Labour In Britain Research Articles

`Welfare to Work' Versus Poverty and Family Change: Policy Lessons from the USA

David Cheal, New Poverty: Families in Postmodern Society , Westport, Connecticut and London: Greenwood Press, 1995, £43.95, 209 pp. David Donnison, Policies for a Just Society , London: Macmillan, 1997, £40, paper £12.50, 218 pp. Joel Handler and Yeheskel Hasenfeld, We The Poor People: Work, Poverty and Welfare , New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997, £25, 281 pp. Joel Handler, The Poverty of Welfare Reform , New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996, £16.50, paper £8.50, 177 pp. Inga Persson and Christina Jonung (eds), Economics of the Family and Family Policies , London: Routledge, 1997, £47.50, 222 pp. John E. Schwartz, Illusions of Poverty: The American Dream in Question , New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1998, £16.95, 237 pp. Britain's first Labour government for 18 years was elected on a mandate that placed the reform of welfare at the heart of its modernising ambitions (Labour Party 1997; Bennett and Walker 1998). The welfare system, the new government argued, was ‘plainly not working’ (Cm. 1998a). It had not kept pace with profound social and economic changes such as increased divorce and separation, rising numbers of lone parents, less secure employment and a widening pay gap. Moreover, it had actually contributed to growth in workless households, with worklessness going hand in hand with low income and social exclusion.

New Labor in Britain

Essay| April 01 1999 New Labor in Britain: Avoiding the Past James E. Cronin James E. Cronin James E. Cronin is a professor of history at Boston College and an affiliate of the Center for European Studies at Harvard University. His books include The Politics of State Expansion: War, State, and Society in Twentieth-Century Britain (London: Routledge, 1991) and The World the Cold War Made: Order, Chaos, and the Return of History (New York: Routledge, 1996). Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Current History (1999) 98 (627): 180–186. https://doi.org/10.1525/curh.1999.98.627.180 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation James E. Cronin; New Labor in Britain: Avoiding the Past. Current History 1 April 1999; 98 (627): 180–186. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/curh.1999.98.627.180 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentCurrent History Search This content is only available via PDF. © 1999 by The Regents of the University of California1999 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

The Commonwealth and its secretariat: Recessional

The Commonwealth is a conspicuously under-valued asset-even by Britain's new Labour Government, which has not always honoured the good intentions it expressed on assuming office. A number of practical achievements include the role of a Ministerial Group in securing the Uruguay Round in 1993 and the push by the Commonwealth towards implementation of Kenneth Clark's initiative for international debt reduction. Others include the high profile attached to adherence to central principles of human rights and help to make gender inequalities a world issue. Global policies on climate change and the interests of small states have been furthered by Commonwealth intervention. Successive United Nations Secretaries-General have recognized in the Commonwealth a partner which can often succeed where the senior organization cannot. But there are weaknesses too-the frequent failure to translate the will of Commonwealth Heads of Government into action and the readiness to adopt Commonwealth causes only when they coincide with national interests and to stint on contributions to schemes endorsed by Commonwealth leaders. Unlike the French attitude to la Francophonie, Commonwealth governments have consistently failed to match ends with means.

The Location of Early Overseas Multinationals in Britain, 1900‐1939: Patterns and Determinants

