British Government Policy BRIT

This essay deals with the above captioned article by

Jeremy Richardson. It does so by summarizing the main points

of the article, analyzing how the author develops and supports

his arguments and then critiques the principal shortcomings of

his approach, arguments and conclusions.

Richardson's primary thesis is that the attempt by the

British Government under Mrs. Thatcher and her successors to

limit the role of the state, to reduce governent intervention in

society and to promote a return to freer markets, has actually

resulted in a "massive increase in direct state intervention in

Richardson argues that previously policy was determined by

a complicated set of interactions between government and private

interests, a sharing of power "between government and organised

society," (181) which was characterized by "a very close and

often symbiotic" (180) relationship between regulators and

regulated. Under this system "very few organized interests have

been refused access to policy makers." (181). He then traces the

disillusionment in Britain and elsewhere with the failures of the

welfare state and socialist direction of the economy and the

sluggish response of established institutions to the need for

fundamental changes in policy direction and their systemic

. . .
ial return to negotiations between state and private interests, primarily over the details of implementing deregulation. Nevertheless, he cites an overall trend toward "regulatory creep" and the lack of accountability (to anyone) of new agencies, which "appear to have their own independent conceptions of what is in the state's [or the public] interest and which are less accessible and susceptible to influence by private interest than were the government departments which previously regulated them. (190). Methodology and Substructure Richardson uses an empirical approach to prove his findings. He marshals an impressive array of facts drawn from the actual development and implementation of policy initiatives in a variety of areas, including education, health, industrial support, the privatization and deregulation of specific industries, employment law and labour relations and the government's opposition to social regulatory schemes emanating from the European Union. He uses contrasts between the past and present and draws historical analogies. He also traces carefully the changes in the outlook of particular agencies and convincingly demonstrates the "move from
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Government Thatcher, Britain Richardson, European Union, Thatcherism Richardson, Substructure Richardson, Bolshevik Russia, Lord Acton, Theodore Roosevelt's, Richardson Thatcher, Jeremy Richardson, public policy, power corrupts, free market, conservative governments, market forces, british government, privatization deregulation,
Approximate Word count = 1447
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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