Labour's War; The Politics Of Continuity; Conscription And The Attlee Governments; & Anticolonialism In British Politics

• Labour's War: The Labour Party And The Second World War
  Stephen Brooke - Oxford University Press, 1992 - xiii + 363 pp. - £40
• The Politics Of Continuity: British Foreign Policy And The Labour Government 1945-1946
  John Saville – Verso, 1993 - x + 293 pp. - £34.95
• Conscription And The Attlee Governments: The Politics And Policy Of National Service 1945-1951
  L.V. Scott - Oxford University Press, 1993 - ix + 304 pp. - £40
• Anticolonialism In British Politics: The Left And The End Of Empire
  Stephen Howe - Oxford University Press, 1993 - xvi + 373 pp. - £40

The theme of consensus has dominated much of the discussion of British party politics in recent years. Although there is room for debate about the relative importance of ideology, of pragmatism and of personal style in the politics of contemporary Conservatism, few would deny that the contours of British politics have been radically transformed in the last twenty years.

The advent of Mrs Thatcher's government in 1979 was widely seen as destroying the consensus politics established in the immediate post-war period, urging instead a limited role for the state, a greater emphasis on markets and enterprise, a reduced role for the unions and new models of delivery for health and education. Mrs Thatcher was also famously contemptuous of politicians who claimed to be 'middle of the road', noting that in her experience people who stood in the middle of the road usually got run over. For a time the clarity of Thatcherism stood in sharp contrast to Labour Party policies. Today, however, the Labour Party led by Tony Blair has apparently accepted so many of the changes wrought by Conservative governments after 1979 that there is widespread talk of a new consensus.