Barbara Castle Research Articles

Revisiting the road to Cypriot independence

ABSTRACT In September 1958 Archbishop Makarios, the Greek Cypriot leader, told Barbara Castle, the then Chair of the British Labour Party, that, after three and a half years of violence from EOKA (Εθνική Οργάνωσις Κυπρίων Αγωνιστών/National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters) to achieve the union of Cyprus with Greece (enosis), he now supported a brief period of self-government, followed by the independence of Cyprus. He agreed to set aside enosis unless it was supported in the United Nations in the future. This led to independence, with Makarios considered ‘the father’ of Cypriot independence. But little has been said about the idea of independence before that point, about the opposition to it from EOKA, or about others who proposed independence from 1954. This article focuses on the role and proposals of Jason Loukianou, a prominent Cypriot in London, which have not been previously discussed. It proposes a revision to the idea that Makarios was ‘the father’ of Cypriot independence.

Radon Gas in the City of Alicante. High Risk of Low Indoor Air Quality in Poorly Ventilated Buildings.

In December 2019, Spain considered for the first time the presence of radon to the Technical Building Code (Basic Document HS 6: Radon Exposure Protection), although it only mentions minimum presences and the need for ventilation. This research shows that in buried structures or in places with little ventilation, even in soils with a low probability of granite, a high content of radon gas can be found. The city of Alicante has been used as a measurement location for different architectural sites; here, the level of 100 Bq/m3 is the first threshold where the gas must be monitored, and the level of 300 Bq/m3 is the maximum threshold above which corrective ventilation measures must be taken. The research conducted during the years 2015 and 2016 shows that it is necessary to account for also the areas considered to be “low presence of radon gas” to achieve healthy constructions. The renewal of air in the different places will be tested for the presence of radon, i.e., the greater the accumulation is, the less ventilation and the greater the risk of accumulation of radon gas. This study is located in the city of Alicante, where the seven civil constructions are located: two Civil War shelters, the Santa Barbara Castle, the Ereta Powder Keg, the Luceros-Marq and Serra Grossa railway tunnels and the Británica underground deposits. Radon gas is currently a concern for major health and medical agencies because it is considered to be a chemical element that is very harmful to people. The World Health Organization is one of the organisations that has the objective of studying and researching this element, to develop solutions. Radon gas is normally found in a gaseous state and is highly radioactive. It is present in many terrains and it is mostly found in those with granite; although the presence of this element is very low, there is always a minimum presence. In the past, in nongranite soils, the dose of radon was considered to be so low that it was insignificant. Therefore, in this research, the aim is to consider the high presence of radon gas in nongranite soils as long as the conditions for its accumulation are present.

Sir Anthony Grabham

Surgeon and influential medical politician Keith Breeden The climax of the career of Sir Anthony Grabham, the most accomplished medical politician of his generation, came in a meeting with the...

