REGIONAL TRENDS IN ELECTORAL SUPPORT IN BRITAIN, 1950–1983∗

Analyses of the geography of British elections have typically stressed the continuity in patterns of party support. This paper challenges that conclusion. Employing an alternative method of analysis, it identifies significant regional trends in the Conservative and Labour vote between 1950 and 1983. Pro-Labour trends in Scotland and Northwest England are contrasted with secular changes favoring the Conservatives in non-metropolitan Southern England. These long-term trends have not been associated with growing regional polarization in party support. While the findings are specific to Britain, the method of assessing electoral change might be usefully applied to patterns in other countries.     

The conservation of Britain's limestone cave resource

 Limestone caves are an important scientific and recreational resource in Britain. During the mid- to late 1970s, cavers and statutory conservation bodies cooperated in a review of cave resources which resulted in the designation of 48 caves or cave areas as Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). During the same period, the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 was introduced to provide more effective planning controls on activities such as agriculture carried out within SSSI boundaries. In one case, at Priddy in the Mendip Hills of Somerset, landowners prevented access to a number of caves in protest over the new, tougher restrictions on agriculture. Faced with the closure, and perceiving that their recreational use of caves might also be controlled, local cavers joined the landowners in opposing the proposals for SSSI designation. As a result the proposals were reviewed, three caves were excluded from the site and controls on the remaining area were relaxed. The case emphasized a need for an effective system to take account of all factors affecting cave conservation, a need which has led to a more constructive dialogue between nature conservation bodies, caver organizations and other interested parties. Received: 1 June 1995 · Accepted: 4 December 1995     

Coiled nautiloid cephalopods from the British Silurian

Coiled nautiloid cephalopods from the British Silurian are described and their taxonomy revised. The Order Oncocerida is represented by a single specimen of Oxygonioceras oxynotum. Twelve species from the Order Tarphycerida (within which is here subsumed the Order Barrandeocerida) are described: one of Trocholites, two of Ophioceras, two of Catyrephoceras, three of Lechitrochoceras, one of Peismoceras, two of Systrophoceras, and one of Uranoceras. Their distribution, stratigraphical and geographical, is indicated.     

The need for soil conservation in Britain – revisited

Evans' (1971) seminal paper was the first to describe contemporary erosion in Britain in the uplands, and erosion due to wind and water in the arable lowlands. Since then, the emphasis of publications on British erosion has shifted to the quantification of water erosion on arable land and to off–site impacts, including property damage and pollution of watercourses. The need for soil conservation in Britain, originally advanced by Evans, is now primarily interpreted as a need for protection against muddy runoff.     

Holocene alluvial fan and terrace formation in the Bowland Fells,Northwest England

In the Bowland Fells, Lancashire, northwest England, in the headwater valleys of the Hodder river system, is a suite of Holocene fluvial landforms. Debris cones and alluvial fans at tributary junctions, and river terraces along the main valleys post-date late Pleistocene forms and pre-date the modern valley floor alluvial forms. Eight ¹⁴C dates from wood samples incorporated within the terrace and fan deposits have allowed two main phases of Holocene erosion to be identified with debris cone/fan deposition taking place after c. 5400 BP but before c. 1900 BP and again at c. 900 BP. Some of the fans and cones are complex with deposits attributable to both phases; others are simple and attributable only to the later phase. In the headwaters an upper terrace at c. 5400 BP pre-dates the cones and a lower terrace is contemporaneous with the first debris cone phase. Lower downvalley the youngest of three terraces date from c. 5000 BP or earlier indicating that the sequence is less complex downstream.     

Fragile empowerment: The dynamic cultural economy of British drum and bass music

This paper discusses the dynamic cultural economy of British drum and bass (D&B) music, which emerged out of Britain’s rave culture in the early 1990s. We suggest that D&B offers insight into more general issues regarding the relation between alternative cultural economies and capitalism. We examine relations between D&B and the mainstream capitalist economy and argue that D&B calls attention to the possibility for alternatives to conventional capitalist relations to survive and possibly thrive without pursuing separation from capitalism. We also theorize D&B as a vehicle towards empowerment regarding the industry segment vis-à-vis the mainstream music industry and also regarding D&B’s practitioners, many of whom can be understood as marginalized discursively and/or materially. However, D&B empowerment is fragile, due in part to technological changes that threaten practices that have helped cultivate innovativeness as well as communal relations. The empowerment of alternative practices is fragile not only for D&B as an industry segment, but also from the vantage point of internal power relations – notably with respect to differences along axes of gender and generation/age. Our conclusions indicate the broader significance of the paper for critical social theory and propose how new research might build on our dynamic view of D&B’s cultural economy.