Parliament, the Media and Organized Interests

Abstract

It was suggested in the last chapter that economic policy in Britain has been made by a limited number of key decision-makers. That does not mean, however, that there are no other actors that have an input into economic policy-making. Parliament would certainly like to make an impact on the policy-making process; the media, particularly the specialist broadsheet media, set the context within which policy-making takes place and have a particularly strong influence on the formation of policy agendas; and there are a number of pressure groups that are drawn into the policy-making process. If the policy-making process loses contact with public opinion, then exasperated members of the public may resort to direct action, as happened with the petrol protests in September 2000.