Hard Times

Hard Times Phillip Parotti (bio) Peter Liddle, Captured Memories 1930–1945: Across the Threshold of War, Volume II. Pen & Sword, 2011. 336pages. Illustrated. $50. Dr. Peter Liddle, F.R.Hist.S, teacher, lecturer, editor, and author, is also the founding director of two important archives on the world wars of the twentieth century. The Liddle Collection, located in the Brotherton Library, the University of Leeds, is devoted to the collection of personal experiences regarding World War i. The Second World War Experience Centre, established in North Wetherby, outside Leeds—the institution of which Dr. Liddle is life president—documents the lives of more than nine thousand people in that war, a multitude of the Centre’s interviews having been personally [End Page 336] collected by Dr. Liddle across a span of years. Captured Memories 1930–1945, which contains forty-seven of the most vivid recollections he has recorded, is a skillfully edited, well-illustrated, and admirable companion volume to Captured Memories 1900–1918, the collection of twenty-nine interviews that he published in 2010. Organized into two major sections, the 1930s and 1939–1945, and five subsections, including The Thirties, At Sea, In the Air, On Land, and On the Home Front, volume ii covers a staggering range of experience with such precision of scintillating detail that the reader’s interest never flags. And, once a reading is complete, the reader wishes only for more. Liddle opens with an examination of the decade immediately before the war; this section entitled The Thirties, contains eight fascinating interviews. Wilfred Shaw, Annie Millar, and Joseph Reck testify in compelling ways to the grinding poverty endured by many people in Britain during the Great Depression. In contrast the privileged sons Humphrey Prideaux and George Savile describe their attendance at Eton, advanced educational opportunities, and preparation for important careers. While Shaw went without shoes and wore clogs to school, Prideaux, reporting to his Indian regiment as a twenty-one-year-old subaltern, found that he was to be waited on daily by no fewer than seven servants. Baroness Barbara Castle records her lifelong Labor Party activism, while admiral of the fleet Baron Hill-Norton offers the best recollection of years at Dartmouth Naval College and the education of an officer in the Royal Navy that until now no one was ever likely to see in print. The final interview in the section is with Oswald Mosley, the British fascist, and it delivers a surprise: no matter how deeply one disagrees with the man’s political views, one cannot help but be impressed by Mosley’s eloquence and intelligence as he describes the formation of his movement and some of the events that led to his incarceration during the war. The book’s At Sea selections begin with Commander Loftus Peyton- Jones’s descriptions of his Arctic convoy duty and the Battle of the Barrents Sea before going on to cover his later capture, escape, and evasion in Italy. Frank Arkle follows with a vivid account of close combat in the St. Nazaire raid, and Vernon Upton describes his training for the Merchant Marine and his extended command of two lifeboats in the Atlantic, an exploit for which he was rightly awarded the George Medal for saving more than forty lives after his ship was torpedoed. Henry Leach records the catastrophic experience of being in Singapore on the day when his father, commanding the battleship Prince of Wales, was sunk and killed off the coast by Japanese air attack; and then he tells of his participation in the sinking of the Scharnhorst. Clarence Smith concludes the section by recalling the fury with which he hurled a potato at a passing Japanese pilot even as the West Virginia was sunk out from under him at Pearl Harbor, the pilot passing so close down the side that Smith felt certain that he had struck his target. Invariably Dr. Liddle begins the individual interviews by asking his [End Page 337] characters about their upbringing and education, and invariably the paths that led to later service prove unique. Squadron Leader George (“Ben”) Bennions, a fighter ace who accounted for thirteen victories during the Battle of Britain, actually began his service...

Promises and practices: job evaluation and equal pay forty years on!

ABSTRACTThis article examines the claim made by Barbara Castle when introducing the Equal Pay Act (EPA) in 1970 that there is nothing preventing unions pressing for job evaluation schemes to achieve equal pay. It does this by examining the research on potential hurdles to job evaluation and those that can be found in the UK law since the introduction of the EPA. The article concludes that the standards for selecting job evaluation and the obstacles of introducing job evaluation have significantly changed over the period, leaving little promise of an extension of its use to achieve equal pay.

Generating a 3D Tool to Represent Graphically the Damages of Santa Barbara Castle (Alicante)

Santa Barbara castle is one of the largest fortified complexes of the Spanish Mediterranean coast. Set in a strategic enclave in the city of Alicante. It has been transformed over the centuries since its origin, so that nowadays includes numerous buildings inside its area. The fortified area contains several lines bastioned and some medieval and Muslim fronts, composed of quadrangular towers. During the years 2007 and 2008, a research team composed of members from the University of Alicante, the University of Burgos and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia has developed a study on the conservation status of the Castle. This study has been funded through research grants from the Generalitat Valenciana (Project GV reference 2007/150), and an agreement with Manuel Pelaez Foundation. We have generated a 3D object of the whole, composed by clouds of millions points, through laser-scanner in order to manage the analysis of the architectural element's conservation status that make up the huge fortified complex. This tool reduced greatly the architectural survey work, providing an extremely accurate. They were developed through the program Pointools View, generating JPEG files, which were imported from Autocad. Later we undertook a comprehensive making of photos — some 7,000 photographs, which we linked to the 3D object. Thus we have immediate access to the photographs of each element of the Castle from the program Pointools View with a simple click on each 3D element. The graphic representation of damages was done on screen with programs Pointools View and Autocad open simultaneously. This technique has meant better accuracy in the study of conservation status and has greatly reduced the time commitment.

