British Conservatism/Conservative Party since 1945

Think tanks are omnipresent in the British media as sources of expertise for journalists and politicians; they themselves claim that their ideas form the basis of new policies and that they have influenced the thinking of leading decision-makers. This article aims to shed light on whether think tanks have played a role in the modernisation of the Conservative party under David Cameron between 2005 and 2010. The institutions focused on here are Policy Exchange, Reform, Centre for Social Justice, ResPublica, Politeia and Civitas. If these think tanks influenced the Conservatives' modernisation, which important impulses did they give and how? The article also addresses the more general question of why think tanks are worth academic scrutiny.

En l'espace de quinze ans, la fédération européenne de partis qui rassemblait les formations démocrates chrétiennes – le parti populaire européen (PPE) – a vécu une mutation politique, idéologique et organisationnelle fondamentale. Centré à l'origine sur les formations démocrates chrétiennes, le PPE s'est ouvert à des partis aux sensibilités conservatrice voire libérale ou nationaliste dans les pays de l'Union européenne et dans les Etats qui sont amenés à la rejoindre sous peu. L'objectif de ce livre est d'examiner cette problématique à l'aune des mutations de la démocratie chrétienne et des partis démocrates chrétiens, d'une part, à celle du conservatisme et des partis conservateurs, de l'autre. A-t-on affaire à une simple opération de stratégie politique configurée au système politique européen ? Est-ce le reflet d'une indistinction de plus en plus manifeste entre démocrates chrétiens et conservateurs ? Ou, de manière plus radicale, assiste-t-on à l'extinction d'une famille politique – la démocrate chrétienne – ou à son absorption par la famille conservatrice ? Pour aborder ces thématiques, l'ouvrage rassemble des contributions de spécialistes internationaux. Ils retracent l'histoire de la démocratie chrétienne et du conservatisme et en analysent les caractéristiques et les évolutions.

Ivor Thomas was the Labour MP for Keighley, 1942-50. He is a minor character in the historiography of the period, and is perhaps best known for his resignation from the Labour Party in 1948. This paper uses evidence from his personal papers - which have not previously been subjected to scholarly scrutiny - to establish a more nuanced understanding of his resignation than that which exists within current historiography. Part I focuses on Thomas's political career leading to his resignation. This reveals an individual engaged in a personal struggle to find his place within the two-party-dominated British political system. Part II focuses on his reaction, in particular the 475 letters, telegrams and postcards sent to him in the days and weeks which followed. Analysis of these documents raises similar themes, with expressions of political "homelessness" and praise for putting "country before party" more prevalent than party political support.

Facebook might act as an online bridge, providing a route back for some Ukippers (those that were once disaffected Tories) and facilitate their subtle reintegration into the Conservative fold.

(See page 75 of the UK Election Analysis Report 2015)

This chapter traces how Winston Churchill in tandem with a number of British and continental conservatives sought to promote postwar reconciliation with Germany by means of championing a European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). It traces how Churchill fashioned a basis for reconciliation by imagining a "European family" that needed to be created – or in his words, recreated – on the basis of a new European human rights system for reconciliation to be achieved.  This initiative was backward-looking as well as forward-looking. Churchill and his allies in the European unity movements invoked the language of human rights in order to recall a lost European civilization anchored in common Christian and humanist values.

This paper draws upon the research presented to PSA last year in which I outlined the basic structure of Cameron’s rhetoric regarding the need for a/the ‘Big Society’, what I called the Underpants Gnomes” line of argument. This paper focuses in on one of the key rhetorical motifs to emerge from that analysis – the central role played by the concept of ‘responsibility’.

Der „Historische Kompromiss“ als Belastung für die Beziehungen der Democrazia Cristiana zur CDU und den britischen Konservativen, in: Historisch-Politische Mitteilungen. Archiv für Christlich-Demokratische Politik, 24. Jahrgang, 2017, S. 59–85.

Margaret Thatcher was often portrayed as the "spiritual mother" of Euroscepticism. But with hindsight, one can argue that Thatcher's Euroscepticism was actually limited to her vision of Europe and her divisive style. Over twenty years later, David Cameron's European policy, though inspired by Thatcher's Euroscepticism, is now based on a clear-cut Eurosceptic agenda which is nevertheless criticised for being more moderate than that of today's Eurosceptics. This article will first argue that although Thatcher's European agenda could hardly be assessed as Eurosceptic as such, it paved the way for the radicalisation of Euroscepticism, not only as narrative but as a set of actual policies towards the EU, to such an extent that it changed the dynamics of the Conservative Party's structure. The article will then show how practical Euroscepticism under David Cameron has come to permeate party leadership in terms of agenda-setting and party management, and propose tentative explanations for Eurosceptic radicalisation in the party. Finally, it will be suggested that over and above institutional, constitutional and ideological environmental causes, usually put forward as affecting Conservative attitudes to European integration today, more relevant explanations can be found in party organisational changes.

