Back From Westminster by Phillip Norton & David M. Wood

Author:Phillip Norton & David M. Wood [Norton, Phillip & Wood, David M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Legislative Branch, Political Science, Political Process, American Government, General
ISBN: 9780813149462
Google: J6weBgAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 24505701
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 1993-08-27T00:00:00+00:00

Table 5.4. Location of Conservative Respondents among Norton Groupings by Factor Scores on the Macro-Micro Factor

In Table 5.4 we locate among these categories those of our 1983–84 interviewees who remained in the next Parliament and are thus included in the Norton classification. The table shows how MPs in the various Norton groupings are distributed across broad Macro-Micro factor score categories. For the most part, our expectations are borne out, keeping in mind that the numbers are small. There are no Neoliberals in the left-of-center factor score category; and there are no Wets or Damps in the right-of-center category. Tory Right MPs are skewed toward the right, while Thatcher and Party Loyalists are distributed more evenly. Only the Populists defy our expectations, as they too are skewed to the right, even though the questions loaded highly on the factor are mostly economic ones. In fact, the distribution of Populists was quite broad. The single individual on the left side of the table had a factor score of 1.11, reflecting his strong concern for the plight of declining industry in his constituency’s travel-to-work area, as he displayed in the following response: “The danger is that we fall into a situation of being non-primary producers in the industrial field and merely servers, and though there must be some swinging to the servicing sector, it would be nemesis for [my region] and for Britain particularly to lose its heavy industrial base. So it must be that blend of resuscitating traditional industries and supporting traditional industries and encouraging restructure of new industries, which must be incorporated into the policy.” Asked if his region should receive more regional assistance, he answered strongly in the affirmative. At the other end of the spectrum was a “Populist” MP with a factor score of -1.73, the second from the right of the 62 MPs found in Table 5.4. Asked whether declining industry should be assisted by government, he replied, “If an industry has a future it can get finance through the overstuffed banks, which are loaded with money at present.”

The contrast in views between these two MPs reflects the difficulty in applying the concept of populism to the sphere of economic policy. Both are on the right insofar as moral issues are concerned. But in economic terms, the first one’s populism expresses itself in an identification with the economic problems of people in his region of the country, including, of course, his constituents who are unemployed. The other’s version of populism is probably closer to Mrs. Thatcher’s, if Samuel Beer’s characterization of the new Tory populism as signifying radical individualism is correct (Beer 1982, 175-80). But Beer labels this type of populism “neoliberalism,” which is perhaps where this MP might better have been placed if Norton’s analysis had been solely in terms of economic policy positions. His form of neoliberalism seems to be at the visceral level. He comes to it through his own experiences as a small business owner who believes in the values of hard work and self-improvement.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.