There is a charming Edwardian photo on the wrap-around cover of Alwyn Turner’s latest book. The picture was apparently taken at the St Giles Street Fair in Oxford around the time the period covered in this book came to an end, i.e. around 1910, the year in which King Edward VII died. It is essentially a busy crowd scene. The rear of the shot is filled with dozens of heads disappearing into the distance but the people in the foreground are clearly visible. Some are clearly aware of the camera and are smiling or looking self-consciously at it. A few of them would be clearly identifiable to anyone who knew them well. It’s unlikely of course, but if you knew anyone living in Oxford at the time, you might spot someone you recognise. The parents, grandparents or great-grandparents of anyone reading this might well be standing there.
Virtually everyone in the picture is wearing a hat of some sort. Most of the males are wearing cloth caps, although a few are wearing boaters or the odd bowler. Although there are one or two hatless boys visible, there are no women without hats at all. To me, the picture evokes memories of films set in the era such as Mary Poppins or The Railway Children. Both those films were made in the Sixties, when the Edwardian era was as much within living memory as the Sixties are to us today. Given that the oldest person living in Britain at the time of writing was born in 1909, we can be certain that everyone in the picture is now dead, in most cases probably for a long time. Some will have died in the world wars, some in the 1918 Influenza pandemic. Some will have lived to witness Neil Armstrong stepping on the moon on TV in 1969. None would have expected to be on the cover of a book, published in the year 2024.
This book is their story. Not their story specifically, but the story of the people of the Edwardian era (1901-10), which can be extended up to 1914. Author Alwyn Turner has most covered the more recent decades in his latest books but here he explores a period tantalisingly beyond the reach of living memory. He focuses heavily on many of the more colourful figures of the time such as the murderer Dt. Crippen (pictured above) and the Liberal MP and fraudster, Horatio Bottomley, who inspired Kenneth Grahame to create the character of Mr Toad. We learn that Edward VII owned a golf bag made entirely from the skin of an elephant’s penis. Filled with lots of surprising nuggets of trivia about the details of Edwardian life, this is never less than an enjoyable and entertaining read.
Book review: Little Englanders: Britain in the Edwardian Era., by Alwyn Turner. Published by: Profile Books
One hundred years ago, the news that the first ever Labour government had come to power, rather put the wind up some people. In fact, they needn’t have worried. Whereas some feared the “wild men” of the new regime who they feared might lead Britain towards the same brand of Soviet-style Bolshevism which had engulfed Russia seven years before, in fact, the Labour administration of 1924, was a minority government reliant on the Liberal Party for support, which only held power for eight months. Even King George V found most of the new Labour cabinet to be reasonable chaps. In this fascinating book, David Torrance subjects both the key members and events of 1924 to vigorous scrutiny. How did Ramsay MacDonald cope with being Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary simultaneously? Was Philip Snowdon’s reputation as “Iron Chancellor” deserved? Ultimately, the success of the first ever Labour government may be judged by the fact Labour have returned to power five times in the century since. By the end of 2024, they may very well be back again. The NHS, comprehensive schools, the Winter of Discontent, the Good Friday Agreement: it all started here.
What is it?: Historians and old friends, Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook discuss a variety of historical themes, usually for about forty or fifty minutes, two or three times a week.
History: As of January 23rd 2024, there have been 411 episodes, of which I have listened to just over 150. The podcast has been produced by Gary Lineker’s Goalhanger podcasts since its inception in November 2020. It is a success and can usually be seen hovering either within or close to the top ten on lists of the most successful podcasts in the UK. It has inspired a whole range of “The Rest of” podcasts also produced by Goalhanger such as The Rest is … Politics, Football, Business and Entertainment. All of these have also been successful (TRI Politics and TRI Entertainment often overtaking TRI History in popularity), even though, title-wise, only “the rest is history” is ever used as a common, everyday expression.
Format: Tom and Dominic are clearly old chums. Both are professional historians. Both are middle-aged men. Tom (who should not be confused with the 27-year-old Spiderman actor of the same name) is in his fifties, while Dominic will turn fifty in 2024. The tone is light, a world away from the stuffy, “That’s you that is” historians once portrayed by Rob Newman and David Baddiel. Like Newman and Baddiel, however, they do occasionally make each other break into laughter on air, sometimes not for obvious reasons.
Dominic’s speciality is modern history, Tom is better on the ancient world. This distinction is illustrated by the show’s logo which depicts Tom in the form of a Classical statue while Dominic is portrayed as a Churchillian bust. Both men will discuss every topic. Subject matter covered in the last year has included President Kennedy’s assassination, the Aztec Empire, the rise of the Nazis, Columbus, Reagan, Baghdad, Captain Cook and British fascism. The scope of the series is impressive. Subjects are always covered thoroughly and well. Guests (including Tom’s military historian brother) are sometimes invited in to discuss areas on which Tom and Dom are less confident. Novelist Zadie Smith appeared recently to talk about the Tichborne Claimant) while Stephen Fry was in an early Lockdown-era episode.
History boys: Tom Holland (not that one) and Dominic Sandbrook.
Running jokes: Tom is obsessed with cricket and is a big fan of Prince Edward who once praised one of his books. Dom often writes for the Daily Mail although is less reactionary than this makes him sound. However, he does admit to despising John Lennon and occasionally gets lost in a patriotic fervour. Tom also admits to being a big Tony Blair fan although generally the pod avoids discussing 21st century politics, particularly since The Rest is Politics started in 2022. Although not obviously religious himself, Tom is sometimes accused of finding a way to discuss religion within any subject they are discussing. Dominic is probably the more dominant of the two personalities. Tom can be slightly camp.
Historical figures who crop up a lot in Tom and Dom’s discussions, such as Otto von Bismarck are typically described as “very much a friend of The Rest is History.” The duo are also easily distracted by a silly name such as Estes Kefauver, Perkin Warbeck or Tiberius van Ladypleaser. I may have made one of these names up.
Optional extras: Fans can now buy a The Rest is History or get episodes, early and ad-free by joining The Rest is History Club. I am definitely a fan of the podcast, but have resisted both of these options thus far. I generally don’t mind waiting for episodes (I don’t listen to them all anyway). I also don’t mind the short commercial breaks (which are usually for The Week magazine or something).
Criticism: By far the worst aspect of The Rest is History is the tendency to introduce each episode with a quotation often delivered with an excruciating impersonation of the person being quoted. I have no problem with the quotes themselves, but I doubt anyone enjoys hearing Tom impersonating the likes of Hitler and Marilyn Monroe as much as he does performing it. Dominic is equally guilty in this regard. This aspect of the show which is already delivered with an attitude of “we know this bit’s crap but we’re going to it anyway” should be stopped immediately.
Overall: “The history book on the shelf. It’s always repeating itself.” So sang Abba, on their Eurovision-winning hit, Waterloo, fifty years ago. Happily, The Rest is History rarely repeats itself. It is a first-class podcast which you will find yourself returning to, again and again.
The possibility of a second Donald Trump presidency undoubtedly fills many people with horror. But if he did manage to win the 2024 US presidential election, he would have accomplished a feat achieved by only one person before. Up until now, Grover Cleveland is the only man to have won a full term as president, before leaving the White House only to return to be elected to serve another full term, four years later. Cleveland (1885-89, 1893-97) is thus counted as both the 22nd and 24th US president.
Cleveland’s record is impressive. Aside from Franklin D. Roosevelt, he is the only person to win the popular vote in three US presidential elections. Having won the presidency in 1884, the Democrat, Cleveland was defeated in his bid for re-election by Republican, Benjamin Harrison in 1888. Harrison, a dull, uninspiring figure triumphed in the electoral college despite losing in the popular vote to Cleveland. Cleveland returned to defeat Harrison in 1892, enabling him to embark on a wholly unprecedented non-consecutive second term.
