Book review: The coalition government and social policy:restructuring the welfare state edited by Hugh Bochel andMartin Powell

The diverse essays included in The Coalition Government and Social Policy: Restructuring the Welfare State , edited by Hugh Bochel and Martin Powell, provide a fascinating and useful contribution to our understanding of recent political history in the UK, argues Mike Pym. The editors’ intention is to ‘locate the coalition’ in the political landscape and uncover the themes that persisted throughout this unusual period; how the Coalition led to a dramatically altered welfare state; and what this suggests about the direction of the current Conservative government.