The dissertation explores the relationship between middle class radicalism and the media in Britain between 1954 and 1965. It demonstrates how developments in media communications and discourse influenced the radical movement to ban-the-bomb. The rise of visual and commercial media, combined with the shift of media discourse away from the frameworks of the class system and the Cold War, led to an expansion of the boundaries of democratic debate: both in terms of the issues which were open to dispute and the groups which were able to dispute them. It enabled pacifists and socialists to mobilise a movement by co-ordinating anti-nuclear propaganda with media coverage. Since they adapted their tactics according to the success with which they secured coverage in the media, their relationship with it was integral to the evolution of the ban-the-bomb and peace movements. The relationship between middle class radicalism and the media was significant not only for the political cultures of pacifism and socialism, however, but also for the nature of democracy and the public sphere in Britain. By exploiting developments in media communications and discourse, radicals also influenced public life. The activists, artists, intellectuals and rank-and-file supporters who participated in the movement forged and popularised forms of protest in and outside of the media and the legal and political system.

My thesis examines the Conservative Party's relationship with the extreme right in the period 1945-75 by investigating its actions towards various groups and individuals. It reveals how the Conservative Party adopted some of the extreme-right's themes, whilst at the same time sticking to its long constitutional practice. It also investigates the role of the Conservative Party's bureaucracy and wider Conservatism. I begin by outlining the Conservative Party's connections with the extreme right before the Second World War. I then show that after 1945, the extreme-right re-emerged as difficult issues arose, such as decolonisation, immigration, industrial unrest and Europe. The Conservative Party shunned any groups or individuals that espoused or even exhibited any form of fascism. The Party was also wary of non-fascist groups that occupied political space to the right of the party. I explain why and how the Conservative Party approved or disapproved of these particular groups and individuals, and how it consistently posed dilemmas for them, whether they were inside or outside the party. The thesis concludes that the Conservative Party did indeed help to thwart the extreme right. However, it also argues that this is as much a consequence of the Conservative Party's practical measures against such groups as its attraction of its supporters. Thus, whilst the Conservative Party's critics might be correct in identifying the role the party played in ensuring the extreme-right's failure, the reasons why, and methods by which this occurred, does not confirm their perception of the Conservative Party as 'semi-fascist itself.

This thesis examines British intelligence collection efforts against the Soviet Union’s nuclear bombers and long-range nuclear ballistic missiles during the period 1949 until 1962. It also analyses the serious intelligence collection problems that were encountered concerning this topic and how successful Britain’s intelligence efforts were in the light of what is now known. This period of Cold War history covers from the Soviet Union’s atomic bomb test through to the Cuban Missile Crisis. The thesis commences with an analysis of the Soviet Union’s nuclear bombers which posed the initial nuclear strike threat to the United Kingdom. It explores how German personnel returning from captivity in the Soviet Union were used by the West to provide information on Soviet military research and how British analysts struggled to gather intelligence on nuclear bombers in a secret police state. The issue of the Soviet ballistic missile threat to the UK is then considered, again by initially examining intelligence provided by German returnees, through to more sophisticated intelligence collection methods such as advanced radar. The papers of the British Joint Intelligence Committee and other government departments were used to examine collection problems and assessments. The role of secret intelligence assessments in the Macmillan government’s decision to cancel the British Blue Streak nuclear missile is also explored. Aerial reconnaissance was a particularly useful intelligence asset. Britain’s clandestine over-flights of the USSR and role in the U-2 programme have only been briefly discussed before. These missions and the UK’s role in covert balloon operations are explored for the first time in a detailed case study. The use of satellite reconnaissance in Britain’s intelligence collection efforts is also assessed. The Colonel Oleg Penkovsky spy case is then analysed as a case study of human intelligence collection and its problems when dealing with Soviet bombers and missiles from 1961-62. This chapter uses declassified American documents to examine the nuclear material he provided, his role in the Cuban Missile Crisis and his overall value to the British and American intelligence agencies. The conclusion is that intelligence collection and analysis evolved significantly from 1949 to 1962 from the use of basic human intelligence to the development of satellite reconnaissance. My thesis, written chronologically, demonstrates that analysts did well to overcome enormous problems when dealing with an extremely difficult intelligence target. At the end of the period they provided far better intelligence collection and analysis on Soviet nuclear weapon delivery systems to British policy makers during a critical period in the Cold War.

