From Free Life, Issue 27, September 1997
ISSN: 0260 5112

Contemporary British Conservatism

This book comes out of the same Sheffield University politics department stable as did the True Blues survey of Conservative Party grassroots members' views. The co-editors lecture there and the list of other contributors includes nearly all Sheffield's big name line-up supplemented by guest experts alongside several Phd candidates. It concentrates on assessing events post 1975 and in particular the impact of the Thatcher years on John Major's premiership. The key question addressed is the extent to which the Thatcherite inheritance has been protected or diluted by a return to a more consensual Conservatism.

Until recently academic studies of the Conservative Party were a rarity. But as the authors themselves point out in the preface: 'serious studies now abound in monographs journals and conference proceedings'. Seventeen years of continual Conservative government and research funding considerations have gelled to induce a rush to publish work in this once barren branch of political science. A unexciting practical explanation of why so little research was done is because getting official co-operation was notoriously difficult. Therefore, scholarly works were concerned almost exclusively with the ideology of conservatism; and in any case the internal mechanics of the Conservative Party were wrongly assessed as dull and irrelevant in terms of how the leadership acted.

It may be a cheap point to make but one reason why books on the Labour party were plentiful is due in part to the simple fact that many University lecturers were either active in, or close observers of, the Labour Party. Poor compensation was provided in the staple offerings of the self-righteous corrective retortions of former ministers. For these reasons a book dissecting the forces at play within the Conservative Party should be appreciated.

The issues which interest the co-editors are whether the Thatcher revolution has survived the sacking of its leader, and whether Major has been able to develop a distinct programme of his own? More pressing for Conservative members they ask - 'What state is the party in?'. They consider the varying assessments of the Thatcher inheritance: that John Major is constrained by the Thatcher agenda; or that he has re-jigged the Conservative philosophy to meet the circumstances of the present day; or that Lady Thatcher was not the radical she is made-up to be and that Mr Major is following her example of governing by Conservative statecraft.

One of the best chapters analyses the grassroots and relays much of the findings from True Blues, the ground-breaking survey of Conservative party members. It was this research which highlighted the demographic time-bomb facing the party by calculating the average age of party members to be 62 years old. To worry those concerned still further about the party's long term survival the survey revealed that nearly half the membership is 66 or over and a lowly 5 per cent are under 35 years, including one per cent being 25 years or younger. The mass of members are retired and do little apart from paying their subscription. In ideological terms Mrs Thatcher may have 'shifted the centre of political gravity within the Conservative Party to the right', yet '15 per cent classified themselves as on the left of the party' and those on the left 'were rather more active'. As expected, Euro-scepticism is a strong factor. 53 per cent wanted to resist further moves towards closer integration, and 57 per cent opposed Britain's entry into a single European currency.

Another characteristically heavyweight contribution comes from Andrew Gamble (who, incidentally, has recently published a valuable assessment of Frederich Hayek in Hayek: The Iron Cage of Liberty His chapter (no. 2) concludes that under Mrs Thatcher the Conservative Party experienced a 'substantial ideological shift' which has 'proved to be permanent'. Although I am not sure about his contention that: The party has abandoned the interventionalist and collectivist social and economic programmes it adopted in stages during the twentieth century. More reasonable is his claim that the other shift under Thatcher 'as towards a narrower English nationalism and a rejection of any compromise of British national sovereignty'. Controversially he argues that 'there is little else on offer' for Mr Major but 'to go all the way in proclaiming the party a Thatcherite party, dedicated to national independence, economic liberty, moral order and the old constitutional state'.