Trump is a very different character from Cleveland, however. For one thing, Cleveland was still only 47 in 1885, making him the youngest ever new president at that point. He was still just shy of sixty when his second term ended twelve years later. Trump, in contrast, would be, at eighty-two, the oldest US president there has ever been, were he to complete a second term in the White House.
Trump’s electoral record has thus far been much less impressive than Cleveland’s. Trump lost the popular vote in both the 2016 election, despite winning in the crucial electoral college and in the 2020 contest with Biden which he lost overall.
For most presidents, leaving the White House marks the end of the road. Since the 1950s, two term presidents like Reagan, Bill Clinton, the second President Bush and Obama have been constitutionally unable to stand for a third term even if they wanted to. Meanwhile, those like Jimmy Carter or George HW Bush who left office after one term, the experience of electoral defeat in a November general election proved so devastating that they usually never sought the presidency again.
There have been exceptions, however. Although he wasn’t actually defeated in the 1908 election, the popular Republican President Theodore Roosevelt resisted widespread pressure to run again in that contest, having previously won handsomely in 1904. It was a decision he soon came to bitterly regret and by 1912, the former President, still only in his early fifties, was campaigning to get his old job back from the outside. But there was a complication: his own party was intent on renominating his successor, President William Taft in 1912. T.R. thus formed his own party and ran as a Progressive “Bull Moose” candidate. However, by choosing to run against the incumbent, he only really succeeded in splitting the Republican vote, pushing Taft into third place and ensuring the victory of Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, who probably not have won otherwise.
Ex-President Herbert Hoover also considered another run for the presidency following his defeat by Democrat, Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932. This is, in some ways, surprising. Hoover had become very unpopular following the 1929 Wall Street Crash. Hs name had become so strongly associated with the Great Depression that many of the shanty towns which sprung up in its wake became known as “Hoovervilles.” Little wonder, Hoover’s dreams of a political comeback got nowhere.
In Britain, prime ministerial returns to office have proven less unusual. This is largely because a party leader does not automatically lose his or her position, simply because they have lost a General Election and can thus theoretically live on to win back power another day. William Gladstone served as PM four times between 1868 and 1894 while Stanley Baldwin had three separate stints in Downing Street between 1923 and 1937. This has become less common in recent times, however. While it’s true both Winston Churchill and Harold Wilson both came back for a second spell in power, generally most PMs can assume that like Edward Heath, James Callaghan, John Major or Gordon Brown, that if they lead their party to defeat in a General Election, their time is up.
No time to Di: Ghost Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) haunts the Queen (Imelda Staunton).
Woo-ooh! Watch out everyone! Halloween may have been and gone, but there are two ACTUAL GHOSTS in this episode. Despite being dispatched in the last episode, the spirits of Princess Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) and Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla) both briefly return to the mortal realm to haunt their relatives. Di visits her grief-stricken ex-husband, Prince Charles (Dominic West) and the Queen (Imelda Staunton) while Dodi pops in on his dad, Mohamed Al-Fayed (Salim Daw).
One wonders if the “psychic” who the then still-living Diana reportedly visited in Episode 2 had anything to do with this? Can we expect to see more phantoms in The Crown’s future? Perhaps a return visit from John Lithgow’s Churchill or from the Queen’s father, George VI (Jared Harris)?Perhaps Charles I? Or Henry VIII? I doubt it.
Of course, they’re presumably not really supposed to be ghosts. If they were everyone would have been a little bit more surprised when they first materialised. For example, when the spectral Diana introduces herself mid-flight with a playful “ta-da!”, Charles would presumably have tried to jump off the plane. It is a dramatic device, albeit a thoroughly silly one which doesn’t work at all.
In truth, this is inevitably a very sombre episode. Di and Dodi are dead and The Crown is quite unstinting in showing Charles and Al-Fayed’s unrestrained grief as they learn the shocking news from Paris. Despite having so recently been engaged in a PR war with his ex-wife, Charles (in this, at least) now does an abrupt volte-face and stands up for the rights of Diana and their two children. The Queen and Philip’s (Jonathan Pryce) stubborn determination to keep buggering on as if nothing has changed, seems positively cold-hearted in comparison. The ghostly Diana plays a crucial role in softening up the Queen’s official response to the tragedy.
We also see Al-Fayed in full grief mode, an element that was entirely absent from Peter Morgan’s last journey into this territory when he wrote 2006’s acclaimed film, The Queen. Al-Fayed is not yet the crazed conspiracy theorist he will become. We get to see Imelda Staunton replicating the Queen’s actual TV broadcast from the time, something Helen Mirren did in the 2006 film. It would be interesting to see the three versions: the late Queen’s, Mirren’s and Staunton’s played side by side.
We also get some nonsense about the young Prince William (Rufus Kampa) going missing for fourteen hours following his mother’s death: an untrue story which goes precisely nowhere (“Have you seen William?…oh, there he is”).
It’s hard to imagine Peter Morgan would have got away with portraying Diana and Dodi as ghosts in the 2006 Helen Mirren film. Guess what? He doesn’t really get away with it here either.
Windsor change: The Queen (Imelda Staunton) changes tack.
It is sometimes said of the nineteen sixties: if you can remember them, you weren’t really there. Oddly, reading the latest volume in David Kynaston’s epic Tales of a New Jerusalem series on post-war British life left me with much the same feeling. Kynaston’s 600-page book goes into so much painstaking detail about every aspect of British life during that period, that I almost feel as if I really do remember being there. Yet in reality, I wasn’t there at all. I’m not even old enough to remember the seventies.
The book doesn’t cover the whole decade, of course, merely the 27-month period between October 1962 and January 1965. The month of October 1962 was in itself hugely significant culturally. As John Higgs has discussed in his book, Love and Let Die, the same day, Saturday 6th October 1962 witnessed the simultaneous release of both the first Beatles’ single, Love Me Do and the very first cinema release for the very first James Bond film, Dr. No starring Sean Connery. It was also the month during which, thanks to the Cuban Missile Crisis, humanity came closer to wiping itself our than at any time before or since.
In truth, this entire two-year timespan, may well down as the most eventful in Britain’s peacetime history. The book’s title doubtless refers to the conditions which precipitated the Big Freeze of 1962-63, one of the coldest winters ever recorded, which strikes early in the book, but also the northern character of many of the changes wrought during this time such as the coming of The Beatles and the arrival of Yorkshireman, Harold Wilson into Downing Street in October 1964.
The year 1963 saw the government of Harold “Supermac” Macmillan dealt with a severe dose of Kryptonite, by the eruption of the Profumo Affair which shook British society to its foundations. By October 1963, Macmillan, who was approaching seventy had lost all appetite for the job and used the excuse of a perfectly treatable bout of prostate cancer to make a sharp exit from Downing Street (he went on to live until 1986). With no formal arrangements to elect Tory leaders yet in place, the subsequent “contest” to succeed the old man quickly turned into a farce, the skeletal Sir Alec Douglas-Home somehow emerging as leader, despite still being in the House of Lords at the time of his appointment.
Home should, in theory, have been easy meat for a Labour Party revitalised after more than a decade in opposition, by the election of the youthful Harold Wilson as leader earlier in the year. Today, a politician who always wore a raincoat and smoked a pipe would risk seeming like an odd ball. But in 1963, these things when added to the new leader’s heady, intoxicating, arguably slightly meaningless talk of the “white heat of revolution” helped make Wilson seem like the harbinger of a new, exciting, more technological and meritocratic new age. Wilson’s period as leader between March 1963 and October 1964, is still seen by many as the perfect template for any Opposition leader. Despite this, he only just managed to knock the stiff, untelegenic Sir Alec off his perch, leading Labour to victory with a single figure majority.
