In The State We’re In, Will Hutton subjected British society to forensic analysis at a time of disillusionment with the Major government, when there was also the promise of change under New Labour. Change came with Tony Blair, but did not take the direction favoured by Hutton – which was a move towards the European social model, where a shareholding society would set as much store by the values of equality, opportunity and the maintenance of a vigorous public realm as it did by the more narrow preoccupations of prices and profits.

Hutton responded by switching targets. The World We’re In (2002) was an assault of almost Rumsfeldian violence, speed and intensity on a United States stirred by the terrorist attacks of September 11 into wreaking vengeance at the expense of its own founding values of freedom, equality of opportunity, and respect