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was not a practical idea, for, quite apart from policy differences, it depended on Grenville’s willingness to serve as a mere Chancellor of the Exchequer: he had refused to do so earlier under Bute, and would never now accept such a demotion.5 Chap 7 19/8/02 11:47 am Page 149 The Chatham ministry I (1766–1767) 149 Far from being a successful attack on the ‘factions’, the new ministry was soon opposed by all three of them, and ironically the only political group that dissolved was the one to which George III would not have affixed such a stigma, that hitherto
acquired financial expertise. The contrast between the dazzling and unpredictable Townshend and the sound, reliable North could hardly have been greater. Yet Townshend himself was among those who had discerned the talents of the man now to be his successor.2 George III at once instructed Grafton to offer the Exchequer to Lord North. The Duke later noted that this decision was ‘particularly satisfactory to me, as I knew him to be a man of strict honour: and he was besides the person whom Lord Chatham desired’, recalling the abortive attempt to replace Townshend by North
certain to have grave consequences for the University. It was in no position to solve its problems by laying off part of its workforce or sacking redundant executives. But the University could not afford to accumulate a deficit which it had no means of clearing away. At the end of 1973 Edward Heath’s administration withdrew guarantees that the Government would protect the finances of universities against the effects of inflation. No more would it proclaim itself ready to look with sympathy upon their plight. Anthony Barber, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, reduced
The National Health Service (NHS) officially ‘opened’ across Britain on 5 July 1948, replacing a previous and patchy system of charity and local providers and making healthcare free at the point of use for all. 1 By 1974, Barbara Castle stated that ‘Intrinsically the National Health Service is a church. It is the nearest thing to the embodiment of the Good Samaritan that we have in any respect of our public policy.’ 2 This comparison crossed decades and party lines: in 1992 the former Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel
The National Health Service (NHS) officially ‘opened’ across Britain in 1948. It replaced a patchy system of charity and local providers, and made healthcare free at the point of use. Over the subsequent decades, the NHS was vested with cultural meaning, and even love. By 1992, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson declared that the service was ‘the closest thing the English have to a religion’. Yet in 2016, a physician publishing in the British Medical Journal asked whether the service was, in fact, a ‘national religion or national football’, referring to the complex politics of healthcare. Placards, posters, and prescriptions radically illuminates the multiple meanings of the NHS, in public life and culture, over its seventy years of life. The book charts how this institution has been ignored, worshipped, challenged, and seen as under threat throughout its history. It analyses changing cultural representations and patterns of public behaviour that have emerged, and the politics and everyday life of health. By looking at the NHS through the lenses of labour, activism, consumerism, space, and representation, this collection showcases the depth and potential of cultural history. This approach can explain how and why the NHS has become the defining institution of contemporary Britain.
Anglophobia in Fascist Italy traces the roots of Fascist Anglophobia from the Great War and through the subsequent peace treaties and its development during the twenty years of Mussolini’s regime. Initially, Britain was seen by many Italians as a ‘false friend’ who was also the main obstacle to Italy’s foreign policy aspirations, a view embraced by Mussolini and his movement. While at times dormant, this Anglophobic sentiment did not disappear in the years that followed, and was later rekindled during the Ethiopian War. The peculiarly Fascist contribution to the assessment of Britain was ideological. From the mid-1920s, the regime’s intellectuals saw Fascism as the answer to a crisis in the Western world and as irredeemably opposed to Western civilisation of the sort exemplified by Britain. Britain was described as having failed the ‘problem of labour’, and Fascism framed as a salvation ideology, which nations would either embrace or face decay. The perception of Britain as a decaying and feeble nation increased after the Great Depression. The consequence of this was a consistent underrating of British power and resolve to resist Italian ambitions. An analysis of popular reception of the Fascist discourse shows that the tendency to underrate Britain had permeated large sectors of the Italian people, and that public opinion was more hostile to Britain than previously thought. Indeed, in some quarters hatred towards the British lasted until the end of the Second World War, in both occupied and liberated Italy.
peace terms.5 Bute’s opponents naturally assumed that he intended to be Premier for as long as possible, and conducted the political battle accordingly. When he did resign many thought he had been forced out of office. Chap 4 19/8/02 11:43 am Page 67 The Bute ministry (1762–1763) 67 The formation of Bute’s ministry was protracted because he refused to take the Treasury unless he had a competent Chancellor of the Exchequer, for the incumbent Lord Barrington evidently would not do. Bute’s first choice was Commons Leader George Grenville, who refused that onerous
revenue collection. Tindal’s primary source here is Thomas Madox’s 1711 work, The History and Antiquities of the Exchequer of the Kings of England. He not only extensively paraphrases and quotes from Madox, but he also ensures that his work copies its organisation, and adheres to its principal thesis that the history of revenue can be divided into two distinct periods: the first – from William’s accession to the Magna Carta – marking the Court of Exchequer’s period of ‘Ancient grandeur’; the second – from Magna Carta to Edward II’s death – showing its gradual demise
neo-liberal economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s resulted in fundamental changes in the UK economy. 2 Assess the view that Gordon Brown is a cautious rather than a radical Chancellor of the Exchequer. 3 How much consensus on economic policy now exists in the British political system?
within the state and among its actual or wannabe agents. On one hand, there were those claiming that compounding for recusancy fines was the better bet. This involved exchequer officials approaching leading recusants and negotiating in effect a fee or fixed charge, which if paid regularly into the exchequer, would guarantee that the payer would no longer be subjected to the recusancy statutes. In a situation where the Crown was not actively ‘persecuting’, that is to say, not aggressively pursuing, imprisoning and