Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to identify why a reappraisal of the Heath premiership is warranted. In doing so, the chapter provides an overview of the existing academic literature on the Heath premiership. The chapter considers the dominant perspectives of the Heath era, focusing on (a) the critical perspective which suggests that the Heath premiership was a failure and (b) the revisionist or contingencies perspective which suggests that they were governing in difficult circumstances. The chapter acknowledges that the arguments within both perspectives have some validity, before arguing that a new perspective—a transitional perspective—might be more helpful to political historians in trying to understand the contribution of the Heath premiership.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
The European Communities were comprised of three entities: the European Economic Community, European Coal and Steel Community, and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). It was the first of these that was most prominent—often referred to as the ‘Common Market’—and the main focus of the UK application to join. However, for the sake of consistency and to avoid confusion, we will refer to it as the European Community (or EC) throughout this book.
- 2.
In an overt piece of pre-election campaigning, Prime Minister Harold Wilson contributed to the impression of Heath as a hard-faced economically liberal and socially authoritarian Conservative. Naming Heath as ‘Selsdon Man’—after the Selsdon Park Hotel where the Conservatives held a policy review session in January 1970—Wilson argued that Heath had ‘an atavistic desire to reverse the course of 25 years of social revolution; what they are planning is a wanton, calculated and deliberate return to greater inequality’ (Campbell 1993: 265).
- 3.
This commitment to reducing intervention in the economy was reinforced by the rhetoric of John Davies, President of the Board of Trade, in November 1970. He said that the Heath premiership was determined to make ‘industry stand on its own two feet or go to the wall’ and that the ‘consequence of treating the whole country as lame ducks was national decadence’ (HC Debates, Vol. 805, Col. 1211–8, 4th November 1970).
- 4.
The Heath premiership also coincided with destabilising international economic circumstances. The ending of the Bretton Wood system of fixed exchange rates intensified the uncertainty, and the weakened British economy of the early 1970s was ill prepared to deal with the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War between Israel and Arab states (October 1973), which ‘led to the quadrupling of oil prices by OPEC countries’ (Kavanagh 1996: 380).
- 5.
- 6.
Marsh has acknowledged that statecraft theory is a key approach through which to understand British government and politics (Marsh 2012: 48–49).
- 7.
Writing in 1964, Richard Rose concluded that the Labour Party were a party of factions, involving stable, cohesive and organised groups that sought to advance specific policies and leaders. The Conservative Party, in contrast, were a party of non-aligned tendencies, based on fluctuating alignments amongst parliamentarians, but these were transient alignments that lacked the cohesiveness of the more factional Labour Party (Rose 1964: 33–46).
Bibliography
Published Primary Sources
House of Commons Parliamentary Debates (HC Deb).
Speeches
Heath, E. (1970). Speech to the Conservative Party Annual Conference. Blackpool, 1970.
Memoirs
Heath, E. (1998). The Course of My Life: The Autobiography of Edward Heath. London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Tebbit, N. (1988). Upwardly Mobile: An Autobiography. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
Thatcher, M. (1995). The Path to Power. London: Harper Collins.
Books, Chapters and Articles
Arthur, P. (1996). The Heath Government and Northern Ireland. In S. Ball & A. Seldon (Eds.), The Heath Government (pp. 1970–1974). Harlow: Pearson.
Ball, S. (1998). The Conservative Party since 1945. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Bale, T. (2012). The Conservatives Since 1945: The Drivers of Party Change. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Barnes, D., & Reid, E. (1980). Governments and Trade Unions: The British Experience, 1964–79. London: Heinemann.
Beckett, A. (2009). When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies. London: Faber.
Beer, S. (1982). Britain Against Itself: The Political Contradictions of Collectivism. London: Faber.
Black, L., & Pemberton, H. (2013). Reassessing 1970s Britain. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Blake, R. (1998). The Conservative Party from Peel to Major. London: Arrow.
Bruce-Gardyne, J. (1974). Whatever Happened to the Quiet Revolution? London: Charles Knight.
Buller, J. (1999). A Critical Appraisal of the Statecraft Interpretation. Public Administration, 77(4), 691–712.
