Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-06T05:00:26.390Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“Breaking New Ground”: The National Enterprise Board, Ferranti, and Britain’s Prehistory of Privatization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 July 2019

MARK BILLINGS  and
JOHN WILSON
MARK BILLINGS
Affiliation:
MarkBillings is a senior lecturer in Accounting and Business History. University of Exeter Business School, Streatham Court, Rennes Drive, Exeter, EX4 4PU, United Kingdom; tel: + 44 (0) 1392 722658. E-mail: m.billings@exeter.ac.uk
JOHN WILSON
Affiliation:
JohnWilson is the pro-vice chancellor of the Faculty of Business and Law. Northumbria University Newcastle, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. E-mail: John.f.wilson@northumbria.ac.uk.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Privatization is closely associated with the ideological turn to neoliberalism and regarded as a cornerstone of Britain’s “Thatcherite project.” Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government did not undertake its major privatizations of state-owned businesses until its second term began in 1983. We argue in this article, however, that the 1980 disposal by the National Enterprise Board of its controlling interest in the engineering and electronics company Ferranti offers significant insights into the development of privatization policy and practice, as well as the changing role of the state in British business. This disposal reflected the early caution of some of the Thatcher government’s actions but contributed to fulfillment of an electoral commitment and provided valuable privatization experience in addressing difficult financial, industrial, and political issues.

Type
Article
Information
Enterprise & Society , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , December 2019 , pp. 907 - 938
Copyright
Copyright © The Author 2019. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved. 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

We presented preliminary versions of this article at several conferences: the Association of Business Historians (Newcastle University Business School, 2014; University of Glasgow, 2017), the Economic and Business History Society (University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, 2015), and the Business History Conference Annual Meeting (Portland, Oregon, 2016). We thank participants, especially Armin Grünbacher, Bernard Mees, Andrew Popp, Andrew Russell, Janette Rutterford, Peter Sims, Ray Stokes, Heidi Tworek, and Nicola Tynan for their comments.

References

Bibliography of Works Cited

Benn, Tony. Against the Tide: Diaries, 1973–76. London: Hutchinson, 1989.Google Scholar
Burk, Kathleen. The First Privatisation: The Politicians, The City and the Denationalisation of British Steel. London: Historians’ Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Chandler, Alfred D. Jr. Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Cockett, Richard. Thinking the Unthinkable: Think-Tanks and the Economic Counter-Revolution, 1931–1983. London: Harper Collins, 1994.Google Scholar
Coen, David, Grant, Wyn, and Wilson, Graham, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Business and Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, Chris, and Ramsden, John, eds. By-elections in British Politics. London: University College London Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Coopey, Richard, and Clarke, Donald. 3i: Fifty Years of Investing in Industry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dale, Iain. Conservative Party Manifestos, 1900–1997. London: Politico’s, 2000.Google Scholar
Edgerton, David. The Rise and Fall of the British Nation: A Twentieth-Century History. London: Allen Lane, 2018.Google Scholar
Green, Ewen. Ideologies of Conservatism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, Ewen. Thatcher. London: Hodder Arnold, 2006.Google Scholar
Grylls, Michael, and Redwood, John. National Enterprise Board: A Case for Euthanasia. London: Centre for Policy Studies, 1980.Google Scholar
Hague, Douglas, and Wilkinson, Geoffrey. The IRC: An Experiment in Industrial Intervention. London: Allen and Unwin, 1983.Google Scholar
Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Hoskyns, John. Just in Time: Inside the Thatcher Revolution. London: Aurum, 2000.Google Scholar
Kramer, Daniel. State Capital and Private Enterprise: The Case of the UK National Enterprise Board. London: Routledge, 1988.Google Scholar
Lawson, Nigel. The View from No. 11: Memoirs of a Tory Radical. London: Bantam Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Middleton, Roger. Government Versus the Market: The Growth of the Public Sector, Economic Management and British Economic Performance, c. 1890–1979. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 1996.Google Scholar
