Prologue
1. See Correlli Barnett, The Collapse of British Power, Eyre Methuen, 1972.
2. George L. Bernstein, The Myth of Decline: The Rise of Britain Since 1945, Pimlico, 2004.
Part One: Hunger and Pride
1. William Harrington & Peter Young, The 1945 Revolution, Davis-Poynter, 1978.
2. Norman Howard, A New Dawn, Politico’s, 2005.
3. Ibid.
4. W. K. Hancock & M. M. Gowing, The British War Economy, HMSO, 1949.
5. All quotes from Correlli Barnett, The Lost Victory, Macmillan, 1995.
6. Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes. Volume 3: Fighting for Britain, Macmillan, 2000.
7. Ibid.
8. See Desmond Wettern, The Decline of British Sea Power, Jane’s, 1982.
9. Vice Admiral Sir Louis le Bailly, From Fisher to the Falklands, Institute of Marine Engineers, 1991; and Eric J. Grove, Vanguard to Trident: British Naval Policy since World War 2, The Bodley Head, 1987.
10. Dan Van der Vat, Standard of Power, Hutchinson, 2000.
11. N. A. M. Rodger, The Admiralty, Terence Dalton, 1979.
12. Peter Hennessy, The Prime Minister, Allen Lane, 2000.
13. Quoted often but see ibid.
14. Hugh Dalton, The Fateful Years, Muller, 1957.
15. Story recounted to the author by Gordon Brown, who showed me the very same mahogany lavatory.
16. Alan Bullock, Ernest Bevin, Foreign Secretary, Oxford U. P., 1985.
17. Ibid.
18. Aneurin Bevan, In Place of Fear, Heinemann, 1952.
19. Dean Acheson, Sketches from Life (1961), quoted in Bullock, op. cit.
20. For this and further material in the following paragraph, see Paul Addison, The Road to 1945, Jonathan Cape, 1975.
21. George Orwell, ‘England Your England’, from Inside the Whale and Other Essays, Victor Gollancz, 1940; repr. Penguin, 1962.
22. Arthur Herman, To Rule the Waves, Hodder, 2004.
23. See Peter Hennessy, Never Again: Britain 1945–1951, Jonathan Cape, 1992.
24. CAB 134/1315 PR (56)3, 1 June 1956, reproduced in British Documents on the End of Empire, ed. David Goldsworthy, HMSO, 1994.
25. Labour Party, Fair Shares of Scarce Consumer Goods, London 1946, quoted in Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Austerity in Britain, Oxford U. P., 2000.
26. See Susan Cooper, ‘Snoek Piquante’, in Age of Austerity 1945–1951, ed. Michael Sissons & Philip French, Hodder & Stoughton, 1963.
27. Simon Garfield (ed.), Our Hidden Lives, Ebury Press, 2004.
28. See Peter Hennessy, Whitehall, Secker & Warburg, 1989.
29. Most of this information comes from Robert Winder, Bloody Foreigners, Abacus, 2004.
30. See Juliet Cheetham, in Trends in British Society since 1900, ed. A. H. Halsey, Macmillan, 1972.
31. Jean Medawar & David Pyke, Hitler’s Gift, Richard Cohen Books, 2000.
32. For instance in adverts warning of the dangers of VD.
33. Quoted in Nicholas Timmins, The Five Giants, HarperCollins, 1995.
34. Ibid.
35. Graham Payn & Sheridan Morley (eds), The Noël Coward Diaries, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1982.