But it’s not all about politics. Far from it. Instead, we get a unique insight into almost all aspects of British life through the TV they watched, the newspapers and magazines they read, the music, the sport and the thoughts and feelings of people both famous and ordinary through their letters and diaries. It is a reminder that history is not always what we remember it to be and that people’s perceptions and attitudes back then might not be now exactly what we would now expect them to be.
For example, as some reflected idly on the return of Dixon of Dock Green (“like an old friend coming into the house every Saturday”), others discussed the possible implications of the contraceptive pill (“this is not a subject which a woman will discuss over morning coffee – even with her closest friends,” wrote Jean Rook in the Yorkshire Post). The Beeching Report was published. The Great Train Robbery happened. On the night of President Kennedy’s assassination, Beatles fans went to see the Fab Four perform at the Globe Theatre on Stockton-on-Tees. Mods and Rockers fought on Brighton’s beaches. The first episode of Top of the Pops went out. Some took an instant dislike to its first ever host: “What an odd-looking individual…like something from Dr Who…Mutton dressed as lamb.” Sometimes the effect is similar to reading a Twitter feed. The host on that occasion was the 37-year-old disc jockey, Jimmy Savile.
In Smethwick, the Conservative candidate, Peter Griffiths won the seat after fighting a blatantly racist campaign using the slogan, “if you want a n—– for a neighbour, vote Labour.” His election provoked huge controversy. On TV, however, despite some grumbling, The Black and White Minstrels Show continued to air and would do for many years. News stories like the unfolding Profumo Affair provoked mixed reactions ranging from sympathy for Macmillan, often hypocritical disgust, outrage over the nature of the media coverage and undisguised lust towards Christine Keeler from the future comedy writer, Laurence Marks, then a teenaged boy.
There is more detailed analysis too. With the perspective of sixty years, David Kynaston examines the impact of the Beeching cuts to the railways and also takes a thorough look at the condition of the welfare state as his epic series of books reaches its half way point, midway between the landmark 20th century General Elections of 1945 and 1979. Elsewhere, we are reminded that sport did not stop even on the day of Sir Winston Churchill’s state funeral with Peterborough United beating Arsenal that very afternoon. The Britain of January 1965 was undeniably massively different from the land the great war leader had been born into ninety years before. But it was also, as this superb book consistently reminds us, very different from the Britain of today.
Book review: A Northern Wind, Britain 1962-65, by David Kynaston. Published by: Bloomsbury.
British politics is in trouble. Lots of our MPs are (contrary to legend) hard-working and decent. But some are not. As an MP himself, Chris Bryant has witnessed many of the negative elements of British parliamentary life first-hand . He was there, for example, on the shameful day, the Boris Johnson government attempted to allow an unprecedented rule change to allow former minister, Owen Paterson to get away with breaking Commons rules. He has seen (as we all have) the now disgraced Prime Minister Johnson lying and lying and lying again in the Commons and numerous MPs from all parties bending and breaking the rules to protect themselves and achieve personal advantage. Reform is clearly sorely needed. At the very least, the rule that no member should be able to accuse another member of lying within the House of Commons chamber is surely long overdue for change? Chris Bryant knows what he’s talking about and clearly has many great ideas on how to change things for the better. It is surely time we ejected the current ruling band of corrupt, incompetent miscreants from power and elected a Labour government imbued with the very real appetite and energy to implement these long overdue and urgently needed reforms was elected in its place.
The idea might sound bizarre, but in fact, in the case of Hannah Rose Woods’ excellent new book, it makes perfect sense. For this is a history of nostalgia itself. As Woods gradually takes us back from the 2020s to the Tudor era, it makes so much sense that a chapter covering the years 1914 to 1945 should follow the one focusing on the period spanning 1945 to 1979, that it soon begins to seem normal.
Indeed, there never seems to have been a time when Britain wasn’t taking a fond look back over its shoulder to savour the apparent security and certainties of the recent past. Many today might mourn the passing of the immediate post-war decades. But Woods is good at myth-busting and points out things were rarely as simple as they seem. From the perspective of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, Britain seemed, on the one hand, to be drifting into seemingly irreversible decline. We had lost our empire, been humiliated over Suez and as the 1960s moved into the 1970s, seemed to be perpetually lurching from one national crisis to another.
This is all true enough. But at the same time as Harold Macmillan pointed out, “most of our people have never had it so good.” During his premiership and for nearly twenty years after it, lots of people had more money and free time than ever, acquiring cars, living in their own homes and going on foreign holidays for the first time. The year 1977 is often seen as marking something of a national low point, coming so soon after the 1976 IMF Crisis. But surveys from that year indicate Britons were then amongst the happiest peoples in the world. As the Canadian philosopher, Joni Michell had argued a few years earlier, “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?”
There is more. Contrary to popular myth, lots of people were pleased to be moved out of their slums, most people who went to the New Towns didn’t regret it (even in Stevenage) and some people were never happier during their entire lives than when the Nazis were bombing them during the Second World War (no joke!)
In short, this is an enjoyable and well-written book, packed with insights. You’ll be sure to remember it fondly, once it’s all over.
Book review: Rule, Nostalgia: A Backwards History of Britain, by Hannah Rose Woods. Published by: W.H Allen. Available: now.
His previous book, The Prime Ministers: Reflections on Leadership from Wilson to Johnson focused on the ten most recent British occupants of 10 Downing Street.
In his new book, even the list of subjects chosen is potentially contentious as Richards has specifically chosen to focus on the ten people who he feels came closest to becoming Prime Minister in the last sixty or so years without ever quite achieving it.
The list actually includes eleven people, not ten, as Richards has judged the two Milibands to be equally worthy of a place here and are both dealt with in one chapter.
The figures included are:
Rab Butler, Roy Jenkins, Barbara Castle, Denis Healey, Neil Kinnock, Michael Heseltine, Michael Portillo, Ken Clarke, David and Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn.
It is a good selection. Of the eleven, only three were ever party leader. Neil Kinnock and Ed Miliband were both cruelly denied power after losing General Elections (in 1992 and 2015) which most opinion polls and most people expected them to emerge from as Prime Minister, as at the very least, the leaders of a Hung Parliament. In 2017, Jeremy Corbyn caused a major upset by wiping out Theresa May’s majority after she called an unnecessary election which she had expected to win by a landslide. For a short period, Corbyn seemed achingly close to power. But his last two years as Opposition leader were disastrous and in 2019, he lost far more heavily to the Tories, by then under their new leader, Boris Johnson.
Two others on the list, Rab Butler and Michael Heseltine came close to becoming leader while their parties were in power. But while supremely well-qualified for the position of PM on paper, Butler lacked the qualities necessary to secure the position in practice. He lost out three times in 1955, 1957 and 1963. He was ultimately outmanoeuvred by the far more ruthless Harold Macmillan. Amongst other things, his speech to the 1963 Party Conference was much too dull to excite the Tory Faithful.
Michael Heseltine’s party conference speeches, in contrast, were never dull but he faced a near impossible challenge in 1990 in attempting to both remove Margaret Thatcher from office and replace her. He succeeded in the first but failed to achieve the latter despite remaining a potential leadership contender until after the Tories lost power in 1997. Although he wisely avoids going down the counter-factual history route, Richards does speculate that as Prime Minister, Heseltine may well have fundamentally changed Britain forever. Alas, we will never know.
