Conservative Party Agents in Second World War Britain

The Second World War placed great pressures on the machineryand personnel of all political parties. Conservatives formedthe view that their own machine had been especially hard hitby the challenges of the war years, and that this was a majorreason for the party's 1945 general election defeat. A supposeddecline in the number of full-time, salaried constituency agentswas a key component of this narrative of decline. This articleinvestigates what happened to the Conservative agency in wartime,using an unusually wide range of sources, including those ofaround a hundred constituency associations. It shows that thenumber of agents did fall as a result of the war, but that associationsoften worked hard to keep their agents, or to mitigate the effectsof their departure. It also explains the failure of headquarters'wartime efforts to reform the agency and centralize the employmentof agents. Although the party's relative organizational declinedid have significant emotional and practical consequences forit in 1945, Conservatives tended, post hoc, to overstate theextent of their wartime organizational collapse, in part becauseit allowed them to avoid damaging recriminations about the realreasons for their defeat. Ultimately, though, the war's effects,while significant, were essentially transient. Constituencycontrol of agents remained, and a professional standard wasmaintained. The Conservatives emerged from the war with an agencythat was different in detail from, but recognizably similarin form to, that which had predated the war.     

Australia's Nuclear Horizon: Moving Beyond the Drumbeat of Risk Inflation

The 2006 Switkowski review report commissioned by the Howard government highlighted some of the economic and foreign policy benefits that could flow from a major expansion of Australia's uranium export program. It also identified the long-term advantages for Australia's energy security flowing from the development of a national nuclear industry. The report has been condemned by anti-nuclear groups, who argue that proposals for Australia's continuing and, possibly, deeper involvement in the nuclear fuel cycle are unacceptable. The primary risk identified is that Australian uranium exports will contribute to global nuclear proliferation pressures, but claims concerning nuclear-related terrorism are also an increasingly common theme in anti-nuclear commentary. These arguments, in turn, are framed within a broader set of assumptions about the ‘immoral’ nature of any engagement in the nuclear fuel cycle. This article examines the most prominent claims put forward by anti-nuclear proponents and argues that many of them are based on an unnecessary inflation of risk.     

Morphological Characteristics of Healthy and Osteoarthritic Joint Surfaces in Archaeological Skeletons

Osteoarthritis is a major health concern in living populations, as well as being one of the most common pathological lesions identified in the archaeological record. The aetiology of the disease remains unclear, with a multi‐factorial influence of physical strain, age, genetics, and obesity. Previous studies have identified a relationship between the presence of knee osteoarthritis on the distal femoral joint and the morphology of the intercondylar notch, patellar groove, and medial condyle. The current study expands this research to investigate the relationship between distal femoral, distal humeral, and proximal ulnar joint morphology and osteoarthritis with 3D shape analysis techniques. These methods provide a more detailed analysis of joint morphology in order to determine any relationship between 3D shape and osteoarthritis. The results indicate a complex relationship between joint shape and knee osteoarthritis, with eburnated right femora showing a statistically significant association. The shapes associated with eburnated or affected femoral joints can be explained by osteophyte development, and therefore likely represent systematic shape changes and not a particular joint shape predisposing individuals to the condition. There was no identifiable relationship found in the proximal ulna or distal humerus, indicating that joint shape is unlikely to influence the development of the condition in the elbow joint and that any shape changes produced by osteoarthritis are not systematic or quantifiable. The joints analysed in this study were highly influenced by asymmetry, sexual dimorphism, and allometry, resulting in a small sample size of affected joints in many datasets. Further analyses of large skeletal samples are needed to more thoroughly investigate the possible relationship of distal femoral joint shape and osteoarthritis. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Book reviews

Regions in Europe. Patrick Le Galès and Christian Lequesne (Eds). London, Routledge, 1998, 305. pp., ISBN 0 415 16483 4

Unemployment and Social Exclusion: Landscapes of Labour Inequality. Paul Lawless, Ron Martin and Sally Hardy (Eds). London, Jessica Kingsley 1998, 280 pp., £17.95 pb, ISBN 1 85302 341 8

Cities Back from the Edge. Roberta Brandes Gratz (with Norman Mintz). Chichester, John Wiley, 1998, £24.95, ISBN 0 471 14417 7