This is the Romanian text of Memory, Heritage and Nostalgia - Metonomy and Localism, which was given at the Conference on Patrimony and Local Identity (Patrimoniu şi identitate locală) in Valea Verde, Romania in 2014. It differs slightly from the English text. Comments are most welcome.

We distinguish between social capital theory and social capital political discourse in order to reflect upon their relation with one another and neoliberalism. We claim this analytical distinction is useful to understand the existence of a feedback effect between theory and political discourse. During the 1990s, the connection between social capital theory and neoliberalism has been transposed from academia to political discourse, thus contributing to popularise social capital within the public sphere. Over time, however, rising economic inequalities (exacerbated by the recent economic crises) have demonstrated that the neoliberal political agenda is incompatible with the aim to generate social capital. Focusing on the critical case of Britain, we argue that the rapid demise of the Big Society idea might signal a corresponding decline of social capital theory within academia.

Analyses economic liberal tradition in the Liberal Party in the period up to the mid-1950s and speculates what might have happened if the party had maintained this orientation in the subsequent period instead of shifting to a strategy of realignment of the Left.

Having been unexpectedly and comprehensively defeated at the 1945 general election, the Conservative Party returned to office just six years later. While the Tories languished in the wilderness, Labour enacted a series of sweeping changes, nationalising large swathes of the economy, establishing a National Health Service and implementing many of Beveridge’s social insurance recommendations. When the Tories returned to office, they pledged to leave most of their predecessors’ changes intact, including many of those which they had vehemently opposed in Opposition. This has led some historians and some Conservatives themselves variously to celebrate the advent of ‘new Conservatism’, lament Conservatism’s descent into watered-down socialism, or conclude there was not really much change at all, with some further claiming that the 1950s was characterised by a cross-party ’consensus’. This thesis explores whether there really was a shift in the Conservatives’ attitude to the role of the state. On the basis of extensive archival research it examines Conservative policy development in three major areas: nationalisation, the creation of the National Health Service (NHS) and social insurance.

Using these policy areas, this thesis argues that while the Party made pragmatic accommodations to measures once they were enacted, there was no underlying shift in its broad conception of the role of state. Where the Conservatives supported measures before their introduction, they did so in part for electoral reasons, but also because they were reconcilable with the Conservative tradition as interpreted in the context of the time. Where measures went beyond what they were prepared to accept, the Conservatives opposed them, even where that opposition proved electorally damaging. The mere fact that the Conservatives subsequently resigned themselves to accept measures to which they were previously hostile should not in itself be read as a shift in, nor a deviation from, pre-war Conservatism. The Party had a long history of working with changes created by rivals where it was felt those changes were irreversible. Minor exceptions aside, major alterations to the post-war settlement were rejected mostly on the pragmatic grounds that doing so was both impractical and would hinder the Conservatives’ chances of blocking further, more radical, change. This thesis concludes that, in an era of apparent popular demand for increased state intervention, most of the party could tolerate Labour’s changes, even if private doubts remained, as the alternative appeared even worse.

A draft drawn from an individual perspective –
from the perspective of a Central-European academic
educated in the history of political thought and
political philosophy – on the challenges facing Europe
and the possibilities opened up by these challenges
for conservatism.

NOTE: The final version of this paper can be found in British Politics, here - http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/s41293-016-0032-6

In modern discourse Liverpool is a by-word for anti-Tory sentiment, yet the city has not always been so inhospitable for the Conservatives. From the mid-18th century until the 1970s the Conservatives dominated the city council, and often held over half of the city’s parliamentary constituencies. Popular opinion ascribes this decline to Margaret Thatcher, Conservative Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990.  However, upon closer inspection it is clear that decline began a decade before Thatcher gained power. This paper argues that Conservative decline in Liverpool was due to the increasing inability of socialisation to create new Conservative voters in the long term, coupled with dissatisfaction with the Heath government and a rejection of local party machines which were unresponsive to local issues. The Liberals, through their use of pavement politics, were able to exploit these issues and their surprising victory in the 1973 local election, when the whole council was up for election, allowed them to displace the Conservatives as the main opposition to Labour in many of the city’s wards. Thus began the strange death of Tory Liverpool.