36. See Gyles Brandreth, Charles and Camilla, Century, 2005.
37. Ben Pimlott, The Queen, HarperCollins, 1996.
38. Richard Chamberlain, et al (eds) Austerity to Affluence, British Art and Design, 1945–1962, Merrell Holberton, 1997.
39. See Maureen Waller, London 1945, John Murray, 2004.
40. See Paul Addison, Now the War is Over, BBC/Cape, 1985.
41. Zweiniger-Bargielowska, op. cit.
42. Waller, op. cit.
43. See Nigel Walker in Halsey, op. cit.
44. Peter Hitchens, A Brief History of Crime, Atlantic Books, 2003.
45. Timmins, op. cit.
46. For all this, Timmins, the best single account of the Beveridge report easily available.
47. See Christian Wolmar, On the Wrong Line, Aurum Press, 2005.
48. Barnett, The Lost Victory.
49. Godfey Hodgson, ‘The Steel Debates’ in Sissons & French, op. cit.
50. See Peter Hennessy, Never Again, Jonathan Cape, 1992; and Timmins, op. cit.
51. For a full description of the Prefab story, see Greg Stevenson, Palaces for the People, Batsford, 2003.
52. Quoted in Miles Glendinning & Stefan Muthesius, Tower Block, Paul Mellon Centre/Yale University Press, 1994.
53. Quoted in ibid.
54. David Hughes, ‘The Spivs’ in Sissons & French, op. cit.
55. Quoted in Addison, op. cit.
56. Anne Perkins, Red Queen, Macmillan, 2003.
57. Susan Cooper, ‘Snoek Piquante’ in Sissons & French, op. cit.
58. Pearson Phillips in ibid.
59. Ruth Adam, A Woman’s Place, 1910–1975, Persephone Books, 2000.
60. Quoted in: Addison, op. cit.
61. Interview, The Stage, 2005.
62. Dominic Shellard, British Theatre Since the War, Yale U. P., 1999.
63. John Osborne, Almost a Gentleman, Faber & Faber, 1991.
64. Arthur Miller, quoted in Terry Coleman, Olivier: The Authorised Biography, Bloomsbury, 2005.
65. Quoted in Max Hastings, The Korean War, Michael Joseph, 1987.
66. Jung Chang & Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story, Jonathan Cape, 2005.
67. Hastings, op. cit.
68. James Cameron, Point of Departure, Arthur Barker, 1967; repr. Granta Books, 2006.
69. See Jung Chang & Halliday, op. cit.
70. Tom Hickman, The Call-Up: A History of National Service, Headline, 2004.
71. Anthony Farrar-Hockley, The British Part in the Korean War, HMSO, 1990.
72. Betty Vernon, Ellen Wilkinson, Croom Helm, 1987.
73. B. L. Donoughue & G. L. Jones, Herbert Morrison, Portrait of a Politician, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973.
74. Michael Frayn, and Francis Boyd of the Manchester Guardian.
75. Michael Frayn, ‘Festival’ in Sissons & French, op. cit.
Part Two: The Land of Lost Content
1. For these figures, see Anthony Sampson, Anatomy of Britain Today, Hodder & Stoughton, 1965.
2. For Balcon see Matthew Sweet, Shepperton Babylon, Faber & Faber, 2005; Michael Balcon, A Lifetime of Films, Hutchinson, 1969; and Charles Barr, Ealing Studios, Cameron & Hollis, 1998.
3. The Macmillan Diaries: The Cabinet Years 1950–1957, Macmillan, 2000.
4. Edward Heath, The Course of My Life, Hodder & Stoughton, 1998.
5. Ibid.
6. See Dominic Sandbrook, Never Had It So Good, Little, Brown, 2005.
7. D. R. Thorpe, Eden: The Life and Times of Anthony Eden, First Earl of Avon, 1897–1977, Chatto & Windus, 2003.
8. Quoted in Peter Hennessy, The Secret State, Penguin, 2002.
9. Hugo Young, This Blessed Plot, Macmillan, 1998.
10. See Alistair Horne, Macmillan, vol. 1, Macmillan, 1988.
11. Peter Hennessy, Having It So Good, Allen Lane, 2006.
12. R. A. Butler, The Art of the Possible, quoted in Hennessy, ibid.
13. Peter Wildeblood, Against the Law, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1955.
14. Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, Wheels Within Wheels: An Unconventional Life, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000.
