Metaphor, Intertextuality, and the Post–War Consensus

The idea of a once 'postwar consensus', between the Labour and Conservative parties, has become a commonplace in the academic literature of British political science. Here, I intend to briefly consider two aspects of this. I want to look at how the phrase 'postwar consensus' is used in a rather loose and indeterminate metaphorical fashion; and how the idea remains something of an intertextual construct rather than being a more fully developed social scientific argument. The simple moral or lesson being that social scientists require to be highly circumspect with regard to the subsumption of broad extents of time and/or space under some all-embracing catch-all label or designation.