The history of British competition policy has little to do with the gradual enlightenment of the British public and its business leaders about the virtues of competition. Large sections of the British ‘public’, especially as represented in labour organisations, needed neither economists nor government commissions to tell them of the dangers of monopoly, restrictionism, and regulation of the market. Instead it is a story of power politics, special pleading and, at times, downright skulduggery.

Nor did policy progress neatly from timid awakenings in 1944 to Monopolies Commission reports to stronger action thereafter. Rather it evolved by fits and starts, twists and turns. Policy of the sort recommended in 1918 was not introduced until 1948; policy of the sort recommended by economists in 1943 was not adopted until 1956; the policy of the 1964 Resale Price Maintenance Act was foreshadowed in a White Paper of 1951. Thus policy ebbed and flowed in a way which may be explained in terms of changing business strategies in response to the world and the British economic climates and the relationship between government and business.

To understand these changes this book has necessarily focussed on government policy formation. It shows the British government at the centre of three contending forces with views on the nature and need for competition policy: British businessmen, the United States, and a variety of pressure groups within Britain, most importantly the organisations of labour – the Labour Party, trade unions and the Co-ops. These three forces were solid centres of political and economic power and, by extension, ideological influence.