![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Sun Makers
Aug. 11th, 2021 09:05 pmBook Review: Seasons in the Sun - Britain 1974-1979, by Dominic Sandbrook
Whenever I read biographically about Sandbrook, I feel disturbed. Writing for the Telegraph, Mail and Spectator does not endear me to him. But I have found his TV and book histories quite reasonable and fun. How can you not like someone who writes this?
Although it begins with a slice of 1976 - arguing just how much Star Wars is a British film - like the preceding volume, this history is framed by general elections, beginning in 1974 with the unexpected victory (of sorts) of Harold Wilson. His opinion is that Wilson was already in decline; the intrigue in Number 10 around Marcia Williams and other advisers combined with Wilson's instinct for compromise (not necessarily in a good way) to produce less-than-masterly inaction. Although the immediate industrial unrest was quietened, this was not sustainable: group after group proved to be a "special case" when it came to pay awards. Wilson's paranoia (around right-wing intelligence agencies, South Africa in particular) was fed by rumours in the Jeremy Thorpe affair.
Sandbrook's disavowal of Heath is matched only by his copious scorn for the former Viscount Stansgate, Tony Benn. Quoting amply from Benn's own diaries he loses no opportunity to ridicule Benn's ideas of a "siege economy", or of Benn's various crackpot ideas about class war and solidarity. Indeed, he enjoys pointing out the self-destructive capitalist beggar-my-neighbour approach of various trade unions in the period.
Callaghan and Healey were left holding the parcel when the music stopped, and had to negotiate with the IMF. Sandbrook described Callaghan as "Britain's first monetarist Prime Minister" and is quite praising of the results. It does feel that both political sides share responsibility, having avoided hard questions around inflation and productivity for years, even decades. I think Sandbrook is harsh in describing Keynesianism as a "failure"; it's more the case that it had outlived by quite some way its usefulness, and ought to have been retired long before, but politicians also feared (with good reason) a return to high unemployment as in the 1930s.
Away from the economy, Northern Ireland (and, from time to time, the British mainland) was in flames; Wilson announced a referendum on EEC membership, then avoided campaigning in it (sound familiar?). Away from politics, the book covers drought, the rise of punk, Abba and the Silver Jubilee. Yet people do seem to look back nostalgically on the period. But this book does feel more politically focussed than its predecessor. Written in 2012, some of the tone feels ominously prescient (a small island nation unable to "move on" from its imperial past, with a void in the political centre), role-reversed compared to the present (fears of far left government), or downright wrong with hindsight ("At least Britain did not fall prey to incessant US-style culture wars.").
Sandbrook credits the Callaghan government with getting the economic situation under reasonable control by late 1978, when there were rumours that a general election might be called. But Callaghan demurred, feeling that the polls were too close to call, and that the prospects would be better after some months of stability. Inexplicably - or so it seems now - various trade union sections thought differently, and destroyed the relatively benign conditions with the catastrophic Winter of Discontent. The description of the first few months of 1979 and the election has the air of Gauda Prime Day to it: not so much Star Wars as The Empire Strikes Back.
Whenever I read biographically about Sandbrook, I feel disturbed. Writing for the Telegraph, Mail and Spectator does not endear me to him. But I have found his TV and book histories quite reasonable and fun. How can you not like someone who writes this?
As it happened, Scargill had just got back from the Yorkshire Miners' Gala beauty contest, judged by the unlikely duo of David Dimbleby and Tom Baker.
Although it begins with a slice of 1976 - arguing just how much Star Wars is a British film - like the preceding volume, this history is framed by general elections, beginning in 1974 with the unexpected victory (of sorts) of Harold Wilson. His opinion is that Wilson was already in decline; the intrigue in Number 10 around Marcia Williams and other advisers combined with Wilson's instinct for compromise (not necessarily in a good way) to produce less-than-masterly inaction. Although the immediate industrial unrest was quietened, this was not sustainable: group after group proved to be a "special case" when it came to pay awards. Wilson's paranoia (around right-wing intelligence agencies, South Africa in particular) was fed by rumours in the Jeremy Thorpe affair.
Sandbrook's disavowal of Heath is matched only by his copious scorn for the former Viscount Stansgate, Tony Benn. Quoting amply from Benn's own diaries he loses no opportunity to ridicule Benn's ideas of a "siege economy", or of Benn's various crackpot ideas about class war and solidarity. Indeed, he enjoys pointing out the self-destructive capitalist beggar-my-neighbour approach of various trade unions in the period.
Callaghan and Healey were left holding the parcel when the music stopped, and had to negotiate with the IMF. Sandbrook described Callaghan as "Britain's first monetarist Prime Minister" and is quite praising of the results. It does feel that both political sides share responsibility, having avoided hard questions around inflation and productivity for years, even decades. I think Sandbrook is harsh in describing Keynesianism as a "failure"; it's more the case that it had outlived by quite some way its usefulness, and ought to have been retired long before, but politicians also feared (with good reason) a return to high unemployment as in the 1930s.
Away from the economy, Northern Ireland (and, from time to time, the British mainland) was in flames; Wilson announced a referendum on EEC membership, then avoided campaigning in it (sound familiar?). Away from politics, the book covers drought, the rise of punk, Abba and the Silver Jubilee. Yet people do seem to look back nostalgically on the period. But this book does feel more politically focussed than its predecessor. Written in 2012, some of the tone feels ominously prescient (a small island nation unable to "move on" from its imperial past, with a void in the political centre), role-reversed compared to the present (fears of far left government), or downright wrong with hindsight ("At least Britain did not fall prey to incessant US-style culture wars.").
Sandbrook credits the Callaghan government with getting the economic situation under reasonable control by late 1978, when there were rumours that a general election might be called. But Callaghan demurred, feeling that the polls were too close to call, and that the prospects would be better after some months of stability. Inexplicably - or so it seems now - various trade union sections thought differently, and destroyed the relatively benign conditions with the catastrophic Winter of Discontent. The description of the first few months of 1979 and the election has the air of Gauda Prime Day to it: not so much Star Wars as The Empire Strikes Back.