No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The Conservative Research Department: the Care and Feeding of Future British Political Elites
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2014
Extract
One of the distinctive characteristics of the Conservative Party's history has been its ability for a century or more to moult its plumage at the right political season without really altering its gestalt. This comment does not imply an act of deception by Conservative Party leaders. Rather it recognizes that Peel, Pitt, Disraeli and, in the twentieth century, Tory leaders like R. A. Butler, Harold Macmillan, Iain Macleod and before them, Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill, somehow understood the need for social change and the politics of compromise; so much so that they were quite prepared, in the words of New York's Mayor Jimmy Walker, “to rise above principle” where and when it appeared to be necessary. The Conservative Party has endured as a party because of its unusual adaptability compared to conservative parties in other Western societies. Indeed, it has more than merely ‘endured’: the Conservative Party in an apparently hostile atmosphere, has been able to take and hold power for huge blocks of time in the past century.
This adaptation to reality in the interests of power was particularly apparent after the landslide Conservative defeat in July 1945. Some party leaders were determined to adapt to the new realities by attempting to recapture the support of as sizeable a segment of the British working class as the party had enjoyed at the turn of the century. Promulgation of the Industrial Charter through the efforts of a high-powered Tory Committee and the Conservative Research Department was a significant step in that direction.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1974
References
1. It would be interesting to compare during the same 1945–51 period the Conservative Party and the Republican Party in the United States. At almost the same time that the Tories were adopting and publicizing their Industrial Charter endorsing British trade unionism, the G.O.P. and its allies were successfully legislating the Taft-Hartley Law. While the Tories went on to electoral victory four years later, Governor Thomas E. Dewey was defeated in 1948, a defeat which Business Week in an election postmortem said was due, in large part, to passage of the Taft-Hartley Law. (Business Week, Nov. 6, 1948, p. 15Google Scholar).
2. On Dec. 10, 1947, Lord Woolton, then Party Organization chairman, sent this memorandum to the Conservative Party's Research Department: “A question has arisen to my mind that I have not been able to answer. It is, what convincing argument can we put to the miners for voting for the Conservative candidate? Second, I would like to find out what is the psychological factor that determines the miner's vote for, in the end, I think, it is a psychological one and not an economic one. I would like an investigation to be made into these questions, and a report presented. I am quite prepared for us to spend some money in order to obtain the information.” CRD file A/1/1. Apparently, by 28 Feb. 1974, the conservative leadership had still not found a convincing campaign argument for the coal-miners.
3. Macleod, Iain, Neville Chamberlain (London, 1961), pp. 14, 162Google Scholar.
4. Rose, Richard and Urwin, Derek, “Social Cohesion, Political Parties and Strains in Regimes”, Comparative Political Studies 2 (1969), pp. 27–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5. National Union of Conservative and Unionist Assns., Committee on Party Organisation, Interim and Final Report of the Committee on Party Organisation [Maxwell Fyfe Report] (London, 1949)Google Scholar. Also, Ranney, Austin, Pathways to Parliament (Madison, Wisconsin, 1965), pp. 51 ff, for a summary of Maxwell Fyfe reformsGoogle Scholar.
6. Butler, David E. and Stokes, Donald, Political Change in Britain (London, 1969), p. 108Google Scholar.
7. Holsti, Ole, “The ‘Operational Code’ Approach to the Study of Political Leaders,’ Canadian Journal of Political Science, III (1970), 153Google Scholar.
8. Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab argue that the “traditional collectivity orientation of socialism and the welfare state is linked to that noblesse oblige concept of the leadership role or responsibility of aristocracy,” Such welfare objectives were not regarded by the aristocracy as designed “to facilitate upward social mobility, to break down class barriers.” Disraeli and Bismarck could approve of definably socialist objectives because the values of the old dominant classes could be preserved and at the same time facilitate the transition to the welfare and even social democratic state. The Politics of Unreason (New York, 1970), p. 27Google Scholar.
9. Crosland, C. A. R., “The Future of the Left,” Encounter, p. 8Google Scholar. One of the early influences on Churchill was Seebohm Rowntree's book, Poverty: A Study of Town Life. In Churchill, Randolph S., Winston S. Churchill, Vol. II, Young Statesman, 1901–1914 (Boston, 1967), pp. 29–30Google Scholar.
10. Abrams, Mark, “Public Opinion Polls and Political Parties,” Public Opinion Quarterly, XXVII (1963), 12Google Scholar.
11. Fairlie, Henry, “Tories Turning Left,” Encounter, Sept., 1962, p. 68Google Scholar.
12. [National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations], The Industrial Charter (London, 1947)Google Scholar.
