In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, I examine the slow-motion collapse of the political order that has defined British politics for a century – and what is likely to replace it.

The term “political earthquake” gets overused. What is happening in Great Britain is more like a once‑in‑a‑century end of a political order. It began in 2024 with the death of the Conservative Party – a party that is unlikely to restore itself. And it will continue over the next few years with the death of the Labour Party.

The May local elections, just a week away, will mark a major step. Labour is almost certain to lose two of the places it has dominated for generations: Wales (for a century) and London (for half a century). But this isn’t just about one bad election night. It is the culmination of decades of neoliberal economics, deindustrialisation, austerity, and the systematic destruction of any alternative vision within the mainstream parties.

I draw a historical parallel with the last time Britain’s party system realigned: the years after the First World War, when the Liberal Party – the party of 19th‑century capital, free trade, and limited government – collapsed, replaced by a two‑party system of Labour and Conservatives. That system, cemented in 1945, survived for nearly eighty years. Now it is dying.

The culprits are not just individual leaders. ThatcherismMonetarism Monetarism is the economic school of thought associated with Milton Friedman, which rose to dominance as a counter to Keynesian economics. It posits that inflation is always a monetary phenomenon and that the government’s role should be limited to managing the currency rather than stimulating demand. Key Mechanisms: Inflation Targeting: Using interest rates to keep inflation low, even if high interest rates cause recession or unemployment. Fiscal Restraint: Opposing government deficit spending to boost the economy during downturns. Critical Perspective:Critics argue that monetarism breaks the post-war social contract. By prioritizing “sound money” and low inflation above all else, monetarist policies often induce deliberately high unemployment to discipline the labor force and suppress wages. It represents a technical solution to political problems, removing economic policy from democratic accountability. broke union power, atomised communities, and left Britain poorer and more un