The concept states that there was a widespread consensus that covered support for a coherent package of policies that were developed in the 1930s and promised during the Second World War, focused on a mixed economy, Keynesianism, and a broad welfare state. In recent years, the timing of the interpretation has been debated by historians, asking whether it had weakened and collapsed before Thatcherism arrived in 1979. There has also been debate as to whether a "postwar consensus" ever really existed.