Ridley Plan

The Ridley Plan (also known as the Ridley Report) was a 1974 report on the nationalized industries in the UK. It was drawn up by the right-wing Conservative MP Nicholas Ridley, a founding member of the Selsdon Group of free market radical Conservatives. In the report he proposed how the next Conservative government could fight, and defeat, a major strike in a nationalised industry.

There are web and print references to this matter as both 'Ridley Plan' and 'Ridley Report': referring to the same documents: see references.

Ridley suggested contingency planning in order to defeat any challenge from trade unions:

*the Government should if possible choose the field of battle;
*industries were grouped by the likelihood of winning a strike; the coal industry was in the 'middle' of three groups of industries mentioned;
*coal stocks should be built up at power stations;
*plans should be made to import coal from non-union foreign ports;
*non-union lorry drivers to be recruited by haulage companies;
*dual coal-oil firing generators to be installed, at great extra cost;
*"cut off the money supply to the strikers and make the union finance them";
*train and equip a large, mobile squad of police, ready to employ riot tactics in order to uphold the law against violent picketing. These recommendations were leaked to "The Economist" and published on 27 May 1978.

These tactics were successfully employed during the miners' strike of 1984-85, when the National Union of Mineworkers was defeated by the Conservative Government of Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher was strongly influenced by other Selsdon Group members besides Ridley, such as Norman Tebbit and Alan Walters.

In Ridley's view, trade union power in the UK was interfering with market forces, causing inflation, and therefore had to be checked in order to restore the "profitability" of the UK.

References

*Alan Sked & Chris Cook (1993), Post-War Britain: A Political History. p.446-47.
*The Economist, 27th May 1978

There is a thread at www.co-opnet.coop about the 'Ridley Report':

http://www.co-opnet.coop/viewtopic.php?t=367&highlight=ridley+report

- giving, both, the text of the 'Economist' account, and a link to the full Report at a Margaret Thatcher archive at:

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/archive/displaydocument.asp?docid=110795