Millward, Robert, and Singleton, John, eds. The Political Economy of Nationalisation in Britain, 1920–1950. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Hara, Glen. From Dreams to Disillusionment: Economic and Social Planning in 1960s Britain. London: Palgrave, 2006.Google Scholar
Parker, David. The Official History of Privatisation: Vol. 1: The Formative Years, 1970–1987. London: Routledge, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parker, David. The Official History of Privatisation, Vol. 2: Popular Capitalism, 1987–97. London: Routledge, 2012.Google Scholar
Parker, David, and Saal, David, eds. International Handbook on Privatization. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Redwood, John. Going for Broke…Gambling with Taxpayers’ Money. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984.Google Scholar
Roberts, Richard, and Kynaston, David. The Lion Wakes: A Modern History of HSBC. London: Profile Books, 2015.Google Scholar
Tebbitt, Norman. Upwardly Mobile. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988.Google Scholar
Thatcher, Margaret. The Downing Street Years. London: Harper Collins, 1993.Google Scholar
Thomas, Arthur. The Finance of British Industry 1918–1976. London: Methuen & Co, 1978.Google Scholar
Thorpe, Andrew. A History of the British Labour Party. London: Palgrave, 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomlinson, Jim. Government and the Enterprise since 1900. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Tomlinson, Jim. The Politics of Decline: Understanding Post-war Britain. Harlow, UK: Longman, 2000.Google Scholar
Veljanovski, Cento. Selling the State: Privatization in Britain. With the assistance of Mark Bentley. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988.Google Scholar
Wickham-Jones, Mark. Economic Strategy and the Labour Party: Politics and Policy-Making, 1970–83. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williamson, Adrian. Conservative Economic Policymaking and the Birth of Thatcherism, 1964–1979. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Harold. Final Term: The Labour Government, 1974–76. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson and Michael Joseph, 1979.Google Scholar
Wilson, John. Ferranti: A History. Vol. 1: Building a Family Business, 1882–1975. Lancaster: Carnegie Publishing, 2000.Google Scholar
Wilson, John. Ferranti: A History. Vol. II: From Family Firm to Multinational Company, 1975–1987. Lancaster: Crucible Books, 2007.Google Scholar
Wilson, John. Ferranti: A History. Vol. III: Managers, Mergers and Fraud, 1987–1993. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Young, Hugo. One of Us: A Biography of Margaret Thatcher. London: Pan, 1989.Google Scholar
Artis, Michael, Cobham, David, and Wickham-Jones, Mark. “Social Democracy in Hard Times: The Economic Record of the Labour Government.” Twentieth Century British History 3, no. 1 (January 1992): 32–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baker, Mae, and Collins, Michael. “English Commercial Banks and Organizational Inertia: The Financing of SMEs, 1944–1960.” Enterprise and Society 11, no. 1 (March 2010): 65–97.Google Scholar
Bellringer, Christopher, and Michie, Ranald. “Big Bang in the City of London: An Intentional Revolution or an Accident?” Financial History Review 14, no. 2 (August 2014): 111–137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Billings, Mark, Tilba, Anna, and Wilson, John. “‘To Invite Disappointment or Worse’: Governance, Audit and Due Diligence in the Ferranti-ISC Merger.” Business History 58, no. 4 (2016): 453–478.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bower, Julie. “The Whitbread Umbrella: A Structural Response to Shareholder Activism.” Enterprise and Society 17, no. 4 (December 2016): 874–903.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell-Kelly, Martin, and Hamilton, Richard. “From National Champions to Little Ventures: The NEB and the Second Wave of Information Technology in Britain, 1975–1985.” In Information and Technology Policy: An International History, edited by Coopey, Richard, 169–186. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chick, Martin. “Privatisation: The Triumph of Past Practice Over Current Requirements.” Business History 29, no. 4 (1987): 104–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, Aled. “‘Right to Buy’: The Development of a Conservative Housing Policy, 1945–1980.” Contemporary British History 27, no. 4 (2013): 421–444.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edwards, Amy. “‘Manufacturing Capitalists’: The Wider Share Ownership Council and the Problem of ‘Popular Capitalism,’ 1958–92.” Twentieth Century British History 27, no. 1 (March 2016): 100–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Francis, Matthew. “A Crusade to Enfranchise the Many: Thatcherism and the ‘Property-Owning Democracy.’” Twentieth Century British History 23, no. 2 (June 2012): 275–297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hannah, Leslie. “A Failed Experiment: The State Ownership of Industry.” In The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, Vol. III: Structural Change and Growth, 1939–2000, edited by Floud, Roderick and Johnson, Paul, 84–111. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Helm, Dieter. “Rethinking the Economic Borders of the State—Ownership, Assets and Competition.” Oxford Review of Economic Policy 31, no. 2 (Summer 2015): 168–185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
