Theresa May has buried Thatcherism. Under a Conservative government, the UK is now embracing the political ideas of fairness and government intervention. This might mark as big a shift in UK politics as those of the 1940s, towards socialism, and of the 1980s, away from it.

Remember that the Beveridge report, which laid the intellectual foundations of the postwar welfare state, was published in 1942, under the coalition government led by Winston Churchill. Similarly James Callaghan, then Labour prime minister, laid the ground for Thatcherism in 1976, when he stated: “We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession, and increase employ-ment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that option no longer exists.”

Now, in her speech to the Conservative party conference, Mrs May argues that “when one among us falters, our most basic human instinct is to put our own self-interest aside, to reach out our hand and help them over the line. That’s why the central tenet of my belief is that there is more to life than individualism and self-interest. We form families, communities, towns, cities, counties and nations. We have a responsibility to one another. And I firmly believe that government has a responsibility, too.”