With the election of Barack Obama, much attention in Europe has focused on the possibility of the return of the good transatlantic relations that characterised the post-war period and was seriously damaged under Bush’s war on terror, unilateralism and imperialism. Much attention has also inevitably been focused on the fact that Obama is the first African-American president elected in a country that many view as historically and structurally racist. While Obama's election was seen to represent an end to both the damaging impact on transatlantic relations of the Bush era and to white supremacy in America, these two issues have rarely been connected. This chapter will look at the link between these by focusing on the “special relationship” between the United States and Britain, a relationship that has not only been the most enduring, if at times unequal and controversial, partnerships in the post-war era. Most notably between Churchill and FDR during the Second World War, Thatcher and Reagan during the Cold War and Blair and Bush during the War on Terror and invasion of Iraq. In spite of such cooperation, it is a relationship founded on colonialism and anti-colonialism, conflict and criticism – American criticism of British colonialism and, corresponding to it, British criticism of American racism. Far from representing pure anti-racism or anti-colonialism, British criticisms of American racism and American criticism of British colonialism have been deployed at crucial moments in which their relationship and relative geo-political power and influence was being contested or undergoing realignment, from the American Revolution through the cold war to the election of Obama.

This chapter examines the British response to the election of Obama in terms of the realignment of the special relationship and the place of both race and colonialism in the discussions about Obama’s election and relationship with Britain. More specifically, it looks at how this election has been celebrated in Britain as a victory over American racism, while his relationship to Britain has been criticised for his alleged anti-colonialism. I argue that this response to Obama reflects historical and current tensions over the colonialism and imperialism of and racism in both countries, the realignment of the special relationship and concerns about the image, influence and power of each country globally following the Bush-Blair years, as well as changes in the domestic politics of each country following their elections.

The essay introduces the journal sections, outlining the relevance and the newness of Thatcherism in the prospective of historical studies, economics and the history of ideas. The author points out how the articles confront several issues of Thatcherism in a different way, and how they cope with its legacy.

This paper will examine the ways in which race, multiculturalism and nation have been constructed, used and evoked in the London 2012 Olympics bid, branding and promotion. The paper will focus on the two-pronged strategy promoting modern, diverse, multicultural Britain and the more conservative traditional, historic Britain, and the tensions and contradictions between these. These are tensions and contradictions which have been exposed and exacerbated by 7/7, recession and riots, as well as the shift in government from New Labour to the Tory-led coalition. The paper will examine the ways in which race and nation have played a role historically and politically in the Olympics, and then examine the place and use of race in three aspects of the 2012 Games: the bid and branding, the opening ceremony and the representation of the athletes themselves. The paper will argue that far from being progressive and inclusive as has been promoted and claimed, what has occurred around London 2012 has been a conservative hegemonic re-articulation of a 'Britishness' that is 'progressive' and includes immigrants and black and minority ethnic individuals based on a logic of integration and performance that does not threaten, criticise or make demands of more traditional visions of Britishness. Moreover, athletes such as Mo Farah have been positioned in such a way as to challenge racism and xenophobia and re-brand Britain as inclusive in narrow terms and at the same time serve as aspirational individual role models through which to set expectations for and make demands of immigrant, black and minority ethnic youth and wider communities.

Political Racism conceptualizes a distinctive form of racism - intentional, organized hostility mobilized by political actors-and examines its role in the Brexit conflict and in the rise of a new nationalist politics in the UK. In a detailed analysis the book argues that Powellite anti-immigrant racism, reinterpreted in numerical terms, was combined with anti-East European and anti-Muslim hostility to inform the Vote Leave victory. This type of racism, which has a special significance in societies where racism has been delegitimized, is shown to have further shaped the form of EU withdrawal and also the government's post-Brexit policies.

This article combines profile and electoral UK constituency data from the UK parliamentary website to analyse the extent an electoral realignment can said to have occurred in England & Wales due to globalisation trends. The results of this paper show that globalisation forces have produced large-scale electoral change that can be labelled as a realignment. Whilst this change has been caused mainly by the Remain/Leave divide and the decline in class-based voting the paper goes onto show that these changes are far more detailed and that wider factors mattered in shaping the likelihood of the Conservative and the Labour Party gaining or losing votes across the 2010s. This wider context highlights how globalisation creating winners and losers has helped realign British politics according to a new culturally liberal and cultural conservative divide. Labour now represents culturally liberal areas, whilst the Tories have gained representation in culturally Conservative areas. These findings can be said to occur at a localised level. They also have important implications in understanding how and why long-term factors have changed UK electoral competition.

This paper locates the over-arching principles of pre-modern social security provision, i.e. financial support offered by the state to those unable to support themselves. The paper examines official documents and evidence from implementation to search for generic principles. Five systems are examined: the “old poor law” of 1601, the “new poor law” of 1834, the centralised, collectivist welfare scheme introduced by the Liberal government 1906-1914, the more explicitly socialist welfare introduced 1945-1951, and the post-computerisation principles of the DHSS in 1980, The paper found eight overarching principles in the old poor law, which was increased to twelve in the new poor law. Five of the old poor law principles were discarded by the liberal reforms, and four further principles were discarded by the Labour Government. By the Green and White Papers on ‘Reform of Social Security’ in 1985, each of the original principles of welfare had been discarded.