Throughout the book interesting insights and information are to be gleaned. Baker and Fountain's research (chapter no. 5) confirms the continuing social exclusivity of the Parliamentary party, reversing the 'slowly flattening social profile' of the early l98Os. Conservative Parliamentarians are educated at private schools and are predominately Oxbridge graduates. The claims for an emerging meritocracy are dismissed as isolated cases which have made little dent on the Westminster elite. Ludlam (chapter no. 6) discusses the backbench rebellion over ratification of Maastricht; noting that the 'proportion of backbenchers willing to engage in repeated rebellion grew to unprecedented levels' as 'the rebels' attitudes, if not their behaviour, were supported by a majority of their less rebellious backbench colleagues'.

Libertarians may be pleased that Smith's chapter (no. 8) on 'Reforming the state' acknowledges the influence of New Right thinking through the introduction of internal markets and private sector management techniques. However, as he correctly says 'the form of the state today hardly meets New Right models'. There can be no comfort derived from the fact that the state remains 'extremely large and ultimately responsible for a whole range of functions including the collective provision of welfare services'. Furthermore, as Thompson (Chapter 9) illustrates, there has been 'selective interventionism' while maintaining 'the rhetoric of a free market approach to policy'. Hammering home the final nail in the coffin of the Thatcher revolution, Pierson (chapter no. 11) demonstrates that the 'heroic' promise to roll back the state has 'given way to the more mellow promise of greater choice, diversity and standards within the public services'. The last bit is most crucial; choice is confined to 'within' the public sector, and there is no opportunity to exercise the option of exit.

Drawing together the themes discussed throughout the book Ludlam and Smith present (chapter no. 14) a powerful analysis of contemporary British Conservatism. The situation is so bad that by the mid-1990s: 'The basis of its electoral triumphs was visibly weakening, its membership and funding were falling alarmingly, and its reputation for unity in defence of the British state lay in tatters as it divided from top to bottom over Europe and national sovereignty.' Top that with defeat in the forthcoming general election and the future is verb bleak indeed: although there is a certain symmetry about a party which began the century split, and is ending the century split - though this time possibly permanently.

The verdict on the Thatcherite legacy similarly pulls no punches. While 'she did change the policy agenda' it was achieved through a 'continuation of traditional Conservative statecraft concerns of governing competently and winning elections', even if the 'statecraft was based in different policy preferences from those of previous Conservative administrations'. And what of Major's impact? They suggest that in being constrained by the economic and political inheritance, Majorism's political change is 'more style than substance'. Although the remarkable thing about his premiership, they go on to argue, is that: '... it has been precisely in those areas where Thatcherism was incomplete that Mr Major has remained most faithful to the Thatcher project: commercialisation of public services, civil service reform, the formal limitation of the commitment to European integration through the opt-outs, and the trickiest privatisations of rail, coal, and, though now stalled, of postal services.' There is much here for trenchant Thatcherites to mull over before bemoaning Mr Major's lack of 'the vision thing'. But if the last bit doesn't shatter any complacency residing in Thatcher loyalists then Ludlam and Smith press the point further. Believe it or not: Mr Major's direction has been one of implementing Thatcherism rather than challenging its key precepts. In policy after policy area, he has maintained the Thatcherite agenda.'

Their final remarks of all address the issue at the core of contemporary Conservative politics: Britain's relationship with the European Union. Forthrightly they express the opinion that: '... contemporary Conservatism has not yet discovered how to reconcile the party's deep-rooted and popular tradition of defending the sovereign British Parliamentary state with active membership of the EU.' Adding: 'By the mid-1990s fundamental issues of national sovereignty raised by European integration and unresolved since the 195Os could no longer be evaded; they produced almost unmanageable divisions inside Parliament, the Government and the Cabinet, and threatened to overwhelm Major's disunited party.' The European fault-line could yet manage to bring the 'broad' church crashing down.

This is a book which those involved in the study and practice of Conservative politics should welcome, and it easily fulfils its aim to constitute a good general reader for non-specialists. More pertinently for the participant it offers an outsiders' assessment of his party's recent (mal)performance and discusses possible future directions. A key introduction for those wishing to understand the main themes shaping contemporary British Conservatism.

Martin Ball