Peter Catterall

Understanding post-war British society

Introduction: Understanding British society 1. Trends in Post-War British Social History 2. Elements of Demographic Change in Britain Since 1945 3. Political Sociology 1945-1992 4. The Family in Post-War Britain Since 1945 5. Companiate Marriage and the Double Burden: Women in Britain Since 1945 6. Old Age and Gerontology 7. Employment and Industrial Law 8. Non-Manual Labour 9. Poverty in Post-War Britain 10. Aspects of Education in Post-War Britain 11. Consumption 12. Food Nutrition in Post-War Britain 13. Religion in Post-War Britain: A Sociological View 14. The Arts, Books, Media and Entertainments in Britain Since 1945 15. Gender Inequalities in Leisure and Sport in Post-War Britain

Morality and Politics: the free churches and the Labour Party between the wars

The inter-war period saw the decline of the Liberal party, the traditional political ally of the free churches, and the rise of the Labour party. This article traces the responses of the free churches to these developments. The relationship of the free churches with the Labour party in this period is examined at three different levels; that of the free church leadership, that of the chapels and the ordinary people in the pews and that of the nonconformists who became active in the Labour party. Whilst attitudes towards the Labour party changed within free church institutions during the inter-war years they did not become important supporters of the party, or greatly influence it. The number and proportion of individual nonconformists who were active and influential in the party in this period was however considerable. In the process not only did Labour M.P.s become the main carriers of the nonconformist conscience on issues such as drink and gambling. They also made a distinctive and important contribution to the development and ideals of the Labour party.

Technology transfer in Britain: the case of monoclonal antibodies

Four Witness Seminar transcripts of meetings held between 1993 and 1996: ‘Technology transfer in Britain: the case of monoclonal antibodies’ (E M Tansey and P P Catterall, eds); ‘Self and non-self: a history of autoimmunity’ (E M Tansey, S V Willhoft and D A Christie, eds); ‘Endogenous opiates’ (E M Tansey and D A Christie, eds); ‘The Committee on Safety of Drugs’ (E M Tansey and L A Reynolds, eds). Introduction by E M Tansey, ‘What is a Witness Seminar?’, separate index for each meeting.

Managing the Core Executive

In the build up to general elections there is invariably a wealth of discourse on constitutional and transitional issues and even on the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the civil service, but rarely is there any debate on the manner in which politicians manage the government machine. This article seeks to address this deficiency. It examines the operational factors common to the core executive, assesses the problems usually associated with the government as an organization and reviews alternative solutions. Finally, it offers managerially oriented advice, reasoning that it is the role of policy analysts to prescribe and that it is irresponsible to ignore this function. it is clearly emphasized that management solutions are not synonymous with business solutions. The article draws on universal principles of management, seeking to avoid normative suggestions and concentrating instead on practical considerations. Those considerations include personnel selection, collective responsibility, leadership style, organizational structure and team mentality. The conclusion is that strong managerially based leadership should not be dismissed as incompatible with the political constraints placed upon Prime Ministers but rather it should e the predominant impulse.

Democracy, cosmopolitanism and national identity in a ‘globalising’ world

Broadly globalising processes have been in train for centuries, but contemporary discourse about globalisation is here located within a specific historical context, particularly characterised by new forms of communications and the pressures on states produced by the decline of Keynesianism and the end of the Cold War. Coincident changes also led to a growing interest in national identities, marked not least by the founding of this journal in 1999. Globalisation, a series of processes rather than a single force, has a range of effects on states, nations and national identities, including accommodation and adaptation as well as resistance. Indeed, globalising forces, such as democratisation, are shown to require nation-building. Attempts to impose order on international society through cosmopolitan devices are arguably more inimical to national identities. As with nations, cosmopolitanism involves an imagined community. Because this necessarily exists outside time, the building of a sense of trust and commonality across people and territory is however more challenging. Without popular ownership, it is argued, cosmopolitanism is often more likely to appear a threat than a boon. Building a global civil society, or indeed local democracies, is also unlikely when so many societies still lack local versions anchored in some form of national identity.

What (if anything) is Distinctive about Contemporary History

What is contemporary history? Is it, as often seems to be tacitly implied, a distinctive period? If so, what does it cover, and on what grounds is it so defined? On this there is no agreed view. The Institute of Contemporary British History, when it was founded in 1986, took as its starting-point the year 1945. University courses have appeared in Britain on contemporary history with starting dates between the 1880s and 1945. Others have simply argued that its ambit covers that within living memory.’ However, none of these characterizations represents an attempt to define a period. The first was simply a matter of convenience, chosen because postwar British history was then relatively neglected for both teaching and research purposes. My prede-