Buller, J. (2000). National Statecraft and European Integration: The Conservative Government and the European Union 1979–97. London: Pinter.
Buller, J., & James, T. (2012). Statecraft and the Assessment of National Political Leaders: The Case of New Labour and Tony Blair. British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 14(4), 534–555.
Bulpitt, J. (1986). The Discipline of the New Democracy: Mrs Thatcher’s Domestic Statecraft. Political Studies, 34(1), 19–39.
Butler, D., & Kavanagh, D. (1974). The British General Election of February 1974. London: Macmillan.
Butler, D., & Kavanagh, D. (1975). The British General Election of October 1974. London: Macmillan.
Butler, D., & Kavanagh, D. (1980). The British General Election of 1979. London: Macmillan.
Butler, D., & Kavanagh, D. (1984). The British General Election of 1983. London: Macmillan.
Butler, D., & Pinto-Duschinsky, M. (1971). The British General Election of 1970. London: Macmillan.
Campbell, J. (1993). Edward Heath. London: Jonathan Cape.
Charmley, J. (1996). A History of Conservative Politics 1900–96. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Charmley, J. (2007). A History of Conservative Politics since 1830. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Coopey, R., Fielding, S., & Tiratsoo, N. (Eds.). (1993). The Wilson Governments 1964–70. London: Pinter.
Cowley, P., & Kavanagh, D. (2018). The British General Election of 2017. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Critchley, J. (1973). Stresses and Strains in the Conservative Party. Political Quarterly, 44(4), 401–430.
Crowson, N. (2007). The Conservative Party and European Integration Since 1945: At the Heart of Europe? London: Routledge.
Cutts, D., Goodwin, Mm Heath, O., & Surridge, P. (2020). Brexit, the 2019 General Election and the Realignment of British Politics. Political Quarterly, 91(1): 7–23.
Davies, A. (1996). We the Nation: The Conservative Party and the Pursuit of Power. London: Abacus.
Dorey, P. (1995). The Conservative Party and the Trade Unions. London: Routledge.
Dorey, P. (Ed.). (2006). The Labour Governments 1964–1970. Abington: Routledge.
Dorey, P. (2019). Comrades in Conflict: Labour, the Trade Unions and 1969’s In Place of Strife. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Dutton, D. (1997). British Politics Since 1945: The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of Consensus. London: Blackwell.
Evans, B., & Taylor, A. (1996). From Salisbury to Major: Continuity and Change in Conservative Politics. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Franklin, M., Baxter, A., & Jordan, M. (1986). Who Were the Rebels? Dissent in the House of Commons 1970–74. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 11(2), 143–159.
Fry, G. (2005). The Politics of Decline: An Interpretation of British Politics from the 1940s to the 1970s. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Gamble, A. (1988). The Free Economy and the Strong State. London: Macmillan.
Gilmour, I., & Garnett, M. (1998). Whatever Happened to the Tories? The Conservatives Since 1945. London: Fourth Estate.
Harmon, M. (1997). The British Labour Government and the 1976 IMF Crisis. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Heppell, T. (2014). The Tories from Winston Churchill to David Cameron. London: Bloomsbury.
Heppell, T., & Hill, M. (2015). Prime Ministerial Powers of Patronage: Ministerial Appointments and Dismissals Under Edward Heath. Contemporary British History, 29(4), 464–485.
Hickson, K. (2005a). IMF Crisis of 1976 and British Politics. London: I.B. Tauris.
Hickson, K. (2005b). Inequality. In K. Hickson (Ed.), The Political Thought of the Conservative Party since 1945. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Hickson, K., & Seldon, A. (Eds.). (2004). New Labour, Old Labour: The Wilson and Callaghan Governments 1974–1979. London: Routledge.
Holmes, M. (1982). Political Pressure and Economic Policy: British Government 1970–1974. London: Butterworth.
Holmes, M. (1985). The Labour Government, 1974–79: Political Aims and Economic Reality. London: Macmillan.
Holmes, M. (1997). The Failure of the Heath Government. London: Macmillan.
Kavanagh, D. (1996). 1970–1974. In A. Seldon (Ed.), How Tory Governments Fall: The Tory Party in Power since 1783. London: Longman.