Equal pay – or what? Economics, politics and the 1968 Ford sewing machinists’ strike

The 40-year anniversary of the Equal Pay Act in 2010 brought a new notoriety to what was once an obscure dispute – the Ford sewing machinists’ strike of 1968. Even a film, Made In Dagenham, has now been released in Britain and the US and, as described below, a number of letters and articles have appeared celebrating what is universally described as ‘a strike for equal pay’. Yet the sewing machinists’ placards at their union conference proclaiming ‘Equal Rights’ are probably the nearest the workers themselves got to a demand for equal pay. That demand was instead developed by the male trade unionists who came to control the dispute. The one woman in the case who enthusiastically embraced the concept of equal pay – Minister of Labor Barbara Castle – did so only in order to get the women back to work. Classifying the 1968 strike as ‘a strike for equal pay’ conceals its real importance as a protest against injustice and exploitation.

Anti‐drink driving reform in Britain, c. 1920–80

The goal of this report is to provide a framework for understanding and interpreting political, scientific and cultural attitudes towards drink driving in 20th-century Britain. Exploring the inherent conservatism of successive governments, Members of Parliament (MPs) and the public towards the issue during the interwar years, the contribution seeks to explain the shift from legislative paralysis to the introduction of the breathalyser in 1967. Based on governmental, parliamentary and administrative records, the report follows a mainly narrative route. It places particular emphasis on connections between post-war extra-parliamentary and parliamentary movements for reform. The paper follows a linear path from the 1920s to the 1970s. Britain lies at the heart of the story but comparisons are made with nations--particularly the Scandinavian states--which took radical steps to prosecute drinking and dangerous drivers at an early date. The report underlines the vital post-war role played by Graham Page, leading parliamentary spokesman for the Pedestrians' Association; the centrality of the Drew Report (1959) into an 'activity resembling driving'; the pioneering Conservative efforts of Ernest Marples; and Barbara Castle's consolidating rather than radically innovative activities between 1964 and 1967. Both before and after the Second World War politicians from both major parties gave ground repeatedly to major motoring organizations. With the ever-escalating growth of mass motorization in the 1950s, both Conservative and Labour governments agonized over gridlock and 'murder on the roads'. Barbara Castle finally took decisive action against drink drivers, but the ground had been prepared by Graham Page and Ernest Marples.

Downing Street Diary: Volume Two. By Bernard Donoughue.

When Richard Crossman published his ‘Diaries of a Cabinet Minister’ nearly forty years ago, I was already working in Whitehall as the Political Advisor to James Callaghan as Foreign Secretary. I remember the frisson of disapproval which went round among politicians and mandarins alike. Was not the keeping and publishing of diaries a breach of trust which would undermine both cabinet government and the relationship between civil servants and their Minister? At that time, in 1975, Bernard Donoughue was already at work compiling his own diaries recording his years as head of Harold Wilson's Policy Unit. Those diaries were published in 2005 as ‘Downing Street Diary: with Harold Wilson in Number 10’. In the thirty years between the publication of the Crossman Diaries and that volume, the publishing of personal records and instant memoirs became much more common. Barbara Castle famously referred to her diaries as ‘my pension’ and Tony Benn turned diary writing and publication into something of a cottage industry.

Will Brown reform the private sector?

September 2007 was the month in which a mischievous, and from the NHS point of view, somewhat worrying thought occurred. Could Gordon Brown and Alan Johnson be about to repeat history? Could they, like Barbara Castle, be about to become, however unintentionally, the patron saints of private medicine?