There is a relative lack of academic research related to spatial and sociodemographic variations in commuting propensities, patterns and behaviours. This is surprising given that commuting is carried out, often daily, by the vast majority of individuals in employment. The expenditure of time and money travelling to and from work on a daily basis means that commuting is often a relatively important part of many people’s behaviour, with the nature of an individual’s commute impacting upon their lifestyle, both directly and indirectly. One of the key sources of information about commuting behaviour and patterns is the population census in the United Kingdom, through which travel to work characteristics are captured resulting in large and complex datasets that are disseminated by the census agencies as aggregate data (i.e. stocks of commuters based on where they live), interaction data (i.e. flows of commuters from where they live to where they work) and microdata (i.e. individual records of commuters). Spatial and sociodemographic variations in commuting propensities, patterns and behaviours, although often recognised in an everyday sense, have not been the subject of much academic research and are far from fully understood. With this in mind, this research employs spatial and statistical methods on the three aforementioned datasets to analyse spatial and sociodemographic variations in commuting. Geographical Information Systems have been used to visualise spatial variations in commuting propensities and patterns at both national and regional levels. Simple Linear Regression has been employed to examine the correlations and potential relationships between commuting indicators and important continuous socioeconomic variables. Binary Logistic Regression models have been calculated to demonstrate how commuting behaviours vary according to sex, age group, ethnic group and a host of other important categorical sociodemographic variables. Amongst other findings, the thesis has found that there was an increase in the national commuting rate between 1991 and 2011, that there was a general increase in very long-distance commuting over the same 20 year period, that there was a general decrease in the prevalence of commuting by public transport between 1991 and 2001 but a general increase between 2001 and 2011 and that substantial changes in commuting propensities and patterns have occurred in the Leeds City Region. The findings from the research have been used to make some recommendations for implementation of policies by national, regional or local governments or any other organisations with a responsibility to supply and maintain transport networks.

This thesis offers a study of British policy towards Poland from 194 to 1947. It traces the British attempt to negotiate a postwar political settlement for Poland that would met he expectations of both the Polish government-in-exile, to which Britain had committed its support in return for Poland’s substantial wartime military contribution, and the Soviet Union. During the last year and a half of the war, British policy makers struggled to mediate between the two sides and accommodate their competing demands. Ultimately, a compromise was reached, which saw the former prime minister of the exile government, Stanisław Mikołajczyk, return to Poland at he end of the war to join the provisional government. Mikołajczyk agreed to return on the basis of a British commitment to provide ongoing support in reconstituting a sovereign Polish state and establishing a democratic government. This thesis charts the outcome of that commitment, from the negotiations for the formation of the new Polish government under the auspices of the Three Power Commission in the summer of 1945, to the Polish referendum of June 1946, and the elections in January 1947. It shows that British policy makers struggled to met the commitment to Poland within the changing context of the postwar international system. In the circumstances of the emerging Cold War, as the reality of the Soviet resolve to absorb Poland into its sphere grew clearer, Britain’s political promises to the Polish democratic opposition became increasingly difficult to fulfil. Not al sections of the British policy making establishment were immediately prepared to accept heir dramatically circumscribed power to influence the shape of the Polish political settlement. Whereas the foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin reconciled himself to the new circumstances with pragmatic sped, the Warsaw embassy, and many of the Foreign Office Northern Department officials, were less wiling to abandon the original terms of the British commitment. Thus, while some diplomatic and Foreign Office officials continued to lend support to the democratic Polish opposition parties, Bevin increasingly sought to limit Anglo-Polish relations to bilateral issues, including negotiations for financial and trade agreements, the repatriation of former members of the Polish armed forces, the final demarcation of Poland’s western frontier, and the transfer of the German population from western Poland to the British occupation zone. The result of these different priorities was a lack of uniformity in British policy. Much of the scholarship on Britain’s early postwar policy towards Poland takes one of two approaches: either it assumes that Britain understood immediately in 1945 that Poland was ‘lost’ to the Soviet Union, or it sets a reprehensible cynicism in the British approach, without due acknowledgement of the limits which constrained British policy options. This thesis offers a different interpretation; it argues that Britain adjusted much more slowly and unevenly to its diminished position after the war, and that its limited capacity to shape the Polish political settlement was understood only gradually, and at different times in different parts of the policy making establishment, creating an overall inconsistency in policy.

