Oh I'm not defending the merits of the idea - I think that speaks for itself. It's just that at the time there was less of a political consensus against it given that the main political parties clearly espoused it, irrespective of economic ideology.

Sounds like (and was) a damming indigtment of the Labour Party if your nominally socialist party comes out in favour of a model of how the economy works that the Tory party agree with. Perhaps we should ask when something isn't true why is there political consensus?