James, Stephen. “The Idea Brokers: The Impact of Think Tanks on British Government.” Public Administration 71, no. 4 (Winter 1993): 491–506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, Ben. “Currents of Neo-liberalism: British Political Ideologies and the New Right, c. 1955–1979.” English Historical Review 131, no. 551 (August 2016): 823–850.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kandiah, Michael, ed. “Witness Seminar: The No. 10 Policy Unit.” Contemporary British History 10, no. 1 (1996): 111–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kay, John, and Thompson, David. “Privatisation: A Policy in Search of a Rationale.” Economic Journal 96, no. 381 (March 1986): 18–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kipping, Matthias. “Business-Government Relations: Beyond Performance Issues.” In Business History around the World, edited by Amatori, Franco and Jones, Geoffrey, 372–393. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lie, Einar. “Context and Contingency: Explaining State Ownership in Norway.” Enterprise and Society 17, no. 4 (December 2016): 904–930.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayer, Colin. “The City and Corporate Performance: Condemned or Exonerated.” Cambridge Journal of Economics 21, no. 2 (March 1997): 291–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayer, Colin. “Big Bang: New Beginning or Beginning of the End?” Oxford Review of Economic Policy 31, no. 2 (Summer 2015): 186–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millward, Robert. “State Enterprise in Britain in the Twentieth Century.” In The Rise and Fall of State-Owned Enterprise in the Western World, edited by Toninelli, Pier Angelo, 157–184. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millward, Robert. “Business and the State.” In The Oxford Handbook of Business History, edited by Jones, Geoffrey and Zeitlin, Jonathan, 529–557. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Millward, Robert. “Business Institutions and the State.” In The Routledge Companion to Business History, edited by Wilson, John, Toms, Steven, Jong, Abe de, and Buchnea, Emily, 274–299. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2016.Google Scholar
Mottershead, Phillip. “Industrial Policy.” In British Economic Policy 1960–74, edited by Blackaby, Frank, 418–483. London: National Institute of Economic and Social Research and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.Google Scholar
Needham, Duncan. “Britain’s Money Supply Experiment, 1971–73.” English Historical Review 130, no. 542 (February 2015): 89–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Hara, Glen. “‘What the Electorate Can be Expected to Swallow’: Nationalisation, Transnationalism and the Shifting Boundaries of the State in Postwar Britain.” Business History 51, no. 4 (July 2009): 501–528.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Offer, Avner. “The Market Turn: From Social Democracy to Market Liberalism.” Economic History Review 70, no. 4 (November 2017), 1051–1071.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pass, C. “Industrial Reorganisation Corporation—A Positive Approach to the Structure of Industry.” Long Range Planning 4, no. 1 (September 1971): 63–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rollings, Neil. “Cracks in the Post-War Keynesian Settlement? The Role of Organised Business in the Rise of Neoliberalism Before Margaret Thatcher.” Twentieth Century British History 24, no. 4 (December 2013): 637–659.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sawyer, Malcolm. “Industrial Policy.” In Labour’s Economic Policies, 1974–79, edited by Artis, Michael and Cobham, David, 158–175. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Scott, Peter, and Newton, Lucy. “Jealous Monopolists? British Banks and Responses to the Macmillan Gap during the 1930s.” Enterprise and Society 8, no. 4 (December 2007): 881–919.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shleifer, Andrei. “State Versus Private Ownership.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 12, no. 4 (Autumn 1998): 133–150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Martin. “From Consensus to Conflict: Thatcher and the Transformation of British Politics.” British Politics 10, no. 1 (April 2015): 64–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stevens, Richard. “The Evolution of Privatisation as an Electoral Policy c. 1970–1990.” Contemporary British History 18, no. 2 (Summer 2004): 47–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomlinson, Jim. “Inventing ‘Decline’: The Falling Behind of the British Economy in the Postwar Years.” Economic History Review 49, no. 4 (November 1996): 731–757.Google Scholar
