consensus politics

Phrase used to describe the practice of government in Britain between 1945 and 1979. The phenomenon was observed by political scientists and media commentators; Britain's two major political parties, the Conservative Party and Labour Party, were in agreement, or consensus, over certain basic government policies in the decades after World War II. The introduction of fundamental changes in government responsibility, such as the welfare state, the national health service (NHS), and widespread nationalization of industry, were effectively unchallenged by either party.

The consensus lasted throughout the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, but started to break down in the 1970s. Following the oil price rises of the early 1970s, the new economic experience of ‘stagflation’, where high inflation was combined with high unemployment, caused many in the Conservative Party to challenge the accepted orthodoxy of Keynesian economics – that a fall in national income and rising unemployment should be countered by increased government expenditure to stimulate the economy. There was increasing divergence of economic opinion between the two parties, ending the consensus of the previous decades. By the time of the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 on a strongly free-market monetarist platform (aiming to curb inflation by controlling the UK's money supply, cut government spending, and privatize industry; see monetarism), consensus had become an unpopular word in many parts of the political establishment.

Consensus politics worked in the era after World War II for a number of reasons. The overwhelming election of the Labour government under Clement Attlee demonstrated clearly that the British people wanted a new type of government and economy, with much more state intervention and protection. For the Conservative Party to go against this would have been political suicide. Ideas such as nationalization and a welfare state matched the ethos of the times – the collective spirit created by World War II – and both parties accepted and supported this concept. The inefficiency of large industries such as the railways and coalmining before 1939 weakened the argument that they would be more efficient in private ownership. People believed that the state could do a better job. The successful reduction in unemployment after 1945, and the economic success that accompanied it, appeared to show that consensus was beneficial. In his campaign for the general election of 1959 Conservative leader Harold Macmillan felt justified in using the phrase: ‘You've never had it so good.’ However, with the oil price problems of 1973 and subsequent ‘stagflation’, consensus politics were considered by many to be no longer appropriate to Britain's needs.

Consensus was never a universally accepted concept, and its existence has been challenged by a number of political theoreticians in recent years. However, the term usefully sums up the relative lack of political disagreement and policy change that occurred in the UK between 1945 and the 1970s.