Introduction

This essay begins with a brief overview of the two main traditions of ideological thought that have shaped the ends and means of social policy in the UK over the past century. I go on to review the social policy proposals set out in the Conservative and Labour Party 2015 election manifestos. I follow this review with an appraisal of the way in which the government clarified its post-election policy intentions in three keynote speeches as it prepared the ground for the Chancellor's presentation of his July Budget.

The focus then shifts to the Chancellor's presentation of his Budget, Labour's response to his budget proposals, the concurrent progress of its leadership election campaign and its eventual outcome. In the concluding part of this essay, I speculate on the diversity of ways in which these events, and their ideological implications, might shape the prospects for social policy in the UK over the next five years.

Comparing the ideological options

I started watching the declaration of results on election night 7 May 2015 hoping that the outcome would be another hung Parliament and a continuation of some form of coalition government. As a traditional middle-of-the-road ‘One Nation’ Conservative, my preference was for a renewed partnership with the Liberal Democrats. As a middle-of-the-road welfare pluralist, the prospect of either the Conservatives or Labour gaining a secure working majority in Parliament filled me with apprehension.

As a welfare pluralist, I share William Keegan's view that the most successful democratic Western economies have built their achievements on ‘a policy mix of the invisible hand of the market and the visible hands of public institutions’. In the context of this ‘policy mix’, welfare pluralism takes the form of a mixed economy of statutory and non-statutory private and voluntary sectors in which agreement on the relative importance to be attached to each of these sectors is reached through a process of pragmatic compromises between a plurality of interest groups of different ideological persuasions.

Middle-of-the-road compromises of this kind are more likely to be achieved in coalition governments where it is difficult for any one of the collaborating parties to dominate the policy making process.