Podcast appearances and mentions of jim callaghan

Slashing the winter fuel allowance, maintaining the two child benefit cap, cutting international aid, cutting the civil service, axing NHS bureaucracy, possibly slashing welfare expenditure... you'd be forgiven for thinking the Conservatives were in power. But no, these are all policies pursued by the current Labour government. So on today's Saturday Shots Cindy Yu asks Michael Gove and James Heale, is Keir Starmer a Tory? While Michael admits to giving Starmer a 'painful' two cheers, he does say there is historic precedent for Labour government enacting right-leaning measures: from Jim Callaghan's migration policies to the economic ones of Ramsay MacDonald. How has Starmer got away with it? And what does his premiership of pragmatism tell us about the future direction of Labour? Michael sets out a number of tests to judge Starmer's success by: the tests of Fraser Nelson, Robert Jenrick, Ernie Bevan, Denis Healey and Bob Mellish...  Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Cindy Yu.

Slashing the winter fuel allowance, maintaining the two child benefit cap, cutting international aid, cutting the civil service, axing NHS bureaucracy, possibly slashing welfare expenditure... you'd be forgiven for thinking the Conservatives were in power. But no, these are all policies pursued by the current Labour government. So on today's Saturday Shots Cindy Yu asks Michael Gove and James Heale, is Keir Starmer a Tory? While Michael admits to giving Starmer a 'painful' two cheers, he does say there is historic precedent for Labour government enacting right-leaning measures: from Jim Callaghan's migration policies to the economic ones of Ramsay MacDonald. How has Starmer got away with it? And what does his premiership of pragmatism tell us about the future direction of Labour? Michael sets out a number of tests to judge Starmer's success by: the tests of Fraser Nelson, Robert Jenrick, Ernie Bevan, Denis Healey and Bob Mellish...  Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Cindy Yu.

David Owen has spent the last 60 years at the heart of British politics. After becoming a Labour MP in 1966 and serving as foreign secretary under Jim Callaghan from 1977-1979, he became disillusioned with the direction of the increasingly Left-wing Labour Party. Owen co-founded the Social Democratic Party and went on to lead it twice. In the 1990s, he was an EU peace negotiator in the former Yugoslavia and co-authored the consequential Vance-Owen Peace Plan. He joined UnHerd's Freddie Sayers live at the UnHerd Club, to talk about his life in politics, the ideological shifts of the recent decades and the future of the British Left. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Political Editors is half a century of politics told by the people who wrote the first draft of history for the Times.Over the festive period we're re-releasing the entire series.Julian Haviland became political editor of the Times in 1981, but his career in journalism began in the 1950s and covered every prime minister from Alec Douglas-Home to Margaret Thatcher. He tells Matt about his recollections of a smug Jim Callaghan, the decent but flawed Harold Wilson, and Thatcher having a stiff drink before her weekly audience with Queen Elizabeth.He also reveals that the Queen was horrified by police conduct at the Battle of Orgreave during the miners' strike, a story he confirmed but was unable to run at the time. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Julian Haviland became political editor of the Times in 1981, but his career in journalism began in the 1950s and covered every prime minister from Alec Douglas-Home to Margaret Thatcher. He tells Matt about his recollections of a smug Jim Callaghan, the decent but flawed Harold Wilson, and Thatcher having a stiff drink before her weekly audience with Queen Elizabeth.He also reveals that the Queen was horrified by police conduct at the Battle of Orgreave during the miners' strike, a story he confirmed but was unable to run at the time.The Political Editors is half a century of politics told by the people who wrote the first draft of history for the Times.Plus: Columnists Daniel Finkelstein and Jenni Russell discuss whether shoplifting has effectively been decriminalised, whether the Conservative party is choosing the right people to fight the next election, and whether Rishi Sunak has a future as an artist. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Natasa and Jim, two extraordinary people, both reached the pinnacle of their international careers, before they both ultimately quit their jobs and carved out a whole new, exciting chapter for themselves. Before their big career changes, Jim was General Counsel to companies such as Ryanair, Etihad and Uber. Natasa was co-founder and former head of corporate communications and public affairs of Wizz Air. Amongst many other things, in this interview, we talked about: - The big events that led to their respective career changes - How they navigated the transition period - Why they're so passionate about the work they're doing now You can find out more about Natasa and Jim's business at www.wellnesstory.world You can find their book Ready For Takeoff on Amazon - https://amzn.eu/d/2GviBZB ****************************************************************************************************** If you're feeling stuck in your career, you're probably asking yourself all the wrong questions. Powerful questions = powerful results. https://www.yescareercoaching.com/10careerchangequestions Want to make your own career change? Need a helping hand? Join the next career change programme - https://www.yescareercoaching.com/

"It's the complicated ones I enjoy the most." Matthew Parris Tony Benn, MP from 1950 to 2001, packed so much into a long career. He renounced the peerage inherited from his father, served in the Labour governments of both Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan, led the Stop the War Coalition from 2001 and became pretty much the country's pre-eminent rock star politician in older age. Comedian Ellie Gibson says she was a Tony Benn groupie and saw him speak many times. A brilliant orator and prolific diarist, he was by the 1980s distrusted by many in his own party, and a bogey figure in the right wing press. Contributors include ex Labour MP, Chris Mullin, and his biographer, Jad Adams; plus rare early archive of Tony Benn himself talking about his constitutional fight to give up his inherited peerage. Ellie Gibson is one half of the Scummy Mummies podcast duo. The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde

Alison O' Connor- Columnist, Irish Examiner; Rose Conway Walsh- Sinn Fein TD for Mayo and Party Spokesperson for Higher and Further Education; Jim Callaghan, Fianna Fail Spokesperson on Justice, TD for Dublin Bay South; Kevin Doyle- Group Head of News, Independent.ie.