15. Tom Driberg, Guy Burgess, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1956.
16. Spike Milligan, Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall, Michael Joseph, 1971; Penguin, 1973.
17. In a 1957 interview, quoted by Humphrey Carpenter, Spike Milligan, Hodder & Stoughton, 2003. The following quotes are also from this book.
18. D. R. Thorne, Eden, Chatto & Windus, 2003.
19. Brian Lapping, End of Empire, Granada, 1985.
20. Ben Pimlott, The Queen, HarperCollins, 1996.
21. See, for all this, Tom Hickman, The Call-Up: A History of National Service, Headline, 2004.
22. Thanks to Rick Richards of Christchurch and Jean Webber of Burghclere, Newbury, for this information to the author.
23. Jean-Raymond Tourneaux, Secrets d’Etat, Paris, 1960, quoted in Herman Finer, Dulles over Suez, Heinemann, 1964.
24. Quoted in Robert Shepherd, Enoch Powell, Hutchinson, 1996.
25. See Gerald Frost, Antony Fisher, Champion of Liberty, Profile Books, 2002.
26. Richard Cockett, Thinking the Unthinkable, HarperCollins, 1994.
27. Gillian Bardsley, Issigonis: the Official Biography, Icon Books, 2005.
28. See Barbara Castle, Fighting All the Way, Macmillan, 1993; and Anne Perkins, Red Queen, Macmillan, 2003.
29. See Sandbrook, op. cit.
30. Keith Middlemass, Power, Competition and the State, vol. 1, Macmillan, 1986.
31. Quoted in Sandbrook, op. cit.
32. Ibid.
33. Quoted in Perkins, op. cit.
34. Crossman’s account, quoted in Philip Williams, Hugh Gaitskell, Jonathan Cape, 1979.
35. Quoted in Patrick Hannan, When Arthur Met Maggie, Seren, 2006.
36. Anthony Crosland, The Future of Socialism, Jonathan Cape, 1956; see also Susan Crosland, Tony Crosland, Jonathan Cape, 1982.
37. Letter of Harold Macmillan to Sir Robert Menzies, quoted in Andrew Roberts, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples since 1900, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006.
38. James Chuter Ede, quoted in Mike & Trevor Phillips, Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multi-Racial Britain, HarperCollins, 1999.
39. Quoted in Randall Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration in Post-war Britain, Oxford U. P., 2000.
40. See Robert Winder, Bloody Foreigners, Abacus, 2004.
41. Sandbrook, op. cit.
42. A. G. Bennett, quoted in ibid.
43. Phillips & Phillips, op. cit.
44. Hansen, op. cit.
45. Winder, op. cit.
46. For this, and other material here, see Hugo Young’s This Blessed Plot, op. cit.
47. See ibid.
48. Roy Jenkins, A Life at the Centre, Macmillan, 1991.
49. Horne, Macmillan, vol. 2; also for the Birch Grove meeting.
50. Heath, op. cit.
51. Quoted in Hennessy, The Secret State, op. cit.
52. Hennessy, ibid.
53. Brian Lavery, Journal of Maritime Research: his article on Macmillan, Eisenhower and the Holy Loch affair is by far the best account.
54. Mark Amory, in his preface to The Letters of Ann Fleming, Collins Harvill, 1985.
55. Brian Brivati, Hugh Gaitskell, Richard Cohen Books, 1996.
56. Ibid.
57. For Cliveden and the following, see Derek Wilson, The Astors, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1993.
58. Harry Thompson, Peter Cook: A Biography, Hodder & Stoughton, 1997.
59. R. H. S. Crossman, The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, Hamish Hamilton/ Cape, 1975.
Part Three: Harold, Ted and Jim
1. See Ben Pimlott, Harold Wilson, HarperCollins, 1992.
2. Kenneth O. Morgan, Callaghan: A Life, Oxford U. P., 1997.
3. Lord George-Brown, In My Way, Victor Gollancz, 1971.
4. Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, in Dictionary of Labour Biography, ed. Greg Rosen, Politico’s, 2001.
