Politics and the everyday: a local study of British political attitudes and practice, 1945-1990

Research question
In recent years, the historiography of modern British politics has stressed the role of political
language in shaping demotic politics. This line of research has helpfully disputed some of the more
reductive explanations of modern political history, but it suffers from the determinative importance
given to political rhetoric. There has been little direct investigation of people's political views and
how they were constructed.
Research into class identities shows that the study of demotic attitudes is possible for the period
after 1945, especially if historians draw on the many interviews recorded by postwar sociologists.
What has not been attempted, and what this project proposes, is to explore people's political views
and, specifically, to understand how they arose - from social conditions, through informal political
practices, and via the rhetoric of representative politics.
Purposes
The project derives from my experience as a senior civil servant in the UK government.
Throughout my time in Whitehall, policymakers had little capacity to consider the deeper currents
shaping public attitudes and, consequently, decisions were often based on instinctive views of
political outcomes. My ambition is to provide a test case for research that encourages
policymakers to adopt a more thoughtful, historicised approach.
Approach and sources
The project will situate its analysis within a specific community. The study will firstly investigate the
community's capacity for political activity, as described by imbalances in social, financial, and
cultural capital. The second part of the study will explore the relationship between political views,
disparities in capital, and political practice. Particularly where imbalances in capital correlated with
political activity, the study will explore whether public views were crystalised by the rhetoric local or
national politicians, or whether they drew on local conditions and practices that had little to do with
formal politics.
The study will draw heavily on the interview accounts of past sociology and, for this, Luton appears
to be a promising site for the research. The attitudes of Luton's workers have been extensively
studied by sociologists and - alongside less formal interviews and autobiography - offer an
unusual, and possibly unique, opportunity to trace changes in demotic attitudes. More conventional
sources will also be required to set these first-hand accounts in context. A detailed review will be
required of records from trade unions, employers, friendly societies, local churches, trades
councils and political parties, council papers, census returns, and newspaper reporting.
Timetable and training needs
The first six months of the project will involve a literature review and a more detailed assessment
of where to focus the study. Once an area is selected, detailed archival work is expected to take
around eighteen months. Any oral history will also be gathered during this period. A written
synthesis of the findings - and any follow up in archival research and fieldwork - will be completed
in the final nine to twelve months of the study.
Training in oral history will be required, as well as automated text mining to support research of
newspaper records.