“Pound crashes to weakest level since 1985 in blow to Truss” ran the headline on the Telegraph website yesterday.“The Bank of England had one job today”, as economist Shaun Richards put it, “which was to talk up the pound and instead their waffling sees it at US $1.14.” Theresa May Flash Crash aside, that's a 37-year low.And that's measuring it against the dollar. If you measure the pound's purchasing power against essential basics such as energy or houses, its performance has been way more woeful.It's not just the pound, even if it is one of the worst offenders. It's all fiat money. I've been banging on about it for 20 years but I may as well bang on some more: fiat money and its devaluation is the greatest and most pernicious intergenerational theft in history. Devaluing your currency boosts assets but devalues labour When you devalue money, among numerous other things, you devalue salaries, which is to devalue labour. All the young have is their labour. You boost the value of assets meanwhile, which is what the old have acquired over the course of their lives. The net result is to transfer wealth from young to old. Compounded over decades, 5% one year, 8% another, this process has been devastating. Don't get me started on the knock-on effects: smaller families started later in life and all the rest of it. So many people of my generation and above think they are business geniuses because they paid the market rate for a house 30 or 40 years ago. You are not. Systematic and incremental devaluation by successive administrations was “what did it”.The Bank of England, the Federal Reserve Bank, the European and Japanese Central Banks – central banking has a lot to answer for. It feels like we might finally be in some kind of endgame for fiat money now. Mind you, I thought we were in the endgame in 2008, so I'm probably wrong this time around as well. I've no doubt some new magic words even more unintelligible than “quantitative easing” are being conjured up as I write.Right rant over. I had to get that off my chest. Let us move on. Does a new PM mean you should go long the pound?We have a new government. Money is the issuance of government. The weak pound is all over the headlines. So I thought it would be an interesting exercise today to look, first, at the performance of the pound by successive governments over the past generation. And then to consider whether one should be buyer or seller here.“Buy on silence, sell on headlines,” is a good little investment motto that I've just invented. When something makes the headlines, there is often not a lot of narrative left in the tank,  the story is mature and the next stage is exhaustion. It's standard contrarian market psychology. Does the fact that the weak pound has made the headlines mean it's time to take the other side of the trade and go long? Could be.We'll start with a chart of the pound against the dollar – aka cable – since 1970. And by the way, the dollar has a much larger market cap than the pound, so what is going on on the other side of the pond tends to have a greater effect on cable than what is happening here. That is the case at present. The pound is weak, but so is the euro, the yen and any other number of currencies you care to mention – except the Russian rouble. Current pound weakness is as much a function of US dollar strength as anything. The chart of the pound against the euro over the last three years is much flatter.In any case, cable is the benchmark, so here is the pound against the dollar since 1970, when it was $2.40 (!).The broader trend is down, but there are periods of relative strength – 1976-1981, 1985-1991, 2000-2007. We've basically been in a downtrend since 2007, shortly after Tony Blair stood down and Gordon Brown became PM. It is what is known in the game as a secular bear market. Now we consider the same chart, but this time I have overlaid the government. Even though several prime ministers have led successive governments – Wilson, Thatcher, Major and Blair for example – for the sake of clarity and simplicity I have marked the chart by PM. Needless to say the dates of the red and blue lines are approximate. The first observation I make is that, despite their reputation for fiscal competence, the Tories have not been good stewards of the currency. In the case of Edward Heath and David Cameron, the pound was marginally stronger when they stood down than it was when they took office. Despite his presiding over Black Wednesday and the ERM fiasco, for John Major the pound was only a few per cent lower than it was when he started.But in the case of – and this surprised me – Margaret Thatcher, plus Theresa May and Boris Johson it was lower. Labour's record is mixed. Harold Wilson saw it lower, Jim Callaghan higher (that surprised me too). Tony Blair has the best record of all – it went from roughly $1.60 to $2.10 – and Gordon Brown the worst.That said Blair was one of the few PMs – perhaps the only one – to stand down from a position of strength. Normally PMs are stood down because there is something voters or MPs or both are not happy with, which will be reflected in a weak currency.Lower taxes and higher spending should encourage growthBack to today. This latest move in the dollar has been extraordinary. I've long been suggesting the US dollar index could go as high as 120 (another 10% from here – though exhaustion indicators are starting to appear), but at a certain point purchasing power parity will kick in and currencies will reflect relative valuations. On a purchasing power parity basis the pound is very cheap at $1.14. The other observation I make about the above chart is that new administrations have often marked turning points in the currency. This, one could argue, was the case for Wilson, Callaghan, Major, Brown, Cameron, May and Johnson.Despite the Tories' record for incompetence, Liz Truss has put together a cabinet that is, broadly speaking, actually conservative. Unlike previous administrations, it is not full of wets and social democrats, who happen to be in the Conservative Party. Lower taxes and less spending (I'll believe that when I see it) should lead to economic growth, which should help the currency. The big kahuna though is where the Bank of England base rate goes – and indeed the Fed Funds Rate.I'd say there is a not unreasonable chance that, with a new government, we could mark a turning point for the pound. We're at a point of extremity where such a turn could happen. But let's see what government does first, before we get too excited. As I say, another not totally unreasonable possibility is that we are in the endgame for fiat. In that case the pound slides below parity. If you want to buy gold to hedge yourself against all of this, my recommended bullion dealer is the Pure Gold Company with whom I have an affiliation deal. If you are in London on September 28 or 29, my lecture with funny bits, How Heavy?, about the history of weights and measures is coming to the Museum of Comedy. It's a 7-8pm show so you can come along and go out for dinner after. You can buy tickets here. This is a very interesting subject - effectively how you perceive the world. Hope to see you there.The Flying Frisby is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.This article first appeared at Moneyweek. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

