ABSTRACT
The Conservative analysis of the unions under both Heath and Thatcher was based therefore on a substantial degree of common ground. Their different responses reflected the reactions of party elites to changes in the political environment after 1964. Only eleven days after the general election, Sir Alec Douglas Home appointed Heath to chair the Advisory Committee on Policy (ACP), with a wide-ranging brief to reappraise party policy. Between 1964 and 1970 three groups worked on industrial relations and trade union reform. Despite the ACP recommendation that the 1964 manifesto, Prosperity with a Purpose, include a ‘statement on trade union law’, party leaders refused to go beyond calling for ‘an early inquiry’. The Trade Union Law and Practice Group appointed by Heath made very rapid progress, issuing its interim report in April 1965, five months after its inception, and its final report in September.
