Communication 78: How the dialogue became a monologue and what to do about it including proposals for a business congress

In late 1973 and early 1974, in the run‐up to the most traumatic general election of modern times, a democratically elected government was humiliated and brought down by carefully orchestrated industrial action. It is my belief that this event will come, in time, to be seen as a major turning point in our society, after which certain aspects of our national life will never be the same again. It was the start of a rapidly‐developing movement which surged through 1974 to 1977 when the steam was eventually taken out of it by the Labour Party losing its overall majority in Parliament. But it has, by now, already produced basic and irreversible shifts in Britain in respect of that complex area made up of work, employment and the way the country earns its living. Only recently has it begun to sink in how deep‐seated these changes are. One result, among many others, is that nowadays, except on very rare occasions, only the left, the trade unions and the TUC publicly express any opinion about this topic; alternative voices have been gradually silenced, not because of any deep‐laid plot but because those on whom the duty of advancing an alternative view would normally fall have opted out and lapsed into a punch‐drunk state, directly caused by the events of 1973–4. To say the least they have lost their nerve; some are somewhat petulant at the turn events have taken; others have just got nothing to say; and yet another group think it diplomatic to keep quiet and hope for things to improve.