“Pound crashes to weakest level since 1985 in blow to Truss” ran the headline on the Telegraph website yesterday.“The Bank of England had one job today”, as economist Shaun Richards put it, “which was to talk up the pound and instead their waffling sees it at US $1.14.” Theresa May Flash Crash aside, that's a 37-year low.And that's measuring it against the dollar. If you measure the pound's purchasing power against essential basics such as energy or houses, its performance has been way more woeful.It's not just the pound, even if it is one of the worst offenders. It's all fiat money. I've been banging on about it for 20 years but I may as well bang on some more: fiat money and its devaluation is the greatest and most pernicious intergenerational theft in history. Devaluing your currency boosts assets but devalues labour When you devalue money, among numerous other things, you devalue salaries, which is to devalue labour. All the young have is their labour. You boost the value of assets meanwhile, which is what the old have acquired over the course of their lives. The net result is to transfer wealth from young to old. Compounded over decades, 5% one year, 8% another, this process has been devastating. Don't get me started on the knock-on effects: smaller families started later in life and all the rest of it. So many people of my generation and above think they are business geniuses because they paid the market rate for a house 30 or 40 years ago. You are not. Systematic and incremental devaluation by successive administrations was “what did it”.The Bank of England, the Federal Reserve Bank, the European and Japanese Central Banks – central banking has a lot to answer for. It feels like we might finally be in some kind of endgame for fiat money now. Mind you, I thought we were in the endgame in 2008, so I'm probably wrong this time around as well. I've no doubt some new magic words even more unintelligible than “quantitative easing” are being conjured up as I write.Right rant over. I had to get that off my chest. Let us move on. Does a new PM mean you should go long the pound?We have a new government. Money is the issuance of government. The weak pound is all over the headlines. So I thought it would be an interesting exercise today to look, first, at the performance of the pound by successive governments over the past generation. And then to consider whether one should be buyer or seller here.“Buy on silence, sell on headlines,” is a good little investment motto that I've just invented. When something makes the headlines, there is often not a lot of narrative left in the tank,  the story is mature and the next stage is exhaustion. It's standard contrarian market psychology. Does the fact that the weak pound has made the headlines mean it's time to take the other side of the trade and go long? Could be.We'll start with a chart of the pound against the dollar – aka cable – since 1970. And by the way, the dollar has a much larger market cap than the pound, so what is going on on the other side of the pond tends to have a greater effect on cable than what is happening here. That is the case at present. The pound is weak, but so is the euro, the yen and any other number of currencies you care to mention – except the Russian rouble. Current pound weakness is as much a function of US dollar strength as anything. The chart of the pound against the euro over the last three years is much flatter.In any case, cable is the benchmark, so here is the pound against the dollar since 1970, when it was $2.40 (!).The broader trend is down, but there are periods of relative strength – 1976-1981, 1985-1991, 2000-2007. We've basically been in a downtrend since 2007, shortly after Tony Blair stood down and Gordon Brown became PM. It is what is known in the game as a secular bear market. Now we consider the same chart, but this time I have overlaid the government. Even though several prime ministers have led successive governments – Wilson, Thatcher, Major and Blair for example – for the sake of clarity and simplicity I have marked the chart by PM. Needless to say the dates of the red and blue lines are approximate. The first observation I make is that, despite their reputation for fiscal competence, the Tories have not been good stewards of the currency. In the case of Edward Heath and David Cameron, the pound was marginally stronger when they stood down than it was when they took office. Despite his presiding over Black Wednesday and the ERM fiasco, for John Major the pound was only a few per cent lower than it was when he started.But in the case of – and this surprised me – Margaret Thatcher, plus Theresa May and Boris Johson it was lower. Labour's record is mixed. Harold Wilson saw it lower, Jim Callaghan higher (that surprised me too). Tony Blair has the best record of all – it went from roughly $1.60 to $2.10 – and Gordon Brown the worst.That said Blair was one of the few PMs – perhaps the only one – to stand down from a position of strength. Normally PMs are stood down because there is something voters or MPs or both are not happy with, which will be reflected in a weak currency.Lower taxes and higher spending should encourage growthBack to today. This latest move in the dollar has been extraordinary. I've long been suggesting the US dollar index could go as high as 120 (another 10% from here – though exhaustion indicators are starting to appear), but at a certain point purchasing power parity will kick in and currencies will reflect relative valuations. On a purchasing power parity basis the pound is very cheap at $1.14. The other observation I make about the above chart is that new administrations have often marked turning points in the currency. This, one could argue, was the case for Wilson, Callaghan, Major, Brown, Cameron, May and Johnson.Despite the Tories' record for incompetence, Liz Truss has put together a cabinet that is, broadly speaking, actually conservative. Unlike previous administrations, it is not full of wets and social democrats, who happen to be in the Conservative Party. Lower taxes and less spending (I'll believe that when I see it) should lead to economic growth, which should help the currency. The big kahuna though is where the Bank of England base rate goes – and indeed the Fed Funds Rate.I'd say there is a not unreasonable chance that, with a new government, we could mark a turning point for the pound. We're at a point of extremity where such a turn could happen. But let's see what government does first, before we get too excited. As I say, another not totally unreasonable possibility is that we are in the endgame for fiat. In that case the pound slides below parity. If you want to buy gold to hedge yourself against all of this, my recommended bullion dealer is the Pure Gold Company with whom I have an affiliation deal. If you are in London on September 28 or 29, my lecture with funny bits, How Heavy?, about the history of weights and measures is coming to the Museum of Comedy. It's a 7-8pm show so you can come along and go out for dinner after. You can buy tickets here. This is a very interesting subject - effectively how you perceive the world. Hope to see you there.The Flying Frisby is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.This article first appeared at Moneyweek. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit frisby.substack.com/subscribe

Office for National Statistics data reveals wages plunged by 4.1 per cent in the last quarter, with pay now dropping fastest since 2001 when the latest records began. But historical analysis shows we're actually suffering the biggest pay squeeze since Jim Callaghan was PM.The Leader's joined by Dr Grace Lordan, labour economist at the London School of Economics and Hannah Slaughter, senior economist at the Resolution Foundation.Find us on Twitter #TheLeaderPodcast. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

