Introspection was in vogue for the British during the first half of the 1960s, and the public disliked the results of their self-analysis. The intoxicating affluence of the late 1950s had been followed by the usual morning-after feeling; in contrast to the general war-time mood, the British were now prosperous enough to grumble that they were not matching the performance of some of their neighbours. Penguin Books published a successful series with the general title What's Wrong With …?; invariably these tracts uncovered a great deal that was wrong, affecting industry, the trade unions, the church and almost every other aspect of British life. In the wake of the Profumo affair Encounter magazine asked whether Britain's post-war history amounted to “The Suicide of a Nation”. Christopher Booker has condensed the arguments of the “What's Wrong With …?” school:

In the long term this mood – and some of the authors who voiced it – would help to destroy the “consensual” post-war approach to British politics. But at the time it seemed to have narrowed still further the gap between “Left” and “Right”.