Tomlinson, Jim. “A ‘Failed Experiment’? Public Ownership and the Narratives of Post-War Britain.” Labour History Review 73, no. 2 (August 2008): 228–243.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomlinson, Jim. “Thrice Denied: Declinism as a Recurrent Theme in British History in the Long Twentieth Century.” Twentieth Century British History 20, no. 2 (June 2009): 227–251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toms, Steve, Wilson, Nick, and Wright, Mike. “The Evolution of Private Equity: Corporate Restructuring in the UK, c. 1945–2010.” Business History 57, no. 5 (2015): 736–768.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vickers, John, and Yarrow, George. “Economic Perspectives on Privatization.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 5, no. 2 (Spring 1991): 111–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, John. “Ferranti and the Accountant, 1896–1975: The Struggle Between Priorities and Reality.” Accounting Business and Financial History 8, no. 1 (1998): 53–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Committee to Review the Functioning of Financial Institutions. Evidence on the Financing of Industry and Trade, Vol. 1: Treasury; Department of Industry. London: HMSO, 1977.Google Scholar
Conservative Party. The Conservative and Unionist Party Manifesto 2017: Forward Together: Our Plan for a Stronger Britain and a Prosperous Future. London: The Conservative Party, 2017.Google Scholar
Ferranti Limited. Annual Report and Accounts. Manchester, UK: Ferranti, 1981.Google Scholar
Friedman, Milton. From Galbraith to Economic Freedom. Occasional Paper 49. London: The Institute of Economic Affairs, 1977.Google Scholar
Hansard House of Commons.Google Scholar
Howe, Geoffrey, Joseph, Keith, Prior, James, and Howell, David. The Right Approach to the Economy: Outline of an Economic Strategy for the Next Conservative Government. Edited by Maude, Angus. London: Conservative Central Office, 1977.Google Scholar
Kay, John. The Kay Review of the UK Equity Markets and Long-term Decision Making. Final report, July 2012. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/253454/bis-12-917-kay-review-of-equity-markets-final-report.pdfGoogle Scholar
Labour Party. Labour Party Manifesto, October 1974. London: Labour Party, 1974.Google Scholar
Labour Party. The Labour Party Manifesto 1979. The Labour Way is the Better Way. London: Labour Party, 1979.Google Scholar
Labour Party. The Labour Party Manifesto 2017: For the Many Not the Few. London: Labour Party, 2017.Google Scholar
Moore, John. Why Privatise? London: Conservative Political Centre, 1983.Google Scholar
Myners, Paul. An Independent Review for the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills: IPOs and Bookbuilding in Future HM Government Primary Share Disposals. London: Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, 2014.Google Scholar
National Enterprise Board. Annual Report and Accounts, London: NEB, 1976.Google Scholar
National Enterprise Board. Annual Report and Accounts, London: NEB, 1978.Google Scholar
National Enterprise Board. Annual Report and Accounts, London: NEB, 1979.Google Scholar
National Enterprise Board. Annual Report and Accounts, London: NEB, 1980.Google Scholar
National Enterprise Board. Annual Report and Accounts, London: NEB, 1981.Google Scholar
Daily ExpressGoogle Scholar
Daily MailGoogle Scholar
EconomistGoogle Scholar
GuardianGoogle Scholar
The TimesGoogle Scholar
Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge.Google Scholar
The National Archives (TNA), Kew.Google Scholar
Benn, Tony. Against the Tide: Diaries, 1973–76. London: Hutchinson, 1989.Google Scholar
Burk, Kathleen. The First Privatisation: The Politicians, The City and the Denationalisation of British Steel. London: Historians’ Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Chandler, Alfred D. Jr. Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Cockett, Richard. Thinking the Unthinkable: Think-Tanks and the Economic Counter-Revolution, 1931–1983. London: Harper Collins, 1994.Google Scholar
Coen, David, Grant, Wyn, and Wilson, Graham, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Business and Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, Chris, and Ramsden, John, eds. By-elections in British Politics. London: University College London Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Coopey, Richard, and Clarke, Donald. 3i: Fifty Years of Investing in Industry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dale, Iain. Conservative Party Manifestos, 1900–1997. London: Politico’s, 2000.Google Scholar
Edgerton, David. The Rise and Fall of the British Nation: A Twentieth-Century History. London: Allen Lane, 2018.Google Scholar
