This book explores the long-term relationship between the Conservative Party, trade unions, and the organised working class. It focuses on the question of why the Conservative Party for much of its history sought to accommodate the unions and why in the 1970s and 1980s it adopted a policy of excluding the unions.

Introduction1 A strong taste for the despotism of numbers?2 Peace and good will?3 We shall get their help4 War, conservatism and union power5 Milk and water socialism?6 The smack of firm government?7 Confronting the British disease?8 The enemy withinConclusionsBibliographyIndex

The relationship between the Conservative Party and the organised working class is fundamental to the making of modern British politics. Industrialisation and urbanisation saw the emergence of democracy and class politics, symbolised, by the development of trade unions, which assumed growing political significance. The organised working class, though always a minority, was perceived by Conservatives as a challenge; condemned as threatening property, and as harbingers of socialism. Many trade union members dismissed the Conservatives as the bosses’ party, ever-ready to restrict the unions’ freedom in the interests of profit.However, at the book’s core is a puzzle: why, throughout its history, was the Conservative Party seemingly accommodating towards the organised working class that it ideology, social composition, and the preferences of most Conservatives would seem to permit? And why, in the space of a relatively few years in the 1970s and 1980s, did it abandon this heritage? In addressing this puzzle the book argues that throughout its history the Conservative Party has faced a broad strategic choice with respect to the organised working class of either exclusion or inclusion. For much of its history party leaders calculated, despite scepticism and even downright hostility from the party, they had more to gain from inclusion but, notwithstanding, the organised working class was always regarded with suspicion.Currently, the concept of the organised working class plays no role in Conservative politics. The organised working class have been marginalised to a degree that not so very long ago would have been thought inconceivable.