THE POLITICAL ROLLERCOASTER | IN FOCUS


prices led to the Winter of Discontent and the collapse of Jim Callaghan’s Labour government.


THE VOICE OF BUSINESS TO GOVERNMENTS OVER THE YEARS


THE POLITICAL ROLLERCOASTER


THE RIGHT TO MANAGE The 1979 victory for the Conservatives led by Margaret Thatcher was as seismic an event for business as it was for the country as a whole. The new administration came in with a zeal to foster entrepreneurship and roll back the state, and a determination to conquer inflation. While businesses welcomed the former they initially were taken aback by the impact of the anti-inflationary drive. The Conservatives stood firm in the face


The five decades since the founding of the CBI have seen eight Prime Ministers and no fewer than 12 Chancellors of the Exchequer. For most of that period power passed between the Labour and Conservative parties but the 2010 Coalition government heralded a new era in politics.


It was Harold Wilson, the Prime Minister at the time of the foundation of the CBI in 1965, who famously said that a week is a long time in politics. It is perhaps this distinction between the short- term outlook among politicians and the longer term taken by business owners and managers that reveals why the two do not always see eye-to-eye. There have been nine governments and 13 parliaments over the last five decades, of which seven have been Labour, five Conservative and one coalition – the current administration. More astonishing is the fact that 28 ministers have held the cabinet position currently known as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. This frequent change of power has


Opposite and right: The CBI has been the voice of business in Westminster for the past 50 years, informing the likes of Callaghan, Wilson, Thatcher and Heath


meant that business organisations such as the CBI have to work hard to retain a reputation for political neutrality while being able to work effectively with whichever party is in power. Politics and politicians may have changed but the CBI has always strived to maintain good links with government and opposition parties. A study of the role of the CBI in the British political system from 1965 to 1974 by two academics found that the CBI had good contacts with government thanks to “extensive formal and informal contacts” with ministers and civil servants. Under the governments of Harold Wilson and Edward Heath, the CBI played a major role as one third of the “tripartite” of government, business and trade unions that, between them, took decisions on wages and economic strategy. The twin oil price spike of the 1970s put huge


pressure on both the Conservative administration of Edward Heath – who unsuccessfully fought the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in two disputes that led to the three-day week to conserve energy – and on the Wilson/Callaghan governments that followed. Soaring inflation and demands for massive pay rises by unions in the face of the government’s attempt to curb rising


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of criticism from the CBI as well as from trade unions and Labour, which had been weakened by the exodus of some of its leading figures to found the SDP. This defiance now looks like a defining moment as it heralded an acceptance by business of the free market and entrepreneurial attitude of a government that would soon start limiting the powers of trade unions, and selling off nationalised industries and council homes in a drive to give both business managers and ordinary people a greater stake in society. “I have given you back the right to manage,” said Mrs Thatcher at a CBI annual dinner. Mrs Thatcher’s decision to take on and


defeat the NUM in the 1984 miners’ strike proved a decisive moment in the struggle between government and business and the more militant trade unions. It heralded the rolling back of union »


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