Virtually all political issues carry with them a constellation of groups, jockeying to influence policy-makers (and implementers) and trying to influence the definition of the issue to their own advantage. The number of groups coalescing around a given issue can vary enormously. In some instances policy-makers may feel the need to consult literally hundreds of groups before going ahead with significant policy change. Such consultation may be cosmetic and on other occasions may be, in effect, inner circle negotiation. On some occasions an easily recognizable and well defined policy community will exist. At other times a loose extended network, or ‘elastic net’, may be the more appropriate description. Whatever the group population involved in (or attempting to be involved in) a given issue there are likely to be at least some groups who are perceived to have ‘clout’ and who may manage to exercise a veto on occasions (eg the success of the TUC and the CBI members of the Manpower Services Commission (MSC), in dissuading Norman Tebbit from making the Youth Training Scheme compulsory).