This chapter traces developments in the energy sector from the systemic crisis under Gorbachev, through Russia’s difficult start after the collapse of the Soviet Union, to the consolidation of Russia under Putin.

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.

International pressures, Brexit and the resurgence of nationalism have created new divides in the regions of the United Kingdom. Brendan O’Leary examines the impact of Conservative policy in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales, focusing on how prime ministers have handled campaigns and support for Scottish independence, the ruling coalitions in Wales, and also the new post-Brexit framework and demographic pressures in Northern Ireland. The chapter ends with a dire overall evaluation of the condition of the union as a result of Conservative policy.

As the UK, and the world, enters another decade of climate-anguished debate, the record of the Conservatives’ policy and actions between 2010 and 2024 is under scrutiny. Dieter Helm analyses the extent to which the natural environment improved, how housebuilding interacted with pressures to protect the environment, the legacy of privatised industries, comparisons to what a Labour government’s actions in office may have been and to what extent a sustainable path to net zero was achieved by the Conservative Party.

The NHS, the great survivor of the post-war consensus, faced a period of considerable uncertainty. This chapter will examine if, and how, the Conservatives have changed the NHS in the face of economic pressures, technological advances, demographic change, changing expectations and the pandemic. Any analysis of the health policy of a government is incomplete without examining the wider state of social care and its relation to healthcare policy.

The accusation of ‘thirteen wasted years’ was first levelled against the Conservatives by Labour in 1964 about the period in office since 1951. To gain perspective on the years 2010–24, we open with an acknowledged authority assessing progress in the last fourteen years compared to what was achieved then. Kellner’s chapter will aim to synthesise the charge made about the ‘thirteen wasted years’ (1951–64) narrative and build the foundations of the analytical approach for the rest of this book by considering what governments abroad, notably in Europe, were achieving at the same time.

Paul Johnson began his relationship with the series with his analysis of Conservative economic policy in The Coalition Effect and will return, with his team, to his conclusions then, analysing not just the first period of austerity but also how Conservative economic policy has evolved through the post-referendum premierships of Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.

This chapter deals with the two main sources of inspiration for Hitler’s religiosity, namely Houston Stewart Chamberlain and Dietrich Eckart. The latter was the man who acted as his ideological and religious teacher and father figure during the early 1920s, the self-proclaimed Catholic Dietrich Eckart. I argue that it was Eckart who was largely responsible for having introduced Hitler to the religious views that he came to have and express for the rest of his life. I focus on the fictive dialogue between Hitler and Eckart as laid out in Eckart’s book Der Bolschewismus von Moses bis Lenin (Bolshevism from Moses to Lenin) from 1923, which presents the National Socialist idea of Jesus in great detail. I argue that the reason why Eckart knew Hitler’s religious beliefs, including his views of Jesus, so well was that he in fact was the source of these beliefs. Furthermore, Houston Stewart Chamberlain’s ideas about the Aryan Jesus gave Hitler the foundation for his belief in Jesus as a viscious antisemite who became the role model for himself personally and for the National Socialist movement as a whole.