The seventy years since the end of the Second World War have seen dramatic changes in Britain's cultural, intellectual and political climate. Old class allegiances have been challenged by new loyalties to gender, ethnicity, religion or lifestyle and a new sensibility of self-fulfillment - sometimes hedonistic, sometimes altruistic - has been born. There have been equally seismic shifts in political ideology and public policy in this period. The Labor government of 1945 came to power with an ambitious collectivist program, involving a planned economy and a cradle-to-grave welfare state. By 1979 the welfare state was widely attacked as a nanny state and economic planning had been discredited. The ascendant New Right sought instead to return to the economic liberalism of the last century while the Left seemed divided and in comprehensive retreat. The 1990s have seen yet another shift - away from the unbridled individualism of the Thatcher years towards a new emphasis on community, civic duty and mutual obligation.