SCOTT P. (1998) The location of early overseas multinationals in Britain, 1900-1939: patterns and determinants, Reg. Studies 32, 489-501. This paper examines the location patterns of early overseas multinationals in Britain over the period 1900-1939, together with the factors influencing their location. The London conurbation is shown to have attracted the majority of early multinationals, with significant long term consequences for British regional development. The key attractions of London were its strong market links, industrial estate facilities and (particularly road) transport infrastructure. Cheaper labour in Britain's provincial regions did not generally prove a significant attraction to foreign firms, due to their heavy reliance on female and juvenile labour and the ample supply of such labour in Greater London SCOTT P. (1998) La localisation des premières multinationales étrangères situées en Grande-Bretagne de 1900 à 1939: distributions et déterminants, Reg. Studies 32, 489-501. Cet article cherche à examiner la distribution des premie àveres multinationales en Grande-Bretagne de 1900 à 1939, conjointement avec les facteurs de localisation. Il s'ave àre que la conurbation de Londres a attiré la plupart des premie àveres multinationales, d'ou à des effetsa à long terme non-négligeables quant à la politique d'aménagement du territoire britannique. Les atouts de Londres ont été les suivants: la proximité du marché, la disponibilité des zones industrielles et l'accèes aux réseaux de transport (notamment au réseau routier). En règle générale, le coût de la main-d'oeuvre moinséleve ´ aux re ´gions de province en Grande-Bretagne ne s'est pas avéré un atout important aux entreprises étrangères étant donné que ces dernières dépendent de l'emploi des femmes et des jeunes et vu qu'il existe une offre d'emploi de ce type largement suffisant dans l'agglomération londonienne SCOTT P. (1998) Standorte früher ausla ¨ndischer multinationaler Unternehmen in Großbritannien im Zeitraum 1900‐1939: Muster und bestimmende Faktoren, Reg. Studies 32, 489‐501. Dieser Aufsatz untersucht Standorte früher ausländischer multinationaler Unternehmen in Großbritannien im Zeitraum 1900‐1939 sowie Faktoren, die ihren Standort beeinflußten. Es wird gezeigt, daß die Mehrheit der fru ¨hen multinationalen Unternehmen vom Ballungsgebiet London angezogen wurde, was bedeutsame langfristige Folgen fu ¨r die regionale Entwicklung Großbritanniens hatte. Die Hauptattraktionen Londons waren seine starken Marktverknüpfungen, Gewerbegebietseinrichtungen und (besonders Straßen-) Verkehrsinfrastruktur. Billigere Arbeitskra ¨fte in den britischen Provinzialregionen stellten im allgemeinen keine bedeutende Attraktion für ausländische Firmen dar, da sie sich stark auf weibliche und jugendliche Arbeitskra ¨fte verließen, die im Ballungsgebiet London reichlich vorhanden waren.

UK provides ‘step increase’ in funding for its science base

london Britain's Labour government has made good on pre-election signals by agreeing to inject an extra £700 million (US$1.14 billion) into the country's science base over the next three years.

National Government and the Cultural Public Sphere

This article introduces the concept of the cultural public sphere to examine public debate around national government policy in the cultural field when the nation-state is said to be of diminishing significance. The election of New Labour in Britain and the cultural politics of its first six months in office are taken as a case study. A distinction is made between cultural policy proper and cultural policy as display. New Labour is especially notable for its symbolic politics and manipulation of cultural policy as display, much more so than its program for cultural policy proper, which remained little developed during the first year of office. The New Labour project is nothing less than a redefinition of Britishness — largely reduced, however, to the ‘rebranding’ of Britain as a ‘Young Nation’ or ‘Cool Britannia’, in the wake of Thatcherism's lengthy period of ‘regressive modernisation’. The May 1997 general election itself, the death and funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales and intense controversy over the New Millennium Experience all occurred within the first six months of Labour government. The article analyses the relations between these events and concludes that the New Labour project, symbolised by the Millennium Dome, articulates a national hubris that reproduces Britain's historical problem of coming to terms with its declining significance in the world. New Labour's virtual politics and its adherence to an accentuated public relations and marketing model of politics are at odds with the democratic principles of the public sphere in general, illustrated in the article by the particular operations and limitations of the cultural public sphere.

Government Stalls on Dearing Challenge

U.K. UNIVERSITIESLONDON-- Last summer, within weeks of taking office, Britain's Labour government was handed a hot potato: a major report calling for fundamental reforms in Britain's higher education system. The government responded quickly on some issues and promised a full response on the rest by the fall. It took until last week for the Department for Education and Employment to issue its official response, however, and researchers were unsurprised to find that the main message was that the government needed more time.

That was then, this is now: The revision of policy in the “modernisation” of the British labour party, 1992–97*

