A collection of papers written by distinguished academics and journalists, this study examines the effect of Margaret Thatcher's administration--since 1979 the dominant force in British politics--on such areas as the arts, the media, the civil service, the economy, the military, trade unions, local government, the churches, education, the law, and more. Each essay discusses the principal changes that have occurred since 1979, the role of the Thatcher government in promoting these changes, and the extent to which change would have occurred regardless of the government in power.

The attempt to establish a 'new social contract' between the Government and the unions, with a view to stabilising the economy and restraining industrial militancy, emerged as a burning issues of contemporary British politics during the 1970s. This study uncovers the roots of this development in the incomes policies of successive post-war Governments, especially of the 1964-70 Labour Government, and traces the way in which wage restraint was secured from the unions, or imposed upon them, in the context of the attempted registration of the unions within the existing economic and political order. Professor Panitch concentrates on the crucial role of the Labour Party and shows how Labour's incomes policies, and industrial relations generally, have derived less from a concern with socialist economic planning than from the Party's 'integrative' ideology, its rejection of the concept of class struggle in favour of affecting a compromise between the different classes in British society.

BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY: FILM, TELEVISION, MUSIC, THEATRE. The Sayles might not have been the only Jewish atheist communist family in Liverpool, but Alexei knew from an early age that they were one of the more eccentric. Born on the day egg rationing came to an end, Alexei was the only child of Joe, an affable trade unionist who led the family on railway expeditions across eastern Europe, and Molly, a hot-tempered red-head who terrified teachers and insisted Alexei see the Red Army Choir instead of the Beatles. Perceptive and hilarious, this is a portrait of a family, a city, a country and a continent going through enormous changes.

"An autobiographical narrative of the career of British author, bookseller, and book collector Colin Franklin, discussing his life and experiences in the book world. Includes essays on figures in the book trade who have influenced and fascinated Franklin. Illustrated in color and black and white"--

How did the West get Middle East Oil? The tense chronicle of the international deceit and strong-arm tactics of men, oil companies and government is laid out in a revealing minute-to-minute drama. Massive research supports this unforgettable revelation by a master of corporate investigation--author Edwin Black.

This book needs no introduction. The hardback edition was the hottest seller of 2004. WH Smith cited it as the record holder for most copies of an autobiography sold in one week. In fact it has turned out to be the surprise darling of the book trade! Now, at last, the paperback edition is available and Katie has brought it right up-to-date with full details of her love for Peter, their new life together, their engagement and their impending wedding. She also reveals the projects she has been working on and what the future holds for her career. No book buyer will want to miss out on the next instalment of Katie's life - so fasten your seatbelts for another rollercoaster ride.

First published in 1981, this book examines the life of Arthur Harding, a well-known figure in the East End underworld during the first half of the twentieth century. The first five chapters survey his life in the 'Jago' slum between 1887 and 1896, offering a different view of an often vilified district. The subsequent phases of his life as a cabinet-maker, street trader and wardrobe dealer reflect the changing fortunes of the East End from hand-to-mouth conditions in the late-nineteenth century to comparative security in the 1930s. The reader is introduced to some of the major features of East End life -- back-street enterprise, neighbourhood solidarity, politics and popular culture. Among the many themes that can be traced are the relationship between the underworld and the local working-class community; the collusive understanding established between villains and the police; the effects of the criminalisation of street betting; and the relationship between Jews, non-Jews and what the author terms 'half-jews' in a district of high immigration. Drawn from transcripts of recorded reminiscences, this book provides an important text for understanding the political economy of crime -- extended by the authors extensive footnotes and a preface discussing the peculiar moral complexion of south-west Bethnal Green.

With the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 and the Emancipation Act of 1833, Britain seemed to wash its hands of slavery. Not so, according to Marika Sherwood, who sets the record straight in this provocative new book. In fact, Sherwood demonstrates that Britain continued to contribute to the slave trade well after 1807, even into the twentieth century. Drawing on government documents and contemporary reports as well as published sources, she describes how slavery remained very much a part of British investment, commerce and empire, especially in funding and supplying goods for the trade in slaves and in the use of slave-grown produce. The nancial world of the City in London also depended on slavery, which - directly and indirectly - provided employment for millions of people. "After Abolition" also examines some of the causes and repercussions of continued British involvement in slavery and describes many of the apparently respectable villains, as well as the heroes, connected with the trade - at all levels of society. It contains important revelations about a darker side of British history, previously unexplored, which will provoke real questions about Britain's perceptions of its past