Ultimately, all eleven of the figures featured here failed to win the premiership for different reasons. Roy Jenkins, Denis Healey and Ken Clarke all attempted to swim against the opposing tides then prevailing within their own parties. Onetime heir to the Thatcherite legacy, Michael Portillo, meanwhile, was forced into such a fundamental rethink of his values by his 1997 defeat, that he seemed to have lost all his enthusiasm for leadership by the time he was finally able to contest it in 2001. Many of his original supporters by then had their doubts as to whether they still wanted him to be leader too.
Richards’ list is almost as interesting for those it misses off as for those it includes. From the outset, his position is clear: in this book, he is only interested in the reasons why people didn’t become PM. He thus wastes no time on the tragic cases of Hugh Gaitskell, Iain Macleod or John Smith, all of whom lost any chance they might have had simply as a result of their sadly premature deaths. He also wastes no time on no-hopers. Whatever qualities they might have had, nobody ever expected Michael Foot or William Hague to make the jump from Opposition leader to Downing Street, least of all the men themselves.
I am surprised by Reginald Maudling’s exclusion from the list, however. Whatever his flaws, he was widely expected to beat Edward Heath to the Tory leadership in 1965 and from there may well have led the Tories back into power as Heath himself somehow managed to do. Richards also (perhaps after some hesitation) rejects Tony Benn from the list arguing:
“Benn almost qualifies as a prime minister we never had but fails to do so because, unlike Corbyn, he was never leader of the Opposition and he never had a credible chance of becoming prime minister while Labour was in government.”
This is fair enough but it does make Barbara Castle’s inclusion as one of the ten seem a bit conspicuous. She never after all, even stood for party leader. Yet it arguably doesn’t matter. Castle was a colourful and interesting character. She might have become leader and her inclusion proves a useful entry point for discussing other female politicians of the time such as Shirley Williams and Margaret Thatcher. Richards’ writing is consistently engaging and well-argued. And interested readers should rest assured, the likes of Tony Benn and Michael Foot certainly get lots of coverage here anyway.
It is a sad book, in some ways. Neil Kinnock possessed many brilliant qualities and achieved much but his nine years as Opposition leader were generally agonising. He arguably saved the Labour Party only to find that he himself had become their biggest obstacle to it ever winning power. Both Milibands were hugely talented too but ultimately found their own ambitions effectively cancelled each other out with disastrous consequences for both them and their family. Jeremy Corbyn, a man who Richards reliably assures us is almost completely lacking in any personal vanity at all ended up finding himself widely labelled as narcissistic.
It is an excellent book nevertheless confirming Steve Richards’ position as one of our finest political writers. Perhaps Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer should grab a copy and take note if only to help ensure they don’t find themselves in any future editions?
Over seventy years after the death of George Orwell, Richard Bradford’s new biography, convincingly argues the case for the continued importance of the author of Animal Farm and 1984 in the 21st century.
In addition to the biographical details of Orwell’s eventful life – his unhappy schooldays, his years in the Burmese police force, his genuine heroism fighting fascism during the Spanish Civil War- the book connects Orwell’s writing to the present by linking it to recent trends such as the endless distortions of the truth by the now disgraced former US President Donald Trump and by the current UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. The book also discusses the bitter antisemitism row which undermined Jeremy Corbyn’s spell as leader of the Labour Party in an intelligent book which demonstrates how Orwell today remains as relevant as ever.
Book review: Orwell: A Man of our Time, by Richard Bradford. Published by: Bloomsbury Caravel, May 13th 2021.
Beneath its placid, seaside resort, areas of outstanding beauty exterior, the county of Devon has had a livelier history than many.
Don’t believe me? Then pick a century at random. Try, the 16th: The heyday of many Devon-born explorers such as Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake. Piracy and smuggling were rife. The county also played major roles in the Wyatt and Prayer Book Rebellions. The 20th? Remember the wartime devastation of the air raids on Plymouth and Exeter? The booming seaside of Regency Exmouth in the early 19th century. The ten sieges of Exeter. Perkin Warbeck’s march on Devon. The critical role played by the county in the Civil War. The trials of the Bideford ‘witches.’ The history of England is fascinating and Devon has certainly played an essential role in making it so.
This new book by Suze Gardner avoids jumping around all over the place as I just did. It tells the story of Devon in 21 easily absorbable little chapters, starting with details on the county’s geology (fun fact: only a small amount of the so-called ‘Jurassic coast’ is actually from the Jurassic era) and stretching right up to the lowdown on the early 21st century Devon-based sitcom, Jam and Jerusalem.
With so much potential information to impart, there are potential dangers here, of course. Any history risks being overly dense as it seeks to burden the reader with too many facts. At the other extreme, a writer might go too far to avoid doing this and end up producing something so lightweight it ends up not really telling the reader anything substantial at all.
Happily, as in her previous book, The Little Book of Devon, Suze Gardner avoids both of these traps. Whether discussing the Honiton lace trade, sinister occultist, Aleister Crowley or the Battle of Jutland, she achieves the perfect balance between being highly readable and accessible while also remaining substantial and informative. There is also plenty of good history to be learned here generally too, not just about Devon. The next time anyone says to you they want to come to see Devon’s famous ‘Jurassic Park’ or tries to claim crime writer, Jessica Fletcher lived in Greenway, toss over a copy of this book.
I should declare an interest here. I do not know Suze Gardner myself and have not met her. I have, however written the book, Secret Exeter (2018) with Tim Isaac and also wrote A-Z of Exeter: Places – People – History (2019) myself. I regularly write features on local history for the magazines, Exeter Life and Devon Life and write a weekly history column which runs in the Sidmouth Herald, Midweek Herald and Exmouth Journal. I have definitely used Suze Gardner’s works to inform my own writing. I will doubtless do the same again in the future.
I do have one or two minor niggles with the book, however. For one thing, it occasionally, just sounds a bit wrong. Consider this, on James II: “The new king was a Catholic (the last Catholic in England). Worse still, he was intent on making the country Catholic again too.” I don’t think Suze Gardner means this to sound as if it’s bad to be Catholic. But it does rather come out sounding that way. She also doesn’t mention General Buller’s youthful bravery during the Zulu Wars: the heroic side of his reputation rests entirely on this, not on his later, rather more dubious record as a General during the Boer War.
Some of the sub-headings do sound a bit Horrible History-esqe too: ‘Awful Antarctic,’ ‘Hooray Henry!’ and ‘Awful Arsenic and Monstrous Manganese’. My worst criticism would be the excessive overuse of exclamation marks throughout the entire book. Often, they just seem inappropriate: “Remarkably, many Saxon government methods are still in use today!” “Often services had to be held outside to accommodate all the worshippers!” and ‘The people of Victorian Exeter had very bad luck with their theatres as three of them burnt down!” None of these sentences needs an exclamation mark, particularly as one of the fires referred to in the last one was actually a terrible tragedy. There are many more examples of this throughout the book.
But I didn’t spot any real factual errors. And ultimately as a concise and highly accessible guide to England’s third largest county, this is basically unmissable.
Book review: The Little History of Devon, by Suze Gardner. Published by: The History Press, 2021
Okay: admittedly ‘The Sultan of Swing’ may sound like a rather flash title for a biography of the 20th century’s foremost election statistician: ‘Sultans of Swing’ was the name of a Dire Straits album. But David Butler was a seemingly permanent feature of the BBC’s TV election coverage for nearly thirty years. He not only largely created the science of Psephology (the study of balloting and calculating election results) almost from scratch but perhaps did more than anyone else to make the complex world of electoral science accessible and easily understandable to the general public. Although he has always been too modest to admit it, he effectively invented the familiar General Election night device of the Swingometer. He is now ninety-six years old. The long story of his life is worth telling and the veteran writer, journalist and broadcaster, Michael Crick does so very well in this biography, published in 2018.
