I'm not sure if Reform realise quite how big an opportunity they have and I know they are not ready for it. Democratising the party must be a priority though.
Reform are a necessary gadfly but are too narrowly lightweight to form a great reforming government. Having lived thorough the events described in Ed's article, the solution is clear enough: Kemi Badenoch. As Starmer is turning our to be a dull version of Harold Wilson' I'd day her (and our) chances are pretty good.
I'm not sure which was great, this article or Dominic Sandbrook's book that the article was based upon. Probably both.
I remember those years when every night the 6 o'clock News on the BBC was always full of the Troubles in Belfast, striking unions and the war in 'the' Lebanon, wherever that was. So boring! I wanted to watch T.Rex and Sweet on Top of the Pops, Match of the Day on Saturday nights and scenes of pitch invasions and mass fights between rival supporters with appropriately disgusted comments from Jimmy Hill.
Martin Amis was quite preoccupied with all this too at the time. “The yobs are winning!” he has an upper-middle class father lament when his daughter brings home her cockney city trader boyfriend. It depended who you were really: lots of younger adults from the suburbs were climbing the ladder - Beverley and her husband in Abigail’s Party - and the Blairs of this world were snapping up big stucco-ed Georgian houses in Islington for a song.
What finally came home to some people was the loss of status that actually began in the 1940s, but was masked to a large degree by the much worse predicament of economic rivals: Germany and Japan, mainly. The German cars of the early to mid-1970s - in my memory, anyway - ranged from THE BUBBLE CAR through the tinny VW van to the old but charming Beetle. If it said “Made in Japan” on it, you knew it was shoddy! No, really! Then, Japan started to make everything better and cheaper, and it was bye bye British Leyland, British Steel, British Coal, British Rail and everything else…
What I remember of the 1970’s differs somewhat from this doomsday history. Times were difficult, no doubt, but there was no chance that democracy would fail. Heath became PM in 1970 and thought he could be firm with the trade unions and cure inflation. The Miners, before Arthur Scargill, proved he couldn’t. Even the attempt to legislate to restrict wages and incomes failed. Eventually he challenged “Who governs the country?” and found it wasn’t him. Wilson took over and then Callaghan but the heavy industry that had dominated the economy was falling apart and required a lot of subsidies just to operate. When Thatcher took over in 1979 with the pious belief “where there is conflict, let us bring harmony”, the greatest lie ever told in British political life. She simply ended the subsidies, withdrew the RN Frigate that protected the Falklands from invasion by Argentina (it took them three years to realise that they could invade without any opposition, except for a small contingent of Royal Marines). The rest is history. Britain moved from an industrial economy to a service economy and has increasingly been reliant on world markets for a living. During Cameron’s period in office Britain exported more to the Irish Republic than to China.
I was there at the time (living in Southfields and going into the West End occasionally, working in the City from 1978) and I don't remember things on the ground being quite so bad. We could build motorways in those days. Though my future wife got together with me in 1977 after being mugged by a black man - harbinger for today?
I always get General Walter Walker mixed up with Edwin Walker, a right wing American military man who some ex Marine (who had previously defected to the Sovie Union) tried to kill in Dallas in April 1963.
One reads a great deal from the Official Narrative Spokespersons about how Margaret Thatcher was awful and horrible and rotten. However, knowing something of the conditions that preceded Thatcher's election makes it easier to understand how the electorate could vote for such an awful and rotten person.
For the optimist it is useful to reflect on the early seventies.
Things were bad then – yet improved.
But it is hard to see a Thatcher figure now backed up by her team of 30+ hugely capable men.
I have been very impressed with Farage – but he is one man
Easily swept aside by a malevolent Ruling Elite, State and its puppet media.
The Tories are split in the middle into Euro Liberals and Conservatives
So one team rows North the other South – so no solutions there.
The only hope is Reform embracing a new style of governance
Abandoning traditional ‘ding dong’ politics
And selling managerial competence
Coalescing a peerless team of experts equivalent to Thatcher’s 30 strong cabinet
Am I an optimist?
I'm not sure if Reform realise quite how big an opportunity they have and I know they are not ready for it. Democratising the party must be a priority though.
Reform are a necessary gadfly but are too narrowly lightweight to form a great reforming government. Having lived thorough the events described in Ed's article, the solution is clear enough: Kemi Badenoch. As Starmer is turning our to be a dull version of Harold Wilson' I'd day her (and our) chances are pretty good.
