 The Act passed through Parliament despite opposition from much of the Labour Party and from some members of the ruling Conservative Party, who saw it as representative of a decline in standards, and on occasions saw it as enabling what was, for them, an unwelcome Americanisation.Notably, Douglas Hurd has since criticised the Act's after-effects, describing it as "one of the less successful reforms of those years".These Conservatives would have described their position as paternalistic as a term of praise, while supporters of the Act would use it against them as a term of abuse.