It is quite eye-opening (at least, it was for me) to learn just how primitive election coverage was when Butler started out in the 1940s. Although BBC TV was established in 1936, the organisation remained extremely wary of providing decent coverage of elections or indeed any aspect of British political life for the first twenty years of its existence. Fearful that the government might accuse them of political bias and use this to restrict their powers (admittedly, a very real risk today), the broadcaster imposed strict rules on itself. The monumental 1945 General Election night was thus covered on BBC radio only: admittedly, perhaps not such a huge issue as very few people owned TVs then anyway. In 1950 again, the BBC did not allow itself to cover any election canvassing during the campaign itself. It did, however, tentatively allow a programme covering the results for the first time in which the handsome young dark-haired and very self-assured Oxford graduate, Butler made a favourable impression. He would become a fixture of the BBC’s election night coverage during the next nine General Elections held up to 1979, often appearing as part of a sort of double-act with friendly rival, the Canadian, Bob McKenzie. Butler would adopt spectacles and see his hair grow grey in the ensuing thirty years but his contribution would prove no less vital.
The book opens with a scene in 1950, in which Winston Churchill, at that point Leader of His Majesty’s Opposition and plotting his own return to Downing Street summoned the young Butler to discuss the possibilities the new science of opinion polling offered for predicting election outcomes in advance. It is a good start: the political titan nearing the end of his long career meeting the young talent at the start of his own. In general, though he seems to have been slightly left of centre politically, Butler strived to remain impartial, something which generated occasional tensions with his lifelong friend, left-wing Labour MP, Tony Benn who he met at university. Butler, in fact, had a very distinguished family background and was the cousin of the leading Tory politician, R.A. ‘Rab’ Butler.
Michael Crick chronicles the details of Butler’s many books, innovations, his travels in America and his success in exporting many of his techniques to Australia and India alongside his personal life. This includes two very sad elements: the death of his wife, the very successful academic, Lady Marilyn Butler in 2011 after many years of happy marriage in 2011 following a struggle with Alzheimer’s disease and the death of one of their three sons, Gareth following a sudden heart attack in 2008, aged just 42.
But, in general, this is a well-researched and highly readable biography of a life well-lived.
2020 was rubbish, for obvious reasons. But what other years in recent history have also been generally terrible?
1914
For many people, 1914 became enshrined forever as the year the world took a permanent downward turn with the outbreak of the First World War shattering a golden age which would never return, initiating an era of global instability which would persist through a Great Depression, another world war and a new terrifying forty-year nuclear arms race confrontation after that.
Silver linings?: In truth, the world was very far from perfect in 1914 anyway and the outbreak of war undoubtedly accelerated the progress of necessary and welcome social change which would have probably occurred sooner or later anyway. Would this have been any comfort to the average young British Tommy as he stood anxiously, shivering in his trench in 1914, awaiting his turn to climb over the top into No Man’s Land though? Probably not.
1929
The late 1920s and with America booming its merry way through the Jazz Age and even the defeated Germany finally developing into a relatively prosperous and politically moderate democracy off the back of American loans, people at last seemed to have put the horrors of the Great War behind them. Then boom…or rather bust: the collapse of the US stock market in October 1929, threw everything into chaos again. While the US eventually found a saviour in the form of Franklin D. Roosevelt elected in 1932, the resulting Great Depression pushed Britain and France into turmoil while Germany lurched towards Hitler and imperial Japan and Mussolini’s Italy soon became increasingly aggressive on the international stage. With the impotent League of Nations powerless to stop things,within a few years the armies of the world were soon beating the drums of war once again.
Silver linings?: From a left-wing perspective, it might seem encouraging that the Depression did push American voters away from mediocre pro-laissez faire Republican isolationist presidents into the inspiring, highly interventionist New Deal which arguably pushed the US closer to socialism than ever before and led to five consecutive Democratic presidential victories in a row. But it did lead to the rise of Hitler. Even Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts started marching around the UK. So, generally, it wasn’t worth it.
1940
Eighty years on, talk of the ‘darkest hour,’ Vera Lynn, the Battle of Britain and the plucky, cheerful defiance of the ‘spirit of the Blitz’ have conspired to give 1940 a somewhat romantic air. The reality was surely deeply traumatic with the forces of the Third Reich overrunning western Europe, the devastating defeat at Dunkirk and the nightly terror experienced by large swathes of the population as they suffered sustained aerial bombardment as well as prolonged separation from loved ones with men fighting overseas and countless children evacuated to the relative safety of the countryside.
Silver linings?: It’s probably true that the sense of national unity and purpose forged in the heat of war had a lasting positive effect on the post-war national political landscape. Despite this, it is only really the fact that against all odds, Hitler didn’t actually invade Britain that redeems 1940 (as well as the arguably more horrific years of 1944 and 1945) at all. Were we looking back to 1940 from the perspective of a world after a Nazi victory, 1940 would undoubtedly now be seen as easily the most catastrophic year in human history.
1973
The heady highs of the 1960s had well and truly worn off by 1973. In the US, the agonies of Watergate and the aftermath of Vietnam diminished the American image forever while in Britain, the confrontation between the Heath Government and the unions brought Britain to a shuddering strike-bound halt by the end of the year as the nation adopted the Three Day Week. Worse still, the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East not only brought the world closer to the brink of nuclear war than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, but the dramatic increase in global oil prices which resulted effectively ensured the western world would spend the rest of the 1970s and much of the 1980s in the throes of economic recession.
2001
As the 21st century dawned, the world could celebrate not just a new millennium but a state of relative peace in Northern Ireland following the Good Friday Agreement and a decade of international relations free of the East-West rivalry of the Cold War. Not everything was perfect in the world: it never is all of these summaries have necessarily been very selective. But even this couldn’t last as the terror attacks of Tuesday September 11th 2001 unleashed a new age of insecurity in western affairs which persists to this day.
2016
People die every day and celebrities are, of course, no different. But there was something was new about the numbers and calibre of the famous people dying, often prematurely, in 2016. David Bowie. Victoria Wood. Alan Rickman. Terry Wogan. Caroline Aherne. George Michael. Prince. Carrie Fisher. So many of these names struck a nerve (often occurring before what seemed to be their time) that it was hard for anyone not to be moved.
And then there was the Brexit vote. And Donald Trump’s victory. As a bad news year, 2016 was pretty relentless. Whatever your politics, both these elections seemed to trigger a new age of ugliness and intolerance to debate which have poisoned political discourse ever since. Unbelievable as it would have seemed at the time, the David Cameron years of austerity and coalition now seem like a bygone era of simplicity and innocence in comparison.
Silver linings?: From a conservative viewpoint, I suppose, 2016 could be seen as a year of triumph with the petty complacency of the ‘left-wing elites’ confounded by the triumph of down-to-earth working class hero types like millionaire’s son Donald Trump, ex-public schoolboy and former city stockbroker, Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson. From the perspective of January 2021, this interpretation is starting to look like something of a stretch.
Also rans:
1919: Another global pandemic and a botched peace settlement at Versailles which made another war inevitable within twenty years.
1945: Victory. But also a terrible escalation in violence as the war neared its end and the launch of the atomic age.
1962: The Cuban Missile Crisis brings humanity closer to destruction than ever before. Had things turned out differently, this would easily be the worst year on this list. Although I wouldn’t have written it in the first place as I would never have been born as the human race would have died out.
James Callaghan is a prime minister who tends to be overlooked by history.
