The trade unions were a central issue in Britain's post-war politics. Criticised by many as being too powerful and a negative force on the economic development of the country, they posed a recurrent problem for successive British governments - both Labour as well as Conservative - as they sought to resolve the troubles of an economy in relative decline. From the 1940s to the start of the 1980s organized labour expressed through the authority of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) exercised a powerful influence over governments. As an Estate of the Realm, the trade unions were listened to and heeded on a wide range of industrial and economic policy, though never having the strength claimed by their enemies. This lucid and informative book examines the changing relationship between the trade unions and British governments from the making of the social settlement of 1944-1945 to the post-Thatcherite era of the Conservative political domination of the early 1990s.