The Political Geography of Contemporary Britain The Political Geography of Contemporary Britain Edited by John Mohan Queen Mary College, London M MACMILLAN Selection, editorial matter and introduction© John Mohan 1989 Individual chapters (in order) © Andrew Gamble, Peter J. Taylor, James Anderson, R. J. Johnston and C. J. Pattie, Mark Goodwin and Simon Duncan, Ron Martin, Ray Hudson, Doreen Massey and Joe Painter, Susan J. Smith, Linda McDowell, John Whitelegg, Chris Hamnett, John Mohan, Nicholas R. Fyfe, Philip Lowe and Andrew Flynn 1989 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended), or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 33-4 Alfred Place, London WCIE 7DP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1989 Published by MACMILLAN EDUCATION LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world Typeset by Latimer Trend & Company Ltd, Plymouth British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data The Political geography of contemporary Britain I. Great Britain. Politics. Geographical aspects I. Mohan, John 320.1 '2'0941 ISBN 978-0-333-47023-7 ISBN 978-1-349-20199-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-20199-0 Contents List of Figures vii List of Tables 1x Introduction Xl Acknowledgements xvn Thatcherism and the New Politics ANDREW GAMBLE 2 Britain's Changing Role in the World-Economy 18 PETER J. TAYLOR 3 Nationalisms in a Disunited Kingdom 35 JAMES ANDERSON 4 The Changing Electoral Geography of Great Britain 51 R. J. JOHNSTON AND C. J. PATTIE 5 The Crisis of Local Government: Uneven Development and the Thatcher Administrations 69 MARK GOODWIN AND SIMON DUNCAN 6 Deindustrialisation and State Intervention: Keynesianism, Thatcherism and the Regions 87 RON MARTIN 7 Rewriting History and Reshaping Geography: the Nationalised Industries and the Political Economy of Thatcherism 113 RAY HUDSON 8 The Changing Geography of Trade Unions 130 DOREEN MASSEY AND JOE PAINTER 9 The Politics of 'Race' and a New Segregationism 151 SUSAN J. SMITH 10 Women in Thatcher's Britain 172 LINDA McDOWELL 11 Transport Policy: Off the Rails? 187 JOHN WHITELEGG v VI Contents 12 The Political Geography of Housing in Contemporary Britain 208 CHRIS HAMNETT 13 Commercialisation and Centralisation: Towards a New Geography of Health Care 224 JOHN MOHAN 14 Policing the Recession 238 NICHOLAS R. FYFE 15 Environmental Politics and Policy in the 1980s 255 PHILIP LOWE AND ANDREW FLYNN Bibliography 280 Notes on Contributors 297 Index 298 List of Figures 6.1 Employment, output and investment in the UK manufacturing sector, 1950-87 103 8.1 NUTGW-change in percentage share of membership, 1951-82 135 8.2 Changing geographical base of NUTGW membership, 1951-82 138 8.3 AEUW membership for England, Wales and Scotland, 1951-82 139 8.4 NALGO-change in percentage share of membership, 1951-82 142 10.1 Percentage distribution of women by occupational grouping, Great Britain, 1986 177 12.1 The regional distribution of new private house building, 1970-85 219 12.2 Regional house prices as a percentage of London's, 1969-87 220 12.3 Ratio of house prices to incomes-Nationwide borrowers, 1975-87 221 14.1 Police forces in England and Wales 240 14.2 The vicious circle of the collapse of consensus policing 250 VII List of Tables 2.1 State hegemony and Kondratieff cycles 21 3.1 Nationalist resurgence in Scotland and Wales: percentage share of the vote in selected UK general elections 43 3.2 Referenda on devolution, 1979 45 4.1 Inter-election changes in the percentage of the electorate voting for each party, 1979-87, by geographical region 58 4.2 Inter-election changes in the percentage of the electorate voting for each party, 1979-87, by functional region 60 4.3 Vote by perceptions of personal economic situation over the last twelve months and aggregated region 64 6.1 The decline of industrial employment, 1966-88 89 6.2 The changing regional impact of deindustrialisation in Britain 91 7.1 Employment in selected industries, 1978-84 114 8.1 Changes in trade union membership, 1974--85 131 8.2 Membership of the twenty largest TUC unions 1985-7 132 8.3 Employment change and union density by industry 141 9.1 Chronology of political and policy developments relating to racial segregation in Britain 156 10.1 Employment trends: Great Britain 1971-86 175 10.2 The gender division of labour in manufacturing and the service sector, 1986 176 ll.l The decline of Britain's railways, 1965-84 190 11.2 British Rail's receipt of government grant aid 191 11.3 Trends in HGV numbers and use 194 ix x List of Tables 11.4 Car ownership and use in Britain 196 11.5 The development of car ownership in Britain 196 11.6 Local authority areas in Britain at the extremes of car ownership rates 197 11.7 Transport expenditures, 1975-84 199 Introduction For some thirty years from 1945 the economic and social geography of Britain was shaped by a broad consensus comprising, among other things, commitments to full employment, Keynesian tech niques of economic management, the welfare state, and a strong regional policy. That consensus has been challenged in the past decade; some challenges have been fundamental, such as the aban donment of any commitment to full employment, while in other policy areas challenges have been partial and less successful (for instance in health care). These changes have had profound effects on the human geography of contemporary Britain and, in order adequately to understand this human geography, an account is necessary of the processes which caused this consensus to break up. The notion of a consensus is, of course, a difficult one: complete bipartisan agreement between political parties never existed, and differences of emphasis and substance have pervaded all policy areas (as Gamble demonstrates). Nor should the influence of the post- 1979 Conservative governments be overestimated, since discon tinuities in policy were apparent before then, while, for some of the avthors in this volume differences between governments of whatever political persuasion have been of minor importance (e.g. Whitelegg, who argues that Conservative and Labour governments have de veloped policies which have served the needs of the car and the motor vehicle industry above all else, or Hudson, for whom profit ability criteria for the nationalised industries are much older than Thatcherism). The authors all attempt to specify both the key discontinuities in policy, to trace the political forces that brought them about, and to separate political changes from secular trends (e.g. Lowe and Flynn, who note that post-1973 awareness of XI