This thesis examines the role of British newspaper coverage of Africa in the process of decolonisation between 1957 and 1960. It considers events in the Gold Coast/Ghana, Kenya, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, South Africa, and the Belgian Congo/Congo. It offers an extensive analysis of British newspaper coverage of Africa during this period. Concurrently, it explores British journalists’ interactions with one another as well as with the British Government, British MPs, African nationalists, white settler communities, their presses, and African and European settler governments, whose responses to coverage are gauged and evaluated throughout. The project aims, firstly, to provide the first broad study of the role of the British press in, and in relation to, Africa during the period of ‘rapid decolonisation’. Secondly, it offers a reassessment of the assumption that the British metropolitan political and cultural context to the end of empire in Africa was extraneous to the process. Thirdly, it aims to contribute to a growing literature on non-governmental metropolitan perspectives on the end of empire.

Exploiting recently-released files from the United Kingdom’s National Archives at Kew, this thesis is a case study of the complexities of engaging in diplomacy with a revolutionary regime – a regime that had come to power in a state with which there had previously been friendly co-operation and profitable commercial relations. Specifically, it analyses the evolution of the British diplomatic experience and especially the role played by British diplomats in dealing with Iran between 1978, when widespread discontent against the Shah made it clear that his pro-Western regime might not survive, through the revolution of 1979, the dawn of the Islamic Republic and the American embassy hostage crisis, until the end of 1981, by which time it was clear that Anglo-Iranian relations were mired in difficulties, with Britain conducting business via an ‘interests section’ under a protecting power, Sweden. The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate how well British diplomats performed as they conducted relations during a major revolution, against a highly uncertain backdrop, with Iranian domestic affairs in constant flux. Comparisons are made to the British experience of previous revolutions, especially those in France, Russia and China. In exploring the relationship and interactions between Britain and Iran, the thesis not only looks at how foreign policy towards Iran was shaped by the British government in London (particularly via the Foreign and Commonwealth Office), but also at how the British embassy, and later the interests section, in Tehran, helped to shaped policy at home while dealing with the grave uncertainties in Iran. To this end, in addition to looking at major international issues, like the fallout from the hostage crisis, the implications of the Iranian upheaval for the Cold War and the impact of the Iran- Iraq conflict, the thesis explores three major questions. In chronological order these are: the supposed failure of the embassy, under Sir Anthony Parsons, to predict the downfall of the Shah (where the thesis draws on works that discuss intelligence ‘surprises’); how diplomats at the embassy faced the upheaval in Tehran, during the revolution itself; and how the interests section was established and staffed, under Swedish protection. The thesis therefore combines some of the conventional focus of works of international history (such as political crises, war and trade) with questions that have arisen from the literature on diplomatic practice (such as the daily work of ambassadors, the value of interests sections as compared to embassies and interactions within the diplomatic corps).

This examination of photography in Thatcher's Britain explores the abject photographic responses to the discursive construction of ‘sick Britain' promoted by the Conservative Party during the years of crisis from the late 1970s onwards. Through close visual analyses of photojournalist, press, and social documentary photographs, this Ph.D. examines the visual responses to the Government's advocation of a ‘healthy' society and its programme of social and economic ‘waste-saving'. Drawing Imogen Tyler's interpretation of ‘social abjection' (the discursive mediation of subjects through exclusionary modes of ‘revolting aesthetics') into the visual field, this Ph.D explores photography's implication in bolstering the abject and exclusionary discourses of the era. Exploring the contexts in which photographs were created, utilised and disseminated to visually convey ‘waste' as an expression of social abjection, this Ph.D exposes how the Right's successful establishment of a neoliberal political economy was supported by an accelerated use and deployment of revolting photographic aesthetics. My substantial contribution to knowledge is in tracking the crises of Thatcher's Britain through reference to an ‘abject structure of feeling' in British photography by highlighting a photographic counter-narrative that emerged in response to the prevailing discourse of social sickness. By analysing the development and reframing the photographic languages of British documentary photographers such as Chris Killip, Tish Murtha, Martin Parr and Nick Waplington, I demonstrate how such photography was explicitly engaged in affirmative forms of social abjection and ‘grotesque realism'. This Ph.D examines how this renewed form of documentary embodied an insurgent photographic visual language which served to undercut the encompassing discourses of exclusionary social abjection so pervasive at the time.

