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This article analyses the condition of the labour alliance of the Labour Party and its affiliated unions in the light of a recent typology of union-party links, and of Lewis Minkin's seminal study of the British union-party link. We conclude that, while the link appeared to have stabilized before the general election in 2001, it has become much more volatile since, although the new group of more left-wing leaders of major unions remains determined to reassert the union position inside the party rather than radically change the union-Labour relationship. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2003.

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The IMF settlement of December 1976 looms large in popular and partisan views of the politicsofthe 1970s. It isargued here that conventional academic wisdom hascome to embody several misleading myths about its impact on economic policy. Evidence is presented to challenge four such myths which suggest that the IMF forced the Labour government to launch an attack on public spending. introduce cash limits to control public spending, introduce monetary targets and abandon the pursuit of full employment through demand management.Although the languageofthe [IMF'] negotiations reflected the arcane termsof international finance . . . the decisions required of the British Government were profoundly political . . . behind the technical financial decisions lay fundamental differences over the appropriate balance between the private and public sectors, the priority between capital accumulation and social welfare, the relative weight to be given to incentives and equality . . . What was a t issue was the future shape of the political economy of Great Britain.'

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