13. Quoted in Stretton, Hugh, The Political Sciences (New York, 1969), p. 68Google Scholar.
14. King, Anthony, The British Prime Minister (London, 1969), p. xivGoogle Scholar. For broad criticisms on British social science research, also see his British Politics (Boston, 1966), p. viiiGoogle Scholar; Butler, David, Study of Political Behaviour (London, 1958), p. 104Google Scholar; Williams, Shirley, Times Literary Supplement, Dec. 15, 1972, p. 1523Google Scholar.
15. Edinger, Lewis J. and Searing, Donald D., “Social Background in Elite Analysis,” American Political Science Review, LXI (1967), 444Google Scholar.
16. “There is no appointment of a Deputy Prime Minister, but in Mr. [Edward] Heath's absence Mr. [Reginald] Maudling will take charge.” British Record, June 25, 1970, p. 2Google Scholar. Maudling was home secretary until July 1972.
17. Davidson, J. C. C., Memoirs of a Conservative, ed. James, Robert Rhodes (London, 1969), p. 275Google Scholar.
18. “The Conservative Research Department and Conservative Recovery after 1945.” (London, August 1961), pt. 2, p. 2Google Scholar. Fraser was CRD Director when he prepared this document. Chamberlain is listed as first chairman in Butler, David E. and Freeman, Jennie (eds.), British Political Facts, 1900–1967 (2nd ed.; London, 1968), p. 100Google Scholar.
19. Percy, Eustace, baron Percy of Newcastle, Some Memories (London, 1969), p. 486Google Scholar.
20 Middlemas, Keith and Barnes, John, Baldwin (London, 1969), p. 486Google Scholar.
21. Personal communication, July 2, 1970, reproduced by permission of Robert Rhodes James.
22. Blake, Robert, “Tories in Opposition,” Spectator, March 15, 1968, p. 327Google Scholar.
23. “Tory Achates,” Spectator, Sept. 13, 1969, p. 335Google Scholar. Also, Blake, Robert, The Conservative Party from Peel to Churchill (London, 1970), p. 232Google Scholar. Perhaps the dislike between Chamberlain and Davidson explains a good deal about the discrepancies in what are presumably accurate accounts of CRD's origins. Chamberlain, it is known, sought Davidson's removal as party chairman. Feiling, Keith, Life of Neville Chamberlain (London, 1946), p. 177Google Scholar. Whitehead, Alfred once warned against taking “the official documents of an epoch at their full value [while ignoring] the emotional atmosphere which activated its people.” Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead, as Recorded by Lucien Price (Boston, 1954), p. 278Google Scholar.
24. A full list of bibliographical references would be too space-consuming. However, Chamberlain's contemporaries who credit him in their published memoirs with founding CRD include: L. S. Amery, Lord Pakenham, Earl Swinton, Harold Macmillan, R. A. Butler. Scholars include: Samuel Beer, John Selim Saloma III, J. D. Hoffman, Francis Boyd. Others include: Ronald Butt, The Economist, Lord Egremont, Ralph Harris, Iain Macleod.
25. Macleod, , Neville Chamberlain, pp. 134, 163Google Scholar. Chamberlain himself realized the importance of CRD to his ambitions; writing in a letter March 22, 1930: “Through my new department I shall have my finger on the springs of policy.” Feiling, , Neville Chamberlain, p. 177Google Scholar. In his memoirs, Lord Butler says that CRD “was used as Neville Chamberlain's private brains trust.” Butler, R. A., The Art of the Possible (London, 1971), p. 143Google Scholar.
26. Other secretariat members included: Pembroke Wicks, Lord Crawford and Balacarres, Lord Scarborough, Robert Boothby, Geoffrey Lloyd and J. F. Green, Geoffrey Fry. Middlemas, and Barnes, , Baldwin, p. 206Google Scholar; Davidson, , Memoirs, p. 74Google Scholar; Jones, Thomas, Whitehall Diary, ed. Middlemas, Keith (London, 1969), I, 276Google Scholar.
27. Even during World War II when the staff was released for war work and after Chamberlain's death in 1940 (he remained CRD chairman even after his fall), CRD was kept alive with a chairman, Sir Kingsley Wood, to maintain its continuity. Fraser, , “Conservative Research Department”, pt. 2, p. 4Google Scholar.
28. Times, July 12, 1961, p. 19Google Scholar. The Times says that founding of the CRD in 1929 “may be fairly regarded as the turning point in the history of the party…. It was on the foundation of this machinery that the Conservative Party's reputation for high quality research in the postwar years has been built.”
