Roy Hattersley has an interesting article in the Guardian on the changes in attitudes towards gambling in the Labour Party.
Many of the early founders of the Labour Party were Methodists. As such, it is no surprise that the post-war Attlee government did not legalise betting shops. That was left to the Tory government of 1951-64.
However, as the party has moved to the right, it seems to have embraced the gambling industry. This government has been keen on allowing more casinos to open and taken a permissive attitude to internet gambling. This is not inherently a bad thing - as long as there are safeguards to prevent people from gambling too much. But it does show how things have changed over the last few decades.
Furthermore, a lot of the complicated financial instruments that have developed over the past couple of decades have - in a sense - been gambling. Bankers, hedge fund managers and others have gambled with their firm's money in the hope of making profits. In many cases, this has worked. In other cases, it has failed spectacularly. However, it marks a change from an era when much of GDP was generated by making things. Instead of making things, the country now seems dependent for a worrying proportion of its GDP on speculation, financial trading and other financial services.
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