With the recent landslide electoral triumph of Tony Blair's New Labour in Britain, the question of the degree of convergence between Labour and the Conservatives in opposition takes on even greater strategic and political significance. It is generally undisputed that the terms of political debate in contemporary Britain have been altered markedly in recent years, and that this is not unrelated to Labour's self‐styled “modernisation” in the face of four consecutive election defeats. More contentious, however, is the interpretation of this trend. Has Labour abandoned its socialist and social democratic traditions, re‐projecting itself as an essentially conservative, even Thatcher‐ite, party, or has it managed to develop a novel, dynamic and modernising social democracy for new times? In this paper I seek to provide a benchmark against which such propositions can be evaluated, assessing the extent of bipartisan convergence since 1992. On the basis of comparisons of policy commitments at the 1992 and 1997 general elections, I argue that there has indeed been significant convergence between the parties, that this convergence has been driven principally by Labour, and that Britain is witnessing the emergence of a new bipartisan consensus. Such an interpretation is further reinforced by a consideration of revisions to policy since the Tories’ electoral debacle, which would merely seem to confirm the ascendancy of neo‐liberalism in contemporary Britain. I conclude by considering the likely trajectory of social and economic policy under a New Labour administration with a seemingly unassailable parliamentary majority.

Paying for the Piper: Capital and Labour in Britain's Offshore Oil Industry

Oil, imperialism and the British state - the origins of the crisis problems of union mobilization - the 1970s and 1980s prelude to action the summer of discontent Lord Cullen's Report `a profound change in culture' the strategy of containment paying for the piper? striking out - setting a new agenda the future of offshore trade unionism the restructuring of Britain's oil and gas - the supply industry conclusion - an unsafe future.

Further Book Reviews : Charles Woolfson, John Foster and Matthias Beck, Paying for the Piper: Capital and Labour in Britain's Offshore Oil Industry. London: Mansell, 1997, 604 pp

Further Book Reviews : Charles Woolfson, John Foster and Matthias Beck, Paying for the Piper: Capital and Labour in Britain's Offshore Oil Industry. London: Mansell, 1997, 604 pp

Book Reviews

Paying for the Piper: Capital and Labour in Britain’s Offshore Oil Industry. Charles Woolfson, John Foster and Matthias Beck Managing The Unions — The impact of legislation on trade unions’ behaviour. Roger Undy, Patricia Fosh, Huw Morris, Paul Smith and Roderick Martin One Big Union: A History of the Australian Workers Union 1886–1994. Mark Hearn and Harry Knowles The European Labour Market. Nick J. Adnett Restructuring Krakow: Desperately Seeking Capitalism,. Employment and Work Relations in Context Series, Jane Hardy and Al Rainnie L’État des relations professionnelles_Traditions et perspectives de recherche. G. Murray, M.–L. Morin and I. Da Costa Regional Integration and Industrial Relations in North America. Maria Lorena Cook and Harry C. Katz (eds) Human Resource Management; Rhetorics and Realities. Karen Legge The Politics of Empowerment. Peter McLaverty

Britain seeks leadership role with ambitious greenhouse-gas targets

london Britain's new Labour government has confirmed its pre-election promise to cut UK greenhouse-gas emissions to 80 per cent of their 1990 levels by 2010.

Labour Promises Key Role for Science

London—Statements from Britain's Labour Party are being taken seriously these days: With a lead of 15% in the public opinion polls and a general election due before next summer, today's pronouncements could become tomorrow's policies. Britain's scientific community is therefore paying close attention to a document Labour published last week laying out its science policy. It includes promises to bolster flagging morale among British researchers, elevate science in government decision-making, and scrap controversial reviews ofnational laboratories with a view to privatizing them.

Policy and ideology: the politics of post-reform health policy in the United Kingdom.

While it is commonly accepted that the broader political and economic climate directly influences the nature of any major changes in the provision of health care (witness the 1991 National Health Service reforms in the United Kingdom), there is less consideration of the effect of paradigm changes in health care and health care management themselves on wider political and ideological strategies. This article examines the recent health policy initiatives presented by Britain's Labour Party. The author argues that while the Conservatives' market-oriented reforms reflected the perceived political and economic realities of the 1980s, the rapidly increasing credibility of strategies of prevention within the health care sector (including an emphasis on the social determinants of ill-health, the need to plan a shift from acute to community care, and the desire for greater lay participation in policy-making) allows Labour to highlight the limitations of a strongly market-oriented system in the health care sector more so than in any other policy area.