Private practice--definitely not a zero sum game

In a zero-sum game, one of the participants gains in proportion to the losses of the others. It is a widely held view that private medical practice thrives as (and perhaps because) the NHS declines. Is this correct? May I start by declaring two conflicts of interest which actually conflict with one another? In 1975, as a final-year medical student, I was a member of MCAPP (The Medical Committee against Private Practice). We, the committed few, used to meet in basement flats in parts of London that then seemed rather dingy but are now almost certainly ‘gentrified’, highly desirable and most unlikely to be affordable by almost any medical practitioner. We plotted, and may have even conspired, to bring about the downfall of private medical practice. The Secretary of State for Health, Barbara Castle, was all for removing ‘pay-beds’ from NHS hospitals. Unlikely as it now sounds, the doctors (that is the 99.98% of the profession that did not belong to MCAPP) proved too powerful a lobby... the rest is history. The second conflict relates to loss of virginity—and by that I mean the day I first saw a fee-paying patient as a (newly-appointed) consultant physician. A most distinguished colleague phoned me up (for younger readers, just imagine a time when doctors actually spoke to one another rather than sent an e-mail!) to ask me to see Sheikh someone or other. Rather feebly, I reiterated what I had emphasized at my job interview that what I said about wishing to focus entirely on developing the NHS service was true. Anyway I got to about sentence two, word three of my reply when the great man interjected to say he thought I was talking nonsense and, in any case, the patient was already in a taxi on his way to see me. How are the mightily principled fallen. That violation was insufficient to change my perspective for several years but was sufficient to throw in doubts where I had always been sure. I had always assumed, almost as an act of faith, that those of my colleagues who were really into private practice in a serious way were there for the money. The problem for me was that, right from the start, it was professionally most rewarding to be able to see a newly-referred (three-day wait for an appointment) patient with altered bowel habit on a Monday, diagnose the colon cancer at colonoscopy on the Tuesday, get the biopsy and CT scan results on the Wednesday, and refer the (fully worked-up) patient for surgery within 48 hours of their first appointment. The new NHS consultant contract is a godsend for those of us whose commitment to the NHS is total but the hours when we are asked to demonstrate that commitment are now very well-defined. In my ‘other’ hours, I enjoy a lengthy run, a swim, or maybe a private clinic. I worry about whether I can get a NHS patient referred with probable cancer through to starting treatment within 62 days. In private practice, I'm just as worried if I can't manage that within 62 hours. Who loses? Not NHS patients, whose speed through the system has been enhanced not least by DoH targets set as a result of unfavourable comparisons with the private sector, as well as almost anywhere else outside the third world. Not private patients, who get the service they expect and pay for. Not the NHS, who gains by ensuring their consultants work to job plan, and (an old one this but no less true) have patient waiting times reduced by the private patients by-passing the system. And, yes, 'tis true. While I would wish my work to be its own reward, I am most reluctantly obliged as a professional to present a fee for my work. Truly, there are no losers.

‘Victims of our History’? Barbara Castle and In Place of Strife

In Place of Strife came closer to dividing the labour movement than any event since Ramsey McDonald formed his national government in 1931. Drawing on recently released government papers, political and trade union archives, as well as interviews with many of the key personalities, this article examines three general propositions that have emerged from the historiography of In Place of Strife: that Barbara Castle was unduly influenced by anti-trade union officials; that the contents of the White Paper were an ill-thought-out, knee-jerk reaction to the Conservative proposals contained in Fair Deal at Work; and that neither Castle or Harold Wilson were of, or understood the trade union movement. It concludes that, rather than being unduly influenced by her officials, Castle was the main instigator of the White Paper. Similarly, whilst the White Paper was influenced by the publication of the Conservative proposals, it was grounded in a well-thought-out philosophy of trade union rights and responsibilities. Finally, whilst confirming that Castle and Wilson demonstrated considerable naivety in failing to anticipate the extent of the opposition within the labour movement, the article demonstrates the true extent of trade union intransigence that came close to challenging the government's right to govern.

Labour forces: from Ernest Bevin to Gordon Brown

This volume presents biographies, written by academics and journalists, of the leading figures in the history of the Labour Party since World War II. The biographies assess the personalities and political careers of key figures who reached the senior ranks in Labour politics but never became party leaders. There are studies of: charismatic left-wingers such as Nye Bevan and Tony Benn; pillars of the movement such as Ernie Bevin; senior and highly successful ministers like Denis Healey and Roy Jenkins; leading intellectuals and writers like Anthony Crosland and Michael Foot; and, arguably, the most important woman in Labour history - Barbara Castle. The biographies are set against a background of turbulent Labour history from the landslide victory of 1945 and the years of Labour achievement under Atlee, through the Wilson years - now beginning to enjoy some rehabilitation - via the unelectability and near-eclipse of the later 1970s and 1980s, to the triumph of new Labour in 1997. The book focuses on the impact of each individual on Labour's fortunes, their successes and failures, their legacy and place in the history of the Labour movement and of modern Britain.

