Peacock, Timothy Noel (2015) the Changing Strategies of Minority Government and Opposition During the Callaghan Administration, 1976- 1979
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Peacock, Timothy Noel (2015) The changing strategies of minority government and opposition during the Callaghan administration, 1976- 1979. PhD thesis. https://theses.gla.ac.uk/6812/ Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten: Theses https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] The Changing Strategies of Minority Government and Opposition during the Callaghan Administration, 1976-1979 Timothy Noel Peacock (MA, MLitt) Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in History School of Humanities College of Arts University of Glasgow April 2015 © Timothy Noel Peacock 2015 Abstract The 2010 General Election and subsequent coalition government brought groundbreaking changes to the conduct of UK politics, challenging recent British political history’s encapsulation within the dominant paradigm of the majoritarian ‘Westminster model’, and raising the prospect of further indecisive elections, not least evident in the uncertainty surrounding the upcoming 2015 General Election. These developments have also encouraged a rereading of past British minority governments, previously relegated to a status of either inherent weakness or aberration. Seminal works in the study of minority governments (Kaare Strom, 1990, 2006) have tended to concentrate on international experience, and even more recent studies by the Constitution Unit in London which have sought to act as a guide to current political parties (‘Making Minority Government Work’ (2010)) have not considered past British administrations in any great depth. This thesis provides a historico-political study of the two main parties’ strategic response to minority government during the Callaghan Administration of 1976-1979. The twin conclusions of this work are that both the Labour Government and Conservative Opposition showed greater consideration of strategies for dealing with minority government than has previously been appreciated by scholars, and that their actions are indicative of a distinct British tradition of minority government hitherto relatively unrecognised. The first two chapters establish the study’s theoretical framework, chronological context of the Callaghan Government, and strategy-making process within the main parties. Chapters 3-4 take in the alternative courses of action during Government formation and the changing approaches to managing legislative defeats, while Chapters 5-6 examine formal and informal interparty cooperation. Chapters 7-8 consider strategies of electoral timing, as well as planning by both parties for future minority or coalition governments, while the remaining two chapters revisit the confidence vote that brought down the Government, and place Callaghan’s Administration within a wider reconceptualising of British minority government history. Contents Chapter 1: Introduction 1 - 25 Chapter 2: Historical Context and the Strategy-Making Process 26 - 47 Chapter 3: Government Formation 48 - 65 Chapter 4: Defeats and Legislative Management 66 - 97 Chapter 5: Lib-Lab Pact 98 - 126 Chapter 6: Informal Interparty Cooperation 127 - 145 Chapter 7: Electoral Timing 146 - 166 Chapter 8: Future Minority Government and Coalition 167 - 193 Chapter 9: No Confidence Defeat – 28 March 1979 194 - 216 Chapter 10: Conclusions and Reflection 217 - 228 Bibliography 229 - 242 Acknowledgements I would like to express my warmest gratitude to: The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for their financial support through the Block Grant Partnership (BGP) Scholarships, awarded in the first instance for the Masters, and then for the PhD. The staff of the various archives that I have visited, and of the University of Glasgow Library, who have always been very courteous in dealing with my inquiries and in facilitating my research. My friends, for their kind words and interest in my work. My supervisors, Dr Phillips O’Brien and Professor Simon Ball, for all their encouragement and helpful advice. Last, but not least, my parents, Noël and Sandra Peacock, for their inspiration, constant support and encouragement. Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 1 – Introduction 2 Rationale At a time when many countries are continuing to struggle with economic crises, many are also facing crises of government, even in long-established democracies; elections more regularly produce indecisive outcomes and have compelled political parties to form minority governments, being unable to construct majority coalition arrangements with other parties. Even traditional notions of Britain as a bastion of single-party majority government have been challenged by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition Government, formed at Westminster in 2010, as well as by the uncertainty and prospect of further minority or coalition government following future electoral results. A recent British Minority Administration whose experience has been largely overlooked is that of the Callaghan Government between 1976 and 1979. Through its action or inaction, Callaghan’s Administration laid the political groundwork acted upon by British governments over the last three decades, in areas ranging from Macroeconomic policy to Devolution. As will be outlined in this study, the influence of experiences gained by both Government and Opposition parties during the Callaghan Administration may be seen even in the formation of Britain’s post-2010 Coalition Government. In the same way that the indecisive nature of the result in 2010 presented a situation not faced in a generation, the period of non-majority governance from 1976-79 compelled the main parties to adapt to a largely unfamiliar political environment, having become used to single party majority governance. Prior to the short-lived Wilson Minority Government (February-October 1974), Britain had last experienced minority governance more than forty-three years earlier in 1929-31 under Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald. In this respect, the experience of the 1976-79 Government provides perhaps one of the best comparators with the post-2010 Coalition in the UK Parliament. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate two aspects of the Callaghan Government and Opposition that have received less scholarly interest. The first of these aspects is that the two main political parties within Britain showed greater strategic thinking than has previously been appreciated by scholars, and sought to adapt to the different challenges posed by minority government at a national level between 1976 and 1979. The second aspect is that these trends of attempted adaptation were reflective of a distinctively British tradition of minority government, in which the main participants sought primarily to adhere to a majoritarian political system, while contemplating and embracing pragmatic changes. This British tradition of minority government was also Chapter 1 – Introduction 3 reflected in seeking guidance for formulating strategy. Participants and papers on the subject in both main parties referenced Britain’s own historic experience with minority administrations, rather than those more recently occurring in other countries. In addition to a rereading of late 1970s British politics, charting of the development of political strategy will provide: an insight into how parties adapt to new political circumstances; a greater understanding of the challenges facing future minority and coalition governments and how these may be confronted; and a framework for evaluating strategic developments of other minority, majority and coalition governments in Britain and internationally. In spite of the many historical experiences of minority government, this area of research has been largely under-explored, particularly in Britain, with only a handful of recent works providing a corrective to this omission, domestic and international minority government scholarship being discussed below. Even in terms of a general overview, within a broader international context, minority government as a concept and practice has not been as widely studied as that of coalition government. Some other countries’ experiences of minority government, primarily confined to article-length case-studies or subsumed into larger works, have also begun to be subject to more detailed examination.1 Full monograph studies of the subject of minority government in its own right have only more recently been produced in certain cases, such as Russell’s Two Cheers for Minority Government, which examines Canada’s historic experience with minority administrations, or Nikolenyi’s The Puzzle of Elusive Majorities, which charts minority governments in India.2 It is only more recently that this field has begun to garner greater scholarly attention in countries facing fresh experiences with minority administrations, in some cases for the first time ever at a national level. It is clear that minority government will be an increasingly prominent feature of national politics in democracies across the world in the years ahead. Continued trends of declining membership