In July 1961, just before David Aaronovitch's seventh birthday, Yuri Gagarin came to London. The Russian spaceman was everything the Aaronovitch family wished for - a popular and handsome embodiment of modern communism, of the forward march of history. When Gagarin went to Highgate to visit the tomb of Karl Marx, the local communists came out to cheer, David's father, a full-time worker for the Communist Party, and his mother among them. But who were they, these ever hopeful, defiant and (had they but known it) historically doomed people? In a sense they were like a non-magical version of the wizards of J K Rowling's world, living part secretly with and parallel to the non-communist majority, sometimes persecuted, sometimes ignored, but carrying on their own ways and traditions. Where others went to church they went to Socialist Sunday School, where others watched the Black and White Minstrels they went to see the Red Army Choir (always providing that visas had been issued). Society's up was their down, its heroes were their villains and vice versa. Trade unions were never more noble than when militant, the blacks were right and the whites were wrong. Who wanted American TV when you could have Russian movies? A memoir of early life among communists and an exploration of the world that created that life, Party Animals first took David Aaronovitch back through his own memories of belief and action. But there was much more to it. He found himself studying the old secret service files, his mother's diaries and letters, uncovering the unspoken shame and fears that provided the unconscious background to his own existence as a party animal. Only then did he begin to understand what had come before - both the obstinate heroism and the monstrous cowardice. And the elements that shape our fondest beliefs

While the rest of the media lounge in the warm glow of New Labour’s rosy dawn, one journalist in Britain has been a consistently sharp and witty scourge of Tony Blair and his bandwagon babes. Step forward Nick Cohen, denizen of the Observer newspaper’s celebrated ‘Hold on a Minute’ column and a writer who has regularly identified Labour’s Third Way as the mid-point between truth and lies, decency and hypocrisy, honesty and corruption. Whether he is tearing into Labour’s plans to privatize the prison system and introduce curfews for teenagers, or detailing the government’s cozying up to Rupert Murdoch and the hot money traders in the City, Cohen maintains a peerless grasp on the power that flows from fusing invective with scrupulous investigation. Even Downing Street Policy Advisor Andrew Adonis was forced to concede that ‘no one is better at getting under the Government’s skin’. A coruscating barrage of dispatches from his sniper’s post, Cruel Britannia celebrates Cohen’s lonely stand. It will revivify the disillusioned who anticipated something better from Labour’s ascent and fortify those on the left who expected little and received precisely that.

Governments have been taking control of activities - 'public' goods, 'public' utilities, welfare and local government services - which would have been better left to the private sector. Most of them were being privately provided before the state crowded out private initiatives. People will increasingly escape to non-state suppliers unless the government withdraws from many of these activities. Government should reduce its share of national income from 40 per cent to 20 per cent. Arthur Seldon, for many years the IEA's editorial director, argues that attempts to correct market 'imperfections' have created over-government. But the 'escapable power of political government' is up against the 'irresistible economic force of the market'. Sir Samuel Brittan contributes a comment in which he says that Seldon's paper reveals 'a deep belief in the superior ability of ordinary citizens to make their own choices and decisions better than governments or experts or committees'.

Jonquil Mathews had lived a sheltered life with her parents in their luxurious home, until the day her fianc? Simon, an RAF pilot, was killed at Dunkirk. Prompted by Simon's best friend, Adrian Hepworth, Jonquil was determined to do her bit for the war effort, and joined the WAAF. Adrian had fallen in love with Jonquil, and as she went through her training, made new friends and learned her trade, he kept a watchful eye on her, always hoping that despite the dangers of wartime, they would eventually be together...

This is a rare account of the horrors of the WW2 death camps from someone who experienced them. Born into an Orthodox Jewish family in Prague, Hoffman lost his entire family in the Holocaust. Fourteen-year-old Martin Hoffman escapes immediate death on arrival at Auschwitz by claiming to be eighteen. Through a combination of chutzpah and luck, he first survives a year at Auschwitz, then the Death March to Buchenwald, and stays alive until the camp is liberated by American troops. After relocating to England, Hoffman is tortured by survivor's guilt, which leads to episodes of deep depression. He learns a trade (diamond-cutting), but eventually discovers two things: a talent for bridge, and a fascination with gambling. As he finds success with the first, becoming a world-class professional player, the second almost destroys him. It is only later in life, with the help of his wife Audrey, that Hoffman is able to overcome his dark memories, conquer his addiction to gambling, and finally find contentment in a new life in Florida.

