How Tory governments fall : the Tory party in power since 1783 ; [mit Tab

The seventy years since the end of the Second World War have seen dramatic changes in Britain’s cultural, intellectual and political climate. Old class allegiances have been challenged by new loyalties to gender, ethnicity, religion or lifestyle and a new sensibility of self-fulfilment – sometimes hedonistic, sometimes altruistic – has been born. There have been equally seismic shifts in political ideology and public policy in this period. The Labour government of 1945 came to power with an ambitious collectivist programme, involving a planned economy and a cradle-to-grave welfare state. By 1979 the welfare state was widely attacked as a nanny state and economic planning had been discredited. The ascendant New Right sought instead to return to the economic liberalism of the last century while the Left seemed divided and in comprehensive retreat. The 1990s have seen yet another shift – away from the unbridled individualism of the Thatcher years towards a new emphasis on community, civic duty and mutual obligation. In 'The Ideas that Shaped Post-War Britain', writers of the stature of James Bulpitt, Peter Clarke, José Harris, Albert Hirschman, David Marquand, Geoff Mulgan, Chris Pierson, Raymond Plant, Anthony Seldon, Robert Skidelsky and Robert Taylor give novel interpretations of this paradoxical evolution. They show how ideas once thought beyond the pale – privatisation, marketization, anti-trade union legislation – came to be seen as the norm in the 1980s, only to be challenged in turn in the 1990s, and relate these changes in the climate of ideas to transformations in the social sphere – the end of ‘jobs for life’, new sexual and cultural identities, the crises in relations between the leaders and the led. Fresh, unique and brilliantly well written, 'The Ideas that Shaped Post-War Britain' is an indispensable companion for anyone seeking to understand the course Britain has plotted in the second half of the twentieth century. How Tory Governments Fall is a landmark study of the forces that shape – and ultimately destroy – political power. It assesses the factors that are common to the decline and fall of each Conservative administration in British history since the beginnings of the modern, party-based system. Each government is examined by the leading specialist of the political history of the period: Norman Gash on the Wellington-Liverpool era, Martin Pugh on Salisbury; John Turner on the Macmillan years; Jeremy Black on anti-Napoleonic Torydom; John Vincent on Disraeli's heyday; Dennis Kavanagh on the Heath regime and Ivor Crewe on the Thatcher-Major era. Anthony Seldon, the book's editor, contends that the party's supreme weapons are its ability to adapt and its hunger for power, and asks whether these two attributes will be sufficient to ensure continued electoral success. The essays examine the nature of each government, the reasons for their victory at the polls; their unifying themes, the interests they represented, the quality of their leadership, the prevailing ideology and the reasons for their enfeeblement, decay and eventual defeat. How Tory Governments Fall is a unique and controversial work of interest to anyone wishing to understand the occasions when the most successful election-winning force in British political history has been defeated. This study compares the ways in which periods of Tory domination come to an end. It tries to assess if there are factors common to the decline and fall of each Conservative administration in British history since the beginnings of the modern party-based political system. Each period is examined by a leading political historian: Norman Gash writes on the Wellington-Liverpool era; Martin Pugh on Salisbury; John Turner on the Macmillan years; Jeremy Black on anti-Napoleonic Torydom; Dennis Kavanagh on the Heath regime; and John Vincent on Disraeli's reign. Each essay examines the nature of government, the basis of victory, the unifying themes, the interests represented, the quality of leadership, the prevailing ideology, and the reasons for decline and decay - manifest disunity, policy confusion, depleted finances, hostile climate, credible opposition, useless leadership and loss of economic competence. Edited By Anthony Seldon. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 465-490) And Index.