I was very pleased to talk to Charles Moore, who I have read admiringly for many years. His three volume biography of Margaret Thatcher is one of the most interesting biographies published in the last few years. He also edited a volume of T.E.Utley's journalism. In this discussion you will hear (or read the transcript below!) whether Margaret Thatcher is more left-wing than we think, what Charles thinks of political biography, how his footnotes work, who are the most underrated Thatcher cabinet ministers, the relationship between fiction and biography, why he's not a natural Thatcherite, and more. I asked a lot of my questions much less elegantly than I had written them, but the answers are frequently models of spoken English. I particularly enjoyed Charles' use of “jealous” in its original, perhaps now semi-archaic, meaning (i.e. suspiciously vigilant or careful). He also seems to use “cunning” in the way Johnson defined it, pleasingly. I remember reading once how much Charles enjoyed the language of the Book of Common Prayer as a child. Perhaps those lexicographical waters run deep. The transcript is lightly edited for intelligibility. You will notice, sometimes, that the transcript moves from past to present tense when Charles talks about Margaret Thatcher. Here, as elsewhere, he often refers to her in the present tense. One topic we didn't cover was Margaret Thatcher as a late bloomer. Maybe another time.Henry: You once wrote that you found political biography boring to read, or you used to. Why did you find it interesting to write?Charles Moore: I think making one's own enquiries makes you think about it more deeply, which is intrinsically interesting. But also I think the subject, Mrs. Thatcher, is a particularly interesting person because she was very unusual and because she was the first and, effectively at the time, only woman. And so everything's different. And so the impact of her is very strikingly different from that of even very well-known male politicians.Henry: And do you enjoy reading political biography more now that you've written your book?Charles Moore: I don't find that I do read it more, particularly. But probably the answer's yes because I can understand more how the work is done. And therefore, I can see who's good at it and who isn't, and when they're evading a subject they don't understand or whether they've really got to the bottom of it and so on.Henry: How do you assess that? What sort of things make you think that someone's really got a grip on what they're telling you?Charles Moore: Partly it's their mastery of the sources, of course. And also, it's a matter of, to some extent, perceiving their fairness. And I think that's quite an interesting subject, because fairness doesn't mean, necessarily, that you're neutral about the person. You can be highly sympathetic to the subject, or you can be even unsympathetic to the subject and still be fair. But fairness is something about considering the evidence and trying to give it its right weight. This, I think, is easily detectable in biographies. And some just don't do that. They wish to assassinate the character, or they wish to make a hero of the character, or they're simply rather lazy. If you've walked down that path, you can detect what's going on.Henry: What parts of Margaret Thatcher's life did you find it most difficult to be fair about?Charles Moore: Well of course, I wouldn't be the best judge of that, I suppose.Henry: Were there any bits, though, where you had to work at that practise of fairness?Charles Moore: One way in which you need to be fair to a subject is simply to try to understand the subject. I don't mean the biographical subject. I mean the issue. And there are certain subjects that I'm less good at and, therefore, have to work harder on like, let's say, monetary policy or details about missiles. Neither of which are my natural territory, and both of which are important in the case of Mrs. Thatcher. So I would have to make more efforts about that, mental efforts, to really understand what's going on than I would about, say, fighting an election or reform of the trade unions or something like that. There's a sort of broad point about being fair, which is that biography naturally and inevitably and rightly must focus on the individual. And therefore, it may do that to the exclusion of other individuals or of a wider milieu, which is an inevitable danger but is also a mistake because the individual in politics doesn't act alone, even a very remarkable character like Margaret Thatcher or Winston Churchill. And one needs, somehow, to convey the milieu and the weight of the other characters while never ceasing to focus on the one character.One of the extraordinary features of Hilary Mantel's novels about Thomas Cromwell — Wolf Hall etc — is that, I think it's right to say, he is in the room the entire time, or in the field or whatever. I think Thomas Cromwell is in every scene. Sometimes it's reported speech that he's hearing, but still. And, as a biographer one sort of does that. Mrs. Thatcher is almost always in the room, not absolutely always. And that's right. That's fine. But one mustn't let her crowd everything else out.Henry: Were the Mantel books a conscious model or influence for you, or is that something you've noticed separately?Charles Moore: Not really because I was reading them more towards the end. Well, I read Wolf Hall quite a long time ago, and then I read the other two pretty much when I was finishing. But I think they're very good. Obviously, they're not biographies. But I think, I hope, I learnt something from them because there's a sustained effort of the imagination, which the novelist has to have, to see through the eyes of, in her case, Thomas Cromwell. And though biography is fact not fiction, imagination is required in biography as well. And so in some ways, it's a similar task.Henry: On this question of the milieu that Margaret Thatcher was in, you paid a lot of attention in the three books to the biographies of all the people around her, especially in footnotes, but also when you're describing events such as the leadership election in 1990, there's a lot of biographic information. Is this compilation of brief lives, a way of providing not just information, but commentary, almost like a sort of prosopographia? What stood out to me was that, even just through the footnotes, it really details the way that she was very, very different to everyone else in that world, demographically and socially.Charles Moore: Yes. That's right. So, in putting footnoted autobiographies of most of the characters, that's useful for reference, but it's also a sort of short-hand way of telling you about the milieu and the range of characters she was dealing with, and of course, it brings out the fact that they're almost all male and a very high percentage of them went to public schools and Oxford or Cambridge. She of course went to Oxford, but she didn't go to public school and she wasn't a man. So I think when your eye goes to bottom of the page and picks up one of those biographies, it should be helpful in its own right, but it also should have a cumulative effect of placing Mrs. Thatcher among all of these people and of course, rather like the only woman in the room is very noticeable physically, she's very noticeable as unique in this milieu.Henry: Is that a technique that you took from somewhere, or is that something that you devised yourself?Charles Moore: Well, I think she devised it to some extent, and I picked up on that. She always had to wrestle with the point that it was considered a disadvantage to be a woman in the world in which she was moving. And she realized that though in certain respects it was objectively a disadvantage because of prejudice and so on, she could turn it to advantage. And I think one thing she understood very early on, because though she's a very sincere person she's also a very good actress, is that she could see the almost filmic quality of her position. So she would know that the camera would come in on her, and therefore she should exploit that to the full with her hair, her bag, her dresses, the sense of being different and noticeable, her voice. And she put that to good use and tried to refine that and simplify it really so that it could have maximum impact.Henry: There was a High Tory ambivalence about Margaret Thatcher, so someone like T.E Utley was a supporter, but not a complete supporter, a slightly guarded pro-Thatcher. And I think you potentially fall into this group, not entirely aligned with the Thatcher government on Ireland, Hong Kong for example. How did this position affect you as her biographer?Charles Moore: I don't think my own specific views on political questions were so important in that, but I think perhaps my overall approach affected it. What I mean by that is that my background, I'm actually brought up as a liberal with a big “L” — Liberal Party. And by cultural inclination I wouldn't be a natural Thatcherite, and I would always look at Mrs. Thatcher as somebody different from my way of thinking in that sense, which of course makes that very interesting. I'm not part of her tribe, and wasn't by upbringing, and I hope that's useful because it gives a certain historical detachment. However I wasn't trying to write an interpretation of Mrs. Thatcher coming from my tribe, it wasn't like the Whig interpretation of history sort of thing. And indeed, in some ways, I was more impressed by her because I came from a different tribe, that's to say, she had to overcome more barriers in my mind, perhaps. Suppose I'd been writing a biography of Asquith, that would have been more like the world I grew up in, and perhaps less of a challenge. And writing about Mrs. Thatcher, it's exciting to enter a world which in social terms and political terms, and of course, a different sex as well, was less known to me.Henry: I think you wrote that she is, with the possible exception of Jim Callaghan, the most socially conservative Prime Minister that Britain has had. To what extent do your background and your personal views make it easy or difficult for you to be, as you said earlier, fair in the way that you presented that?Charles Moore: She's a very odd mixture in that way. I think I perhaps did write that. But of course, she also was such a change bringer. If you think of Mrs. Thatcher's natural demeanour and reactions, she would be very socially conservative. I mean not ultra socially conservative. For example, she married a divorcee, which was quite unusual in 1951. But a fairly conventional Christian, starting as a Methodist and sort of sliding gradually into Anglicanism as she rises up the social scale without ever abandoning Methodism. Believing strongly in firm punishments for criminals. A very uncomplicated monarchist. No problem about hereditary peers in her mind, etcetera, etcetera. Very fond of obvious traditional British things like the armed services, support for the police, all that sort of thing. And things like traditional high standards in school of a rigorous kind. So on and so on, all those things. But in another way, she's so impatient to change things and unafraid of challenging whatever it is that people usually go around saying. So it's a curious combination and an interesting one. For me, I don't remember that presenting a particular fairness issue. It's just this funny thing about her, which is also biographically very interesting, that she's very, very conservative and very, very radical.Henry: Do you think the fact that you have religious belief. Do you think that had any part in the consideration to pick you as the biographer? I think you've said before, you don't really know why she chose you.Charles Moore: No, I wouldn't have thought that it did have any consideration. Mrs. Thatcher's religion was quite vague, and she wasn't interested at all in ecclesiastical or theological questions. But one of the things she respected in religion was some sort of seriousness about ultimate purpose. And she certainly had such a seriousness herself. And I remember talking to her about that. This is before I was engaged in the work, I think just in conversation. I