Abstract

Routes to Political Influence: Business and the UK Government from the Second World War to the 1980s

The advent of the Thatcher governments in the UK in May 1979 is typically highlighted as a fundamental turning point in post-war Britain with its denigration of the post-war Keynesian consensus and a shift to what is now often termed the neoliberal order that has been dominant in the UK and elsewhere thereafter. One key element of this perceived revolution is the primacy given to business – business people, business ideas and business methods. Thatcher was a keen proponent of bringing business into government in all three of these aspects, underpinned by notions of the superiority of the private sector over the public sector. This paper explores the pre-history of these developments and flags that a) there were many direct antecedents to the developments of the 1980s b) that in this respect business was in a preferential position from at least the Second World War. The paper outlines a diverse set of ways in which business was able to ‘influence’ the development of policy in a broad sense of framing the agenda in a way that other societal actors were unable to match and that these routes were more diverse than straightforward lobbying. Rather, there was an intertwining of business and government which developed over time. The paper draws on extensive use of the records of various department sin the UK National Archives, various collections of records of business organisations and a variety of datasets.