Introduction

Abstract

This book, the first of a trilogy about modern British government, starts with the making of a settlement in and after the Second World War. Conceived initially as a balanced, harmonious set of remedies for outstanding grievances from the inter-war years, and planned with increasing vigour as the great emergency receded, the settlement was modified to take account of a hostile economic post-war climate and then, through the affluent 1950s, maintained with much less difficulty than the authors had imagined would be possible. Questioned by some of the participants even before the good years ended, it was briefly revived at the start of the 1960s. At that point in the pattern this volume ends, leaving for the next the story of how the settlement was undermined and finally destroyed.