5. R. H. S. Crossman, The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, vol. 1, Hamish Hamilton/Cape, 1975.
6. Roy Jenkins, A Life at the Centre, Macmillan, 1991.
7. Susan Crosland, Tony Crosland, Jonathan Cape, 1982.
8. See Nick Timmins, The Five Giants, HarperCollins, 1995.
9. Hugo Young, One of Us, Macmillan, 1989.
10. Edward Heath, The Course of My Life, Hodder & Stoughton, 1998.
11. See Giles Radice, Friends & Rivals, Abacus, 2002.
12. Roy Jenkins, op. cit.
13. Alwyn Turner in The Biba Experience, Antique Collectors Club, 2004, from where much of this paragraph derives.
14. See Bob Spitz, The Beatles, Aurum Press, 2006.
15. Parkinson, quoted in Max Decharne, Kings Road, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005.
16. Quoted in Dominic Sandbrook, Never Had It So Good, Little Brown, 2005.
17. Ray Davies, X-Ray: the Unauthorised Autobiography, Viking, 1994; see also Andy Miller, The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society, Continuum, 2003 and Neville Marten & Jeff Hudson, The Kinks, Sanctuary Publishing, 1996.
18. Andrew Hussey, The Game of War: The Life and Death of Guy Debord, Pimlico, 2002.
19. See Dave Haslam, Not Abba, Fourth Estate, 2005; and Robert Hewison, Too Much, Methuen, 1986.
20. See Brian Lapping, End of Empire, Granada, 1985.
21. Quoted in Pimlott, op. cit.
22. Pimlott, ibid.
23. Tony Benn, The Benn Diaries, Arrow, 1996 (entry in February 1966).
24. Jenkins, op. cit.
25. Barbara Castle, The Castle Diaries, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1974.
26. The Cecil King Diaries: 1965–1970, Jonathan Cape, 1972.
27. Philip Ziegler, Wilson: The Authorised Life, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1993.
28. Jenkins, op. cit.
29. Richard Crossman, op. cit.
30. Randall Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration Post-war Britain, Oxford U. P., 2000.
31. Simon Heffer, Like the Roman, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998.
32. See Ruth Dudley Edwards, Newspapermen, Pimlico, 2003; and The Cecil King Diaries.
33. Dudley Edwards, ibid.
34. Ziegler, op. cit.
35. See Morgan, op. cit.
36. Susan Crosland, op. cit.
37. See Heffer, op. cit.
38. Ibid.
39. Roy Hattersley, Fifty Years On, Little, Brown, 1997.
40. See Ziegler, op. cit.
41. The Benn Diaries.
42. Clem Jones, quoted in Mike & Trevor Phillips, Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multi-Racial Britain, HarperCollins, 1999.
43. Nicholas Mayhew, Sterling: The Rise and Fall of a Currency, Allen Lane, 1999.
44. Heath, ibid.
45. Hugo Young, This Blessed Plot, Macmillan, 1998.
46. Quoted in Ziegler, op. cit.
47. The Times, 3 May 1971.
48. See Jon Savage, England’s Dreaming, Faber & Faber, 1991.
49. See Arthur Seldon in Arthur Seldon & Stuart Ball, Conservative Century, Oxford U. P., 1994.
50. Robert Elms, The Way We Wore, Picador, 2005.
51. Bernard Donoughue, Downing Street Diary, Jonathan Cape, 2005.
52. Pimlott, op. cit.
53. Denis Healey, The Time of My Life, Michael Joseph, 1989.
54. See Young, This Blessed Plot.
55. Heffer, op. cit.
56. Mervyn Jones, Michael Foot, Victor Gollancz, 1994.
57. Richard Cockett, Thinking the Unthinkable, Fontana Press, 1995.
58. Letter to Anthony Seldon, quoted in Cockett.
59. See Haslam, op. cit.
60. Claire Wilcox, Vivienne Westwood, V&A Publishing, 2004.
61. Haslam, op. cit.
62. Healey, op. cit.
63. Quoted in Kevin Jeffreys, Finest and Darkest Hours, Atlantic Books, 2002.
Part Four: The British Revolution
* Thatcher’s favoured measurement of the money in circulation, and hence shorthand for monetarism.
