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This article presents information on the reactions to the public expenditure cuts by the Labour Government between 1976-79, Great Britain, and the and the Conservatives since can be seen as an attempt to reverse the historical trend towards increasing collective consumption and the growth of the welfare state. Despite the significance of this social change, very little empirical sociological research is currently being undertaken specifically on the crisis and the cuts. This research note examines attitudinal and behavioural response to the cuts with special reference to the occupational class and party political dimensions. As such it is part of a wider study of the social and political effects of the public expenditure cuts. The research design adopted involved a comparison of two socially similar urban wards in Greater Manchester, one in a district represented by a Conservative MP and controlled locally by the Conservative party (Torytown) and the other in a district represented by a Labour MP and controlled locally by the Labour party (Labourville).

The concept consumption is applied to a bewildering range of goods and services-everything from art to shopping, to watching television, receiving welfare and visiting a zoo. It also figures prominently in accounts of political change, economic transformation and cultural fragmentation. Consumption clearly matters, some would argue more than ever before, but its importance viz-a-viz other activities, notably employment, in what way or ways, and to whom, is less than transparent. A useful starting point for consideration of the links between production and consumption is A. Warde's ideal-type model of cycles of production and consumption. This approach provides a theoretical framework with reference to which past research can be reviewed and future empirical projects can be mapped. The article also gives information about the articles published in the issue. Although all the articles in the issue are essentially concerned with the early stages in the cycle of production/consumption, the first three focus on the shrinking and changing nature of state provision.

An empirical test was conducted to determine the degree to which respondents would follow the directions of the randomizing device in the directed response model of the randomized response technique (RRT). The results showed that a sizable percentage of the respondents would not give the directed response to a question if that response was a socially undesirable one and the question was sufficiently sensitive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This addendum updates Fox and Tracy's (1980) summary of work on the randomized response technique (RRT). It notes the recent development of an additive constants model for sensitive questions that require a numerical response. It further calls the reader's attention to the possibility of correlational research using RRT models by presenting the derivation of the correlation and correction for attentuation between two variables measured by the additive constants model and by noting a paper that does the same for several other RRT models. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]