The Blackett Memorial Lecture: 3rd December 1998

This paper analyses Patrick Blackett's role as an adviser on science and technology policy to the Labour Party in the 1950s and 1960s. It highlights his advocacy of an interventionist stance on the part of government by reference to his belief that British industrial performance was being affected adversely by a misallocation of R&D resources in favour of the military-defence sector at the expense of civilian manufacturing industry. This serves as a prelude to an appraisal of Blackett's career as an official adviser on industrial policy to the Labour Governments in office between 1964 and 1970. During that time Blackett fulfilled key roles in the formation of the new Ministry of Technology and the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation. The overall conclusion is that despite Blackett's dual status as the ‘father of OR’ and the leading scientist of the left, his effectiveness was limited by a naïve belief in the relevance of a policy stance validated by reference to his experiences in operational research during the Second World War. It was simply not possible to replicate in a peacetime economy, subject to democratic checks and balances, the extreme centralised control characteristic of total war.