Factional Competition for the Party Endorsement: The Case of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party

This Note explores the candidate-endorsement process in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) of Japan during its period of hegemony (1955–90). Even in parties without an enduring factional structure such as the LDP, nominations are often troublesome – witness, for example, the reselection controversy in Britain's Labour party at the end of the 1970s or the perennially damaging fights in American primary elections. Moreover, it is easy to understand why nomination politics is so consistently problematic: the gist of the problem is simply that different groups within a party may differ as to who should receive the party endorsement in a given district (or, in list systems, who should get the safe spots on the list). Group A naturally wants its candidate(s) endorsed (there may be more than one in multi-member districts), but so do groups B, C and D. The resulting interaction between groups can be what a game theorist would call a co-ordination, or Battle of the Sexes, game.

Capital Stocks and Productivity in Industrial Nations

This article presents estimates of the contribution of physical capital to explaining labour productivity differences between Britain and four of her major competitors, the United States, Germany, France and Japan. The paper uses a standardised method to estimate capital stocks in the five countries. It presents arguments why this may be preferable to comparing official capital stock figures since the latter are sensitive to differences in measurement techniques used by the statistical offices. In the aggregate economy differences in physical capital are important in explaining labour productivity levels in Britain relative to the United States, Germany and France but cannot explain Britain's labour productivity advantage over Japan. In manufacturing Britain's lower capital per unit of labour also helps explain her lower labour productivity levels relative to all four countries but the contribution of capital is generally lower in manufacturing than for the aggregate economy. For both the aggregate economy and manufacturing differences in capital growth rates help explain Britain's productivity growth performance in the past three decades relative to the United States and Japan but have little explanatory power relative to Germany and France. Differences in physical capital intensity are frequently thought to be important determinants of differences in both productivity levels and growth rates across nations. But quantifying the impact of physical capital on pro ductivity requires estimates of capital stocks which are measured on a consistent basis across countries. Official estimates of the stocks of physical capital are available for most industrialised countries but assumptions under lying their measurement by the statistical offices are in many ways not internationally comparable. This article uses a standardised method to measure capital stocks and employs these estimates to quantify the impact of differ ences in capital stocks on both levels and growth rates of labour productivity. The analysis is carried out for five industrial nations: the United States, the United King dom, Germany, France and Japan. The article first presents relative levels of output per worker hour, both for the whole economy and manufac turing, for the five countries. It draws on estimates of labour productivity levels in manufacturing which were mostly published in the National Institute Economic

The history of the gender division of labour in Britain: Reflections on “‘herstory’ in accounting: The first eighty years”

This article surveys the empirical research on the gender division of labour in Britain since pre-industrial times, seeking in particular to relate it to the history of the professions, which have been relatively little studied in this regard. It argues that industrialization brought about a less dramatic change in gender roles than is often believed. Neither simple economic nor simple biological explanations, or the influence of “domestic ideology”, can adequately explain continuing gender divisions. It relates the empirical data to the current state of feminist theory arguing that the “reserve army of labour” theory is not supported by the evidence, nor indeed is any existing body of theory. Rather a combination of theoretical perspectives, including those which incorporate male prejudice, must be used if we are to understand the long persistence of gender inequality in the workplace.

The Geography of Gender Divisions of Labour in Britain

The paper provides basic information on the geography of gender divisions of labour in Britain. Although men have a fairly uniform 'breadwinning' role throughout Britain, there are substantial spatial variations in the degree to which women are engaged in full-time paid work, part-time paid work and full-time domestic work. These variations interact in various ways with indices of household 'conventionality' and women's social status. This geography of gender divisions of labour is a less familiar geography than those based on local economic or class relations. For instance west central London resembles industrial Lancashire or central Scotland, Bristol is rather like the north east, and outer Surrey, Kent and Sussex resemble rural Wales or Fenland. The paper relates these spatial differences to a discussion of gender divisions of labour in general, and discusses possible reasons for this variation. It also asks whether there could be a geography of patriarchy, and attempts some initial investigation of this question. Noting the severe limitations of aggregate and spatially defined statistics, the paper recommends more socially sensitive, in-depth research on these issues.

Britain's Labour Party and Defense: Principles or Power

Britain's Labour Party and Defense: Principles or Power

The Role of Ecological Analysis in Electoral Geography: The Changing Pattern of Labour Voting in Great Britain 1983–1987

Ecological analyses have declined in number in voting studies in recent years, being replaced by survey data analysis which provides better general insights to individual behaviour. Ecological studies provide insights to spatial variations in behaviour that survey data cannot readily tap. This is illustrated by a study of the performance of Britain's Labour Party at recent general elections, which shows just how important spatial variations have been.