Thatcher could go as an Opposition leader in staking out her own position without undermining unwritten diplomatic codes. The article concludes that Thatcher's transatlantic trips were a successful case in point for Opposition Leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thirty years on, and in the context of our own crisis, it is perhaps useful to take stock of the last Winter of Discontent. The industrial strife that beset the Callaghan government in the winter of 1978/79 was seen at the time as a key factor in Labour's defeat in the general election of 1979; but its legacy is considerable and its significance enduring. These four themed essays come from a public seminar at the British Academy to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Winter of Discontent. Colin Hay argues that the Winter of Discontent was, in key respects, a manufactured crisis lived, experienced and responded to through a very particular construction of the events that is difficult to reconcile with the evidence itself. Reponses by Lords Baker, Lea and Lipsey follow and the section concludes with a transcribed and edited version of the lively discussion which ensued. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most pressing questions for the new government of Harold Wilson following the Labour Party's slender General Election victory of October 1964, as far as the UK's nuclear deterrent was concerned, was how to shore up the credibility gap that was in evidence with the decline of the effectiveness of the V-bomber force.1 Already in train was the Polaris programme agreed by the Conservative Macmillan government at Nassau in December 1962, in which five submarines were planned.2 However, Polaris was not due to be fully deployed until the first quarter of the 1970s and doubts were already beginning to emerge regarding their perceived effectiveness. This article will ask two main questions: first, why did the development of anti-ballistic missile defences by the Soviet Union threaten the credibility of the UK strategic nuclear deterrent?; and second, what was the UK's response to this development? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The availability under the Thirty Year Rule of British and Stormont government papers for the early stages of the Troubles has made it possible for existing analyses of the role of key actors to be reassessed. This article uses the reports of successive UK Representatives to cast new light on the nature of British policy in the 1969-71 period. It argues that a view of the dynamics of the conflict as between an entrenched and discriminatory majority and an oppressed minority led to an underestimation of the depth of Protestant fears and the deepening of the regime's legitimacy crisis with its own supporters. The result was persistence with a policy that achieved the worst of both worlds: a regime incapable of stabilising itself and an increasingly militant and radicalised Catholic population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sexual Offences Act 1967 made the first inroads to decriminalising men's homosexual sex since buggery was made a capital offence under Henry VIII. The act was drafted at the direction of the 1957Wolfenden report, but bore the distinct hallmark of individuals of the 1967 parliament. More complex than the dictated product ofWolfenden, and more idiosyncratic than a simple reflection of the social climate of the 1960s, the private member's bill was a Labour initiative with bipartisan support, driven in the Commons by the bizarre motivations of its sponsor, Labour member for Pontypool, Leo Abse. Contrary to popular myths about the aims of decriminalisation, Abse's crusading Freudian motivation was concerned with discouraging, more than allowing, homosexual behaviour. Similarly,'privacy' — the gift of the house of lords to sexual regulation — was aimed largely at curtailing men's sexual practices, along with secreting them away. Thus, while the act is typically associated with a general ideal of freedom, much parliamentary motivation concerned control and the prevention of sexual activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Wilson and Callaghan Labour governments of 1974-79 have been widely vilified. Their record on poverty and inequality is examined in terms of expectations and achievements. Outcomes for the elderly, children and disabled people are examined and the distribution of earnings and income and the extent of poverty are assessed. The record of a modest reduction in poverty and little change in inequality are in marked contrast with the increases of the preceding and succeeding Conservative governments. Lessons of continuing relevance are drawn concerning the central role of redistribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical literature on labour and industrial relations is broadly silent on theoretical questions; and management and industrial relations literature tends to overlook historical contingency. This article brings these different literatures into closer alignment, examining the concept of pluralism in industrial relations, indicating that the embeddedness of non-pluralist values among employers shaped the erosion of pluralist realities — joint industrial bargaining mechanisms — from the 1970s onwards. The article explores Alan Fox's paper for the Donovan Commission, Industrial Sociology and Industrial Relations (1966), with its emphasis on the manner in which competing 'frames of reference' generated contrasting interpretations of industrial relations and industrial conflict, and examines material developments in the sectors singled out by Fox: coalmining and the docks. The article generally supports a central criticism of some pluralist approaches in industrial relations literature, concluding that broader forces — including macro-economic management and counter-inflationary wages policy, perceived by some workers as class injustice — were the central contingencies shaping industrial conflict. As Fox emphasised in his later writings, attempts to reform the system of industrial relations — by both Labour and Conservative governments — were misguided, but reflected the subject's growing politicisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Commonwealth has always been a subject of lively academic debate and publication but in recent years the historical context seems to have gone by default. Forty years ago the picture was different. Commonwealth historians were among the leading historians of their generation. This article revisits some of the contemporary assessments of the Commonwealth in the 1960s, and contrasts them with the Commonwealth policies pursued by the British government between 1964 and 1971. It is open to interpretation whether these were years of unremitting crisis or a time of adjustment leading to a more mature and realistic appreciation of what the Commonwealth represented and what it might achieve. The article begins with a discussion of economic relationships, and proceeds to the political aspects, the centrepiece of which was a 1967 assessment within Whitehall of the value of the Commonwealth to Britain. The overall conclusion is one of British government disillusionment with the Commonwealth and a readiness to stand firm against the pressure of threatened departures from the Commonwealth. While the government in London never itself contemplated action to break the Commonwealth, ministers always believed that it would place British interests first in any conflict with Commonwealth members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the relationship between the dub poetry of Linton Kwesi Johnson and the 1978 Caribbean Carnival in London, England. The author looks at how the Carnival became an opportunity to promote black autonomy and culture in England. According to the author, Johnson's dub poetry, specifically the recording "Inglan is a Bitch," contributed to cultural solidarity. The roles of the Carnival and Johnson's poetry as cultural accounts of black history in England are discussed.

This article considers the debate about quangos, which occurred in Britain during the 1970s. Contributions from academics, politicians and popular commentators are evaluated and contrasted. The study identifies five main concerns about these organisations. They are accused of being wasteful, unaccountable and too numerous. The system of ministerial appointments and the provision of information about quangos are also criticised. The debate is linked to wider political themes such as the role of the state, governmental effectiveness and ministerial power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a response to an article written by Charles Batteson, which focused on the 1976 Ruskin College Speech, delivered by James Callaghan, which was regarded as the moment of British politics of 1976. Contention that the New Right Speech was instrumental in pivoting the direction of Labour policies for school reform; Origin of the Ruskin Speech; Significance of the Ruskin Speech to New Right education policies.