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Conservative City Machines: The End of an Era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

David J. Wilson  and
Michaèl Pinto-Duschinsky
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Extract

Local Conservative associations have traditionally run their affairs independently and have successfully resisted interference from Central Office. Far from constituting a ‘centralized machine’ (as authors such as McKenzie, Beer and Crossman have maintained) the main feature of Conservative organization has been its decentralized, voluntary character. Nowhere has resistance to control by the party headquarters been more determined than in the major provincial cities. Here, confederations of city constituency associations, financed mainly by local business interests, have virtually excluded the Central Office area agents from participating in constituency organization. Attempts by successive national party chairmen to bring the city associations into the Central Office orbit have regularly been rebuffed. Consequently, Central Office's recent success in integrating the city associations into its area office organization marks the end of an era. It raises the question of whether the Conservative organization is at last becoming as centralized as many commentators have long supposed it to be. This note describes recent developments and assesses their significance.

Type
Notes and Comments
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , April 1976 , pp. 239 - 244
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

1 See Pinto-Duschinsky, Michael, ‘Central Office and “Power” in the Conservative Party’, Political Studies, xx (1972), 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 See McKenzie, Robert T., British Political Parties, 2nd edn. (London: Heinemann, 1963)Google Scholar; Beer, Samuel H., Modern British Parties (London: Faber, 1965)Google Scholar; and Crossman, Richard H. S.'s ‘Introduction’ to Walter Bagehot's, The English Constitution (London: Fontana, 1963).Google Scholar

3 For background information and further detail see Wilson, David J., Power and Party Bureaucracy in Britain (London: Saxon House, 1975), especially Chap. 6.Google Scholar

4 The Selwyn Lloyd Report (London: Conservative Central Office, 1963), p. 9.Google Scholar

5 Trethowan, Ian, ‘Brooke's Answer to Tory Provincial Decay’, The Times, 29 07 1967.Google Scholar

6 Circular letter from Edward du Cann to constituency chairmen, December 1966.

7 Trethowan, , ‘Brooke's Answer’. This article was an official leak of the Brooke Report, which was not published. See also ‘The Cities Enquiry’, Conservative Agents Journal, 09 1967.Google Scholar

8 Nicholas, H. G., The British General Election of 1950 (London: Macmillan, 1951), pp. 25–6Google Scholar. See also Butler, David E. and Pinto-Duschinsky, Michael, The British General Election of 1970 (London: Macmillan, 1971), pp. 285–6.Google Scholar

9 Howard, Anthony, ‘Cook County U.K.’, New Statesman, 31 07 1964, p. 138.Google Scholar

10 McKenzie, , British Political Parties, p. 291.Google Scholar

11 See Ranney, Austin, Pathways to Parliament (London: Macmillan. 1965)Google Scholar; Rush, Michael. The Selection of Parliamentary Candidates (London: Nelson, 1969)Google Scholar; and Pinto-Duschinsky, , ‘Central Office and “Power” in the Conservative Party’.Google Scholar