{"title":"哈罗德·威尔逊,《塞尔斯顿人》,以及20世纪70年代英国对社会民主的捍卫","authors":"Peter Sloman","doi":"10.1093/tcbh/hwab028","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Harold Wilson's attack on 'Selsdon Man' in the run-up to the 1970 general election has generally been seen as a flawed rhetorical gambit, which inadvertently gave coherence to Edward Heath's policies. The subsequent invocation of 'Selsdon' by critics of Heath's 'u-turns' has meant that the episode has mainly attracted scrutiny from historians of the Conservative Party. Yet the debate over Selsdon can also be seen as a landmark in Wilson's transition from the 'modernizing' politics of the 1960s to a more defensive posture, in which he presented Labour as a bulwark against regressive market-liberal policies. This article explores Wilson's critique of the 'new Conservatism' and argues that the themes which he established in 1970 played an important role in framing Labour's opposition to the Heath government during the subsequent Parliament. In particular, his focus on the distributional effects of Tory policies dovetailed with an emerging body of social science research on income and wealth and so contributed to a 'rediscovery of inequality'. In the turbulent economic climate of the mid-1970s, however, Labour's efforts to protect working-class households from the effects of market pricing proved difficult to sustain in office. The rise and fall of this politics of 'decommodification' has important implications for our understanding of the changing fortunes of British social democracy.</p>","PeriodicalId":46051,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth Century British History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2022-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Harold Wilson, 'Selsdon Man', and the defence of social democracy in 1970s Britain.\",\"authors\":\"Peter Sloman\",\"doi\":\"10.1093/tcbh/hwab028\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<p><p>Harold Wilson's attack on 'Selsdon Man' in the run-up to the 1970 general election has generally been seen as a flawed rhetorical gambit, which inadvertently gave coherence to Edward Heath's policies. The subsequent invocation of 'Selsdon' by critics of Heath's 'u-turns' has meant that the episode has mainly attracted scrutiny from historians of the Conservative Party. Yet the debate over Selsdon can also be seen as a landmark in Wilson's transition from the 'modernizing' politics of the 1960s to a more defensive posture, in which he presented Labour as a bulwark against regressive market-liberal policies. This article explores Wilson's critique of the 'new Conservatism' and argues that the themes which he established in 1970 played an important role in framing Labour's opposition to the Heath government during the subsequent Parliament. In particular, his focus on the distributional effects of Tory policies dovetailed with an emerging body of social science research on income and wealth and so contributed to a 'rediscovery of inequality'. In the turbulent economic climate of the mid-1970s, however, Labour's efforts to protect working-class households from the effects of market pricing proved difficult to sustain in office. The rise and fall of this politics of 'decommodification' has important implications for our understanding of the changing fortunes of British social democracy.</p>\",\"PeriodicalId\":46051,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Twentieth Century British History\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":1.1000,\"publicationDate\":\"2022-02-28\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Twentieth Century British History\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwab028\",\"RegionNum\":1,\"RegionCategory\":\"历史学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q1\",\"JCRName\":\"HISTORY\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Twentieth Century British History","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwab028","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"HISTORY","Score":null,"Total":0}
Harold Wilson, 'Selsdon Man', and the defence of social democracy in 1970s Britain.
Harold Wilson's attack on 'Selsdon Man' in the run-up to the 1970 general election has generally been seen as a flawed rhetorical gambit, which inadvertently gave coherence to Edward Heath's policies. The subsequent invocation of 'Selsdon' by critics of Heath's 'u-turns' has meant that the episode has mainly attracted scrutiny from historians of the Conservative Party. Yet the debate over Selsdon can also be seen as a landmark in Wilson's transition from the 'modernizing' politics of the 1960s to a more defensive posture, in which he presented Labour as a bulwark against regressive market-liberal policies. This article explores Wilson's critique of the 'new Conservatism' and argues that the themes which he established in 1970 played an important role in framing Labour's opposition to the Heath government during the subsequent Parliament. In particular, his focus on the distributional effects of Tory policies dovetailed with an emerging body of social science research on income and wealth and so contributed to a 'rediscovery of inequality'. In the turbulent economic climate of the mid-1970s, however, Labour's efforts to protect working-class households from the effects of market pricing proved difficult to sustain in office. The rise and fall of this politics of 'decommodification' has important implications for our understanding of the changing fortunes of British social democracy.
期刊介绍:
Twentieth Century British History covers the variety of British history in the twentieth century in all its aspects. It links the many different and specialized branches of historical scholarship with work in political science and related disciplines. The journal seeks to transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries, in order to foster the study of patterns of change and continuity across the twentieth century. The editors are committed to publishing work that examines the British experience within a comparative context, whether European or Anglo-American.