Yes / Introduction It is easy to think of the Trade Union Act (2016) as ‘Thatcher Round 2’: the economic strategy of austerity once again pits the haves against the have-nots, creating the potential for a re-invigorated trade union movement to return to its economically disruptive habits, which the government seeks to constrict. Thus, TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady condemned the Conservatives for ‘refighting the battles of the 1980s’ instead of taking a more constructive approach (O’Grady, 2016). However, while the trade union legislation of the 1980s followed a decade marked by entrenched union disputes, the Trade Union Act (2016) has been introduced against a very different backdrop. The UK currently has historically low levels of industrial action, stagnating levels of union membership and limited areas of union density (DBIS, 2015; Godard, 2011; Dix et al, 2008). Could it be that the Trade Union Act (TUA) has more to tell us about trade union weakness than their strength? The Act comes at an important moment in the history of the labour move- ment. The Conservative austerity agenda not only attacks living standards, but reduces union membership through extensive job losses. The significance of this for the movement is exacerbated because the public sector is the most heavily unionised sector. This matters for many reasons, not least because the movement’s ability to resist the worst excesses of the austerity agenda rests on its membership and strength. This situation in turn shines a spotlight on what is perhaps the most pressing question facing the movement – the need for a model of unionism which can reach beyond the public sector, and in particular which meets the needs of the ever-growing body of precarious workers.

England’s long history of education has witnessed many conflicts in regard to language teaching. In this thesis, I investigate the conflicts surrounding two language education reform movements, Language Awareness and Knowledge About Language, during the Conservative administration between 1979 and 1997. The investigation examines official and non-official plans and policy texts produced by various groups and actors, notably Hawkins and Cox, that detail how the teaching of ‘Language’ should be conducted in England’s state school curriculum. The focus of the research is upon identifying what LA and KAL were as pedagogical concepts; why LA was reconstituted as KAL; what the motives underpinning these various plans and policies were; and finally, why efforts to establish LA and KAL were resisted. In the effort to make sense of this history, I draw theoretically and methodologically upon the work of Foucault, Fairclough, Bernstein and Ager. Limitations of my interpretation of this history notwithstanding, my findings revealed that LA was an educational reform movement that emerged from common schooling discourses, and one that sought to improve its educational provision. While LA was originally intended to be a subject in its own right that bridged the English and Foreign Language subject areas, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate reconstituted LA and placed its responsibility firmly within the English subject area. The motives underpinning LA and KAL planning and policy are varied. Those underpinning the policies, however, are distinctly ideological in nature, drawing a strong relationship between language education and democracy. Nearly all motives pertain to what Bernstein calls a competence model of education, the modes of which are notably attuned to addressing inequality and promoting social integration. LA and KAL were reforms that were both ill understood and resented, for varying and complex reasons, by educators and the Conservatives alike. The thesis closes with directions for future research.