Green, Ewen. Ideologies of Conservatism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, Ewen. Thatcher. London: Hodder Arnold, 2006.Google Scholar
Grylls, Michael, and Redwood, John. National Enterprise Board: A Case for Euthanasia. London: Centre for Policy Studies, 1980.Google Scholar
Hague, Douglas, and Wilkinson, Geoffrey. The IRC: An Experiment in Industrial Intervention. London: Allen and Unwin, 1983.Google Scholar
Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Hoskyns, John. Just in Time: Inside the Thatcher Revolution. London: Aurum, 2000.Google Scholar
Kramer, Daniel. State Capital and Private Enterprise: The Case of the UK National Enterprise Board. London: Routledge, 1988.Google Scholar
Lawson, Nigel. The View from No. 11: Memoirs of a Tory Radical. London: Bantam Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Middleton, Roger. Government Versus the Market: The Growth of the Public Sector, Economic Management and British Economic Performance, c. 1890–1979. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 1996.Google Scholar
Millward, Robert, and Singleton, John, eds. The Political Economy of Nationalisation in Britain, 1920–1950. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Hara, Glen. From Dreams to Disillusionment: Economic and Social Planning in 1960s Britain. London: Palgrave, 2006.Google Scholar
Parker, David. The Official History of Privatisation: Vol. 1: The Formative Years, 1970–1987. London: Routledge, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parker, David. The Official History of Privatisation, Vol. 2: Popular Capitalism, 1987–97. London: Routledge, 2012.Google Scholar
Parker, David, and Saal, David, eds. International Handbook on Privatization. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Redwood, John. Going for Broke…Gambling with Taxpayers’ Money. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984.Google Scholar
Roberts, Richard, and Kynaston, David. The Lion Wakes: A Modern History of HSBC. London: Profile Books, 2015.Google Scholar
Tebbitt, Norman. Upwardly Mobile. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988.Google Scholar
Thatcher, Margaret. The Downing Street Years. London: Harper Collins, 1993.Google Scholar
Thomas, Arthur. The Finance of British Industry 1918–1976. London: Methuen & Co, 1978.Google Scholar
Thorpe, Andrew. A History of the British Labour Party. London: Palgrave, 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomlinson, Jim. Government and the Enterprise since 1900. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Tomlinson, Jim. The Politics of Decline: Understanding Post-war Britain. Harlow, UK: Longman, 2000.Google Scholar
Veljanovski, Cento. Selling the State: Privatization in Britain. With the assistance of Mark Bentley. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988.Google Scholar
Wickham-Jones, Mark. Economic Strategy and the Labour Party: Politics and Policy-Making, 1970–83. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williamson, Adrian. Conservative Economic Policymaking and the Birth of Thatcherism, 1964–1979. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Harold. Final Term: The Labour Government, 1974–76. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson and Michael Joseph, 1979.Google Scholar
Wilson, John. Ferranti: A History. Vol. 1: Building a Family Business, 1882–1975. Lancaster: Carnegie Publishing, 2000.Google Scholar
Wilson, John. Ferranti: A History. Vol. II: From Family Firm to Multinational Company, 1975–1987. Lancaster: Crucible Books, 2007.Google Scholar
Wilson, John. Ferranti: A History. Vol. III: Managers, Mergers and Fraud, 1987–1993. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Young, Hugo. One of Us: A Biography of Margaret Thatcher. London: Pan, 1989.Google Scholar
Artis, Michael, Cobham, David, and Wickham-Jones, Mark. “Social Democracy in Hard Times: The Economic Record of the Labour Government.” Twentieth Century British History 3, no. 1 (January 1992): 32–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baker, Mae, and Collins, Michael. “English Commercial Banks and Organizational Inertia: The Financing of SMEs, 1944–1960.” Enterprise and Society 11, no. 1 (March 2010): 65–97.Google Scholar