29. Page, Bruce, Leitch, David and Knightley, Philip, Philby, (rev. ed.; Harmondsworth, Eng., 1969), p. 88Google Scholar; Davidson, , Memoirs, pp. 271, 272, 341Google Scholar.
30. Page, , Leitch, , Knightley, , Philby, pp. 88, 95Google Scholar.
31. Chester, Lewis, Fay, Stephen and Young, Hugo, The Zinoviev Letter (London, 1967), p. 162Google Scholar; Davidson, , Memoirs, p. 203Google Scholar. Robert Rhodes James writes that “Davidson had no illusions about Ball” and elsewhere that “Davidson secured a notable coup when he persuaded Joseph Ball … to leave the Secret Service … and to come to Central Office….“ No explanation of these cryptic judgments are offered. On p. 272, Davidson says he and Ball “ran a little intelligence service of our own, quite separate from the Party organisation.” Among the achievements of this “service” were to place “agents actually in the Labour Party headquarters, with the result that we got their reports on political feeling in the country as well as our own.” They arranged with the Odhams Press to get proofs of all Labour Party leaflets and pamphlets “before they had reached Transport House.” The “agent” was a printer employed by Odhams. Shades of Watergate!
32. CRD file, C/2/2/17, C/3/b/1.
33. CRD file, C/3/b/1 CRD CPC.
34. Personal interview, Jan. 20, 1970.
35. Henry Brooke (now Lord Brooke of Cumnor), an early CRD alumnus and later Home Secretary, said that Ball was picked by Chamberlain and that Ball was “the sole real contact with Chamberlain at CRD.” Personal interview, June 10, 1969.
36. Macleod, , Neville Chamberlain, pp. 217–20Google Scholar. Amery, L. S., My Political Life, III, 231Google Scholar; Page, , Leitch, , Knightley, , Philby, pp. 98–99Google Scholar; Ciano's Diplomatic Papers, ed. Muggeridge, Malcom (London, 1948), pp. 164–66Google Scholar.
37. Ian Colvin writes that “after much hesitation on the question of writing memoirs, Sir Joseph burned a large part of his papers shortly before his death.” Colvin, Ian, The Chamberlain Cabinet, (London, 1971), p. 265Google Scholar. When one realizes that almost all Britons are compulsive memoirists, diarists and autobiographers, it must have been a tremendous inner decision (and outside pressures?) for Ball to have incinerated the record of his life.
38. Cohen, Percy, “Disraeli's Child” (Typescript in Conservative Research Department Library, copyrighted by CRD in 1964) pp. 575–76Google Scholar. Cohen, now retired, was CRD codirector, 1948–59.
39. Feiling, , Neville Chamberlain, pp. 182, 201–02, 229, 233Google Scholar.
40. In 1965, Butler was made a peer and appointed master of Trinity College, Cambridge. The author of a semi-authorized biography of Edward Heath says that Butler “was removed” by Heath “from the party office he prized above all: the chairmanship of the Research Department.” Hutchinson, George, Edward Heath (Harlow, Eng., 1970), p. 132Google Scholar. On the face of it, the statement seems incorrect. Butler left the chairmanship of CRD in October 1964, nine months before Heath became Leader of the Party, in July 1965. Butler left the CRD after the 1964 election while Sir Alec Douglas-Home was Leader of the Party.
41. Cohen, , “Disraeli's Child,” p. 576Google Scholar.
42. Gilbert, Bentley B., British Social Policy, 1914–1939 (London, 1970), p. 196Google Scholar; Calder, Angus, The People's War (London, 1969), p. 137Google Scholar; Macmillan, Harold, Tides of Fortune, 1945–1955 (London, 1969), p. 32Google Scholar; Hogg, Quintin, Daily Mail, July 30, 1945Google Scholar.
43. This demand which had its origins before the war accelerated after the war. Guttsman, W. L., British Political Elite (New York, 1964), p. 32Google Scholar.
44. McCallum, R. B. and Readman, Alison, The British General Election of 1945 (London, 1947), p. 24Google Scholar.
45. Lord Balfour once said that “the great Unionist party should still control, whether in power or whether in opposition, the destinies of this great Empire.” Quoted in Blake, Robert, The Conservative Party, p. 190Google Scholar. Kingsley Martin cites another Balfourism: “Whatever party is in office, the Conservatives are always in power.” Martin, Kingsley, The Crown and the Establishment (Harmondsworth, Eng., 1965), p. 88Google Scholar.
