ABSTRACT
The historiography of Edward Heath's government: that it was to an unusual extent the government that the Prime Minister himself wanted it to be and it was among the best-prepared of all governments ever to take office in modern Britain. It was a government whose policies in the second half of its term ran significantly counter to what it had done in the first two years and though such writers as John Campbell have presented a persuasive case in defence of the government's leadership, decision-making and actual policies, it has still attracted little admiration either for the quality of its political judgement or for the presentation of those policies. The Industrial Relations Act may stand both as the prime example of rapid action to implement a manifesto commitment and of the truth of Selwyn Lloyd's observation that things had changed.
