Political consensus?

The period between the 1940s and late 1970s has frequently been described as one of political consensus or ‘settlement’ over the welfare state. Conservative governments of the 1950s supported ‘the spirit of the reforms and maintained their basic structure’. As Alcock observes: ‘The cross-party consensus on state welfare was so strong that it even acquired an acronym – Butskellism – comprised of the names of the Labour Chancellor (Gaitskell) and his Conservative successor (Butler)’ (Alcock, 2012a, 8).

Between 1945 and the election of Mrs Thatcher in 1979, there was cross-party political and policy support for the welfare state including collectivism, a mixed economy and state health and welfare services. This embraced Keynesian economics and nationalised industries. Kynaston has noted:

While this consensus is contested by some social policy commentators, a strong case can be made for some such ideological convergence between Labour and Conservative parties. As Robert Page has written: ‘The possibility of an emerging post-war economic and social consensus based on support for the mixed economy (private and public enterprise), ‘Keynesian’ interventionism, and the welfare state was given added weight by the growing influence of revisionist thinking within Labour circles’ (Page, 2012, 128).

The social policy academic Hugh Bochel concludes that as with the Liberal reforms of the early twentieth century: ‘The Conservatives, particularly under Macmillan’s premiership, maintained a commitment to full employment, an incomes policy, and social welfare, including developing further some parts of the welfare state’ (Bochel, 2012, 66).