46. “With defeats and retirements, some 60 per cent of the pre-election parry was no longer present when the new Commons assembled.” Harris, Nigel, Competition and the Corporate State (London, 1972), p. 61Google Scholar.
47. Personal interview, April 15, 1969.
48. “The British General Election”, Commentary, Nov., 1945, p. 68Google Scholar. Emphasis in original.
49. Fairlie, Henry, “Labour, Loyalty and the Left”, Encounter, Dec., 1960, p. 61Google Scholar.
50. Christopher Hollis put it well: “Would anybody in 1945 … have prophesied that in the next decade the Conservatives would win three elections running, each one with an increased majority and would enjoy a decade of office very largely devoted to carrying out those measures which ten years before it had denounced as socialistic when they were introduced by its opponents?” “The Conservative Party in History,” Political Quarterly, XXXII (1961), 215Google Scholar. Of the twenty-nine years since 1945, the Tories have been in power seventeen years, Labor, twelve.
51. Discussions about Conservative “ideology,” an exercise comparable to bottling steam, are to be found in Marquand, David, “Myths about Ideology,” Encounter, Feb., 1966, p. 72Google Scholar; Saloma, John Selim III, “British Conservatism and the Welfare State” (Ph.D., dissertation, Harvard University, 1961), p. 508Google Scholar; James, Robert Rhodes, Ambitions and Realities (London, 1972), p. 9Google Scholar; Glickman, Harvey, “The Toryness of English Conservatism,” Journal of British Studies, I (Nov., 1961), 111CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Epstein, Leon D., “Politics of British Conservatism,” American Political Science Review, XLVIII (1954)Google Scholar.
52. “Mr. Wilson's Leadership,” Political Quarterly, XLII (1971), 358Google Scholar. On the other hand, Nigel Harris writes: “It was precisely the party's lack of ‘principle,’ lack of coherent political philosophy, which — in conditions of relative stability — safeguarded its survival.” Harris, , Competition and the Corporate State, p. 258Google Scholar. For a distinction between Tory “policy” and Labor “programme,” see Bulmer-Thomas, Ivor, “How Conservative Policy is Formed,” Political Quarterly, XXIV (1953), 191–92Google Scholar.
53. Karl Mannheim once said: “There are constellations in history in which certain possibilities have their chance and if they are missed the opportunity may well be gone forever. Just as the revolutionary waits for his hour, the reformer whose concern it is to remold society must seize this passing chance.” Mannheim, Karl, Diagnosis of our Times (New York, 1944), p. viiiGoogle Scholar.
54. Personal interview, Jan. 20, 1970. Butler is here using the word “ideology” in a colloquial sense.
55. Butler, , Art of the Possible, p. 134Google Scholar.
56. Churchill, Winston, Life of Lord Randolph Churchill (London, 1952), p. 214Google Scholar.
57. Boyd, Francis, Richard Austen Butler (London, 1956), p. 92Google Scholar.
58. Lord Butler told me on several occasions that a large influence on his social and industrial philosophy came from his then father-in-law, the late Samuel Courtauld, the textile magnate, who preached a “humanized capitalism.” Butler's references to Courtauld would indicate a hitherto little-known influence on the Conservative revival. Courtauld, Samuel, Ideals and Industry (Cambridge, Eng., 1949), pp. 2, 3, 5, 9, 12, 37, 66–68Google Scholar. Butler quotes the phrase “humanized capitalism” in his book, Art of the Possible, p. 134. According to a biographical note in the Courtauld volume, John Maynard Keynes asked the industrialist if he could reprint Courtauld's statement to the Tory Post-war Problems Central Committee. It was reprinted as “An Industrialist's Reflections on the Future Relations of Government and Industry,” Economic Journal, LII (1942), 1–47Google Scholar. Butler was a transitional CRD figure since Chamberlain, on becoming prime minister in 1937, handed over party research to Butler, then parliamentary secretary to the Ministry of Labor. Feiling, , Neville Chamberlain, p. 306Google Scholar; Harris, Ralph, Politics Without Prejudice (London, 1956), p. 94Google Scholar.
59. Saloma, , “British Conservatism,” p. 288Google Scholar.
60. Hansard, , Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th ser., 406 (1944), 35Google Scholar.
61. Macmillan, , Tides of Fortune, pp. 33, 45Google Scholar.
62. Beer, Samuel H., British Politics in the Collectivist Age (New York, 1965), p. 313Google Scholar.
63. Personal interview, June 11, 1969.
64. Ibid.
65. Personal interview, June 20, 1969.
66. Butler, , Art of the Possible, p. 145Google Scholar. After much debate at the party's annual conference, there were only three votes against out of the 4000 delegates in attendance. Ibid.. p. 148.
