Overload: Problems of Governing in the 1970s

THIS paper is about why Britain seems to have become so much harder to govern over the past ten or twenty years. It was once thought that Governments would be extremely difficult to remove from office, given their ability to manage the economy. Now we are inclined to assume the opposite: that the tenure of Governments is precarious and that for the foreseeable future it will be a lucky Government that survives for more than a term. It was once thought that Britain was an unusually easy country to govern, its politicians wise, its parties responsible, its administration efficient, its people docile. Now we wonder whether Britain is not perhaps an unusually difficult country to govern, its problems peculiarly intractable, its people increasingly bloody-minded. What has happened ? What has gone wrong? This paper seeks to answer these questions-or at least to suggest places where some of the answers might reasonably be looked for. It concerns itself with politics rather than economics, though obviously economics is important. Not all of the answers it offers are breathtakingly original. Given the amount of ink that has been spilt on this subject, it would be amazing if they were. But some of the answers will perhaps be new to some readers, and an effort has been made to formulate some of the old answers in new ways.