Security guard.

Baroness Barbara Castle is lobbying for a three-tier pension policy that will guarantee secure retirement

THE NEXT STEPS AGENCIES, POLITICAL SALIENCE AND THE ARM'S‐LENGTH PRINCIPLE: BARBARA CASTLE AT THE MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT 1965‐68

The Next Steps agencies preserve a long tradition as the latest manifestation of the arm's‐length principle of ministerial control. During the major part of this century, the now almost defunct public corporations offered one of the best examples of the arm's‐length principle at work, and the recorded experiences of participants can provide valuable lessons for the Next Steps agencies. This article employs the diaries of Barbara Castle during her period as Transport Minister from 1965‐68 in order to examine how she apportioned her time. From the evidence, a model is constructed which suggests that political salience is of greater importance than official structures in determining ministerial behaviour. Arising from the case study and the model, the final section of the article attempts to identify Next Steps agencies which have an inherently high potential for political salience, and concludes that, in this category, direct ministerial control would be preferable to the arm's‐length principle.

The Effect of Demographic Factors and Indexation on the Long term Financing of the State Earnings-Related Pension Scheme.

In September 1974 Barbara Castle published her proposals for a new earnings-related State pension scheme in her White Paper “Better Pensions”. This followed a succession of attempts by previous Secretaries of State for Social Services to change State pension arrangements radically. Unlike the ill-fated Crossman and Joseph schemes, however, the Castle scheme succeeded both in reaching the statute book and in coming into operation. A Bill was introduced in February 1975 and on 7 August 1975 the Social Security Pensions Act 1975 received the Royal Assent. The State earnings-related pension scheme (SERPS) came into operation on 6 April 1978. It provided State pensions related to earnings, but also offered to employers with good occupational pension schemes the possibility of ‘contracting-out’ and providing equivalent or better earnings-related benefits through their own scheme.

The First Year of Contracting-Out.

The new Earnings-Related State Pension Scheme was introduced, under the terms of the Social Security Pensions Act, 1975, on 6th April, 1978. The arrangements represented the product of more than fifteen years' efforts to establish a meaningful earnings-related supplement to the flat-rate basic State pension. Various proposals had been mooted, the first of which was probably the Graduated Pension Scheme, introduced in 1961, which was followed by the Crossman and Joseph schemes. The latter two schemes fell foul of changes of government and it was not until 1975 that the joint efforts of Barbara Castle and the late Brian O'Malley reached fruition in the Social Security Pensions Act 1975.The Earnings-Related State Pension Scheme embodied in the Social Security Pensions Act 1975 ultimately received the approval of all the major political parties. It provides an earnings-related pension over and above the flat-rate basic State pension for all employees except those who reach pensionable age (65 for men, 60 for women) in the fiscal year commencing 6th April 1978 or married women (or widows) who have opted to make National Insurance contributions at the reduced rate and, therefore, not participate for retirement benefits from the State Scheme.

By the London post. Backward or forward?

"The Way Forward"1 was a brave title for Mr. David Ennals, Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, to choose for still another document on priorities in the National Health Service recently published by his department. In the introduction he points out that this new document should be regarded as complementary to the Consultative Document2 published by his predecessor, Mrs. Barbara Castle, in 1976, and he claims that it has been written in the light of comments received in response to this Consultative Document, and also in response to reactions to the controversial report of the working party on . . .

Political vicissitudes of the National Health Service -- Clinical postscript on coronary heart disease.

AT present, when the new Prime Minister, Mr. James Callaghan has replaced Mrs. Barbara Castle by Mr. David Ennals as Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Security, it is approp...

By the London Post. Bleak outlook -- selection of medical students -- lessons of doctors' industrial action.

IT would be churlish not to give Mrs. Barbara Castle, Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Security, credit for her strenuous and successful efforts to protect her department f...