had recently become a Catholic, and she talked about that. This is another interesting example of her, in some ways, rather open mind because she's fundamentally brought up anti-Catholic as most English Protestants were. And I don't think she would ever have considered becoming a Catholic. But I remember her being rather pleased that I had become a Catholic because she thought this is a proper serious Christian thing to do, and it was something she respected. She felt this about Jews too, obviously they weren't Christians. But again, she had a respect for Judaism and Judaic law and custom and manners and thought. And that was something which she recognised and liked in other people.Henry: Margaret Thatcher is sometimes thought of, or dismissively described, as un-philosophical. You said in your prefaces that she would confound Socrates with her lack of reflection on her own life. But in some ways she was quite an ideological person, at certain times, about freedom and things. Is the difference between being philosophical and ideological really so great? And was she really living if not a philosophically reflective life, a very philosophical life in what you've just been saying about seriousness and purpose? Is she more philosophical than she looks?Charles Moore: Yes. Good way to think about it, I think. Alfred Sherman, with whom she fell out but who was close to her in the '70s, said that “she is not a person of ideas but a person of beliefs.” And beliefs, he said, are better than ideas. I think he meant better from a political point of view, for politics. And I think that's sort of right. So there was a sense in which Mrs. Thatcher was philosophical, which was that her mind was an enquiring one. And she was always thinking, thinking, thinking. “What's right here? What's the best? What's the problem? What's the solution?” But she didn't have the philosopher's sceptical mind or pure intellectualism. She wanted results. And she wanted good things to happen and bad things to be stopped. And so she did have what you could call a philosophy, but she was not a philosopher. She was a person of action and beliefs.Henry: I heard an interview with you recently where you, I'm going to paraphrase, you said something like the limitation of left-wing political thought is that it has a utopian belief in politics. As in, if everybody only could have the right politics, everything would be okay. And you've written and talked about Margaret Thatcher trying to create a Christian Social Order in Britain. And that's really the drive she had. Is she, in that sense, a bit more of a "left-wing" political thinker, with a more utopian vision, than we would typically think of her as being?Charles Moore: There is an element of that because she is partly a preacher in politics. There's an element of, some sense in her mind of building Jerusalem or rebuilding Jerusalem, I think is there. And that tends to be more associated with socialism and, indeed with certain forms of Protestant Christianity going back, than with conservatism. So there is something of that. However, one of her beliefs, which was true — I mean, which she did adhere to — was that politics doesn't contain the solutions of everything, because people do not political structures. And she did believe that. Though of course, she also, because she was very egotistical, she did believe that something which she ran was bound to be good. So she could accommodate. People said she was very intolerant of other ideas. She was certainly very argumentative. But for example, she respected the Labour Party. She didn't respect the Liberal Party, but she respected the Labour Party because she thought that it represented something in Britain that ought to be represented and that conservatism didn't really represent, the way she put it was that it was the party of the underdog. And she thought there should be a party of the underdog.And her own approach to the problem of people who are less successful and poorer and things like that was to open up their opportunities. But I think within that was also a sort of acknowledgement that not everybody can take those opportunities. And for those people, it's important that there be a party that represents their interests. And she thought that Labour was the party to do that. So that shows a certain sense that, “I, Margaret Thatcher, don't have the answer to everything. I'm trying to do a particular set of things, and I believe I can do this right. But life is bigger than that, and politics is bigger than that.”Henry: On the question of her being argumentative, or however you want to phrase it, you have that great memo, I think from 1981, that someone in her office wrote to her...Charles Moore: Oh, John Hoskyns?Henry: Yeah, yeah. And saying everything that gets quoted about her. But actually, after that memo, she was in power for another nine years. Should we be quite cautious about this idea that she was single-minded, not consensus-minded, a rude person? Should we try and be revising that image of her and saying that actually that was a more narrow part of her leadership style than is thought?Charles Moore: Well, the famous Hoskyns memo was very powerful and contained criticisms which were true. But it's also a sort of protest because he was feeling that she wasn't listening to him. And also she had certain completely maddening qualities, if you were working with her every day, which he had to get off his chest. One of them was, the less sure she was about something and the more tired she was, the more rubbish she talked. And she could, in a tight corner, particularly before she'd made a decision, burble on a great deal and criticise others for a problem which really rested with her because she was psyching herself up to do something. And that happened a lot in certain economic decisions where she was worried about their unpopularity. She might argue with Geoffrey Howe or, later, Nigel Lawson about putting up interest rates, which she was almost always against. They were quite often in favour of it. And she used this tactically and psychologically, I think without realising it. And it could be a nightmare to live with, but leaders perhaps have to be a bit of a nightmare to live with some of the time.The other thing was that because she was so jealous of her position and felt so fragile in her position as the only woman and the leader that she sort of knew people would like to get rid of, she had to — she thought, at least, that the way to deal with this is to be extremely forceful and not to be seen to give in. An upper-class man would tend to think that the graceful and sensible thing to do would be to give in and say, as a tactical thing, to say, “I'm frightfully sorry. You're completely right. I've got this completely wrong.” And she never felt she could do that. She felt she had to maintain her argument, her position at almost all times. But it didn't mean that actually she paid no attention to the criticisms or that she never altered her views because she would always claim consistency, which might not, in fact, always be there. And that was, again, a sort of technique of hers. And so she was more consensual and more pragmatic than she would admit. Her colleagues often find that hard to understand because she didn't want them to understand it. She wanted them to think that she was iron and immutable and unchangeable and, as she would put it, staunch. And actually, there was a lot more subtlety, and a sort of listening, than she or they would acknowledge.For example, trade union reform. She was always complaining about Jim Prior going so slowly, but actually she did, herself, want to go slowly. She had a great impatience which made her want to get reforms in and bring about the changes, but she also knew that she mustn't make the mistake of Ted Heath of doing one great big law all at once. She must do it bit by bit. And so she was much more pragmatic in what she did when about trade union reform than she would say she was being.Henry: You found some new material about Thatcher, particularly from when she was a young woman to do with boyfriends and letters to her sister and things that inevitably gave a much broader view of her character than we were used to from the television and the news and so forth. How did that change your view of the way she operated politically?Charles Moore: I think it confirmed something which I sensed, but it brought it out much more clearly, which is what a cunning person she was. I didn't mean that in a nasty way. Her self-description was of somebody who just knew what's right and does it. But it wasn't like that. She did have a strong moral sense and she did have strong convictions, but she also had very strong ambitions and a sense of when to do something and when not to do something.So if you look at Margaret Roberts that she then was, wondering whom to marry, it's the female equivalent of what nineteenth century novels used to call the choice of life for a man, which is often depicted in 19th and 18th century novels. A young man goes out to the world. What does he want to do? Does he want be a soldier or a lawyer, or whatever it might be. And how is he going to shape his life? And she was thinking a lot about that. She wanted, in the case of marriage, she definitely wanted true love, she is a romantic person, but she also wanted security, financial security, and a sense of a man she could look up to, almost certainly older, or very unlikely that anyone she would marry will be her own age, I think would be fair to say. And her most serious boyfriend was twice her age and then Dennis was 11 plus years older than she.And you can see her particularly in the year 1951 when she has three serious boyfriends, one of whom was Dennis, weighing up. One's a farmer. Does she want to be married to a farmer? No. One is a distinguished doctor. Yes, but he is a lot of older than her. And then there's Dennis who had had a good war and had his own business, but on the other hand was divorced. And so she's thinking, wouldn't perhaps put it to herself like this, “How am I going to be an MP? Maybe even, how am I going to be a minister? Maybe, maybe, even how I'm I going to be Prime Minister.” Though I'm be much less sure about that, this is all very early on. But also, “How am I going to marry the right man and have children?” And these things are all going around and around in her head and influencing her decisions. “And how am I going to be able to support myself or be supported by a man. How will I have enough money?” Because she had no money from her family.And so you can see this very ardent person, but also a person who thinks very carefully before she does something, she loves the expression, the well known expression, “time spent in reconnaissance is never wasted,” and I think she was always making reconnaissance.Henry: The political scientist, Mark Garnett, has described Thatcher as banal. This is a quote from him, he says: “She was prepared to face down establishment institutions, if they opposed her. This defiance was not the product of a deep delayed plan: only interesting people engage in that style of thinking.” Is that a helpful way to think about Margaret Thatcher?Charles Moore: No, I think it's an unhelpful way to think about it, because what he's not acknowledging is that she's a politician. So the point about being a politician is not, do you have a brilliantly original mind? But what are you capable of doing? And she's extremely unusual in politicians for a sustained interest, sustained over a very, very long period in her case, in office, in the content of what she was doing. And therefore, she was thinking really hard about some questions. How do we end the Cold War? How do we beat trade union leaders? How to beat inflation? With a resourceful seriousness, which might not be intellectually original, but which was in a political sense, profound. To call it banal is mistaken, because actually nobody else was like that. There was simply nobody else in the first rank who was behaving and thinking that way. So it was original. It wasn't original in the sense that Plato's original, but in politics it was