British politics have too long been a dialogue between those who want more government and those who want less. This book, characteristic of the new political thinking which has given fresh life to the Liberal Party and is slowly working its way among younger Conservatives and Socialists, insists that both views are right and both are wrong.
Britain does certainly need stronger government. Production, industrial relations, town and country planning, local government, the social services, and many other parts of the country's life have suffered from the lack of far-sighted planning and strong leadership from the State. But the condition for the State to lead strongly in the broad policy matters with which it alone can deal is that it should no longer waste the time of its politicians and civil servants in fiddling with details which can better be left to industry, or local authorities, or simply to individuals to decide for themselves. Britain is under-governed in matters of broad policy largely because it is over-governed in matters of detail; the condition of more and better state action in the fields which the State now neglects is that it should withdraw from those it has unnecessarily occupied. This general thesis is worked out in the first half of the book. In the second it is illustrated, more technically, in a discussion of social insurance and national health.