Bellringer, Christopher, and Michie, Ranald. “Big Bang in the City of London: An Intentional Revolution or an Accident?” Financial History Review 14, no. 2 (August 2014): 111–137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Billings, Mark, Tilba, Anna, and Wilson, John. “‘To Invite Disappointment or Worse’: Governance, Audit and Due Diligence in the Ferranti-ISC Merger.” Business History 58, no. 4 (2016): 453–478.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bower, Julie. “The Whitbread Umbrella: A Structural Response to Shareholder Activism.” Enterprise and Society 17, no. 4 (December 2016): 874–903.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell-Kelly, Martin, and Hamilton, Richard. “From National Champions to Little Ventures: The NEB and the Second Wave of Information Technology in Britain, 1975–1985.” In Information and Technology Policy: An International History, edited by Coopey, Richard, 169–186. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chick, Martin. “Privatisation: The Triumph of Past Practice Over Current Requirements.” Business History 29, no. 4 (1987): 104–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, Aled. “‘Right to Buy’: The Development of a Conservative Housing Policy, 1945–1980.” Contemporary British History 27, no. 4 (2013): 421–444.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edwards, Amy. “‘Manufacturing Capitalists’: The Wider Share Ownership Council and the Problem of ‘Popular Capitalism,’ 1958–92.” Twentieth Century British History 27, no. 1 (March 2016): 100–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Francis, Matthew. “A Crusade to Enfranchise the Many: Thatcherism and the ‘Property-Owning Democracy.’” Twentieth Century British History 23, no. 2 (June 2012): 275–297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hannah, Leslie. “A Failed Experiment: The State Ownership of Industry.” In The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, Vol. III: Structural Change and Growth, 1939–2000, edited by Floud, Roderick and Johnson, Paul, 84–111. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Helm, Dieter. “Rethinking the Economic Borders of the State—Ownership, Assets and Competition.” Oxford Review of Economic Policy 31, no. 2 (Summer 2015): 168–185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
James, Stephen. “The Idea Brokers: The Impact of Think Tanks on British Government.” Public Administration 71, no. 4 (Winter 1993): 491–506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, Ben. “Currents of Neo-liberalism: British Political Ideologies and the New Right, c. 1955–1979.” English Historical Review 131, no. 551 (August 2016): 823–850.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kandiah, Michael, ed. “Witness Seminar: The No. 10 Policy Unit.” Contemporary British History 10, no. 1 (1996): 111–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kay, John, and Thompson, David. “Privatisation: A Policy in Search of a Rationale.” Economic Journal 96, no. 381 (March 1986): 18–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kipping, Matthias. “Business-Government Relations: Beyond Performance Issues.” In Business History around the World, edited by Amatori, Franco and Jones, Geoffrey, 372–393. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lie, Einar. “Context and Contingency: Explaining State Ownership in Norway.” Enterprise and Society 17, no. 4 (December 2016): 904–930.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayer, Colin. “The City and Corporate Performance: Condemned or Exonerated.” Cambridge Journal of Economics 21, no. 2 (March 1997): 291–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayer, Colin. “Big Bang: New Beginning or Beginning of the End?” Oxford Review of Economic Policy 31, no. 2 (Summer 2015): 186–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millward, Robert. “State Enterprise in Britain in the Twentieth Century.” In The Rise and Fall of State-Owned Enterprise in the Western World, edited by Toninelli, Pier Angelo, 157–184. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millward, Robert. “Business and the State.” In The Oxford Handbook of Business History, edited by Jones, Geoffrey and Zeitlin, Jonathan, 529–557. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Millward, Robert. “Business Institutions and the State.” In The Routledge Companion to Business History, edited by Wilson, John, Toms, Steven, Jong, Abe de, and Buchnea, Emily, 274–299. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2016.Google Scholar
Mottershead, Phillip. “Industrial Policy.” In British Economic Policy 1960–74, edited by Blackaby, Frank, 418–483. London: National Institute of Economic and Social Research and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.Google Scholar
Needham, Duncan. “Britain’s Money Supply Experiment, 1971–73.” English Historical Review 130, no. 542 (February 2015): 89–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Hara, Glen. “‘What the Electorate Can be Expected to Swallow’: Nationalisation, Transnationalism and the Shifting Boundaries of the State in Postwar Britain.” Business History 51, no. 4 (July 2009): 501–528.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Offer, Avner. “The Market Turn: From Social Democracy to Market Liberalism.” Economic History Review 70, no. 4 (November 2017), 1051–1071.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pass, C. “Industrial Reorganisation Corporation—A Positive Approach to the Structure of Industry.” Long Range Planning 4, no. 1 (September 1971): 63–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rollings, Neil. “Cracks in the Post-War Keynesian Settlement? The Role of Organised Business in the Rise of Neoliberalism Before Margaret Thatcher.” Twentieth Century British History 24, no. 4 (December 2013): 637–659.