100 Years of British Political Nightmares
Dan Snow's History Hit
History Hit
4.7 • 13.7K Ratings
🗓️ 21 August 2022
⏱️ 29 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Over Britain’s first century of mass democracy, from the Great Depression to the pandemic, politics has lurched from crisis to crisis. How does this history of political agony illuminate our current age of upheaval?
Phil Tinline is a leading producer and presenter of historical narrative documentaries for BBC Radio 4. Phil joins Dan on the podcast to reveal how politics is transformed through fear— providing answers to fascinating questions: How did the Great Depression’s spectres of fascism, bombing and mass unemployment force politicians to think the unthinkable and pave the way to post-war Britain? And, how was Thatcher’s road to victory made possible by a decade of nightmares?
This episode was produced by Hannah Ward, the audio editor was Dougal Patmore.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey folks, welcome down to Snow's History. We've got some turbulent policy debates here |
| 0:04.4 | over in the UK, but I'm not just, you know, US, France, elsewhere. Politicians are |
| 0:10.2 | fighting each other, everyone's yelling each other. People wish we could return to some |
| 0:13.4 | kind of consensus. Or first of all, was there ever consensus? And what's it even mean? |
| 0:17.6 | And secondly, you don't get to return to things. That's not how this mad game works. You |
| 0:22.6 | don't get to go back and choose your own adventure. Cherry picking through Halcyon Days |
| 0:28.3 | of mythologised versions of the past. But anyway, it's not going to stop people trying. |
| 0:33.5 | Phil Tinline is a leading producer, a presenter of historical narrative documentaries on BBC |
| 0:41.2 | Radio 4. He loves mining the past. He loves talking about history, politics, ideas, and |
| 0:46.5 | culture meet. And he's just written a new book about the death of consensus. It's a history |
| 0:51.4 | of the last 100 years talking about consensus, I, or whatever, whatever the plural is, when |
| 0:56.6 | they do, briefly form, and then they disappear again and everyone falls out. And how that |
| 1:00.6 | system natural process, the ebbing and flowing of a tide, don't they worry about folks? |
| 1:04.7 | Might not be that enjoyable. It doesn't mean you're locked in an existential crisis. |
| 1:08.8 | It was great talk to Phil about the coming and going of brief moments of consensus and |
| 1:14.2 | how and why they do. Enjoy. |
| 1:15.7 | Phil, thank you very much for coming on the pod. |
| 1:23.3 | Thank you. That's not me. |
| 1:24.7 | Do you know, whenever I hear UK and US politicians bimmoning the lack of consensus, I think |
| 1:29.7 | Britain won the Napoleonic Wars when it's leading politicians despised each other. I mean, |
| 1:36.8 | absolutely hate each other. And there's been extraordinary antipathy within the ruling |
| 1:42.7 | elites of political class for generations in both the countries. Was it ever in Britain |
... |
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