ABSTRACT
The privatisation programme of the Thatcher governments is often presented as marking a sharp and radical development in British government-industry relations. To its supporters, ‘privatisation’ and ‘increased efficiency’ are viewed as being virtually synonymous2 and, at the very least, providing a break with the nationalised industries whose performance ‘by any criteria…has been disappointing’.3 Conveniently, many of the industries at the centre of the arguments on the respective merits and demerits of nationalisation and privatisation have also been the subject of extensive business histories.4 These volumes provide the business historian with an opportunity not only to examine the background to the privatisation programme but also to make some general observations on some of the problems which the privatisation programme is likely to encounter. In undertaking such an analysis in this article, it is also hoped to identify some of the main factors affecting British government-industry relations, to respond to Donald Coleman’s challenge to ‘draw conclusions from existing work on company histories’5 and to provide one example of the contribution which business history can make to current policy discussions.
