The Official History Of Britain And The Channel Tunnel

Commissioned by the Cabinet Office and using hitherto untapped British Government records, this book presents an in-depth analysis of the successful project of 1986-94. This is a vivid portrayal of the complexities of quadripartite decision-making (two countries, plus the public and private sectors), revealing new insights into the role of the British and French Governments in the process. This important book, written by Britain’s leading transport historian, will be essential reading for all those interested in PPPs, British and European economic history and international relations. The building of the Channel Tunnel has been one of Europe’s major projects and a testimony to British-French and public-private sector collaboration. However, Eurotunnel’s current financial crisis provides a sobering backcloth for an examination of the British Government’s long-term flirtation with the project, and, in particular, the earlier Tunnel project in the 1960s and early 1970s, which was abandoned by the British Government in 1975.

Commissioned by the Cabinet Office and using hitherto untapped British Government records, this book presents an in-depth analysis of the successful project of 1986-94. This is a vivid portrayal of the complexities of quadripartite decision-making (two countries, plus the public and private sectors), revealing new insights into the role of the British and French Governments in the process. This important book, written by Britain's leading transport historian, will be essential reading for all those interested in PPPs, British and European economic history and international relations. The building of the Channel Tunnel has been one of Europe's major projects and a testimony to British-French and public-private sector collaboration. However, Eurotunnel's current financial crisis provides a sobering backcloth for an examination of the British Government's long-term flirtation with the project, and, in particular, the earlier Tunnel project in the 1960s and early 1970s, which was abandoned by the British Government in 1975.

Commissioned by the Cabinet Office and using hitherto untapped British Government records, this book presents an in-depth analysis of the successful project of 1986-94. This is a vivid portrayal of the complexities of quadripartite decision-making (two countries, plus the public and private sectors), revealing new insights into the role of the British and French Governments in the process. This important book, written by Britain's leading transport historian, will be essential reading for all those interested in PPPs, British and European economic history and international relations. The building of the Channel Tunnel has been one of Europe's major projects and a testimony to British-French and public-private sector collaboration. However, Eurotunnel's current financial crisis provides a sobering backcloth for an examination of the British Government's long-term flirtation with the project, and, in particular, the earlier Tunnel project in the 1960s and early 1970s, which was abandoned by the British Government in 1975.

The Channel Tunnel, has been one of histories most protracted and at times acrimonious, construction projects. From the paranoia of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when there was a fear that foreign hordes would rush through the tunnel and invade Britain, to the lethargic attempts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, its a miracle, that this great feat of Engineering, was ever constructed at all. Nicholas Faith, has delved into the archives and researched the fascinating truth about this project, that took so long to authorise and construct. The author has found material in the archives, both in Britain and abroad, that has not been previously published or seen, outside a closed group of people.

This volume describes the events from 1963 up until the British entry into the Common Market in 1975. It will be of interest to students of British political history, European Union politics, diplomatic history and international relations in general.

This second volume of The Official History of the British Civil Service explores the radical restructuring of the Civil Service that took place during the Thatcher and Major premierships from 1982 until 1997, after a period of confusion and disagreement about its future direction. The book brings a much-needed historical perspective to the development of the ‘new public management’, in which the UK was a world-leader, and considers difficult questions about the quality of democratic governance in Britain and the constitutional position of its Civil Service. Based on extensive research using government papers and interviews with leading participants, it concentrates on attempts to reform the Civil Service from the centre. In doing so, it has important lessons to offer all those, both inside and outside the UK, seeking to improve the quality, efficiency and accountability of democratic governance. Particular light is shed on the origins of such current concerns as: The role of special advisers The need for a Prime Minister’s Department The search for cost efficiency Accountability to Parliament and its Select Committees Civil Service policy-making capacity and implementation capability. This book will be of much interest to students of British history, government and politics, and public administration.

In June 1983 Margaret Thatcher won the biggest increase in a government's Parliamentary majority in British electoral history. Over the next four years, as Charles Moore relates in this central volume of his uniquely authoritative biography, Britain's first woman prime minister changed the course of her country's history and that of the world, often by sheer force of will. The book reveals as never before how she faced down the Miners' Strike, transformed relations with Europe, privatized the commanding heights of British industry and continued the reinvigoration of the British economy. It describes her role on the world stage with dramatic immediacy, identifying Mikhail Gorbachev as 'a man to do business with' before he became leader of the Soviet Union, and then persistently pushing him and Ronald Reagan, her great ideological soulmate, to order world affairs according to her vision. For the only time since Churchill, she ensured that Britain had a central place in dealings between the superpowers. But even at her zenith she was beset by difficulties. The beloved Reagan two-timed her during the US invasion of Grenada. She lost the minister to whom she was personally closest to scandal and almost had to resign as a result of the Westland affair. She found herself isolated within her own government over Europe. She was at odds with the Queen over the Commonwealth and South Africa. She bullied senior colleagues and she set in motion the poll tax. Both these last would later return to wound her, fatally. In all this, Charles Moore has had unprecedented access to all Mrs Thatcher's private and government papers. The participants in the events described have been so frank in interview that we feel we are eavesdropping on their conversations as they pass. We look over Mrs Thatcher's shoulder as she vigorously annotates documents, so seeing her views on many particular issues in detail, and we understand for the first time how closely she relied on a handful of trusted advisors to help shape her views and carry out her will. We see her as a public performer, an often anxious mother, a workaholic and the first woman in western democratic history who truly came to dominate her country in her time. In the early hours of 12 October 1984, during the Conservative party conference in Brighton, the IRA attempted to assassinate her. She carried on within hours to give her leader's speech at the conference (and later went on to sign the Anglo-Irish agreement). One of her many left-wing critics, watching her that day, said 'I don't approve of her as Prime Minister, but by God she's a great tank commander.' This titanic figure, with all her capacities and all her flaws, storms from these pages as from no other book.

This book is the first history of UK economic intelligence and offers a new perspective on the evolution of Britain's national intelligence machinery and how it worked during the Cold War. British economic intelligence has a longer pedigree than the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) and was the vanguard of intelligence coordination in Whitehall, yet it remains a missing field in intelligence studies. This book is the first history of this core government capability and shows how central it was to the post-war evolution of Whitehall's national intelligence machinery. It places special emphasis on the Joint Intelligence Bureau and Defence Intelligence Staff - two vital organisations in the Ministry of Defence underpinning the whole Whitehall intelligence edifice, but almost totally ignored by historians. Intelligence in Whitehall was not conducted in a parallel universe. This contrasts with the conventional wisdom which accepts the uniqueness of intelligence as a government activity and is symbolised by the historical profile of the JIC. The study draws on the official archives to show that the mantra of the existence of a semi-autonomous UK intelligence community cannot be sustained against the historical evidence of government departments using the machinery of government to advance their traditional priorities. Rivalries within and between agencies and departments, and their determination to resist any central encroachment on their authority, emasculated a truly professional multi-skilled capability in Whitehall at the very moment when it was needed to address emerging global economic issues. This book will be of much interest to students of British government and politics, intelligence studies, defence studies, security studies and international relations in general.