1. See Hugo Young, One of Us, Macmillan, 1989.
2. Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years, HarperCollins, 1993.
3. Quoted in Young, op. cit.
4. Thatcher, op. cit.
5. See Robert Harris, The Making of Neil Kinnock, Faber & Faber, 1983.
6. Denis Healey, The Time of My Life, Michael Joseph, 1989.
7. See Max Hastings & Simon Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands, Michael Joseph, 1983; Lawrence Freedman, Britain and the Falklands War, Oxford U. P., 1988; Kevin Jeffreys, Finest and Darkest Hours, Atlantic Books, 2002; and Thatcher, op. cit.
8. Hugo Young & Anne Sloman, The Thatcher Phenomenon, quoted in Young, op. cit.
9. From Patrick Hannan, When Arthur Met Maggie, Seren, 2006.
10. Hannan, op. cit.
11. All this, and the preceding information, is taken from the fourth volume of David Kynaston’s wonderful history of the City of London: A Club No More, 1945–2000, Chatto & Windus, 2001.
12. Interviewed in Kynaston, ibid.
13. Jill Treanor, Guardian, 27 October 2006.
14. Kynaston, op. cit.
15. A comparison made by Christopher Harvie in Fool’s Gold, Hamish Hamilton, 1994.
16. Keith Aitken in Magnus Linklater & Robin Denniston (eds), Anatomy of Scotland, Chambers, 1992.
17. See Harvie, op. cit.
18. Tony Benn, The Benn Diaries, Arrow, 1996 (entry for 7 January 1976).
19. Nigel Lawson, The View from Number 11, Bantam Press, 1992.
20. Ibid.
21. Quoted in The Times, 31 January 2006.
22. John Davies, A History of Wales, Allen Lane, 1990.
23. Martin Westlake, Kinnock: The Biography, Little, Brown, 2001.
24. Michael Fallon & Philip Holland, The Quango Explosion, Conservative Political Centre, 1978.
25. Quoted in Andrew Marr, Ruling Britannia, Michael Joseph, 1995.
26. Thatcher, op. cit.
27. Evan Davies, Schools and the State, Social Market Foundation 1993; see Marr, op. cit.
28. Simon Jenkins, Thatcher and Sons, Allen Lane, 2006.
29. Thatcher, op. cit.
Part Five: Nippy Metro People
1. See Andy McSmith, John Smith: Playing the Long Game, Verso, 1993.
2. McSmith, ibid.
3. John Major, The Autobiography, HarperCollins, 1999.
4. Christian Wolmar, On the Wrong Line, Aurum Press, 2005.
5. Simon Jenkins, Thatcher and Sons, Allen Lane, 2006.
6. Major, op. cit.
7. See Malcolm Balen, Kenneth Clarke, Fourth Estate, 1994.
8. See Mark Lawson, Media Guardian, 21 October 2006.
9. Anthony Seldon, Blair, The Free Press, 2004.
10. Robert Peston, Brown’s Britain, Short Books, 2005.
11. All quotes from Peter Hyman, 1 out of Ten, Vintage, 2005.
12. See Jenkins, op. cit.
13. Andrew Rawnsley, Servants of the People, Penguin, 2001.
14. Lance Price, The Spin Doctor’s Diary, Hodder & Stoughton, 2005.
15. Peter Oborne, The Rise of Political Lying, The Free Press, 2005.
16. National Statistics website, 2006.
17. Peston, op. cit.
18. Robert Whelan of Civitas, interviewed Daily Mail, 3 November 2006.