67. Barker, Anthony and Rush, Michael, The Member of Parliament and His Information (London, 1970), p. 250Google Scholar. Sir Michael Fraser said in an interview: “At CRD, it's a permanent assignment to push ideas to the leader or when he's prime minister.”
68. Pringle, John Douglas, “The British Commune”, Encounter, Feb., 1961, pp. 27–28Google Scholar.
69. The phrase is that of Converse, Philip, “Of Time and Partisan Stability,” Comparative Political Studies, II (1969), 145Google Scholar.
70. Among CRD graduates in government were or are: Iain Macleod, Reginald Maudling, Enoch Powell, Heniy Hopkinson, Lord Balniel, Henry Brooke, Paul Dean, Keith Speed, Gordon Campbell, Sir Richard Sharpies, Michael Alison, and others. In the 1974 election, ten current or former members of CRD won seats in parliament.
71. In Sampson, Anthony, Anatomy of Britain (London, 1962), p. 227Google Scholar. Bagehot was a critic of the civil service: “A public department is very apt to be dead to what is wanting for a great occasion till the occasion is past. The vague public mind will appreciate some signal duty before the precise, occupied administration perceives it.” The English Constitution (Ithaca, N.Y., 1971), p. 200Google Scholar.
72. See Gaitskell, Hugh, in Shonfield, Andrew, “The Pragmatic Illusion,” Encounter, June 1967, p. 4Google Scholar; Laski, Harold J., Democracy in Crisis (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1935), pp. 101–02Google Scholar; Verney, Douglas V., British Government and Politics, (2nd ed.; New York, 1966), pp. 88–97Google Scholar. Angus Maude, Tory intellectual and M.P., has written: “The great Government departments do undoubtedly represent a powerful interest in opposition to necessary change…. The machine itself is basically designed to run the country as it was rather than as it will be.” The Common Problem (London, 1969), pp. 238–39Google Scholar.
73. Observer reported after the 1970 election that CRD, as well as senior civil servants “have been preparing plans for the new allocation of Ministerial functions in Whitehall.” Observer, June 21, 1970.
74. Times, Oct. 9, 1972. Brendon Sewill, CRD director, left after the 1970 election to become special adviser and speech-writer for Anthony Barber, the chancellor of the exchequer. He was brought over to the Treasury “to the manifest distress of the senior officials.” Watkins, Alan, “Ted's Man at the Treasury,” New Statesman, April 2, 1971, p. 455Google Scholar.
75. Butler, David E. and Pinto-Duschinsky, Michael, The British General Election of 1970 (London, 1971), pp. 49–50Google Scholar. For text of the Labor Party Research Department statement, see, Fulton Committee on the Civil Service: Labour Party Evidence (London, 1967), pp. 4, 7–9Google Scholar. A former LPRD director, Peter Shore, an M.P. and present Minister, has written that “Ministers are largely, if not wholly, dependent on their official advisers.” Entitled to Know (London, 1966), p. 153Google Scholar. It is not clear whether or not Shore excepts himself from this judgment.
76. Butler, and Pinto-Duschinsky, , British General Election, p. 49Google Scholar. At a July 1973 meeting of NEC, Pitt seems to have been lined up against Ron Hayward, the party's general secretary. A party restructuring plan proposed by “an organization and methods firm” would have made Pitt “overlord of the research, information and international departments (and thus probably the most powerful official in the party).” The plan was scrapped. Economist, Aug. 4, 1973, pp. 22–23Google Scholar.
77. For a more detailed examination of CRD and LPRD, see Beichman, Arnold, “The Conservative Research Department: How an Elite sub-system within the Conservative Party participates in the policy-making process” (Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1973), Chapter 13Google Scholar.
78. For a summary of the thesis, see McKenzie, Robert T., British Political Parties, (2nd ed.; New York, 1964), pp. 636, 639Google Scholar.
79. Anthony King is one of the few British political scientists to have noted CRD's influence within the party. “How the Conservatives Evolve Policies,” New Society, July 20, 1972, pp. 122–24Google Scholar. Not one to put all his eggs in one basket, Heath in 1972 created a Central Policy Review Board. It is headed by Victor, third Baron Rothschild, as “the head of a so called Think Tank which Mr. Heath introduced into our system of Cabinet government as an aid to better top-level decision-making.” See “Thinking About the Think Tank,” The Listener Dec. 28, 1972, pp. 880–81Google Scholar.