Andrew Denham

The nature and impact of think tanks in contemporary Britain

This contribution surveys the impact of and literature on think tanks in Britain since 1945. The subject has been comparatively neglected until the publication in 1994 of Richard Cocketts Thinking the Unthinkable, a book which this survey critically examines. Denham and Garnett first examine what a think tank might and might not be, before going on to show that they are not a new phenomenon as is widely believed. Several nineteenth‐century antecedents are adduced to show the long history of these intermediate bodies between informed public opinion and political and governmental institutions. The heart of the survey is a sceptical analysis about the extent that ‘New Right’ think tanks actually did lead to changes in government policy from Keynesian social democracy to a greater emphasis on the free market since the 1970s.

Think-Tanks, Social Democracy and Social Policy

Hartwig Pautz’s Think-Tanks, Social Democracy and Social Policy is intended as a contribution to the debate about how (social) sciences and politics, advisors and politicians and policy advice and outcomes interrelate. The focus is on two policy areas (labour market and social policy) and two countries (the United Kingdom and, being a contribution to the Palgrave Macmillan book series ‘New Perspectives in German Political Studies’, Germany). The book analyses the relationship between think-tanks, on the one hand, and the British Labour Party and German Social Democratic Party (SPD), the main ‘centre-left’ parties in each country, and the governments of Britain and Germany respectively between 1992 and 2005, on the other. In a lucid introduction to the book, Pautz explains his research focus in more detail. The time-frame was chosen because both Labour and the SPD underwent ‘Third Way modernisation’ between 1990 and 2005 and both parties were in government for at least some of the years in question: Labour between 1997 and 2010 as a single-party government, the SPD in coalition with the Green Party between 1998 and 2005 and subsequently as junior partner in a ‘grand coalition’ with the Christian Democrats. Hence, both parties had and, to varying degrees, took the political opportunity to implement a ‘modern’ Social Democratic social and labour market policy agenda. The book’s ‘overarching aim’ is to understand what exactly think-tanks did, whether this had any bearing on policy and if and how different institutional regimes and political environments influence how think-tanks operate. More precisely, the book aims to give a ‘supply-side account of ideology’, seeking to understand how and why particular think-tanks contributed to political and policy developments in specific socio-economic environments, within a specific period of time. The book also presents an up-to-date picture of the landscape of think-tanks in each country, elaborates a new definition of what constitutes a ‘think-tank’ and discusses the development and role of the various think-tanks under investigation beyond 2005. Based on extensive empirical research (including over 50 interviews), the book makes an important contribution to our understanding of the British and German political system. It also provides a sophisticated account of how think-tanks helped re-make Labour and the SPD as ‘Third Way’ parties and mould the ‘workfare state’ which is now characteristic of both countries; and of how think-tanks were used by politicians and others to circumvent parliament and outmanoeuvre political parties.

Building the House: Developing Conservative Policy, 2005–2010

The process of ideological modernisation outlined in the previous chapter was intended to signal the Conservative Party’s shift away from, or beyond, Thatcherism under David Cameron’s leadership, while simultaneously providing the context or framework for subsequent policy development. If the Conservative leadership was now willing to acknowledge that ‘markets are not enough’, and that some of the reforms which it believed had been necessary in the 1980s and early 1990s were no longer appropriate or relevant in the first decade of the twenty-first century, then it was clearly essential for the Party to develop a new, or, at least, significantly modified and revised, policy programme. Continuing to rely on populist pledges on the subjects of crime, Europe, immigration and tax cuts was evidently not nearly enough to attract new sources of electoral support, or win back those former Conservative voters who had switched, since the mid 1990s, to ‘New’ Labour or the Liberal Democrats. Nor was it sufficient merely to wait either until New Labour faltered, or voters tired of Blairism. Cameron and his fellow modernisers believed that it was vital that the Conservative Party developed a series of policies which provided an electorally attractive and viable alternative to Thatcherism and New Labour.

