Little Britain Andrew Marr's The Making of Modern Britain


Little Britain

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Swinbrook House, in Oxfordshire,

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1932.

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Two girls are glaring at each other across a room.

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It's been divided straight down the middle,

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fascist images on one side of the line,

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communist propaganda on the other.

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On the red side is a feisty 15 year old called Jessica Mitford.

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On the fascist side, her 18-year-old sister, Unity Mitford.

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After the fighting, the two Mitford sisters would snuggle up together

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and discuss how they'd feel if one of them were ever ordered

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to execute the other.

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Unity would later tell her sister how she dreamed of meeting Hitler.

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Jessica said that she was going to run away and become a communist.

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And you know what?

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Unity really did become a close, personal friend of Adolf Hitler,

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endlessly sitting at his feet while the Fuhrer stroked her hair.

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And Jessica really did elope with Winston Churchill's leftie nephew

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to the Spanish Civil War, later becoming a communist herself.

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The antics of the Mitfords transfixed Britain in the '30s,

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and have done ever since.

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They became the pin-up girls for the political madness of those years.

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In the real world, 99% of the British were much duller.

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Thank the Lord!

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For me, more than anything else, the 1930s is symbolised by hats.

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Podgy politicians in trilby hats, incompetent financiers in top hats,

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hard-faced manufacturers in bowler hats,

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and endless streams of the unemployed, their flat caps pulled down tight.

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Britain's new Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald was, hat-wise,

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a man for all seasons - top hat, homburg, bowler.

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Bad sign.

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And yet MacDonald was a remarkable man,

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a long-haired youthful agitator who'd helped to found the Labour Party,

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and who, in 1924, became its first Prime Minister, for just nine months.

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In June 1929, he was elected again.

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I can assure you that my idea is going to be

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to give this country a status in the world

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based upon the righteousness of its actions.

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When the victorious Ramsay MacDonald arrived here

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at London's King's Cross station,

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he was greeted by 12,000 people cheering wildly.

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As he got out of the train, they tried to lift him on their shoulders.

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One of the journalists wrote that,

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"In the slums of the manufacturing towns and the hovels of the countryside,

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"Ramsay MacDonald has become a legendary being,

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"the personification of all that thousands of downtrodden men and women

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"hope and dream and desire."

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But if we remember '30s Britain for one thing, it's for unemployment.

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And soon after MacDonald took office,

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his hopes for a better future were shattered.

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The stock market crashed,

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bringing the worst financial collapse the world had, up to that point, ever seen.

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By December 1930, unemployment in Britain had reached 2.5 million.

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In some areas, nearly everyone was out of work.

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The areas worst affected were in the north of England, Scotland and Wales,

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where millions of unemployed people eked out their lives on meagre benefits.

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And this was unemployment which left families really hungry,

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living in under-heated, almost bare houses,

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and always with the cosh of the means test waiting for anyone

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who showed the slightest sign of existing just a little above the breadline.

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Neighbours would rat on neighbours,

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and government inspectors quite literally looked inside people's cooking pots

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to check that they weren't eating the better cuts of meat.

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A young Lancashire man, Walter Greenwood,

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was living just this kind of life in a slum called Hanky Park in Salford.

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Walter Greenwood started work in a pawnbroker's when he was just 13.

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He never earned more than £2 a week, barely enough to pay the rent.

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When he was made redundant, he spent nine months

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burning up inside with fury at the poverty of his home town.

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And then, he began to write a novel.

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He said he wanted "to show the tragedy of a lost generation

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"who had been denied the natural hopes and desires of youth".

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Morning, Dad, morning, Mum.

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More like afternoon to me.

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Oh, give over, Dad.

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The best-selling novel was a morality tale following the Hardcastle family

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as they are torn apart by unemployment.

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God, just give me a job.

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I don't care if it's only half pay.

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Their daughter, Sally, played by Deborah Kerr in the 1941 film,

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is eventually forced into prostitution.

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So you'd go on the loose, would you,

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and make respectable folks like me and your mother the talk of the neighbourhood?

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It's sick I am of codging old clothes to try and make them look summat like.

