This text systematically traces the development of the British Conservative government's policy to the European Exchange Rate Mechanism from 1979 to 1994. The book provides information and insight into the development of ERM policy, which led to the downfall and discredit of the Conservative leadership. Revealing dramatic episodes in the progress of the policy, including a full account of the deterioration in the relationship between Margaret Thatcher and Nigel Lawson, the author shows how the Thatcher government was torn apart, and the credibility of the Major government undermined.

First published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Conservative Party has been a dominant force in postwar British politics. This book explores the 50 years from Winston Churchill's defeat in 1945 to the long tenure of Margaret Thatcher, then John Major. Themes and events of the period are brought vividly to life through the views and reactions of those involved.

This book provides a novel account of the Labour Party’s years in opposition and power since 1979, examining how New Labour fought to reinvent post-war social democracy, reshaping its core political ideas. It charts Labour’s sporadic recovery from political disaster in the 1980s, successfully making the arduous journey from opposition to power with the rise (and ultimately fall) of the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Forty years on from the 1979 debacle, Labour has found itself on the edge of oblivion once again. Defeated in 2010, it entered a further cycle of degeneration and decline. Like social democratic parties across Europe, Labour failed to identify a fresh ideological rationale in the aftermath of the great financial crisis. Drawing on a wealth of sources including interviews and unpublished papers, the book focuses on decisive points of transformational change in the party’s development raising a perennial concern of present-day debate – namely whether Labour is a party capable of transforming the ideological weather, shaping a new paradigm in British politics, or whether it is a party that should be content to govern within parameters established by its Conservative opponents. This text will be of interest to the general reader as well as scholars and students of British politics, British political party history, and the history of the British Labour Party since 1918.

The first systematic analysis of why Britain and France parted company on the issue of European monetary integration. Ikemoto reveals that Britain was much keener to participate in the early stages of monetary integration than previously thought; Britain and France pursued broadly similar policies on the issue until the end of the 1970s.

For over a century the Conservative Party has been identified as the patriotic party defending the nation state and British identity. Thatcherism sought to rework the Conservative politics of nationhood in the light of changed circumstances, but the Thatcher and Major Governments faced significant problems managing the Union, European integration and a multicultural society. Philip Lynch examines the key developments and statecraft problems in the conservative politics of nationhood during the Thatcher and Major period.

How has the New Right, globalization and Europeanization changed the nature of the British state?