The Conservatives in the 2010 General Election, and its Aftermath

The economic and political circumstances in which the 2010 general election took place ought to have been ideal for a Conservative opposition. There were several similarities to 1979, when the Party had won fairly comfortably under Margaret Thatcher’s leadership: a politically exhausted and ideologically bankrupt Labour government; economic recession; regular complaints that British people and companies were over-taxed; ‘excessive’ state interference in citizens’ lives; ‘unsustainable’ levels of public expenditure; increasing strike activity derived from growing trade union militancy; and a relentlessly expanding, top-heavy, allegedly economically unproductive state bureaucracy, which was inextricably linked to an expanded public sector supposedly ‘crowding out’ the wealth-creating private sector.

Conclusion: The Art of the Political Comeback: New Labour and Cameron’s Conservatives

On 27 June 2007, when Tony Blair had given his farewell performance at prime minister’s question time, the House of Commons rose to applaud him. Standing ovations in the House were among the unplanned procedural innovations of the Blair years. However, as Anthony Seldon has noted, this was a unique occasion when MPs on all sides joined the applause.1 Noticing that his fellow Conservatives were proving reluctant to play their own part, David Cameron urged them to their feet.

A Twenty-First-Century Party? Conservative ‘Modernisation’ and Organisational Reform, 1997–2010

In this chapter, we re-examine the attempts by successive Conservative leaders of the opposition to ‘modernise’ the Party’s internal organisation and external profile between the general elections of 1997 and 2010. For the purposes of this book, the period of David Cameron’s leadership after December 2005 is clearly the most important in this respect and therefore warrants more attention than that of his predecessors. However, in order to put Cameron’s ‘reforms’ in context, we begin by briefly surveying the key developments that occurred under the leaderships of William Hague (1997–2001), Iain Duncan Smith (2001–03) and Michael Howard (2003–05).

The Conservative Party and Public Opinion, 1997–2010

In a light-hearted article written after the 2005 general election, the former Conservative Party Director of Campaigning expressed the view that opinion polls ‘bear very little reflection to what’s going on’, insisting that they ‘are made up anyway to reflect the view of the media which commissioned the poll’. However, he cheerfully admitted that his views on this subject were variable: ‘When we win elections the polls are great!’1

The Art of Losing Elections: The Conservative Party and ‘Statecraft’, 1997–2005

In October 2007 the High Court reached a verdict in a legal dispute over a will. The testator was a Belgrade-born businessman, Branislav Kostic, whose disinherited son argued that his father’s final bequests had been inspired by a ‘delusional and paranoid mental illness’. The judge accepted that the will, in which Mr Kostic had left £8.3 million to the Conservative Party, could not have been the product of a ‘sound mind’.

‘Modernisation’ and its Critics: Ideological Repositioning under David Cameron, 2005–2010

From the outset of his leadership, David Cameron placed considerable emphasis on the need to ‘modernise’ British Conservatism, yet few could have anticipated just how bold and innovative some of his ideological pronouncements and associated policy stances would subsequently prove to be. Certainly, Cameron went further than his three predecessors in instigating a sharp break with Thatcherism, and, instead, fostering an ostensibly more socially tolerant and inclusive Conservatism. Moreover, he was emphatic that he would not be deflected—or deterred—from pursuing this approach, partly because he seemed genuinely and wholeheartedly to believe in it, but also because he clearly recognised that with the next general election probably at least three or four years away, the electorate would be persuaded that the party’s transformation was genuine only if it was sustained on a long-term basis. Such persuasion was essential both to regain the trust and support of former Conservative voters (most notably those who had become disillusioned with the ideological trajectory and some of the Party’s policies during the Thatcher—Major years), and to attract electoral support from hitherto non-Conservatives who had similarly become increasingly disillusioned with New Labour’s performance in office.

HAGUE RULES, OK? ELECTING AND EJECTING CONSERVATIVE LEADERS

In December 2005, the British Conservative Party chose a new leader for the fourth time since 1997. In this article, I explain and assess the impact of the ‘democratisation’ of Conservative leadership selection over time. First, I explain the informal procedure, known as the ‘magic circle’, which existed until 1965. Next, I examine the period between 1965 and 1997, when the leader was elected by the party’s MPs. Finally, I assess the impact of the ‘Hague rules’, according to which party members have the final say, between their adoption in 1998 and the election of David Cameron in 2005.