The accusation of ‘thirteen wasted years’ was first levelled against the Conservatives by Labour in 1964 about the period in office since 1951. To gain perspective on the years 2010–24, we open with an acknowledged authority assessing progress in the last fourteen years compared to what was achieved then. Kellner’s chapter will aim to synthesise the charge made about the ‘thirteen wasted years’ (1951-64) narrative and build the foundations of the analytical approach for the rest of this book by considering what governments abroad, notably in Europe, were achieving at the same time.

This chapter offers a broad account of two key governmental themes in post-war British theatre: policy and censorship. The chapter’s discussion of these themes is informed by Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality, which embraces both the activities of the state and the broader discursive regimes that constitute groups and individuals, including self-governing. The chapter examines a range of values that have featured in post-war cultural discourse in terms of continuities, ruptures, and changes between the post-war period and earlier moments in capitalist modernity, and within the period itself. The chapter surveys the expansionist arts policies implemented in the decades following the war, before turning to the effects of neoliberal governmental politics from the 1970s onward, which saw the value of the arts become subject to increasing scrutiny and justification. Next, the chapter addresses censorship and the contours of its post-war cultural politics. It notes overlapping shifts in focus from sexuality and gender to racial and religious identities – shifts which speak to the governmental ‘management of populations’. Finally, it analyses David Hare’s I’m Not Running (National Theatre: Lyttelton, 2018) – a work that responded to contemporaneous governmental crisis.