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sawyer, Malcolm. “Industrial Policy.” In Labour’s Economic Policies, 1974–79, edited by Artis, Michael and Cobham, David, 158–175. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Scott, Peter, and Newton, Lucy. “Jealous Monopolists? British Banks and Responses to the Macmillan Gap during the 1930s.” Enterprise and Society 8, no. 4 (December 2007): 881–919.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shleifer, Andrei. “State Versus Private Ownership.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 12, no. 4 (Autumn 1998): 133–150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Martin. “From Consensus to Conflict: Thatcher and the Transformation of British Politics.” British Politics 10, no. 1 (April 2015): 64–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stevens, Richard. “The Evolution of Privatisation as an Electoral Policy c. 1970–1990.” Contemporary British History 18, no. 2 (Summer 2004): 47–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomlinson, Jim. “Inventing ‘Decline’: The Falling Behind of the British Economy in the Postwar Years.” Economic History Review 49, no. 4 (November 1996): 731–757.Google Scholar
Tomlinson, Jim. “A ‘Failed Experiment’? Public Ownership and the Narratives of Post-War Britain.” Labour History Review 73, no. 2 (August 2008): 228–243.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomlinson, Jim. “Thrice Denied: Declinism as a Recurrent Theme in British History in the Long Twentieth Century.” Twentieth Century British History 20, no. 2 (June 2009): 227–251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toms, Steve, Wilson, Nick, and Wright, Mike. “The Evolution of Private Equity: Corporate Restructuring in the UK, c. 1945–2010.” Business History 57, no. 5 (2015): 736–768.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vickers, John, and Yarrow, George. “Economic Perspectives on Privatization.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 5, no. 2 (Spring 1991): 111–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, John. “Ferranti and the Accountant, 1896–1975: The Struggle Between Priorities and Reality.” Accounting Business and Financial History 8, no. 1 (1998): 53–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Committee to Review the Functioning of Financial Institutions. Evidence on the Financing of Industry and Trade, Vol. 1: Treasury; Department of Industry. London: HMSO, 1977.Google Scholar
Conservative Party. The Conservative and Unionist Party Manifesto 2017: Forward Together: Our Plan for a Stronger Britain and a Prosperous Future. London: The Conservative Party, 2017.Google Scholar
Ferranti Limited. Annual Report and Accounts. Manchester, UK: Ferranti, 1981.Google Scholar
Friedman, Milton. From Galbraith to Economic Freedom. Occasional Paper 49. London: The Institute of Economic Affairs, 1977.Google Scholar
Hansard House of Commons.Google Scholar
Howe, Geoffrey, Joseph, Keith, Prior, James, and Howell, David. The Right Approach to the Economy: Outline of an Economic Strategy for the Next Conservative Government. Edited by Maude, Angus. London: Conservative Central Office, 1977.Google Scholar
Kay, John. The Kay Review of the UK Equity Markets and Long-term Decision Making. Final report, July 2012. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/253454/bis-12-917-kay-review-of-equity-markets-final-report.pdfGoogle Scholar
Labour Party. Labour Party Manifesto, October 1974. London: Labour Party, 1974.Google Scholar
Labour Party. The Labour Party Manifesto 1979. The Labour Way is the Better Way. London: Labour Party, 1979.Google Scholar
Labour Party. The Labour Party Manifesto 2017: For the Many Not the Few. London: Labour Party, 2017.Google Scholar
Moore, John. Why Privatise? London: Conservative Political Centre, 1983.Google Scholar
Myners, Paul. An Independent Review for the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills: IPOs and Bookbuilding in Future HM Government Primary Share Disposals. London: Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, 2014.Google Scholar
National Enterprise Board. Annual Report and Accounts, London: NEB, 1976.Google Scholar
National Enterprise Board. Annual Report and Accounts, London: NEB, 1978.Google Scholar
National Enterprise Board. Annual Report and Accounts, London: NEB, 1979.Google Scholar
National Enterprise Board. Annual Report and Accounts, London: NEB, 1980.Google Scholar
National Enterprise Board. Annual Report and Accounts, London: NEB, 1981.Google Scholar
Daily ExpressGoogle Scholar
Daily MailGoogle Scholar
EconomistGoogle Scholar
GuardianGoogle Scholar
The TimesGoogle Scholar
Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge.Google Scholar
The National Archives (TNA), Kew.Google Scholar