Conclusion: Strange Triumphs?

Abstract

Each stage of our analysis in this book has unravelled another set of unintended consequences. On the global stage, British governments enthusiastically joined in the work of international advisory bodies, only to engender a sense of panic when Britain fell further and further down international ‘growth’ or ‘welfare’ leagues. Civil servants and ministers often implemented ‘modernistic’ Scandinavian solutions, uncovering in the process more and more reasons why their own peculiarly British system worked the way it did. Successive Presidents and Prime Ministers tried to keep Anglo-American power at the centre of the international relations system, only to endanger the strength of their currencies in an apparently never-ending and little-understood sequence of interventions. At home, governments created an Ombudsman which then exposed unwelcome policy-making realities to the public; employed more economists, to be told that experts were less and less confident about what they knew; and attempted to hold down the price of land, only to force it up as landowners withheld their property from the market. Enormous advances in educational provision also became problematical. Expanding grammar schools caused enormous pain and frustration among parents whose children did not ‘pass’ their 11+ examination. Building new secondary schools in suburban areas made primary provision and inner-city schools seem threadbare.