British Politics
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1983.tb01363.x |
| Date | 01 December 1983 |
| Published date | 01 December 1983 |
| Subject Matter | Books |
Political Studies
(1983),
XXXI,
673-700
British Politics
S.
Checkland,
British Public Policy
1774-1939
(Cambridge, Cambridge University
Checkland traces the evolution
of
the British State from the eighteenth century to World War
11.
His final chapter defines the boundaries of state intervention at the outbreak
of
war. The frontiers
of the state in
1939
appear uncannily similar to those aspired to by the present Conservative Party
leadership. Perhaps the brief interval of social democratic intervention from the
1940s
to the
1970s
may prove as much an aberration from the norm of the limited state as was the interlude of state
abdication from the
1840s
to the
1870s.
Checkland analyses four main aspects of transition:
changing patterns of class rule, shifts in economic policy, the expansion of social welfare
provision, and the growth of the bureaucratic apparatus. There is, however, the continuity
provided by the British political habit of acquiescence, to which Bagehot referred, and which
Checkland argues impedes Labour’s attempts to implement collectivism. This results from a
process of ‘mind control’, in which he identifies the schools, rather than the media, as main
agents. The book is meticulously researched and is comprehensive in detail. Although bland in its
judgements, Checkland’s competent study provides a useful introduction
for
students
of
British
public policy. B.
J.
EVANS,
Huddersfield Polytechnic
Press,
1983), x+431
pp.,
f30.00
ISBN
0
521 24596 6.
J.
Winter (ed.),
The Working Class in Modern British History
(Cambridge, Cambridge
This book consists of
13
essays in honour of Henry Pelling, an appreciation of whom is included in
the Introduction by Jay Winter. The essays stretch across about
130
years
of
British working-class
history. Chronologically, the earliest is by Alastair Reid, re-examining the contribution of Thomas
Wright’s,
The Journeyman Engineer,
to
the theory
of
the labour aristocracy. The author’s
conclusion is that this mid-nineteenth century book described a much more heterogeneous
proletariat than authors such as Hobsbawm have allowed. One
of
the latest essays, by Partea
Sarathi Gupta, discusses the attitude of the
1945-51
Labour Government to withdrawal from
Empire, especially India. His conclusion is that motives were mixed and that neither idealism
nor
expediency were absent. The
festchrift
is
an impressive tribute by scholarly ex-students to an
eminent labour historian. FRANK BEALEY,
Aberdeen University
J.
Griffith (ed.),
Socialism
in
a
Cold
Climate
(London, Allen
&
Unwin,
1983),
What kind
of
policies might be pursued by a Labour government inheriting mass unemployment
and
a
welfare state ravaged by Tory cuts? The dozen essays in this collection seek an answer to this
question which recognizes the necessity of a revitalized economy as a prerequisite for a programme
of socialist reforms. Desai, Glennerster and Crouch argue that a return to full employment will
require an incomes policy and little
or
no
increase in real wages for at least five years. The authors
believe that a series
of
democratic reforms will help
to
make such sacrifices acceptable and also
ensure that they are not made in vain. It cannot be said, however, that democracy and participa-
tion are made into new organizing principles of socialist policy.
But
this is implied in the advocacy
University Press,
1983),
xii
+
315
pp.,
f25.00
ISBN
0
521 23444
1.
x
+
230
pp.,
f2.95
pbk
ISBN
0
04
335050
X.
0032-32 17/83/O4/0673-28/$03
.OO
0
1983
Political Studies
674
Books
of industrial democracy, ‘a more integrative social policy’, the critique of Labour’s bureaucratic
paternalism in the field of housing policy and much else besides-whether in Atkinson’s essay
on
equality
or
in Mann’s discussion of internationalism. Though the argument is underdeveloped,
some
of
the authors recognize that without such democratic advances there is absolutely
no
reason
to believe that economic austerity for the mass
of
the population will do anything other than
restore profits. A systematic examination of Labour’s past failings and the reasons for its
declining support would,
I
think, have emphasized the need for a re-casting
of
Labour ideology
along democratic lines. This omission and the absence of any discussion
on
how Labour might
reform antiquated and undemocratic institutions are the main failings of an otherwise interesting
book, aimed at the ‘intelligent lay-person’. JOHN CALLAGHAN,
Wolverhornpton Polytechnic
Alice
Prochaska,
History
of
the General Federation
of
Trade Unions,
1899-1980
Over the past
20
years the focus in labour history has shifted from an account of institutions to an
all-too-frequently depoliticized social history
of
the working-class. The need to relate these two
approaches is self-evident. Unfortunately this volume is written in that institutional style which
reached its apotheosis in Francis Williams’
Magnificent Journey.
Its subject, the General Federa-
tion
of
Trade Unions, was created during the late-nineteenth century upsurge of unionization
among the semi-skilled, and has survived to the present. Its relative importance over the period is
well-indicated by the balance of the book:
168
pages are devoted to 20 years,
80
pages to
60
years.
Created to provide strike insurance after the defeat of the engineers in the lock-out of
1897-8
it
seemed to some
to
be the vehicle to create
a
militant unity within the labour world. However, the
GFTU very quickly came to emphasize more limited aims: the encouragement of trade union
amalgamation and
of
mediation between employers and unions.
For
a decade it also acted as the
representative of British unions at international trade labour conferences. By the early
1920%
however, it had declined to the position in which it subsequently remained: an institution which
provided research and advice for those, mainly craft, trade unions too small to provide such
facilities for themselves. Alice Prochaska’s account of this process is clear and competent though
the prose too often resembles that of the committee minutes
on
which it is heavily based. The book
does not substantiate its claim to identify and fill ‘a large gap in
our
knowledge
of
British trade
union history’.
No
new questions are posed
or
answered; instead the book thickens the detail
of
a
familiar story. JOHN
S.
ROWETT,
Brasenose College, Oxford
(London, Allen
&
Unwin,
1982),
xiv
+
274
pp.,
f15.00
ISBN
0
04
3310 87 7.
G.
Alderman,
The Jewish Community in British Politics
(Oxford, Oxford University
This is a study of the ‘relationship between the political system and those British voters who are
or
were Jewish’. This careful wording points to what can be taken as a central theme of the book,
namely the intriguing interaction between the felt need
on
the part of British Jews to be seen as
no
different, religion apart, from the generality of citizens, and the ineluctable fact that for most of
this century there has been one issue of high,
for
some paramount, salience, to Jews,
on
which
governments and parties cannot but have track-records. The possibility of the existence of a
significant ‘Jewish vote’ is enhanced by the concentration
of
many
of
the
400,ooO
British Jews in a
relatively few urban and often marginal constituencies. (Although the author explores this in
surveys
in
some London constituencies, it is a pity that he omits to set out the overall British
picture in tabular form.)
A
chapter
on
‘present perspectives’ concludes that, despite repeated
assertions by leading Jewish figures denying the existence, and even more the desirability,
of
a
‘Jewish vote’, it is a reality, though amongst MPs
(33
in the
1979
parliament) the concept
of
Jews
as
‘no
different’ does, by and large, apply.
Earlier in the book there are chapters
on
such topics as nineteenth century Jewish Liberalism;
the controversies within Jewry surrounding the emergence
of
Zionism and their dealings with
British politicians
on
the ‘homeland’ question; and the ‘love affair with the left’ between the wars,
Press,
1983),
xiii
+
218
pp.,
f17.50
ISBN
0
19 827436
X.
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