The importance of war and military institutions has been generally neglected in British historical writing, whose tone has been set by the Whig and l… - Correlli Barnett

The change in the British since the eighteenth century went far deeper than conscious belief. Evangelical religion had modified the national character itself. The violence and quarrelsomeness that had once been noted as English characteristics had vanished, except in working-class districts; replaced by gentleness and readiness to see good in others. Kindness and gentleness indeed were now seen as prime virtues. The hardness, insolence and even arrogance with which Englishmen used to deal with foreigners had given way to an unlimited willingness to see and understand the other man's point of view, even that of an opponent; indeed a willingness to assume, out of a profound though absurd sense of guilt, that his case was morally better founded than their own. Thanks also to Victorian religion – and perhaps to Dickens – the English now evinced a compassion for the underdog and a sympathy for failure, and a corresponding suspicion of ability and success, that were unparalleled in other countries. Thus it followed that the English now preferred the soft handshake of goodwill and reconciliation (in which they placed unbounded trust) to the firm grip of decision and action. Appeasement indeed had become a conditioned reflex of the British middle and upper classes. Few would now say with Palmerston that the practical and sagacious thing to do in life was to carry a point by boldness: knock an opponent down at once, and apologise afterwards if necessary to pacify him.

Ever since the war we had lived in a form of state socialism with tremendous controls and regulations over economic and social life. I can remember when you couldn't even buy a house abroad without special permission from the Bank of England. People who think the pre-Thatcher years were a golden age really didn't live through them: just ask anyone who rode on the clapped-out railways or tried to make a telephone call when the Post Office ran the phones.
When she came to power she transformed the country. The moribund industries relying on taxpayer funding – all gone. The trade unions – all gone. She abolished exchange controls, completely liquidated the state sector of industry and threw the economy wide open.
It's certainly true that she was so powerful a person that cabinet government in the collegiate sense began to diminish. More and more they were like a collection of staff officers around the general. Blair has taken that further and deliberately adopted a presidential style in every possible way. The main difference was that she had genuine feeling, conviction and leadership. In my view, during the last eight years, Blair has proved a very plausible conman who promises much but hasn't achieved it.

The war embraced infinitely complex elements and motives. The most important single one of those elements was the struggle for power in Europe, and the world. Between 1870 and 1914 Britain and France had been stagnant and declining in comparative industrial vigour. They nevertheless owned great territories and enjoyed vast traditional overseas markets. Germany...had been comfortably and steadily taking over the markets before 1914; she would have liked the possessions as well. No wonder France and Britain had been so much in favour of defending the political status quo. Yet, as the endless surges and recessions of power throughout history indicate, a fixed status quo is an absurdity because static. The problem of the world of nation states before 1914 was the eternal problem of continually adjusting political structure so that it always fits and expresses the reality of power.