'The most powerful man in the realm': Sir John Anderson, coalition, and Conservative statecraft 1940-45

这个项目将缩小我们对第二次世界大战期间英国政府的理解的一个主要差距，并揭示当代国家治理的独特保守方法。本书将通过分析约翰·安德森爵士（Sir John Anderson，1882 - 1958）的战时角色来做到这一点。安德森爵士现在基本上是一个被遗忘的人，但在战争期间却是一个举足轻重的人物，他在白厅拥有独特的影响力。丘吉尔认为安德森是他的继任者，如果他在冲突结束前去世的话。安德森是苏格兰大学的议员（1938 - 50年），他是一名公务员，曾作为爱尔兰事务副大臣、孟加拉总督和内政大臣处理过国家的多个挑战。但安德森在1940年丘吉尔联盟成立后开始崭露头角，丘吉尔依赖他作为"后方首相"。1940年末，英国议会议长委员会（Lord President's Committee）成立，作为国内事务的协调机构。它是战时白厅的权力中心，直到1943年，安德森作为勋爵总统对其工作产生了相当大的影响。在这样做的过程中，他被迫与公务员的不妥协和工党部长们试图将英国推向社会主义的企图作斗争。为了应对这一点，安德森实施了一种独特的保守主义治国方略，这种治国方略在对战争的胜利主义社会民主主义叙述中已经消失，但实际上对国家的蜕变做出了很大贡献。然而，尽管总统委员会的重要性，这个"国内战时内阁"从未被研究过。这个项目将围绕安德森作为保守党治国之道的典范。保守主义思想的历史学家经常指出，将果断行动与阻挠策略结合起来的信念是保守主义的生命力所在;但是，作为一种学说的果断行动与作为一种策略的故意阻挠的矛盾结合很少被保守主义政治的历史学家所关注（最近关于索尔兹伯里勋爵的研究除外）。其中一个主要目的是提高对这些概念如何应用于20世纪保守党执政的理解。丘吉尔忙于战争，未能提供有效的保守党领导;这项任务由安德森承担。同样，也没有分析战争期间财政政策制定的政治。然而，国家从公民那里筹集资金的方式和态度却从根本上得到了重塑;凯恩斯主义等新学说与正统金融学发生了冲突;现代英国的一些主要人物--丘吉尔、贝文、艾德礼、凯恩斯--都在努力影响政策。安德森于1943年10月被任命为财政大臣，丘吉尔责成他确保财政审慎将成为政府的指导方针，同时满足人们对改革的期望。安德森占据了国家的一个主要部门，努力阻挠工党，同时将英国国家带入新的方向。我的上一本书《艾德礼的战争》（2011）强调了战时英国变革性研究议程的范围。这个项目将通过对我们在战争中对政府，政策和保守政治的理解做出开创性的贡献来实现这一目标。在国家的驾驶舱里呆了五年，安德森比任何人都更多地监督了英国国家的演变;当其他人梦想改写社会契约时，安德森率先将其转化为实践。该项目将阐明这一进程。在这样做的过程中，它将提高对当代国家诞生的认识。这本书的最终目标之一是通过探索当代对国家责任的看法的起源，将20世纪40年代与现在的联系起来。

This project will close a major gap in our understanding of British government during the Second World War, as well as shedding light on distinctively Conservative methods of governing the contemporary state. It will do this by analysing the wartime role of Sir John Anderson (1882-1958), now a largely forgotten individual but a dominant figure during the war who held a position of unique influence in Whitehall. He was described as 'the most powerful man in the realm', and Churchill considered Anderson his successor should he die before the end of the conflict.MP for the Scottish Universities (1938-50), Anderson was a civil servant by background, and had dealt with multiple challenges to the state as Under-Secretary for Ireland, Governor of Bengal, and Home Secretary. But Anderson came into his own following the formation of the Churchill Coalition in 1940, and Churchill relied on him as the 'home front Prime Minister'. No other politician matched his mastery of Whitehall.The Lord President's Committee was formed in late 1940 to act as a coordinating body on the domestic front. It was the centre of power in wartime Whitehall and, as Lord President until 1943, Anderson exercised considerable influence over its work. In doing so he was forced to contend with civil service intransigence and attempts by Labour party ministers to drive the British state towards socialism. In responding to this, Anderson implemented a distinctively Conservative statecraft that has been lost amid triumphalist social-democratic narratives of the war but which actually contributed much towards the metamorphosis of the state. Yet, despite the significance of the Lord President's Committee, this 'domestic War Cabinet' has never been studied.This project will be built around Anderson as an exemplar of Conservative statecraft. Historians of conservative ideas often point to a belief in decisive action married to strategies of obstruction as animating conservatism; but the paradoxical combination of decisive action as a doctrine and deliberate obstruction as a strategy are rarely made central by historians of Conservative politics (with the exception of recent work on Lord Salisbury). One major aim is to improve understanding of how these concepts were applied to governing by twentieth-century Conservatives. Churchill, preoccupied by war, failed to provide effective Conservative leadership; that task was taken up by Anderson. The politics of financial policy-making during the war, likewise, have not been analysed. Yet the state's means of, and attitudes towards, raising money from its citizens were fundamentally reshaped; new doctrines like Keynesianism warred with orthodox finance; and some of the major figures of modern Britain - Churchill, Bevin, Attlee, Keynes - struggled to influence policy. Appointed Chancellor in October 1943, Anderson was tasked by Churchill with ensuring that financial prudence would be the lodestar of government while simultaneously meeting expectations of reform. Occupying a leading department of state, Anderson fought to obstruct Labour while taking the British state in new directions.My previous book Attlee's War (2011) highlighted the scope for a transformative research agenda on wartime Britain. This project will carry this to fruition through a ground-breaking contribution to our understanding of government, policy, and Conservative politics in the war. In the cockpit of state for five years, Anderson did more than any individual to oversee the evolution of the British state; while others dreamed of rewriting the social contract, Anderson took the lead in turning that into practice. The project will shed light on this process. In doing so it will enhance awareness of the birth of the contemporary state. One aim of the eventual book flowing from the project will be to contextualise the links between the 1940s and the present by exploring the origins of contemporary perceptions of the duties of the state.