Anthony Seldon introduces the concept of the Effect series, the key questions and the fourteen wasted years accusation. This Effect book will be the eighth in the long line of academic and historical analyses dating back over fifty years of history to 1970 – and it builds on the conclusions and methodology of previous works in the series. One of these, The Coalition Effect (Cambridge, 2015), encompassed five of the years in question – allowing reflections to be made on the authors’ arguments in that volume, and for the impact to be judged in a longer time frame of government.

Any fair evaluation of the Conservative effect (2010-14) must be cognisant of the context. Tom Egerton’s chapter will place the Conservative premierships in the six external shocks Britain faced, beginning with the Great Financial Crash and the Eurozone Crisis, before the impact of Brexit (and a debate over its external and structural causes), Covid, the Russo-Ukrainian War and the inflation crisis. How did each government succeed or fail in the face of compounding shocks? What opportunities and constraints emerged as a result? Only through an analysis of a decade of poly-crisis, and in the perspective of wider political change, can we make a conclusion on the question of ‘fourteen wasted years’.

The victory of Cameron’s Conservatives in 2010 ushered in the idea of a new Conservative Party, repairing both image and electoral prospects. However, this chapter will examine to what extent that change occurred, and how much the Conservatives were united or divided by the same older questions of policy and ideology – particularly on Europe and the economy. The chapter will also analyse the development of the party’s structures, power and personnel, and contemplate what effects any change may have had.

The third force movement, grounded in the principles of existential philosophy, focuses on the individual in quest of identity, values, and authenticity. The nineteenth century writings of such figures as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Dilthey formed the background for the view of the person as alone and dehumanized. The twentieth century works of Sartre, Camus, and Jaspers offered further expression to the basic state of anxiety and absurdity. The personalism of Emmanuel Mounier and Karol Wojtyła reintroduced the person within psychology. The methodological writings of Husserl and Heidegger contributed to the development of phenomenology as a means of investigating the holistic character of human experience. The combined existential–phenomenological psychology was an application of a new orientation in clinical settings, by such psychologists as Merleau-Ponty and Binswanger. In America, the humanistic viewpoints of Allport, Bühler, Maslow, May, and Rogers agreed generally with the European movement, and a center of existential-phenomenological psychology emerged at Duquesne University. Although it did not generate a comprehensive alternative to behaviorist formulations, the third force movement has exerted an impact on clinical applications, especially in therapeutic efforts.

This chapter explores philosophical contributions to international criminal law, focusing in particular on analyses of the concept of a crime against humanity and the justifiability of universal jurisdiction over those who commit such a crime.In what sense, if any, are crimes against humanity wrongs done to “humanity?”Does the label "crime against humanity" refer to a distinctive wrong committed by those who perform such acts?If not, what distinguishes crimes against humanity from other types of crime?The first half of this chapter critically examines several competing accounts of the concept of a crime against humanity and the answers they provide to these questions.The remainder of the chapter considers two approaches to justifying the international prosecution of crimes against humanity.The first grounds it in the dangers that such crimes pose to all human beings, while the second appeals to an (emerging) moral or political global community that makes perpetrators of crimes against humanity answerable to courts that act on behalf of all humanity.