I'm not sure which was great, this article or Dominic Sandbrook's book that the article was based upon. Probably both.
I remember those years when every night the 6 o'clock News on the BBC was always full of the Troubles in Belfast, striking unions and the war in 'the' Lebanon, wherever that was. So boring! I wanted to watch T.Rex and Sweet on Top of the Pops, Match of the Day on Saturday nights and scenes of pitch invasions and mass fights between rival supporters with appropriately disgusted comments from Jimmy Hill.
Martin Amis was quite preoccupied with all this too at the time. “The yobs are winning!” he has an upper-middle class father lament when his daughter brings home her cockney city trader boyfriend. It depended who you were really: lots of younger adults from the suburbs were climbing the ladder - Beverley and her husband in Abigail’s Party - and the Blairs of this world were snapping up big stucco-ed Georgian houses in Islington for a song.
What finally came home to some people was the loss of status that actually began in the 1940s, but was masked to a large degree by the much worse predicament of economic rivals: Germany and Japan, mainly. The German cars of the early to mid-1970s - in my memory, anyway - ranged from THE BUBBLE CAR through the tinny VW van to the old but charming Beetle. If it said “Made in Japan” on it, you knew it was shoddy! No, really! Then, Japan started to make everything better and cheaper, and it was bye bye British Leyland, British Steel, British Coal, British Rail and everything else…
One of those moments when the comments under a piece are superb and add to the original. I feel you all - and I was a lefty
What I remember of the 1970’s differs somewhat from this doomsday history. Times were difficult, no doubt, but there was no chance that democracy would fail. Heath became PM in 1970 and thought he could be firm with the trade unions and cure inflation. The Miners, before Arthur Scargill, proved he couldn’t. Even the attempt to legislate to restrict wages and incomes failed. Eventually he challenged “Who governs the country?” and found it wasn’t him. Wilson took over and then Callaghan but the heavy industry that had dominated the economy was falling apart and required a lot of subsidies just to operate. When Thatcher took over in 1979 with the pious belief “where there is conflict, let us bring harmony”, the greatest lie ever told in British political life. She simply ended the subsidies, withdrew the RN Frigate that protected the Falklands from invasion by Argentina (it took them three years to realise that they could invade without any opposition, except for a small contingent of Royal Marines). The rest is history. Britain moved from an industrial economy to a service economy and has increasingly been reliant on world markets for a living. During Cameron’s period in office Britain exported more to the Irish Republic than to China.
Of all the evocation of that period, none is more nightmarish than David Peace's novel Nineteen Seventy-Four.
I was there at the time (living in Southfields and going into the West End occasionally, working in the City from 1978) and I don't remember things on the ground being quite so bad. We could build motorways in those days. Though my future wife got together with me in 1977 after being mugged by a black man - harbinger for today?
Another fictional account of (a future Britain) published around the time (1978) was Anthony Burgess’s 1985
In terms of the dark 1970s vibe, I thought you might also be interested in Anthony Burgess' "1985":
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_(Burgess_novel)
I always get General Walter Walker mixed up with Edwin Walker, a right wing American military man who some ex Marine (who had previously defected to the Sovie Union) tried to kill in Dallas in April 1963.
One reads a great deal from the Official Narrative Spokespersons about how Margaret Thatcher was awful and horrible and rotten. However, knowing something of the conditions that preceded Thatcher's election makes it easier to understand how the electorate could vote for such an awful and rotten person.
Remarkable that quote from Gerald Ford, all the more so as New York City was almost bankrupt the year before:
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/18/welcome-to-fear-city-the-inside-story-of-new-yorks-civil-war-40-years-on
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UKfViwsbWeU&pp=ygUdTmV3IFlvcmsgQ2l0eSBiYW5rcnVwdGN5IDE5NzY%3D
Quite.
FitzGerrald is being fed bad information by Garda Special Branch at this time.
http://www.btinternet.com/~chief.gnome/
A story where the 70s goes downhill quickly
Here is one book called "state of emergency" on Britain in the 1970s:
https://www.google.ca/books/edition/State_of_Emergency/DlEqAQAAMAAJ?hl=en
At least back then, there would often be (often cheesy) easy listening music in the background of this turmoil:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eBsNL7hK0MY&pp=ygUQMTk3OCBiYmMgcmFkaW8gMg%3D%3D