This thesis examines the way in which dance work produced by postcolonial dance artists is often misread and exoticised by critics, funders and audiences. Yet the works produced have a disruptive effect and are products and clear indications of the sometimes oppressive processes that create cultural representation and identities. These postcolonial dance artists also have to contend with problematic umbrella terms such as ‘Black’ and ‘South Asian’ which are not fully descriptive of their dance practice and have the effect of stereotyping the work produced. The thesis investigates the artists Mavin Khoo, Shobana Jeyasingh, Akram Khan, Bode Lawal, Robert Hylton and Phoenix Dance Company who have created works that have asserted their individual agency through the use of particular cultural dance practices and have engaged in concepts such as classicism, modernism and postmodernism in order to establish a place within the British dance canon. Choreographic work produced by artists such as Khoo and Hylton have ‘educated’ audiences about the dance traditions that have been ‘passed down’ to them, whilst artists and companies like Phoenix have worked within a primarily Western medium, yet acknowledging that their work is informed by their distinctive African, African-Caribbean and Indian identities also. Although the work produced by these artists is often viewed from a white and Eurocentric perspective and exoticised to fit with conventional notions of ‘Indianness’ and ‘Blackness’, this thesis demonstrates that through the use of methodologies from cultural theory/policy, postcolonial theory and dance studies it is possible to reveal and illuminate meanings in the choreography and performances of postcolonial artists, and open up the dialogue that their works initiate in a multicultural and globalised context.

This thesis is about the post-war British state’s use of space to organise society and to manage the individual in ways which have been largely ignored within post-war historiography. The thesis shows that the state’s power over the physical fabric of everyday life was deployed in a manner, and in pursuit of objectives, which demand a reassessment of the ways in which the relationship between the state and society in post-war Britain is conventionally understood. Space was used in multiple and sometimes contradictory ways, but state actors evidenced a persistent desire to restructure the physical environment in order to construct normative models of the citizen-subject, to enable new modes of wealth creation, and to disrupt and marginalise unwanted places and practices. Crucially, the thesis argues that state spatial interventions were often used to construct and privilege a model of the citizen-subject as a consuming individual. The thesis focuses on state intervention in four aspects of social experience: shopping, personal mobility, domesticity, and employment. In each case the study shows that reorganising space was viewed as a key tool of government, and was deployed in order to service and manage perceived socio-economic needs. The thesis demonstrates that spatial reordering had identifiable social consequences—spatial projects were not simply indications of the aspirations of governing elites, but reconstituted the material conditions in which a whole range of social, economic, and cultural practices took shape. The thesis argues that historians have not found adequate ways of integrating the structuring force of space into their analyses of socio-historical processes. The focus of much recent historiography on the agency and identity of the individual is in danger of overlooking the ways in social and cultural practices are constrained, shaped, and managed by external factors. This thesis particularly engages studies of post-war consumerism, where the inventive cultural practices of the individual consuming subject have been emphasised at the expense of interrogating how consuming habits were managed and organised by the state and commercial actors. A central claim of this thesis is that, through spatial reorganisation, state actors regulated mass consumerism in the interests of ensuring a continued economic base for deindustrialising cities facing an uncertain political and financial future. This thesis also makes a concerted effort to overcome disciplinary divides, and to demonstrate the value of empirical historical research in testing and revising theories developed in adjacent disciplines. Within urban geography, sociology, and contemporary urban studies, characterisations of the post-war, Fordist, Keynesian, welfare state have been used to construct an influential narrative of epochal social, political, and cultural change across the second half of the twentieth century. An inclusive, collectivist, and redistributive regime is widely understood to have been radically transformed from the late-1970s into a neoliberal, entrepreneurial, consumerist, and individualistic polity. This thesis uses empirical historical research to produce conclusions which challenge this narrative of epochal political and social change.