Phil Tinline takes us back to two past eras when the ruling consensus broke down, and the future filled with ominous possibilities – until, finally, a new settlement was born.
How did the Great Depression’s spectres of fascism, bombing and mass unemployment force politicians to think the unthinkable, and pave the way to post-war Britain? How was Thatcher’s road to victory made possible by a decade of nightmares: of hyperinflation, military coups and communist dictatorship? And why, since the Crash in 2008, have new political threats and divisions forced us to change course once again?
Tinline’s compelling argument is that the fear of a particular nightmare – for example inflation or mass unemployment – creates a consensus that can lock a country into a position for too long. It requires a new fear, a new nightmare to emerge, for a new consensus to be formed. Are we at that point now? Do we need to start thinking of the next paradigm? Has the current way of operating reached its end point?