ABSTRACT
Policy-making within the United Kingdom has evolved through three different phases since the second world war. After the national mobilisation during the war, and the subsequent increased use of state action by a Labour government, there was a prolonged period of consolidation under Conservative governments when the full-employment welfare state was accepted by all substantial social and economic forces; this lasted until the mid-sixties. From the mid-sixties to the mid-eighties there has been a period of alternation of party control of government, each in turn being discredited by the failure of its economic policies and each searching for a quick modernisation fix. From the late seventies, however, even this idea was becoming discredited and Britain embarked on a search for more radical solutions.
