Product Description

Journalist and broadcaster Patrick Hannan discusses post-war British politics in his particular style in "When Arthur Met Maggie". The meeting (famously they never met) of the two figures of the book's title marked a tipping point for British politics, and British society. After the year-long battle between the NUM and the Conservative government trade union power began to be curtailed, management replaced ideology as the main criteria for party election, debate within parties seemed to become more important than debate between them. Hannan explores how, from the ground-breaking Atlee government on, we arrived at Arthur and Maggie's danse macabre, and what the fall-out of their quickstep has been. Post-industrial Britain under New Labour and in the new millennium seems a million miles away from the founding of the welfare state, and the journey to and from the miner's strike throws up all sorts of ironies and unforeseen and unintended consequences. Many of the diversions, planned and unplanned, have resulted from the personalities of the leading players, including Roy Jenkins, Aneurin Bevan, Kinnick, Thatcher, Heath and, in Wales, Dafydd Wigley and Dayfydd Elis Thomas. Hannan takes in the changing fortunes of the three major British parties, the story of devolution (particularly in Wales), the unions in post-industrial society and the developing role of women in politics. His book is based on extensive interviews with the major players and valuable new research, and narrated in Hannan's characteristically accessible and witty style. As massed voting turned to voter apathy and ideology to spin, When "Arthur Met Maggie" is a timely look at the state we're in, and how we got there.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #462472 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 220 pages

About the Author
Patrick Hannan has covered public affairs as a writer and broadcaster for over three decades. He has been Industrial Editor at the Western Mail and Political Correspondent at BBC Wales, has made television documentaries and is a regular contributor to Radio 4, including his being one half of the spectacularly successful Welsh team in the Round Britain Quiz.

Customer Reviews

A political read on the "law of unintended consequences"
A political writer and journalist on Welsh matters especially, Hannan has written a book with a neat title that actually only provides the historical pivot around which the overall book is constructed, going both backwards and forwards in time. Readers expecting an analysis of just the conflict between Scargill and Thatcher across the history of the Miners Strike will be disappointed. What we get instead is a set of essays on the unexpected consequences of political actions and missed opportunities.

The book commences with chapters on the personalities of the two protagonists and is very good on Thatcher's handling of the wavering Ian MacGregor and how lucky Scargill was to end up in charge of the Miners Union (NUM) given his personality. The lack of foresight by the NUM under Gormley (still intoxicated by the prior victory over Heath) set the seal on a drama where Thatcher ended up being the revolutionary and Scargill the reactionary.

The book traverses back into the arguable heritages left to the Labour Party by the actions of Aneurin Bevan post WWII and the missed opportunity of Roy Jenkins and Dennis Healey leading the party. The petty and sniffy attitudes of his fellow Cabinet and Welsh trade unionists towards Jenkins, a bon viveur and one of the greatest intellectuals of his age the Labour party had, are well captured.

Going forward in time, the chapters cover the breaking down of the untouchable status of the Militant Tendency by Kinnock post the NUM's defeat and how this ended up with the Blair and Brown years of stripping away Labour's heritage including Clause IV and a Labour government. The book concludes with the Welsh Assembly years and Labour's rocky ride at the Assembly and Parliamentary elections, being saved by the inability of Plaid Cymru to grab the opportunity due to its own leadership quandary. These end chapters cover old ground from Hannan's prior books and are very detailed - unless you have a real interest in Welsh politics, they do not sit easily with the earlier chapters.

A book that generates a series of thought provoking overviews on different political events in the last 70 years - just do not be deceived by the title.