In 2016 Labour, led by the most left-wing leader that the party had ever seen, burst into new life. The Westminster beltway of political insiders, pollsters, commentators and newspaper proprietors were completely taken by surprise and left with egg all over their faces. Few took the trouble to ask how or why Labour, almost alone amongst parties on the left in Europe, had re-grouped, revived and successfully turned its back, so decisively on Tony Blair and Bill Clinton's 'third way'. Labour England wasn't dead. It had been sleeping. For thirty years it had been kicked into near oblivion, first by Margaret Thatcher and then by Tony Blair. That strange, sentimental, almost mystical mix of the trade unions, adult education institutes, powerful Labour councils, the local comprehensive school and the local Co-Op that sustained Labour governments for thirty years from the 1940s to the 1970s had been in retreat. Now, against all the odds, it was back. What happened? What will Jeremy Corbyn's Labour England look like? Francis Beckett and Mark Seddon are Labour insiders. They know. And they say it will be an exciting and better place to live.

A controversial new investigation in the 1984 Miners strike and how it changed Modern Britain. The Miners' strike was a dividing line in Modern British history. Before 1984, Britain was an industrial nation, reborn from the ashes of the Second World War by Clement Atlee's vision of a welfare state. Most of the great industries were nationalised and the trade unions was one of the major forces in the land. After the strike, which ended with humiliating defeat in March 1985, Thatcher's Britain was born. In March 1984, the leader of the Miners' Union, Arthur Scargill, led his members out of the pits without a ballot to protest at planned pit closures; they would spend the next 13 months facing the utmost deprivations as they fought to keep their jobs. On picket lines the miners faced harassment and the police, which culminated in the violent Battle of Orgreave. Meanwhile Thatcher's government feared that Britain was on the verge of a civil war. It was a struggle of attrition that neither side could dare lose. Twenty five years after the strike, the debate is still controversial. Marching to the Faultline tells the full story of the strike from confidential cabinet meetings at Downing Street to backroom negotiations, and life on the picket line. The book draws on previously unseen sources from interviews with the major figures, private archives and documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act to set the record straight.

Medieval English Travel: A Critical Anthology' is a comprehensive volume that consists of three sections: concise introductory essays written by leading specialists; an anthology of important and less well-known texts, grouped by destination; and a selection of supporting bibliographies organised by type of voyage. This anthology presents some texts for the first time in a modern edition. The first section consists of six companion essays on 'Places, Real and Imagined', 'Maps the Organisation of Space', 'Encounters', 'Languages and Codes', 'Trade and Exchange', and 'Politics and Diplomacy'. The organising principle for the anthology is one of expansive geography. Starting with local English narratives, the section moves to France, en-route destinations, the Holy Land, and the Far East. In total, the anthology contains 26 texts or extracts, including new editions of Floris & Blancheflour, The Stacions of Rome, The Libelle of Englyshe Polycye, and Chaucer's Squire's Tale, in addition to less familiar texts, such as Osbern Bokenham's Mappula Angliae, John Kay's Siege of Rhodes 1480, and Richard Torkington's Diaries of Englysshe Travell.The supporting bibliographies, in turn, take a functional approach to travel, and support the texts by elucidating contexts for travel and travellers in five areas: 'commercial voyages', 'diplomatic and military travel', 'maps, rutters, and charts', 'practical needs', and 'religious voyages'

The Great Question: Tariff Reform or Free Trade? by Leopold Stennett Amery delves into the complex economic debate surrounding trade policies in early 20th-century Britain. Amery, a prominent political figure, presents a detailed analysis of the merits and drawbacks of tariff reform versus the traditional policy of free trade. This work explores the potential impacts of different trade strategies on British industries, employment, and the nation's overall economic prosperity. Offering insights into the historical context of the era, “The Great Question†provides a valuable resource for understanding the foundations of modern trade discussions. Readers interested in economic history, political economy, and the evolution of British trade policy will find Ameryâ€(TM)s arguments both insightful and historically significant. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.