original.Henry: Tyler Cowen has talked about the advantage of having or displaying what he calls autistic cognitive traits, so the ability, and the absorbing interest, to absorb a lot of information to categorize it, to order it, and to do this much more so than other people, along obviously with some other things. Do you think Margaret Thatcher displays those sorts of traits and did they, as I think you are sort of suggesting here, give her a political advantage and an advantage as prime minister?Charles Moore: I wouldn't use the word autistic, and I know something about autistic behavior through my own family, my own wider family. I think it's probably not the right sort of categorisation, but I think Mrs. Thatcher had astonishing powers of application. And she did have the ability to, in order to apply herself to a subject, to shut out other ones, while she was applying herself. However, she was a vulnerable human being as well. And though she wasn't the best person at reading other people's emotions, she was, in many ways, sympathetic to people. I mean, she could be very unpleasant to people. But she was really fond of some people and grateful to them and solicitous in their difficulties and conscientious in how she ought to behave to them. She was odd in the way that all great people are odd. I don't mean all great people are odd in the same way, but all great people are odd in some way.But I don't think her mentality was quite as you described there. And I think she couldn't have survived in politics if it were because one of the things you have to do in politics is you have to have intuition about what other people are thinking. She constantly attended to what she thought voters were thinking, what was the public reaction to something or other. She wasn't obsessed with the media to anything like the degree that politicians are now, but she knew how to sniff the wind. And though she could be very brutal with colleagues, I think she did actually have powers of diplomacy which were put to very good use on the world stage, if you think of her relation with Reagan or with Gorbachev for example.Henry: How much of what we call Thatcherism was actually Lawsonism?Charles Moore: Perhaps they started out more or less together and diverged. And there was a lot in common. Before things went wrong, there was a strong alliance about that. But I think Lawsonism — I wouldn't call it an ism actually — but I think Lawson's views about things were generally more economically based, as you might expect. There was less politics and more economics in it. And he was more thoroughly liberal in economics than she. Whereas she tended to see economics as the instrument. She did believe in free market economics, but she saw them more as the instrument of something wider. Whereas he was more interested in them in themselves, I think.Then there's a second point, of course, which takes us on to rather different territory that Lawson, like Thatcher — because, again, a big ego — suffered from feeling that if he was doing something himself, it was bound to be good. I think all important politicians tend to fall into this category. So it was sort of self-evident to him that if he was Chancellor of the Exchequer it must be better than anybody else being Chancellor of the Exchequer. And this led him, after several successes, to a great mistake which was the whole attempt to get into the ERM and the shadowing of the Deutsche Mark in relation to that. Because it became a sort of totem about how you could manage Sterling, and it became a piece of alchemy or magic or a sort of hieratic thing, which only people of great brilliance could operate. And she, I think, had a wider view, a more common sense view about economic questions and how they weren't really like that. They didn't really depend on such calculations but on things that are, in a certain sense, simpler. Lawson was much the superior economic brain to hers, but I think he was more defective politically and didn't understand. I think there's a reason why he couldn't ever have been Conservative Party leader, though he was a very distinguished Chancellor of the Exchequer.Henry: Who are the most underrated Cabinet ministers from Margaret Thatcher's governments?Charles Moore: Well things went wrong for Geoffrey Howe. It's perhaps forgotten that he was a very good Chancellor of the Exchequer. In some ways he was a very good Foreign Secretary, but he was perhaps too indecisive and too sort of official minded. Howe was also very important in Thatcherism, though he didn't really like Mrs. Thatcher much. Richard Ryder described him as the tapestry master of Thatcherism. I think it's a very good phrase. Howe actually preceded her in his interest in free market economics, even in the '50s, ‘60s and ‘70s. She was interested, but he got there first very often. I think he was very important to her, in the early days, and of course, it was pretty disastrous when they finally fell out. And he was definitely a really high-class servant of the state.I think Nicholas Ridley was so bad in public presentation and politics in that general sense that people didn't realise what a competent Minister he was and what a good brain he had. I think he was temperamentally very unsuited to modern politics in some ways, but of all the ministers in her government I always found he was one most respected by officials interestingly. He was decisive, he would take responsibility, he wouldn't duck problems, he would think through things, he was a bit wild on the political aspects, but he was more impressive than people realised.And then Norman Tebbit is an interesting one because of course, he suffered great difficulties because of the terrible injuries he suffered, he and his wife suffered in the Brighton bomb. So he may not have been such a good minister of a big department, but he did have the most formidable brain and the most tremendous capacity to express something very clearly and often amusingly. And so he sort of cut through both the people who agreed with him and people who disagreed with him. It was a very striking phenomenon, Norman Tebbit, and highly unusual in somebody who in formal terms was a middle to higher ranking rather than top ranking cabinet minister in terms of jobs. You never knew who he was and you had to watch out for him and his fierceness in debate his sort of rather spare eloquence, his toughness. All that was formidable.Henry: We live at a time when so many of the essential moments in Thatcher's political career can be watched on YouTube, and we can hear radio clips, and we can see her letters online, and it's possible to imagine a sort of biographical Museum of Margaret Thatcher where you can be sort of immersed in her and in her world. What sort of challenge does that present to a biographer? There's a sort of inevitable limitation in that Disraeli only exists on paper, but Margaret Thatcher exists in all these mediums. But you as a biographer only have paper.Charles Moore: Yes, well of course I didn't only have paper in a sense that I only have paper on which to express it, but I could myself watch the clips, and indeed I saw them live frequently, because I was around at the time. I think it's very, very interesting and instructive to watch clips of Mrs. Thatcher and I'm always urging people instead of sort of theorizing about it to in television programs to show those clips because she had a tremendous gift of communication, even though sometimes the communication didn't please the recipients. She very, very clear and, in that sense, extremely good at getting a message across and that survives very well in the clip. So you can see her intent often much more clearly and strikingly than that of modern politicians and the sheer sort of emotional force she put into everything.For example, you watch when she's answering questions on the day she resigned in November 1990, answering questions in the house and then doing the no-confidence debate. It's absolutely astonishing. Particularly in the questions. When if you keep bearing in mind that she has just resigned. So she's still Prime Minister, but she's tendered her resignation that day, and there she is, not a hair out of place, incredibly tough argument, really rather witty. And as she said at one point in the debate, “I'm enjoying this.” And sort of playing it for all it's worth and engaging with people from the other side. There's a sort of almost banter she has about the nature of the gap between the rich and the poor, I think it's with Jim Sillars, the Scottish Labour MP. And a bit of a ding-dong with Simon Hughes, the Liberal MP. And it's a very good theatre, and it brings home a lot of us. I think those clips are vivid.And thank goodness for television interviews and news clips, because the House of Commons was not televised until 1989. So she'd been Prime Minister. It was on the radio all through her prime ministership, and not on the television. So we haven't got most of that on television. But we can see other things like Brian Walden interviews or news clips and so on. And they are really, really worth studying.And you're right that, obviously, I can't convey that fully in a book. I can describe it, I can quote from it, but I hope that what would happen is when people read the book, they can get more out of the clips, and when they look at the clips, they can get more out of the book.Henry: One or two general questions to close with. Who should write Tony Blair's biography?Charles Moore: I don't know who should write Tony Blair's biography, at all. And I'm certainly not volunteering myself. But I think, again, the question of fairness is important, because Blair suffered from a thing where he received absurd adulation and then absurd vilification. And, actually, the judgment on him, the historical judgment on him, should be much more nuanced and requires some detachment. And speaking only for myself, I must have written, as a journalist, thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of words criticising Mr. Blair and his policies. But I think he deserves to be taken seriously as a political leader and was important, and that his fundamental message about New Labour was actually true. He's often described as a liar, but I think his fundamental message about what he was and what he was trying to do was true, and people appreciated it. And it's also true, unfortunately, that a lot of his actions were rather ill-thought-out and didn't come to much, so that's a slightly tragic element in his time. But he deserves much more serious attention than the great majority of British prime ministers.Henry: What are the most underrated political biographies?Charles Moore: I think there are quite a lot that are overrated, but it would be invidious to say which. What I most value, but this is probably somebody who's in the trade talking rather than the general reader, but what I'm looking for, I want to feel very confident that the author is fair-minded, and it also has a sort of feel for what it is he's writing about. So that he is not somehow off the point or out of his depth, or, as it were, wasn't there. I didn't mean that a biographer has to have been present when these things happen, but I mean he doesn't have a feel for how, let's say, the House of Commons really works or something like that. I like, in that sense, the biographers that are a professional. I think that man D. R. Thorpe is good, for example. I'm afraid I don't have a biography of a modern politician (and by modern I'm going back quite a long way) to hold up and say, “This is it. This is how it should be done.” But this may well be my fault. I've read by no means all of them.Henry: Charles Moore, thank you very much for your time.Charles Moore: Thank you.Don't forget!My salon, on 1st March, TONIGHT, is Samuel Johnson: Reading for Wisdom where we will discuss pessimism, pragmatism, and the good life. The attendee list has some interesting Johnson enthusiasts — join them!My am giving a tour of the City of London tracing the route of the Great Fire and the genius of Christopher Wren on Saturday 5th March. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.commonreader.co.uk

