Tim Farron has been talking to the online Disclaimer magazine, saying that it’s time to reclaim not just the Beveridge consensus but also the free market from the right, saying that the Tories are the champions not of a free market but one which is controlled by powerful corporations. He said:
I fully count myself as a Beveridge liberal. Mostly because he believed in ambitious government that could improve the lives of its citizens.
So I want us to say that we should reclaim Beveridge’s ambition, his sense of mission of looking beyond what might be deemed possible towards what we believe is necessary. I want to reflect on the Beveridge consensus which was of course superseded 35 years ago by the Thatcherite consensus.
We should shoulder Labour out of the way and fully reclaim the Beveridge consensus as being Liberal by its birth, but we should then also seek to reclaim the free market from the Thatcherites.