ABSTRACT

These twenty years saw the apogee of political stability, industrial equilibrium and economic prosperity, fortified by the prolonged absence of ideological or class cleavages in society or the political parties. At any point before 1956, and generally until the mid-sixties, commentators could have been forgiven for con­ cluding that conflict had been institutionalised through a pluralist system of rep­ resentation. Britain seemed a model of the harmonious relations of governing institutions; and corporate bias a necessary component of a political system in which intelligent economic management ensured that there was no need to defer gratification, and where social change could be achieved without undue distress to any group.1