The oil shocks of 1973 and 1979 led to international disruption and a crisis in the post-war order. Domestically, weaker productivity growth, the squeeze on profits, and de-industrialisation led to conflict between capital and labour. Public finances came under strain and led to major changes associated with Thatcher and Reagan. The result was an intellectual revolution: a shift to neo-liberalism with a stress on individualism and incentives rather than collectivism and equality, and greater power for finance. ‘Hyper-globalisation' now prioritised international over domestic concerns.A lecture by Martin DauntonThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/oil-shockGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.ukTwitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollegeFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollegeInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

Sign up to our newsletter for more in-depth insights | Follow us on LinkedIn   Gavyn Davies has more on his CV than most can imagine. In his varied career, he's been advisor to the Labour government of Jim Callaghan, the Chief Economist at Goldman Sachs, Chair of the BBC, founder of Active Private Equity, and now Chairman of Fulcrum Asset Management. He's also an active writer for the FT and Guardian. Gavyn starts by describing his early work as an economic advisor to the Labour governments of 1974-79, the inflation challenges they faced, and remedies implemented. He describes the emergence of Goldman Sachs on the international stage, the evolution of macro thinking, and serving as one of the “wise men” for two UK Chancellors. He then describes the challenge and opportunity for the BBC, the subsequent decision to launch Fulcrum Asset Management and their more defensive approach to managing capital. In particular, he discusses the rationale for allocating to hedge funds - and other assets - but why lower returns should be expected. Gavyn then compares the inflationary headwinds of the 1970/80s with today, why the Fed's response is needed and should be taken seriously, fiscal policy and the withdrawal of the turbo-charged COVID responses, and which currencies he prefers. He goes on to discuss the challenges of excessive flows into the world of private equity, the attributes he looks for in allocating capital to venture PE and then in a series of rapid fire questions, he reveals his views on golf, the next PM, education, and why he loves to come to work on the London buses.