The new series of The Crown doesn’t even mention him at all. skipping straight from Jason Watkins’ Harold Wilson to Gillian Anderson’s Margaret Thatcher. Peter Morgan’s earlier play, The Audience, which inspired The Crown made a joke of how easy it was to forget him, featuring a scene in which both Helen Mirren’s elderly Queen and her youngest prime minister, David Cameron both repeatedly missed him out when attempting to remember everyone who had been in Downing Street during her long reign.
Callaghan, an ardent royalist and prime minister for three years between 1976 and 1979, would have been sad to see himself remembered like this. Or rather, not remembered.
It’s not just Peter Morgan though. I myself was born under Callaghan’s premiership but understandably have no memory of it: I was not yet two-and-a-half when he left office. But as a teenager, I’d notice blank looks whenever I brought up Callaghan during political discussions with my school friends. The same people had all heard of Harold Wilson and Edward Heath. But quite a few had never heard of Callaghan at all.
There are quite a few interesting facts about Callaghan. He was one of only eight British prime ministers not to go to university (a list which includes Disraeli, Lloyd George and Churchill). He was married longer than any other prime minister, his wife Audrey, who he married in 1939, died in March 2005. Callaghan himself, died just 11 days later, one day before his 93rd birthday. He was also the longest-lived prime minister ever, surpassing Harold Macmillan’s record, by just 39 days.
‘Sunny Jim’ was also the only person to have held all of the great offices of state. He was Chancellor (1964-67), Home Secretary (1967-70), Foreign Secretary (1974-76) and Prime Minister (1976-79). Some people hold just one of these positions (e.g. Wilson, Heath, Thatcher, Blair, Cameron – all just PM), some two (Eden – Foreign Sec and PM, Brown – Chancellor and PM, Jack Straw – Foreign Sec and Home Sec, May – Home Sec and PM, Johnson – Foreign Sec and PM) and others three (Churchill – all except Foreign Sec, Rab Butler – all except PM, Macmillan – all except Home Sec, Major – all except Home Sec). But only Callaghan has held all four.
This book of essays is about Callaghan’s record as Prime Minister. Generally, his tenure tends not to be remembered fondly, largely because it ended badly. In late 1978, with Labour ahead in the polls, he held back from calling a General Election. His caution was actually quite understandable in the circumstances, but his decision was to prove disastrous. The next few months would witness a total breakdown in relations between the unions and the government culminating in the catastrophic ‘Winter of Discontent.’ From that point on, a Conservative election win for Margaret Thatcher was inevitable. Callaghan’s image was further harmed by TV images of him appearing complacent and out of touch when interviewed during the strikes after returning with a tan after attending a summit in the Caribbean. The appearance inspired the famous Sun headline, ‘Crisis? What crisis?’ Callaghan never used those exact words but they certainly conveyed the essence of his reaction (he did say, “I don’t accept that there is mounting chaos”). In the end, the government fell as a result of a government defeat in the Commons, not due to an election called at a time of Callaghan’s own choosing. Mrs Thatcher and the Tories won with a majority of more than forty. Memories of the Winter of Discontent would poison Labour’s electoral prospects throughout their eighteen subsequent years in opposition.
Against some pretty stiff competition, Callaghan’s election postponement must rank high on any list of the greatest missed political opportunities of all time.
Putting these disasters to one side, however (if that’s possible), Callaghan’s premiership was up until late 1978, pretty successful. He inherited a dire economic situation from Harold Wilson and was thrown into the IMF Crisis of 1976 almost immediately afterwards. But he and his Chancellor, Denis Healey thereafter handled the economy pretty well. The economy was recovering and unemployment was falling when Labour left office.
In an incredibly fractious situation, he also did very well to manage rising tensions within his own party and cabinet. Despite clashes between Right and Left and the sometimes mischievous activities of Tony Benn, there were, almost uniquely, no major cabinet resignations during his premiership.
Finally, Callaghan was consistently popular and always preferred by most to his sometimes shrill younger opponent, Margaret Thatcher. It is little wonder he came so close to re-election in the autumn of 1978.
Jameps Callaghan – An Underrated Prime Minister? Edited by: Kevin Hickson and Jasper Miles. Published by: Biteback.
At just past 1am on the morning of 4th May 1942, radio operators based in Exeter, reported that forty German bombers – Junkers – had taken off from Nazi-occupied Paris and were now heading for Exeter. Although the news was not totally out of the blue – Exeter had already been suffering as a result of the Baedeker Raids and had already experienced serious attacks late in April – this promised to be the worst attack yet.
Thankfully, a small but valiant band of heroes were on hand to defend Exeter that night. Demonstrating incredible bravery and facing terrible odds, the 307 Polish Night Fighter Squadron went into battle despite having only four serviceable Beaufighters available. As we know, Exeter did not escape bombing that night. However, without the actions of the Polish fighters, the consequences would have undoubtedly been worse. By 2.30am, the squadron were accredited with shooting down four Junkers including one which had crashed near Topsham cricket ground.
In short, the role of the Polish Night Fighters in defending wartime Exeter, is too often overlooked.
Always faithful
The story of the Polish Night Squadron essentially begins with the German invasion of Poland in September 1939: the event which triggered British involvement in the Second World War. With Poland defeated, many Polish pilots made the hazardous journey to Britain. Eventually realising their worth, the RAF soon had the Polish pilots flying with them, initially stationed in Blackpool. In Lincolnshire, a new division was formed under Squadron Commander Stanislaw Pietraszkiewicz. It was named the ‘307 (City of Lwow) Night Fighter Squadron’. It arrived in Exeter in April 1941. The location was fitting. The city of Lwow, now known as Lviv is now part of the Ukraine. By coincidence, the city has the same motto as Exeter: “Semper Fidelis”: always faithful.
The division had another name too: they were known as the ‘Night Owls’ or the ‘Lwow Eagle Owls’. An owl, a plane and a crescent moon were included in their emblem.
The Night Owls remembered
The Night Owls remained in Devon until they were moved to Swansea in April 1943. Their role in Exeter had extended way beyond the actions of May 1942. Many of the pilots suffered death, not just in combat, but often as a result of technical faults on their planes. They also came to play a vital role in city life. Some of the pilots married and had children during their time in Exeter.
2019 was the 80th anniversary of 307 Squadron and in November (14-15 November) 307 Squadron held a major exhibition at Exeter Guildhall to mark the anniversary. The Polish flag was raised on 15th November over the Guildhall as has happened every year since 2012.
Extra: What were the Baedeker Raids?
The Baedeker Blitz was a series of air raids launched during April and May 1942, in response to the RAF attack on the undefended city of Lübeck. The German high command reportedly used the 1930s edition of the Victorian Baedeker series of guidebooks to help them identify English towns which were valued primarily for cultural value, rather than for their strategic or military importance. Exeter – in fact, a city of cultural value but also not strategically insignificant either – was targeted first. The overall campaign was abandoned fairly quickly but nevertheless cost some 1,600 lives in total and destroyed many buildings.
Chris Hallam wrote the 2019 book, A-Z Exeter – Places, People, History and co-wrote, Secret Exeter (2018). Both books are available now from Amberley.
Prince Philip (Tobias Menzies) articulates an interesting theory in the second episode of the third season of Peter Morgan’s The Crown.
The theory states simply that just as there is a clear pattern of steady, reliable, generally boring Royals, such as Queen Victoria, George V, George VI and the Queen herself, there is equally a parallel lineage of wild, reckless and hedonistic rebels. Consider: Edward VII, George V’s brother Prince Eddy or the notorious Duke of Windsor. Just as the older Queen, played by Helen Mirren in Morgan’s 2006 film, famously held back from shooting a stag, the other bunch would probably have ended up riding it roughshod over the hills and far away.
