How Britain Works

MICHAEL TEMPLE is Senior Lecturer at Staffordshire University. His dissertation, Coalitions in English Local Government, won the Walter Bagehot Prize (1993), awarded by the Political Studies Association for the best doctoral thesis in British politics. He has written many papers on aspects of British politics and is the author of Coalitions and Cooperation in Local Government (Electoral Reform Society, 1996) and co-author of Community Identity and Participation in Local Democracy (Commission for Local Democracy, 1994). AE(00): Consultant Editor: JO CAMPLING

'Michael Temple raises questions that deserve to ring alarm bells throughout British public administration and politics, as the Blair government appears to continue rather than reverse the centralising tendencies of the Conservative era' - Simon Jenkins, The Times How Britain Works is a stimulating, thought-provoking but even-handed account that presents Blair's pursuit of the Third Way and joined-up government as a natural development of Thatcher's revolution. Those that believed Labour's victory in 1997 would usher in a new golden age for a powerful democratic system of local government should read this book...it may help explain their disappointment' - Professor Michael Thrasher, University of Plymouth '...an excellent, brief volume on both the attitudinal and governmental changes brought by the Thatcher years and their potential impact on Labour in power.' - A.Katz, Choice

• List of Tables Acknowledgements Thatcher's Legacy to Blair Before the Flood: Local Government up to 1974 Drowning Not Waving: Local Government Under Attack New Partnerships and Output Politics The Apathetic Community? The New Public Service Ethos A Crisis of Accountability Governance and the Third Way Prime Manager: But What For? Notes Bibliography Index