Does public policy in the United Kingdom respond to changes in public preferences? If so, is this the result of the government changing its policy to reflect preferences (“policy accommodation”) or the result of governments that pursue unpopular policies being replaced at elections by governments more in line with the public (“electoral turnover”)? We explore these questions by estimating annual aggregate public preferences (“the policy mood”) using responses to 287 questions administered 2,087 times and annual policy using budgetary data (“nonmilitary government expenditure”) for the whole of the postwar period. We find that mood moves in the opposite direction to policy and variations in mood are associated with variations in annual vote intentions. Policy is responsive to party control but not directly responsive to mood. Shifts in mood eventually lead to a change in government and thus policy, but this process may be very slow if the public has doubts about the competence of the opposition.

This article considers how gender and power are implicated in how prostitution policy is translated from initial proposal to enactment in law. The analysis brings together Freeman’s proposal for “policy translation” (2009) and Connell’s work on “hegemonic masculinity” (1987 with Messerschmidt 2005) to examine Hansard and other United Kingdom Parliament documents relating to Clause 13/14 of the Policing and Crime Bill 2008–2009, a proposal to criminalise the purchase of sex in England and Wales. It is argued here that hegemonic masculinity is implicated in how “responsibility” and “exploitation” in relation to sex purchase are disputed and defined within the Parliamentary debates on Clause 13/14, and this in turn informed the version of criminalisation that emerged as authoritative. This article reflects finally on how far mapping the translation of policy can elucidate the operation of gender and power within the policy process.