The appearance of so many RAF planes shattered Luftwaffe moral. ibid.
With fighter command controlling the skies the invasion couldn’t take place. ibid.
They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind ... There are a lot of people who say that bombing can never win a war: well, my answer to that is that it has never been tried here. And we shall see. Air Marshall Sir Arthur Bomber Harris
The British are the first to use radar. World War II: The Apocalypse: Collapse of France aka Apocalypse: The Second World War: Crushing Defeat, France 2 2009
This is the Blitz: daily bombings. ibid.
In London they sleep in Underground stations. ibid.
Great Britain’s cities have been devastated by German bombs but the country [sic] stands firm around Churchill. World War II: The Apocalypse: Origins of the Holocaust aka Apocalypse – The Second World War: Shock
Over one-million British women now work in factories making bombs and bullets. The British VII: War and Peace
‘Our faces took on a strange yellow hue ... We were called canaries’. ibid. diary of women munitions worker
Munitions Factory: 134 killed in the blast; 250 are injured. Of the dead, only 32 can be positively identified. ibid.
Amy Johnson ... Britain has a rich history of pioneers ... The first women to fly solo around the world. ibid.
During the 1930s in some towns of the industrial north 70% of men are out of work. ibid.
One of the most significant medical discoveries of the century – Fleming identifies the mould ... The health of the British people is transformed. ibid.
For the first time everyone is guaranteed free healthcare from cradle to grave. ibid.
We were an urbanised industrialised nation where new forms of transport and communication promised to change everyone’s life for the better. David Dimbleby, Seven Ages of Britain: Age of Ambition, BBC 2010
Britain would become a land fit for heroes. New homes were built. ibid.
From the start radio captured the public imagination. ibid.
The wartime mood of shared suffering, of making do, inspired the radical notion of a welfare state – where every citizen would be looked after from cradle to grave. At the very height of The Blitz the economist William Beveridge was asked to work out how this might be delivered. The famous Beveridge Report of 1942 came up with a whole host of ideas about how Britain might emerge from the war into the sunlit uplands of a better society. Among the many recommendations it made was a key one – that there should be free medical support for everyone. One of the jewels in the crown. The National Health Service. ibid.
Suez – a smash and grab raid that was all smash and no grab. Harold Nicolson
We are in an armed conflict; that is the phrase I have used. There has been no declaration of war. Anthony Eden, of Suez crisis
Long experience has taught me that to be criticized is not always to be wrong. Anthony Eden
For the past few weeks I have really felt as if the Suez Canal was flowing through my drawing-room. Clarissa Eden
Britain’s most useful role is somewhere between bee and dinosaur. Harold Macmillan
Most of our people have never had it so good. Harold Macmillan, speech Bedford 20th July 1957
I was determined that no British government should be brought down by the action of two tarts. Harold Macmillan, re Profumo Affair
There are three bodies no sensible man directly challenges: the Roman Catholic Church, the Brigade of Guards, and the National Union of Mineworkers. Harold Macmillan, cited Observer 22nd February 1981
First of all the Georgian silver goes, and then all that nice furniture that used to be in the saloon. Then the Canalettos go. Harold MacMillan, re privatisation
The Britain that is going to be forged in the white heat of this revolution. Heath vs Wilson: The 10 Year Duel, BBC 2011
The Heath/Wilson duel spanned four elections. Their rivalry was both political and personal. Harold Wilson and Edward Heath were the political titans of their era: two grammar-school-boys born in the same year. Who grew into entirely different men bound by Fate. Their double act did come to an end, but by then the Heath/Wilson duel had defined a nation. ibid.
The self-made Yorkshireman, with his home-spun pipe, Gannex raincoat and humble tastes, revolutionised the political landscape. ibid.
Heath’s performance at the dispatch box was a devastating disappointment. ibid.
The personal animosity was palpable to MPs watching. ibid.
In the autumn of 1967 Wilson and his chancellor James Callaghan were finally forced into devaluation: what concerned Wilson more than anything was how to present this surrender to the British people. ibid.
As the summer of 1970 approached, he [Wilson] had a double-digit lead ... The 1970 election was the epicentre of the Heath/Wilson duel. ibid.
On 22nd January 1972 Heath took Britain into Europe. ibid.
Heath was deeply troubled. Unemployment went against everything he believed in. It marked the beginning of a terrible few weeks. On 30th January 1972 thirteen men were shot dead on the streets of Derry by the British army: Bloody Sunday. ibid.
Heath was battling rocketing inflation at home and battling economic forces. ibid.
At Heath’s moment of maximum weakness the Miners came back for more. ibid.
Wilson immediately bought off the miners. ibid.
In October 1974 Wilson called another election, the fourth between himself and Heath. Heath was drinking in the Last Chance Saloon. Wilson won again. But only just. ibid.
Heath’s party did not forgive him. ibid.
Europe: Wilson had opposed Heath’s entry saying the terms were wrong. In 1975 he renegotiated the terms. The changes were entirely superficial ... It had been a curious double act to get there. ibid.
On 16th March 1976, just over a year after Heath had been ditched by the Conservative Party, Harold Wilson resigned as prime minister and slowly slipped out of politics. ibid.
Their duel now seems another era. Yet the problems they faced are oddly familiar: Britain’s identity within Europe is still debated; Trade Unions are gearing up against a Conservative-led government; the economy is fragile: the shadow of Wilson and Heath hangs over us. ibid.
This time the strife has got to stop. Only you can stop it. Ted Heath, televised party political broadcast
For the past thirty years politicians in Britain have tried to build a new prosperity. They wanted to make an old nation that had fallen behind in the world recapture the glories of its past. They turned for help to what they believed was a science of money. One after another Labour and Conservative governments believed that if they followed what they thought were a set of scientific laws, the economy would grow faster. The perceived tide of decline could be reversed. Adam Curtis, Pandora’s Box: A Fable from the Age of Science III: The League of Gentlemen, BBC 1992
Politicians came to believe there was a technical way to make Britain great again. ibid.
In 1961 the Conservative government set up NEDDY, the National Economic Development Council, in what had been a gentlemen’s club in Westminster. It was advised by young economists convinced they could make the economy grow much faster. ibid.
They saw themselves as followers of the economist Maynard Keynes. He had shown how to manage an economy by increasing or decreasing demand. ibid.
Labour promised a national plan run by a separate department of economic affairs under George Brown. It would make Britain grow by a quarter in just six years … But Labour had come to power just as the boom the Conservatives had begun was overheating. Imports were flooding in and wages were rising. ibid.
The economists who had began to realise the economy was far beyond their control; they were being used. ibid.