When
Queen Elizabeth II came to the throne in 1952, Winston Churchill, her first prime minister, heralded the coming
of the new
reign in the House
of Commons as marking «a golden age
of...
science and machinery», in which the nations
of the world would be able to produce «an undreamed -
of prosperity with culture and leisure ever more widely spread can come, perhaps even easily and swiftly, to the masses
of the people in every land».