Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-nmvwc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-29T03:43:19.102Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Business Interests and the British Conservative Party

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Wyn Grant
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BUSINESS INTERESTS AND THE British Conservative Party is a matter of crucial importance which is relatively neglected in the existing literature. The basic theme of this article is that this relationship is more problematic and tenuous than is often assumed to be the case. Relations between business interests and the Conservative Government elected in 1979 are likely to be characterized by recurrent tensions on questions of economic and industrial policy.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , 01 April 1980 , pp. 143 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1980

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Gamble, A., The Conservative Nation, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974, p. 320.Google Scholar

2 Watkinson, Viscount, Blueprint for Survival, London, Allen & Unwin, 1976, p. 85.Google Scholar

3 Therborn, G., What Does The Ruling Class Do When It Rules?, London, New Left Books, 1978, p. 191.Google Scholar

4 Ibid., p. 193.

5 Gamble, A. and Walton, P., Capitalism in Crisis, London, Macmillan, 1976, p. 196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Rogaly, J., ‘Who Needs the Tory Party?’, Financial Times, 29 11 1977 .Google Scholar

7 Report in the ‘Lombard’ column, Financial Times, 13 March 1978.

8 Hurd, D., An End to Promises, London, Collins, 1979, pp. 98–9.Google Scholar

9 Gamble, op. cit., p. 44.

10 I am grateful to the SSRC Industrial Relations Research Unit at the University of Warwick for allowing me to quote these figures which are taken from a sample survey conducted on its behalf by Industrial Facts and Forecasting in 1977–78. Survey N = 970.

11 Westergaard, J. and Resler, H., Class in a Capitalist Society, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1976, p. 238.Google Scholar

12 Gilmour, I., Inside Right, London, Hutchinson, 1977, p. 132.Google Scholar

13 Burch, M., Styles of Leadership in Opposition: Edward Heath and Margaret Thatcher, paper presented at the SSRC conference on the Conservative Party, Oxford 1978, p. 23.Google Scholar

14 Gilmour, op. cit., p. 132.

15 For relevant evidence on this point, see Jessop, R., Traditionalism, Conservatism and British Political Culture, London: Allen & Unwin, 1974, p. 95.Google Scholar

16 Gamble, op. cit., p. 208.

17 Pinto‐Duschinsky, M., ‘Stratification and Power in the British Conservative Party’, American Behavioural Scientist, Vol. 17, 1973, pp. 285–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 The Observer, 25 February 1979.

19 Financial Times, 25 July 1979.

20 Gamble and Walton, op. cit., p. 194.

21 Gamble, op. cit., p. 133.

22 94th Conservative Conference, Verbatim Report, p. 33.

23 Rose, R., The Problem of Party Government, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1976, p. 238.Google Scholar

24 Mellors, C., The British M. P., Farnborough, Saxon House, 1978, p. 61.Google Scholar

25 Ramsden, J., ‘The Changing Base of British Conservatism’ in Cook, C. and Ramsden, J. (eds), New Trends in British Politics Since 1945, pp. 28–46, p. 43.Google Scholar

26 Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Industrial and Commercial Representation (Devlin Report), London, Association of British Chambers of Commerce and Confederation of British Industry, 1972, p. 83.

27 Ramsden, , op. cit., p. 43.Google Scholar

28 Vogel, D., ‘Why Businessmen Distrust Their State: The Political Consciousness of American Corporate Executives’, British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 8, 1978, pp. 45–78, p. 69 CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 Quoted in Gilmour, op. cit., p. 236.Google Scholar

30 Walker, P., The Ascent of Britain, London, Sidgwick and Jackson, 1977, p. 24.Google Scholar

31 Gilmour, op. cit., p. 233 and p. 232.Google Scholar

32 The Right Approach to the Economy, London, Conservative Central Office, 1976, p. 39.Google Scholar

33 The Observer, 25 February 1979.

34 Speech at Amersham quoted in Russel, T., The Tory Party: Its Policies, Divisions and Future, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1978, p. 164.Google Scholar

35 Vogel, , op. cit., p. 78.Google Scholar

36 Ramsden, , op. cit., p. 34.Google Scholar