The Royal couple here are clearly thinking about the Queen’s own naughty little sister, Margaret (Helena Bonham Carter), glamorous and popular, but also increasingly wayward as she tours the mid-1960s USA. Viewers at home will, of course, be wondering how this theory applies to Prince Harry. And Prince Andrew.
At any rate, Margaret, at this point, gets an opportunity to restore Anglo-US relations which have been damaged by the new Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s (admirable) refusal to join America in the disastrous quagmire of Vietnam. The princess is thus dispatched to the White House in use her charms to win over President Lyndon B. Johnson (Clancy Brown) in the hope that L.B.J. will go all the way in resolving a British balance of payments crisis.
The Crown is back. We re-join proceedings at the dawn of a new era.
For after two glorious seasons with the marvelous Claire Foy playing the Princess and young Queen in her twenties and thirties, we now give way to the new age of Olivia Colman. The transition is neatly symbolised by a tactful discussion of a new Royal portrait for a new range of postage stamps. It is 1964 and the monarch is in her late thirties, what might normally be seen as her “middle years.”
“A great many changes. But there we are,” Her Majesty reflects philosophically. “Age is rarely kind to anyone. Nothing one can do about it. One just has to get on with it.”
Other changes are afoot too. Then, as now, a general election is in progress, resulting in the election of the first Labour Prime Minister of the Queen’s reign, Harold Wilson. Jason Watkins captures Wilson’s manner perfectly, although not yet his wit. In time, we now know Wilson would become the favourite of the Queen’s Prime Ministers. At this stage, however, both figures are wary of each other: the working-class Wilson seems socially insecure and chippy while the Queen has heard an unfounded rumour from Prince Philip (Tobias Menzies – a good likeness) that Wilson is a KGB agent.
Elsewhere, another age comes to an end as the elderly Churchill breathes his last. In a rare piece of casting continuity with the first two series, John Lithgow briefly resumes his role.
Suspicion also surrounds Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, Anthony Blunt. Although not exactly a dead ringer for the art historian and Soviet spy, the always excellent Samuel West is well cast as Blunt. West is a fine actor anyway, but his lineage here is impeccable. His mother, Prunella Scales played the Queen in the Alan Bennett drama, A Question of Attribution, which was about Blunt and which parts of this episode strongly resemble. Blunt then was played by James Fox, whose brother Edward, incidentally played Churchill in The Audience, the Peter Morgan play which inspired this series. West also played the Queen’s father George VI in the (not very good) film, Hyde Park on the Hudson. His wife, the future Queen Mother was played by one Olivia Colman. West’s father, Timothy, of course, famously played George VI’s grandfather, Edward VII (and also played Churchill, several times), while Colman won an Oscar for playing the Queen’s ancestor, Queen Anne in The Favourite, earlier this year.
Helena Bonham Carter is now cast as the Queen’s glamorous but troubled sister, Princess Margaret, replacing the excellent Vanessa Kirby. The makers clearly feel obliged to feature Margaret frequently in this episode, presumably because of Bonham Carter’s star status, but aside from much drinking, rudeness, singing and fretting about her wayward photographer husband Armstrong-Jones (Ben Daniels), who is pictured motorbiking about a lot, she does little of interest.
The next episode promises to be much more Margaret-orientated…
Preview, gratefully reproduced from Bingebox magazine (2016).
The Crown Season 1
It is sometimes described as one great soap opera: the longest running drama in British history. So why not make a big TV drama based around the Royal family? Indeed, why not make one based in the life of Queen Elizabeth II herself, a person whose image adorns a stamp, coin or banknote on the person of nearly everyone reading this? Well, Left Bank Pictures have produced just such a series, a ten-part epic available on Netflix since November 4th 2016. Indeed, they have big plans. The first series covers the period from the young Princess’s marriage in 1947 to the first few years of her reign following her ascension to the throne in 1952. But five more series are planned. If all goes well, in a few years’ time we should have sixty hours of drama covering the Queen’s sixty or seventy years on the throne.
REIGN OF THRONES
Dramas about the royals are, of course, nothing new – Victoria, Henry V, The Madness of King George are just three examples of historical monarchs who have seen their lives dramatised. But until Stephen Frears’ 2006 film The Queen, scripted by Peter Morgan, which focused on the potential public relations disaster which almost engulfed the monarchy following Princess Diana’s death in 1997, dramas about the current monarch were almost unheard of. The King’s Speech, which features the future Queen as a young girl, was another successful Oscar-winning stab at comparatively recent royal history. But it is Morgan – the author of The Queen as well as the play The Audience which also starred Helen Mirren who has brought his formidable writing powers to The Crown. Stephen Daldry, the man behind the films Billy Elliott and The Hours directs.
The Crown’s credentials are impeccable. The casting was always going to be controversial, however. Few are likely to gripe about Claire Foy in the role of HRH, but as with Victoria which saw former Doctor Who companion Jenna-Louise Coleman cast in the main role, the producers have turned to the Tardis for the role of Prince Philip. Recent Doctor Who Matt Smith is not an obvious choice for the role, but then who is? James Cromwell and David Threlfall have both played the Duke of Edinburgh before, but as a much older man. Smith is a fine actor and delivers a first-class performance. However, time will inevitably become an issue. Both he and Foy are in their thirties and are likely to be replaced at least once if the show is to cover the Queen’s entire reign.
The choice of American ‘Third Rock From The Sun’ actor, John Lithgow to play Churchill, the Queen’s first Prime Minister might also raise a few eyebrows in some quarters. Yet Lithgow is an accomplished actor experienced way beyond the realm of comedy and thanks in part to some due some modifications to alter his appearance (Lithgow is nearly a foot taller and slimmer than Winnie was) he is great in this. And Churchill was half-American anyway. What’s the problem?
MONARCHY IN THE UK
“I have seen three great monarchies brought down through
their failure to separate personal indulgences from duty,” says Eileen Atkins’
Queen Mary at one point, warning her granddaughter Elizabeth, “you must not
allow yourself to make similar mistakes. The Crown must win.”
Rather like Maggie Smith’s character in Downton Abbey, The Crown’s Queen Mary seems to specialise in saying controversial and sometimes prophetic things in this. Presumably, the three monarchies she means are Victoria (who arguably indulged herself by grieving over Prince Albert’s death excessively), Edward VII (who basically drank, ate and womanised his way to death) and her own son Edward VIII, who abdicated. Although as a heavy drinker and smoker, Elizabeth’s father George VI (also Mary’s son) was hardly free of personal indulgence either.
The excellent Alex Jennings incidentally crops up as the Duke of Windsor, whose abdication in 1936 (as Edward VIII) ensured Elizabeth would be Queen. Jennings also played Prince Charles in the film The Queen.
As with any good drama, there is the potential for
controversy. Though the Queen no longer has the power to put people who annoy
her in the Tower, there will still be a desire not to cause offence.
WINDSOR CHANGE
If The Crown proves a success, five more series could be in the offing. The opening episode which begins in 1947, clearly lays out the framework for what is to come. The King (Jared Harris, son of the late Richard Harris and perhaps best known for his role as the token Brit in Mad Men) has a bad cough and is clearly not long for this world. His daughter Princess Elizabeth is about to marry Prince Philip and though the couple are happy, there are hints of awkwardness to come. Philip is giving up a lot for “the greatest prize on Earth” including his love of smoking and Greek nationality. “Not a single person supported the match,” warns Queen Mary.
