ABSTRACT
Following the 1987 general election, successive Conservative governments recognised that they faced problems emanating from Scottish and Welsh politics. First, they perceived a need to address the territorial problem of increasing criticism against the existing constitutional settlement by which Scotland and Wales had been governed. Second, they were forced to admit that such territorial dissent was also a party problem in that it was channeled into poor electoral support for the Conservative Party and a questioning of the overall legitimacy of London-based government and politics. As Gamble (1993) noted, this led Conservative governments in the late 1980s and early to mid 1990s to address the question of territorial management in order to sustain the existing constitutional settlement and to ensure broad compliance with Conservative policies. Most analysis of this development tends to be from a periphery perspective, and stresses the remoteness of Conservative government from the realities of everyday concerns in Scotland and Wales and the resulting incoherence and/or injustice of central government policy. The ineffectiveness of territorial management in this era has become a commonplace assumption. This chapter is not intended as an apologia for Conservative policy but does argue that Conservative governments developed territorial management with serious intent, and that whilst the potential for success was questionable, a more equivocal assessment is generally appropriate.
