A History of Modern Britain. Bt Andrew Marr. Macmillan, 2007, £25.
Some readers will find much to like about this book, written by the ubiquitous teleMarr, radioMarr and Daily Marr and based on his recent TV series on BBC2. It is entertaining, witty, good-humoured – and never boring. Others will be less keen, seeing its 630 pages as obese and garrulous, stuffed with descriptive detail but light on discussion of ideas (do we really want to pay good money to learn about Churchill “sitting in his hospital bed wearing pale blue pyjamas with a silk shirt and cardigan?”)
The book has five parts, each covering about a decade from the end of the World War II to the present time. Marr sums up the 1945-51 period: “Labour had made Britain a little more civilized and certainly fairer. But it had accomplished nothing like a revolution.” He write of “a certain vision of British socialism” and the word socialist (as noun or adjective) is used dozens of times in the book. But always it refers to Old Labour people or policies like nationalisation.
Part Two, titled “The Land of Lost Content” (meaning happiness) is about the 13 years of Tory government, (1951-64). Marr drops a few top political names (Macmillan, Home), rakes some sexual muck (Profumo, Vassall) and celebrates miscellaneous celebrities of the time (Ernest Marples, the Beatles, Sir Bernard Docker). Domestically, manufacturing industry and shipbuilding were in decline and “the growth of car mania” was under way. Internationally, Suez was a disaster, and British Empire was reducing to Commonwealth of nations.
Part Three takes us on to the years 1964-79. Andy calls this part “Harold, Ted and Jim”, meaning Heath’s Conservative government was sandwiched between the Labour governments of Wilson and Callaghan. Economics is one theme: the balance of payments crises, the pre-Thatcher rise of the free market, the overflowing rubbish winter of discontent (1979). Internationally, Rhodesia broke away from British rule, and the “troubles” in Ireland got worse. But Marr seems most enthused by cultural issues: legalising homosexuality, reducing censorship, the growth of the pop music and celebrity industries.
The author calls Part Four “The British Revolution” (1979-90). He means Thatcherism. It “heralded an age of unparalleled consumption, credit, show-off wealth, quick bucks and sexual libertinism.” Marr believes that Thatcher was “extremely lucky. Had Labour not been disembowelling itself and had a corrupt, desperate dictatorship in South America not taken a materialistic gamble with some island sheep-farmers, her government would probably have been destroyed after a single term.” Maybe – probably not. It’s idle speculation. More solid is Marr’s account of why Labour lost power after and took 18 years to regain it: briefly, failure to deliver on promises.
Marr lingers for six crocodile-tear splashed pages over Thatcher’s political death. The poll tax was a disaster for her. “One by one the inner core of true Thatcherism fell back.” She eventually resigned, but not before fixing John Major as her successor.
Part Five, oddly called “Nippy Metro People”, brings us up to date. First there are seven Major years and then a Blair decade. The blurb for the book talks of “the victory of shopping over politics… a culture of consumerism, celebrity and self-gratification.” Marr reviews recent economic and political events: the pound not going in with the euro, the modernisers of Labour who moved it away from the “unelectable” left. But again he gives prominence to cultural matters: the Diana cult, New Age spiritualism, celebrity glossy magazines, the costly Dome.
On the last page Marr shows his inegalitarian hand on leadership. “[We] need those optimistic politicians, the next leaders, the ones whom we’ll laugh at and abuse. And we need them more than ever now.” Speak for yourself, Andy – only sheep need shepherds!
Stan Parker
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