ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how planning's credibility and reputation was significantly and irreparably damaged through its politicization and capture as part of a programme of neoliberalism, ultimately giving the incoming coalition government formed in 2010 a ready excuse and justification for further reform. It also focuses on how spatial planning as an ethos for planning introduced a new form of politics, one that has been labelled as being part of the 'post-political condition', a condition that aims at depoliticization and attempts to depoliticize issues through a range of tactics and strategies. The terms 'post-democracy', 'post-politics' and 'post-political' tend to be used interchangeably, although they represent different interpretations of a broad and diffuse phenomenon. The post-political displacement of politics through the deployment of the notion of consensus has been the focus of many analyses, particularly given the links with Third Way thinking.
