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The late 1950s saw accelerating economic and social change as the post-war long boom continued and the period of political agreement continued, tagged as "the post-war consensus". At the same time the media narrowly understood underwent changes, newspapers reached and passed a peak in terms of sales and then along came television. It spread rapidly. The BBC had broadcast before the Second World War to a tiny audience and it resumed in 1946 (initially to a similarly limited audience) but during the 1950s the infrastructure was upgraded, domestic electrical appliances became more widely available and in consequence the potential audience grew. In 1955 the BBC were joined by ITV and a now familiar duopoly was established and television audiences grew rapidly during the late 1950s. These developments signalled subtle changes in the public sphere as the duopoly of television meant that there was a more or less coherent national audience, yet more diverse voices were made available to it. The patrician elite were in retreat and where the "angry young men" had attacked the elite for their failures and simultaneously opened the way for an acknowledgement of elements of a newly confident working class, the critics of the later 1950s and early 1960s were more direct and they were aided by serious missteps amongst the elite via a number of scandals. These events/changes took political culture to the threshold of the 'sixties' but for the moment the patrician elite gave ground, at first slowly, thereafter the retreat was headlong.

DOI: 10.1057/9781137023834_6

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