Departmental Select Committees

The idea of departmental select committees in the House of Commons was floated as long ago as the Haldane Report in 1918 and periodically mooted by figures from both left and right as varied as Amery and Laski in the inter‐war years. It was raised again during the wartime investigations of the Machinery of Government committee, only to be shot down by the then Cabinet Secretary, Sir Edward Bridges, on the grounds that it would constrain the frankness with which the Civil Service could advise ministers. Departmental select committees were not to be introduced until 1979. Ten years ago the Institute of Contemporary British History organised a symposium to review their progress. On 31 January 1996 in committee room 10 at the House of Commons the ICBH, in conjunction with the Hansard Society, held another seminar to re‐examine the development of the departmental select committee system, its successes and failings. It was chaired by George Cunningham (Labour MP 1970–82, SDP MP 1982–83). The principal participants were Sir Peter Kemp (Deputy Secretary, Treasury 1983–88, Next Steps Project Manager, Cabinet Office, 1988–92), Douglas Millar (Clerk of Select Committees, House of Commons since 1994), Dr Ann Robinson (author of Parliament and Public Spending, head of the policy unit at the Institute of Directors [IOD], 1989–95 and Director‐General of the National Association of Pension Funds Ltd since 1995), Robert Sheldon (Labour MP since 1964, Financial Secretary to the Treasury 1974–75, member of the Public Accounts Committee [PAC] 1965–70 and 1975–79 and chairman since 1983, member, Public Expenditure Committee 1972–74, and member of the Treasury and Civil Service Committee [TCSC] 1979–81) and Sandy Walkington (head of corporate affairs at BT [British Telecom] plc), with further contributions from Peter Riddell (assistant editor: politics, The Times, since 1993), Chloe Miller, Sean McDougall, Tim King and Chris Stevens.

At the End of the Day: Macmillan’s Account of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Pre-publicity for the final volume of Harold Macmillan’s memoirs, At the End of the Day, stressed that it would provide the British side of the Cuban missile crisis for the first time. The Churchillian model chosen, changes required by the Cabinet Office and Macmillan’s desire to rebuke those political opponents who claimed that the crisis demonstrated a lack of British influence in Washington, however ensured a focus on his personal relationship with President Kennedy. His larding the text with contemporary observations from his diaries also skewed Macmillan’s account and, in particular, underplayed the significance of British moves at the United Nations in New York to secure a credible United Nations inspection regime and a US guarantee of the inviolability of Cuba. Careful reconstruction of Macmillan’s real-time experience of the Cuban missile crisis demonstrates the limitations of his own account of this event.

Editorial - Contemporary British History: A Personal View

When this journal, was first launched in 1987 (as Contemporary Record) contemporary British history was a research field still in its infancy. There was indeed a perception in some quarters that little had been written in this area, a perception I did my best to undermine in British History 1945–1987: An Annotated Bibliography, published in 1991. However, whilst this volume demonstrated that much was already available, the record was patchy and fragmentary. The post-war development of new academic disciplines meant that much of this literature was specialised, written and consumed within small groups, but unknown to a wider audience which nevertheless, with the growing availability of post-war documents under the 30-year rule at the Public Record Office [PRO], was beginning to take an interest in the course of British history since 1945. A considerable amount of this literature focused on the politics of the period, not unreasonably as it was political scientists who first colonised the field. The historians following behind at an interval of 30 years, exhibited a similar bias. This is hardly surprising – those concentrating on the archives of the state are likely to focus upon the state’s actions. Furthermore, the early accounts of journalists and political scientists had left a number of orthodoxies for historians to re-interpret once the PRO documents became available. The idea of a post-war consensus that had been fractured by Mrs Thatcher not unnaturally attracted much attention – not least in this journal – in the 1980s. At the same time her sway also highlighted other concerns of the time, such as the idea of class dealignment in voting behaviour, or the to some extent politically-inspired search for some kind of master narrative to explain post-war relative economic decline. In the period since this journal was launched, many of the prevailing orthodoxies of the 1980s have been challenged or overturned. The post-war consensus has been shown to be a more problematic concept than at first appeared. And the idea of class dealignment has been challenged, not least by casting doubt upon the notion that a class alignment in voting behaviour

Management and engineering education in the 1950s and 1960s

The career destiny of many graduate engineers is in industry. Quite how well prepared they were for that career became a matter of political importance in the late 1950s and early 1960s as the issue of Britains relatively poor economic performance grew in salience. This article looks at this preparation with particular reference to management training. It examines the attitudes of those parties most interested in engineering education ‐ the government, industry, the engineering institutions and the educators themselves. All of these saw management training as being part of the formation of at least a portion of professional engineers at some stage in their career. But there was no general agreement between them about what this should consist of or when it should be provided. At the same time broader changes in engineering education were taking place which cut across and to some extent militated against attempts to enhance the role of management training. The result, it is argued, is that by the end of the 1960s little progress had been achieved.