ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the evolution of the ideas of the major parties and brings up to date their most recent changes. The role of Harold Macmillan, was crucial. In the 1930s he wrote The Middle Way , a plea for a regulated laissez-faire economy that would minimise unemployment and introduce forward economic planning. He was able to accept many of the reforms introduced by Labour and reinterpret and implement them for his own party during his time as its leader. The post-war consensus continued with little difference over domestic policy for the next decade and a half, embracing the effective consensus between Harold Macmillan and Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell, on the one hand, and Labour premier Harold Wilson and his Tory successor in 1970, Edward Heath, on the other. John Major was a very different politician to Thatcher, but whilst he articulated a more moderate brand of Conservatism, in practice he largely pursued his predecessor’s policies.
