The Resurgence of Ideology

Abstract

British politics have in the last ten years been marked by a considerable revival of ideological argument about fundamental political values and principles. While it is of course true that differences between political parties have been profound, nevertheless most commentators have tended to argue that from the late 1940s to the early 1970s there was a consensus about the fundamental parameters of the post-war political settlement: an acceptance of the welfare state, the mixed economy managed by Keynesian techniques, a duty on the government to secure ‘full’ employment, combined with low rates of inflation, and economic growth. Of course, within this broad ‘Butskellite’ consensus (a term of art combining the name of Hugh Gaitskell, Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour government of 1951 and R. A. Butler, Chancellor in the subsequent Conservative government) parties had different priorities: Labour seeking to extend the services of the welfare state and the boundaries of the public sector, the Conservatives placing more emphasis on private consumption rather than public expenditure and the ‘social wage’.