ABSTRACT

The formulation of state policy towards steel closure areas exemplifies how the relations between local and national politics and policy are currently being redefined in the UK. An outwardly simple populist ideology backed by an upsurge of carefully orchestrated nationalist sentiment and economic policies which tend to favour the right voters in the right place at the right time have combined with a collapse in disarray of formal political alternatives (symbolized by resort to the International Monetary Fund in 1976) to produce a seemingly stable hegemony, coloured by a 'new realism' as to what is possible in terms of state economic management. This stability, though, is based upon conflict; for it has been established around an appreciation of two major sources of power and an appropriation of policies towards them. The UK state is currently characterized by a strong centralizing tendency and a powerful privatizing process. The latter is sold as a means of economic emancipation; the former as an adjunct, ail unfortunate necessity because of the policies of some previous town hall inhabitants. This order of policies should not be surprising; for the rhetoric of privatization belies the reality of centralization.