The action then jumps forward four years to 1951 during which time, the King’s health has deteriorated further and Elizabeth and Philip’s marriage has yielded two children, Charles and Anne. There are also allusions to trouble brewing with Elizabeth’s younger sister Margaret (Vanessa Kirby), notably the strong suggestion of an affair with dashing equerry Group Captain Peter Townsend (Ben Miles), a married man. With a title sequence, reminiscent of Game of Thrones, there are also political manoeuvrings afoot. Returning Prime Minister Winston Churchill soon knows more about the true state of the King’s health than the monarch does himself. And Foreign Secretary Sir Anthony Eden (Jeremy Northam) is already assessing the great war leader’s vulnerabilities: as Tory heir apparent in effect, he is clearly eyeing up the elderly Churchill’s job.
Ultimately The Crown is essential viewing. It is as much
about how Britain has changed in the last seventy years as the monarchy has.
There is certainly plenty of material.
The Crown
AND WHAT DO YOU DO…? Three stars of The Crown…
Claire Foy as Princess Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth II
Foy has played royalty before and was the ill-fated mother of the Queen’s Tudor namesake (Elizabeth I) Anne Boleyn in Wolf Hall. She sprung to fame in the title role in the BBC’s Little Dorrit in 2008.
Matt Smith as Prince
Philip
Best-known for playing the last Doctor Who but one, the thirty-four -year-old Smith plays the young Duke of Edinburgh, a man struggling in the traditionally feminine role of partner to the monarch.
John Lithgow as Winston Churchill
Although often associated with comedy roles such as Bigfoot and the Hendersons and Dick in the sitcom Third Rock From The Sun, veteran US star Lithgow is an acclaimed and prolific dramatic actor.
A political drama set amidst the upper echelons of the Asquith Government might not sound like everyone’s cup of tea and indeed probably isn’t. Author Michael Byrne nevertheless deserves credit here for achieving the impossible task of being both almost wholly historically accurate (as far as I could tell anyway) and dramatically engaging. The novel often reads like a film or TV script. Anyone planning a drama based around the very British coup which saw Herbert Asquith usurped as wartime Prime Minister by David Lloyd George in 1916, could do worse than using this book as a starting point.
Even with the absence of “middle-aged man in a hurry” Winston Churchill, who has resigned as Lord of the Admiralty after the Gallipoli disaster and gone to the western front, there are plenty of colourful characters here. Byrne does a good job of seeing everyone’s point of view. Asquith himself is clearly exhausted by power after eight years as Prime Minister, and is mourning the recent death of his son in action while composing letters to his ladyfriends during cabinet meetings. He is naturally wary of conceding power to the ruthlessly cunning and mischievous Lloyd George. The sneaky future press baron Max Aitken (then a Tory backbencher, later Lord Beaverbrook) is another major participant. There are plenty of decent characters but there is also lots of skulduggery here.
The stakes were high. The Liberal Party which had won an historic landslide only a decade before was totally wrecked by these developments. On the plus side, the book reminds us that the outcome of the war was not inevitable. In Germany and Russia, similar dissatisfaction with the war leadership at this time, led to disaster: revolution and defeat in one nation, revolution followed by seventy years of tyranny in the other. Britain got off relatively light.
Wilson seemed working-class to the core, Heath seemed posh. Wilson seemed jovial, dynamic and witty, Heath came across as stiff and awkward. Wilson was the family man who holidayed in the Isles of Scilly ever year, Heath was the European, conductor, champion yachtsman and lifelong bachelor.
Both men were actually more similar to each other than they seemed. Both ruled the nation for as long as Thatcher, eleven and a half years (from October 1964 to April 1976) between them. And both were born a full century ago, in the same year, 1916.
Wilson emerged first, beating two older men George Brown and James Callaghan to win the Labour leadership following Hugh Gaitskell’s death in early 1963. Always brilliant – he had become the youngest British cabinet minister of the 20th century at 31 – Wilson was also wily and had reinvented himself from being a clever but dull young rising star under Attlee to a dynamic, raincoat-wearing, pipe-smoking working-class hero ripe for the TV age. Wilson, like all successful politicians, was lucky: the Tory government fell foul of the Profumo Affair and Harold Macmillan gave way to the much less formidable Alec Douglas-Home in October 1963. But Wilson was also a brilliant opposition leader and spoke of “the white heat of revolution,” an exciting but largely meaningless term. He led Labour to a narrow victory in October 1964. It is surprising he didn’t win by a wider margin.
Young and from a similar background (his father had been a carpenter) and the first grammar school boy to be Tory leader, Heath was elected in 1965 partly because he was seen (wrongly) as the closest thing to a Conservative version of Wilson.
Wilson trounced Heath in the 1966 election, which saw Labour’s majority surge to almost 100. Both men would struggle in the next four years. Wilson was lucky to survive a sea of economic troubles especially with many of his colleagues (Brown, Jenkins, Callaghan, Healey) keen to usurp him. Heath was criticised for sacking Enoch Powell after his inflammatory 1968 Rivers of Blood speech on immigration. In fact, he was right to do so. But the press remained critical of Heath and he remained unpopular. Opinion polls predicted another easy General Election win for Labour in 1970, an election which effectively presented Heath with his last chance to win power. However, as in 1992 and 2015, the polls were wrong and the Tories got back with a majority.
As Prime Minister, Heath led Britain into the Common Market, a towering achievement the like of which neither Wilson or indeed most prime ministers ever manage. Sadly, the rest of his premiership was a disaster, derailed by the oil shock, inflation and his battle with the unions.
Asking “Who governs Britain?” Heath went to the polls early, during the Three Day Week in 1974. He was overconfident. Enoch Powell urged voters to back Labour and though the Tories got more votes, Labour got slightly more seats. After an unseemly and unnecessary attempt by Heath to court the support of Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe, Wilson, to his surprise, was back. A second election later in the year gave him a majority, albeit a very small one, similar in size to the one he had started as PM with a full decade earlier.
Heath was now in serious trouble. Arrogant and supremely overconfident, he never expected to be overthrown by his former Education Secretary Margaret Thatcher in February 1975. Few had seen this coming, but it happened. He never forgave her and remained a plausible rival to her leadership until the early 1980s. The Incredible Sulk had begun.
Wilson had problems too. Inflation was sky-high, the pound was low, Labour’s majority was vanishing fast and the party was at odds over Europe. Wilson was also drinking heavily, well past his best politically and possibly already suffering from the dementia which would blight his old age. He resigned very suddenly in 1976, damaging his reputation with his botched Resignation Honours list. Wilson was consumed by paranoia. It is true these were paranoid times; many of Wilson’s colleagues DID want his job. Sections of the MI5 were also convinced he was a Soviet agent who had poisoned his predecessor Hugh Gaitskell. (They were wrong: Wilson had not been favourite to succeed Gaitskell at the time of his death anyway, so aside from anything else, he had no real motive). But Wilson’s own paranoia nevertheless got out of hand.
Neither man has been served well by posterity. Heath looks worse than Thatcher in most Tory eyes (she did win three large victories after all, he lost three and won one). Although the abuse allegations raised in 2015 seem unsubstantiated at this time, Heath was most likely gay and suppressed his homosexuality in favour of a political career (his contemporary Jeremy Thorpe attempted to pursue both: the results were disastrous). He remained a visible and vocal public figure until his death in 2005. Now eleven years on, his most cherished achievement: our place in Europe is under threat.
Wilson’s tenure saw some major changes: the legalisation of abortion, homosexuality and the abolition of the death penalty and reform of the divorce laws. Neither Wilson nor Heath can be described as a total success. But their decade or so in power, undoubtedly changed Britain.
Chris Hallam's World View 