I'm surprised that Fred or anyone is surprised. Roger Backhouse   
discussed this UK case in detail in his contribution to the HOPE   
Supplement (2002) volume titled The Future of the History of Economics.   
I will be addressing this exact subject in my 2006 ESHET address titled   
"Economic Science Wars", which paper will be available after that   
conference.  And I understand that there will be an ESHET session   
devoted to this subject as well.  
  
Of course in the US the NSF has been sending all HET and HE related   
proposals to the panels coordinating History and Philosophy of Science    
for decades, as the Economics panels refuse to read them.  
  
E. Roy Weintraub