Centre Activities
White Heat Conference
Friday 5 July 2013
Venue: The People’s History Museum, Manchester
This one-day, cross-disciplinary conference, organised by the Centre for British Politics, University of Nottingham and the People’s History Museum, Manchester will mark the fiftieth anniversary of Harold Wilson’s landmark speech
White Heat Fifty Years On
In October 1963 Labour leader Harold Wilson told his party conference of the importance of harnessing science to economic planning as a means of modernising British industry. Britain’s future, Wilson insisted, depended upon the country’s willingness to embrace the ‘white heat’ of the ‘scientific revolution’; and Labour, he claimed, was uniquely qualified to lead that revolution.
Wilson’s phrase has become one of the best known examples of post-war political rhetoric, something generally believed to have tapped into the spirit of a moment in which, as Wilson would later claim, a ‘New Britain’ was emerging. Many however see ‘white heat’ as words without substance, ones whose cynicism would later mock the subsequent Labour governments’ lack of achievement.
This one-day, cross-disciplinary conference, organised by the Centre for British Politics, University of Nottingham and the People’s History Museum, Manchester will mark the fiftieth anniversary of Harold Wilson’s landmark speech by exploring its political, cultural, economic and scientific context; it will also seek to assess its wider significance within recent British history and invite parallels with other ‘modernising’ moments, such as that embodied by Tony Blair, another Labour leader who wanted to lead his country into a brilliant future.
Programme
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10.00
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Coffee and Registration
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10.30
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What was the White Heat, and why has it mattered so much?
Professor David Egerton, Imperial College London
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11.15
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From where did White Heat originate?
The influence of 1940s economic publicity
Henry Irving, Leeds
Labour’s policy on science and technology
David McLoughlin, Imperial College London
The party context
Professor Steven Fielding, University of Nottingham
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12.30
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Roundtable: recalling White Heat
To include Max Atkinson (author of Our Masters' Voices and Lend Me Your Ears), Gerald Kaufman MP, Geoffrey Goodman (former Industrial Editor of the Daily Mirror) John Spellar MP and others
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13.15-14.15
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Lunch
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14.15
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How was White Heat communicated?
Communicating Scientific Socialism: the rhetoric of White Heat
Dr Andrew Scott Crines, Huddersfield
White Heat and narratives of modernization
Dr Nick Randall, Newcastle
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15.00
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Refreshments
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15.30 - 17.00
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What were the consequences of White Heat?
The Architecture of White Heat
Professor Adam Sharr & Dr Stephen Thornton, Cardiff
White Heat and the Wilson governments’ ‘Approach to Europe’
Stuart Butler, Manchester
Science and Socialism: from Wilson to Blair
Dr Matthew Francis, Birmingham
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