By that time, faced with weakening of the egalitarianism that had sustained the welfare state, the neoliberals had hardened their position. Allowing himself a hint of triumphalism, Hagenbuch noted that, while ten years ago people in Britain had believed everyone should receive a basic income from the state as 'his social birthright', this view had largely been abandoned. The turning point was the 1951 election, which saw the Conservative Party return to power, partly by mobilising middle-class women in 'Housewives' Committees' that protested 'the hardships that are being imposed on them' – notably shortages of luxury goods, high taxes, and what one middle-class housewife called the gradual disappearance of 'the things that made life gracious in the past'. In this climate, the neoliberals were in no mood for compromise.

Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, loc. 202