Fisher had lost his younger brother fighting against Nazi Germany in the Battle of Britain and was determined to use his fortune to combat what he saw as the totalitarian tendencies of the Labour Government's policies like nationalisation, price controls and the welfare state.
After being warned by Fisher that their task could take twenty years, they grew old together, beavering away at their small Westminster office and churning out a stream of pamphlets designed to influence academics, journalists and politicians to the view that the free market is the most efficient and liberal way to organise social affairs, and that government intervention is often wasteful.
Following the February 1974 election defeat former Health Minister Keith Joseph turned against Heath and his neo-Keynesian policies to become a champion of free market economics but lost his position and influence after his controversial human stock speech.
Joseph's close friend and ally, Margaret Thatcher, put herself forward as the free market candidate in the subsequent leadership election and won a surprising victory.
Thatcher, not yet secure within her own party since her election to the leadership had surprised many people, appointed moderates to her cabinet including Shadow Employment Secretary Jim Prior who was charged with trade union policy.
Thatcher distributed the plan to senior colleagues and seized the opportunity to push it forward after the crippling union actions of the Winter of Discontent, which themselves contributed to the Conservative victory in the 1979 general election.
A revolt in Thatcher's Cabinet, primarily against Howe's budgets, prompted a reshuffle to oust opponents bringing along loyalists such as Cecil Parkinson and Norman Tebbit but her leadership seemed in doubt.
When the government announced a series of pit closures, the leader of the National Union of Mineworkers, Arthur Scargill, called for a strike initiating a titanic political struggle.
The No Turning Back Group at the Institute of Economic Affairs pushed for the privatisation of health and education but Thatcher rejected this idea, instead trying to introduce some free market supplyside reforms into public services.
The virulent attack contained in Howe's resignation speech from the Tory backbenches resulted in severe damage to Thatcher's standing in her own party and marked the beginning of the end with one of the true Thatcherite believers suggesting that she had become too excessive.
The Conservatives held onto power for another seven years under Sir John Major 1990–97, but made the electorate force them out on 1 May 1997, heralding the introduction of Tony Blair and New Labour that would commence a period of socialist gradualism, and a number of high intensity conflicts abroad.
Rupert Smith, writing in The Guardian, called the series "a very effective piece of programme-making" and claimed that while watching it he found himself "largely in agreement with Thatcher and her robust solutions to the problems of the day."