In this episode taken from our archive, David Baddiel talks to Dan about the Second World War, Trump's Mussolini-isms, and why Jim Callaghan makes comedy difficult. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode taken from our archive, David Baddiel talks to Dan about the Second World War, Trump's Mussolini-isms, and why Jim Callaghan makes comedy difficult. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Baron Callaghan of Cardiff, KG, PC, often known as Jim Callaghan, was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1976 to 1980. Iain discusses his impact with political analyst Lewis Baston.

It is my huge pleasure this week to interview Professor Karen Cox, Vice Chancellor of the University of Kent. Karen was born in Pudsey, West Yorkshire, and grew up in the Yorkshire Dales before going to university in London to study Nursing. She talks about her parents’ background, both of whom left school at 16 and were married at 18. Her father experienced redundancy and was involved in Trades Union activity. We discuss some of the generational differences in terms of career opportunities and how it wasn’t until Karen did her ‘A’ levels that university became an option. She talks about how she didn’t really know anyone who had even been to university and how she is fortunate that she has been able to do the things she did, but that sometimes they are shaped by serendipity. Karen has very strong early memories of Christmases including playing with boxes, and we learn that as a child she enjoyed ballet, wanting to be Margot Fonteyn, and tap dancing. She also played the trombone and loved horse riding. Musically, Karen used to love listening to and recording the charts on a Sunday, and we learn what the first record was that she ever bought. We then discover how she ended up pursuing a career in Nursing and who especially inspired her at university (specifically, her ‘nursing hero’) and we learn about the wider student society interests around nursing and medicine that she pursued. Karen talks about how at university the combination of theoretical, practical and pastoral-based elements made for an excellent experiential learning opportunity. The conversation then turns to how today’s politics is much more eclectic than it was when Karen was growing up in the 1970s, and we learn what her reaction was when she heard that Jim Callaghan had been defeated by Margaret Thatcher in the 1979 General Election. Karen also shares her radio passions as we learn which station she prefers to listen to and who her favourite presenter is, and why she considers radio to be ‘a security blanket’. In the final part of the interview Karen explains why she is more of an optimistic person and why her memories are predominantly positive ones. We also learn what she dreamed of doing career-wise when she was young, and how she still has dreams and takes comfort from thinking about what might be around the corner. Finally, we learn why Karen has been more in touch with old friends in the last 18 months than ever before and whether she is a looking back or a looking forward type of person. Please note: Opinions expressed are solely those of Chris Deacy and Karen Cox and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of Kent.

1978-79 was a season like no other, marking the end of an era and transition to a different world in more ways than one.  Jock Stein had managed Celtic for the final time and his European Cup winning captain was to take over the reigns.  The Rangers team which had been succesful in the post 9 in a row years were ageing and two clubs from the North East were starting to show how they would come briefly challenge the perceived order of Scottish Football.   Off the field season 1978-79 started with a song from the film of the summer at number 1 You're The One That I Want from Grease was there for 9 weeks, with 3 Times a Lady replacing it and in politics too we saw major transition.   The Labour goverment had lost its majority in parliament and despite being ahead in the polls, Jim Callaghan saw no need to call an election.  Over the course of the season we would see that lead of the old order be lost, the winter of discontent and the season ended with a woman prime minister.  Changing days indeed.   With all of this going on Celtic came from mid table oblivion to a final game showdown to face Rangers.  Only a victory would allow the Celts to secure another title and in 58 minutes at 1-0 down Johnny Doyle was sent off.  Things did not look good but the players rallied around and TEN MEN WON THE LEAGUE.   Stephen Murray has written a book about that almost mythical season and this podcast finds out more.   Listen to the end to find out how you could win asigned copy.  If you can't win one, buy one:   http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ten-Men-Won-The-League/dp/1503109747

Dr Lawrence Goldman, editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, introduces and chairs the seminar to commemorate the centenary of Jim Callaghan's birth.

British politician, businessman and author Baron Donoughue of Ashton speaks about his view as special advisor to Jim Callaghan.

Historian and author Lord Morgan speaks about the Jim Callaghan papers deposited in the Bodleian.

British politician Lord Owen talks about his experiences of Jim Callaghan.

The daughter of Jim Callaghan, Margaret Jay, gives the closing speech for the event.

Jim Callaghan's son Michael gives a talk about his memories of his fathers political life.

Member of Parliament for Oxford East, Andrew Smith gives his view of Jim Callaghan.

Dr. David Butler brings his legendary Friday evening Media and Politics seminar to a final conclusion by answering questions instead of asking them. Dr Butler's well-worn armchair was occupied by John Lloyd (of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism), who assumed the role of the questioner, together with Baroness Margaret Jay, a former student of Dr Butler. Also for the first time in 53 years, the Chatham House Rule did not apply. The last seminar of David Butler was, uniquely, on-the-record. Bringing together journalists and politicians in an Oxford common room was the revolutionary invention of the young don in 1957. Butler introduced the off-the-record rule for the seminars so that the civil service mandarins, leading politicians and journalists could speak freely and share their real life experiences and anecdotes with the audience. This created an extraordinarily intimate ambience in the seminar room. Butler never asked the guest to prepare a talk, as he "only wanted their genius". Among the guests of the seminar series have featured such towering figures of both British public life and media as Tony Benn, Baroness Shirley Williams, David Dimbleby, Alan Rusbridger, and the director-general of the BBC, Mark Thompson - and the names listed here are only some of the guests of the 85-year old Butler's last academic year. In the previous 52 years the seminar has played host to the former Prime Ministers, Harold Wilson, Jim Callaghan, Edward Heath, John Major and Tony Blair As a young don in his twenties, Butler was twice summoned by Winston Churchill. Sir Winston, having forgotten why he had invited Butler, gave his whole 'Blood, Sweat and Tears' speech over dinner. On his second visit, Butler found himself explaining the arithmetic of the upcoming election by using apples and tangerines. Meeting Churchill, whom he had greatly admired, prepared Butler for interacting with all the famous guests of his seminars. "I could not be in awe of anyone's presence since", Butler said on Friday 4th of June. Butler is one of Britain's first and still most renowned psephologists (study and statistical analysis of elections). British television audiences have come to know him as the astute commentator of the BBC's election night programmes from the early 1950's until the year 1979. He is well known for launching the concept of swing in elections and for co-inventing the swingometer, first used on screen in 1959. Butler was involved in authoring or co-authoring every edition of the Nuffield studies on British elections from 1945 to 2005. David Butler's eternal interest in the elections is not only about quantifying. He said that he was sorry to see the "human nature, the analysis and the journalistic side" of politics and voting being drowned by sheer mathematics. Butler found Britain's last general election as the most exciting ever. About his own voting behaviour he said: "I did not vote in the 1950's, but since then I have consistently voted for all parties."

It's the loneliest decision of all, they say, when to go for a general election. Turn the clock back thirty years and it was the big question facing the then Prime Minister Jim Callaghan. With industrial strife gripping the country, a slew of manufacturers on their knees asking Government for help, and a dangerous situation brewing in Rhodesia, it was a testing time for Labour. The secret government files from 1978 have been transferred to the National Archives in Kew, West London and opened to the public. UK CONFIDENTIAL is granted advance access and the team have been sifting through the files, full of phone transcripts, secret minutes and hand written notes. Joining Martha Kearney is Roy Hattersley (the then Labour secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection), David Owen (the then Foreign Secretary), Tom McNally who was Senior Adviser to Jim Callaghan, Leon Brittan (the then Conservative front-bencher) and Matthew Parris who was working in Margaret Thatcher's Research Unit. A Whistledown Production for BBC Radio 4, in association with Takeaway Media. Producer: Emily Williams.

Sue Lawley's guest this week is Peter Melchett. The executive director of Greenpeace, he has recently hit the headlines for his active opposition to genetically modified crops. Once a pillar of the establishment, Lord Melchett was a rising politician in Jim Callaghan's Labour government before he became interested in green issues. He did though shock his colleagues in the Northern Ireland office, when he admitted listening to the pop group The Boomtown Rats.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Special Live Recording of 'PEACE' by Eurythmics Book: Field guide to his imaginary Island Luxury: Snorkel and mask