How We Ended Up Managed in Our Own Country by Denis Podany

Let’s get one thing straight first. Britain didn’t get taken over in the night.

No coup. No tanks. No men in capes whispering in basements. If that had happened, at least we’d have known who to shout at.

What actually happened was much more British than that.

We were outmanoeuvred politely, while being asked to sign here, initial there, and “please read the guidance.”

The Iron Lady: Right Idea, Human Limits

I’m pro-Thatcher. Always have been.

She understood something basic that too many politicians before and after her didn’t. You can’t run a country on drift, excuses, and everyone having a veto except the people paying for it.

She took on the unions – and let’s be honest, some of them needed taking on.

Too much power. Too little accountability. Whole country held hostage by a handful of men who hadn’t done a proper day’s work since the Beatles split up.

She broke that system. And she was right to do it.

But – and this isn’t heresy, it’s adulthood – she wasn’t a wizard.

No crystal ball. No cheat codes. Just a woman with a handbag, a spine, and a country that needed a shock.

She broke the old power, but didn’t fully replace it with something democratic and rooted.

And power, like water, never disappears. It just finds a new container.

The Vacuum Nobody Talks About

Before the 1980s, working Britain had rough, sometimes ugly, but real power structures. Unions people actually belonged to. Clear negotiations. Clear fights. Clear wins and losses.

When that lot was smashed, ordinary people didn’t suddenly become free-range entrepreneurs. They became individuals facing systems on their own.

And into that space stepped a new class. Not bosses in top hats, not Marxists with megaphones. But something far harder to spot: Managers.

The Rise of the Managers

Not your foreman, but the clipboard ones. Not the bloke running the site. Not the woman keeping the warehouse ticking over. I mean the professional managerial class.

Policy experts. Senior civil servants. Regulators. NGO executives. Consultants. Compliance officers. People who say “stakeholders” without flinching.

Their job isn’t to make things, fix things, or sell things. Their job is to administer, measure, oversee, and nudge.

They didn’t seize power. They inherited it – because politics stopped wanting responsibility and someone had to “handle it”.

They’re not evil. They just genuinely believe the country works better when run like an Excel spreadsheet – and most of them have never met anyone who works outdoors.

The Books, the Ideas, the Tools

This wasn’t magic. And it wasn’t secret. The ideas were written down, taught, and discussed openly in universities and policy circles.

“Nudge theory.” “Choice architecture.” “Behavioural economics.” “Systems design.” “Norm-setting.”

It all boiled down to one simple idea: Don’t tell people what to do. Just design life so the “right” choice is the easiest one.

No bans. No arguments. No votes that might go the wrong way. Just costs, delays, forms, guidance, laminated signs, and a strong sense you’re being judged by someone who’s never fixed anything in their life.

It’s like being told you can choose any pint you want; but only one’s cold, only one’s affordable, and only one won’t get you lectured by a poster.

That’s “situational design,” even if they dress it up nicer.

From Argument to Management

Here’s the shift that changed everything. Politics stopped arguing its case, and started managing outcomes.

Instead of “Here’s what we want to do – argue with us,” we got “This is complex, the experts are handling it.”

So, decisions moved away from Parliament, away from voters, and into systems. Quangos. Regulators. Frameworks. Targets. Reviews.

Once it’s “the process”, no one’s responsible any more.

You can shout at a man. You can reason with a man. But you cannot beat a flowchart. The flowchart always wins.

New Labour Didn’t Create This. They Supercharged It

This isn’t left versus right.

New Labour didn’t reverse the drift – they perfected it. NGOs everywhere. Moral language replaces debate. Targets replace judgement. “Independent bodies” stacked like pallets.

Instead of asking “Is this fair?” the question became: “Does it meet the framework?”

And if it met the framework, that was that – even if it was clearly bonkers.

Immigration: A Perfect Example

Thatcher warned about this. Plainly. Not in racial terms. But in consent and cohesion terms.

Her point was simple: If big changes happen without public consent, trust collapses.

What followed ignored that warning.

Immigration expanded. Debate was shut down. Concerns were moralised. Communities were told to “adjust”.

Apparently, the country was changing for the better. You just weren’t supposed to notice, or ask who agreed to it.

That’s not compassion. That’s management avoiding a row. And it produced exactly what she warned about.

EU, NGOs, and Outsourced Morality

No whispering needed here. The EU didn’t take over Britain. It perfected the managerial model.

Rules without direct accountability. Distance from voters. Regulation as politics.

At home, NGOs became moral referees.

They weren’t elected. They weren’t accountable. But they decided what could be funded, what could be said, what questions were “acceptable.”

If you wanted to know right from wrong, you no longer asked your parents or neighbours. You waited for a press release.

Why This Outmanoeuvred Thatcherism

Here’s the irony.

Thatcher believed in: Responsibility. Ownership. Consequences. And nationhood.

But after the shift, no one owns decisions. Failures didn’t fail. Risk was socialised. Control was centralised.

Markets got smothered. Big firms learned to hire compliance teams and call it innovation. Small businesses got crushed.

That wasn’t Thatcher’s vision. That’s what filled the vacuum.

How It Feels on the Ground

(No degree required.)

You don’t need theory to recognise this. You hear it every day: “Different rules for different people.” “You’re allowed – but it’s not worth the hassle.” “They make it hard on purpose.” “No one’s in charge, but you’re always wrong.” “Heads they win, tails you lose.”

That’s not paranoia. That’s pattern recognition – the same skill that keeps engines running.

We’re Not Lost.  We’re Stuck

Britain isn’t a dictatorship. We still vote. We still speak. We still argue.

But we’re managed, not represented.

And systems like that are brittle – because once working people can explain the problem plainly, without slogans, the spell starts to crack.

How We Work It Backwards

(No riots. No fantasy.)

They didn’t build this with force. So, you don’t undo it with force. You undo it by making it unworkable.

• Plain English only. If it can’t be explained to a bloke on a break with a bacon sandwich, it’s not ready.
• Bring decisions home. Closer to voters. Fewer layers. Fewer “independent” bodies no one can sack.
• Failures must fail. If you mess up at work, you’re sacked. If they mess up at the top, they get a new title and a smaller office plant. That needs to stop.
• Consent before change. Big shifts need public backing – not management by stealth.
• National interest, not managerial convenience. Not flag-waving nationalism. But ownership nationalism. Responsibility nationalism.

Final Word

They didn’t take freedom overnight. They made it inconvenient, risky, and exhausting – until people stopped using it.

But this country wasn’t built by managers. It was built and kept going by people who fixed things with what they had – wire, grit, and refusal. Like the tank mechanics who kept those beasts moving in the war with barbed wire, bad tools, and a strong prayer.

When working people stop carrying a system that doesn’t carry them back, it has to change.

That’s not hope. That’s mechanics.

And mechanics, blue collar engineers, and inventors, always win in the end.

Image credit on main page: pressfoto on Freepik