Book Review: Ben Williams, The Evolution of Conservative Party Social Policy
| Date | 01 August 2017 |
| Author | William Prescott |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929917710604 |
| Published date | 01 August 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Book ReviewsBritain and Ireland |
483
to the 1985 call for a national return to work
means of four case studies: practical social
without an agreement, the South Wales Area
justice and welfare reform, the ‘Big Society’
was insufficiently dedicated to the cause (see
policy framework, the Free Schools policy
The Enemy Within: The Secret War Against the
and the reform of the National Health Service
Miners by Seumas Milne, 2014). South Wales,
(NHS).
as Francis notes, was ‘the only scab-free coal-
In a philosophical sense, Williams logically
field in Britain’ (p. 62), its position motivated
explains how the Party shifted its attitude
by the national leadership’s abnegation of
towards social justice. In response to the suc-
responsibility ‘to provide a decisive and realis-
cess of New Labour, and to shake off their
tic lead’ and a desire ‘to save the National
image as ‘the nasty party’ (p. 47), the
Union’ (p. 69).
Conservatives moved away from the ‘New
Relatively cheap, short and accessible,
Right’ position. The ‘New Right’ had rejected
History on Our Side is a superlative example
‘statist, egalitarian “levelling” and interven-
of history from below, valuable not only as a
tion’ in favour of emphasising ‘incentives, self-
description of a specific historical event but
reliance and independence’, an approach
also for the lessons it presents regarding
which aimed for a ‘downgraded and minimal-
working-class political organisation and the
ist role for the state’ (p. 76). The new
potentiality of political and cultural alliance-
Conservative approach, however, recognised
building.
the importance of ‘society’, but argued that
One further particular insight the book
New Labour’s ‘statist’ policies increased
offers lies in Francis’s argument that ‘[t]he
bureaucracy and the burden on the taxpayer
miners’ strike created a Welsh unity and iden-
while undermining social justice by increasing
tity, overcoming language and geographical
welfare dependency....
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