Kavanagh, D., & Morris, P. (1994). Consensus Politics from Attlee to Major. Oxford: Blackwell.
King, A. (1975). Overload: Problems of Governing in the 1970s. Political Studies, 23(2–3), 284–296.
Kitzinger, U. (1973). Diplomacy and Persuasion: How Britain joined the Common Market. London: Thames and Hudson.
Lord, C. (1993). British Entry to the European Community under the Heath Government, 1970–74. Aldershot: Dartmouth.
Marsh, D. (2012). British Politics: A View from Afar. British Politics, 7(1), 43–54.
McDaid, S. (2013). Template for Peace: Northern Ireland, 1972–75. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Moran, M. (1977). Politics of Industrial Relations: The Origins, Life and Death of the 1971 Industrial Relations Act. London: Macmillan.
Norton, P. (1978). Conservative Dissidents: Dissent Within the Parliamentary Conservative Party 1970–74. London: Temple Smith.
O’Hara, G., & Parr, H. (Eds.). (2006). The Wilson Governments 1964–1970 Reconsidered. London: Routledge.
Phillips, J. (2006). The 1972 Miners’ Strike: Popular Agency and Industrial Politics in Britain. Contemporary British History, 20(2), 187–207.
Phillips, J. (2007). Industrial Relations, Historical Contingencies and Political Economy: Britain in the 1960s and 1970s. Labour History Review, 72(3), 215–233.
Ponting, C. (1990). Breach of Promise: Labour in Power 1964–1970. London: Harmondsworth.
Ramsden, J. (1995). The Age of Churchill and Eden 1940–1957. London: Longman.
Ramsden, J. (1996). The Winds of Change: Macmillan and Heath 1957–1975. London: Longman.
Ramsden, J. (1998). An Appetite for Power: The History of the Conservative Party. London: Harper Collins.
Rose, R. (1964). Parties, Tendencies and Factions. Political Studies, 12(1), 33–46.
Sandbrook, D. (2010). State of Emergency: The Way We Were, Britain 1970–1974. London: Allen Lane.
Seldon, A. (1988). The Trade Unions and Fall of the Heath Government. Contemporary Record, 2(1), 36–46.
Seldon, A. (1996). The Heath Government in History. In S. Ball & A. Seldon (Eds.), The Heath Government 1970–1974: A Reappraisal. London: Longman.
Seldon, A., & Sanklecha, P. (2004). United Kingdom: A Comparative Case Study of Conservative Prime Ministers Heath, Thatcher and Major. Journal of Legislative Studies, 10(2–3), 53–65.
Shepherd, J. (2013). Crisis: What Crisis? The Callaghan Government and the British Winter of Discontent. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Smith, J. (2007). Walking a Real Tight-Rope of Difficulties’: Sir Edward Heath and the Search for Stability in Northern Ireland, June 1970–March 1971. Twentieth Century British History, 18(2), 219–253.
Stevens, C. (2002). Thatcherism, Majorism and the Collapse of Tory Statecraft. Contemporary British History, 16(1), 119–150.
Taylor, A. (2005). Economic Statecraft. In K. Hickson (Ed.), The Political Thought of the Conservative Party Since 1945. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Taylor, R. (1993). The Trade Union Question in British Politics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Taylor, R. (1996). The Heath Government and Industrial Relations: Myth and Reality. In S. Ball & A. Seldon (Eds.), The Heath Government, 1970–1974: A Reappraisal. London: Longman.
Tomlinson, J. (2000). The Politics of Decline: Understanding Post-war Britain. Harlow: Longman.
Wall, S. (2013). The Official History of Britain and the European Community, Volume II: From Rejection to Referendum, 1963–1975. London: Routledge.
Whitehead, P. (1985). The Writing on the Wall: Britain in the Seventies. London: Michael Joseph.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Roe-Crines, A.S., Heppell, T. (2021). The Heath Premiership: Existing Academic Perspectives. In: Roe-Crines, A.S., Heppell, T. (eds) Policies and Politics Under Prime Minister Edward Heath. Palgrave Studies in Political Leadership. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53673-2_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53673-2_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-53672-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-53673-2
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)