ABSTRACT
Heath's premiership can be plausibly seen both as the last attempt to govern within the constraints of the post-war settlement and as anticipating the programme which the Thatcher governments attempted to carry out in the 1980s. Heath was determined to ensure that he had a full legislative programme worked out and ready to implement, although critics of this approach to opposition argued that it committed the party to a set of specific policies which might not be appropriate in the altered circumstances of government. Like the earlier modernization programmes of the Macmillan government 1960-2 and the Labour government 1964-6, it aimed to reverse the relative decline of the British economy and the political overload of British government. Heath strongly supported the pooling of sovereignty and the creation of supranational European institutions where appropriate. One of the most notable features of the Heath government was its concerted attempt to reform the machinery of the state to make government more efficient.