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And it's sick I am of working week after week and seeing nowt for it.

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And it's sick I am of never having nowt but what's been in t'pawnshop

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and crawling with dirt and vermin.

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I'm sick of the sight of Hanky Park, aye, and everybody in it.

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You brazen slut! Keep your lying tongue off your mother, do you hear?

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The gritty dialogue and realism were totally new to most of its readers.

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One reviewer said it was "a terrible indictment of modern civilisation...

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"capitalism is utterly condemned".

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DOOR BANGS

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BAGPIPES PLAY

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MacDonald, that's the view to across the...

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Yet Britain's first socialist Prime Minister

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seemed to be living in another world.

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The only thing we have found to do here thus far, Mr MacDonald,

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is to walk over the moors and to get a little trout fishing.

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Perhaps I can lure you into taking a little of that

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sometime while you are here.

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Yes.

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MacDonald seemed hopelessly out of touch already with ordinary people,

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and he had no obvious solution to what he called the "economic blizzard".

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At the Labour Party Conference at Llandudno in 1930,

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MacDonald suggested that the best solution for the unemployed

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was to return to the land, "where they could till and grow, sow and harvest".

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Well, it's an idea, I suppose.

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But a rather more modern solution

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was coming from another member of the Labour Party.

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Enter, stage left, 1930's very own pantomime villain.

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We live in a period in which politicians are not very popular.

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And believe me, you have my sympathy.

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Oswald Mosley started as a Tory war hero,

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before discovering socialism and joining Labour.

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In his spare time, he liked to move among the rich and beautiful,

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trying it on with almost every female he met.

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Mosley was a flashy, dashing cad.

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But he confined his mistresses to the upper classes.

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His personal motto - "Vote Labour, sleep Tory".

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But when he finally settled down with the aristocratic heiress Cimmie Curzon,

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he promised an end to this vigorous hobby.

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He drew a line under it all and confessed to all his previous conquests.

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Well, not quite all.

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He conveniently forgot to mention his affairs

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with both his wife's sister and her stepmother.

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But Mosley took his politics seriously.

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Influenced by Mussolini's social-Fascist experiment in Italy,

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he came up with one idea after another to solve the problem of unemployment.

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We have resources, of craftsmanship, of skill, second to none in the world.

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But those resources must be mobilised

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for a great effort of a united nation.

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Mosley wrote up his plans for large-scale borrowing

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and ambitious public works schemes. It was called the Mosley Memorandum.

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But standing in his way was the Chancellor, Philip Snowden,

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a cold little man who blocked every radical policy to create jobs.

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"Wildcat finance",

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Snowden called Mosley's plans.

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MacDonald was a bit more sympathetic, but he flapped and dithered.

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Every time Mosley produced a detailed proposal,

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he was brutally slapped down until eventually he resigned.

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"I didn't come into politics to change the Labour Party," he said later,

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"but to change the country."

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Thank you. Goodbye.

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Very soon the streets of Britain are swamped with lines of marching men

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in search of work, on hunger marches, or promoting a new Big Idea.

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Among them are the most disciplined, impressive marchers of them all...

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Yes, it's the Green Shirts.

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The who? The what?

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The green-clad shock troops of the people's fighting front,

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as the Green Shirts came to be known,

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believed in a fairer society, the joys of outdoor living,

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but above all, the overthrow of the banking system.

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The Green Shirts were founded by a charismatic former Scout leader

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called John Hargrave, also known as White Fox.

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Hargrave's movement had begun in the 1920s

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as a non-political organisation called the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift.

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They were dedicated to the joys of camping, handicrafts, world peace...

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and silly dancing.

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There was a lot of silly dancing in the '20s,

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but the mood of the '30s was darker.

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Hargrave was converted to a new economic theory called Social Credit,

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which seemed a middle way between capitalism and communism.

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Working or not, young, old, sick,

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everybody would get directly their share of the national dividend.

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Why? Because the credit of a community belongs to the community.

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Very straightforward.

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And as a country grew richer through technical advance,

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everybody would have to work far less.

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Result - a leisure society.

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Now, what's wrong with that?

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Alongside the camping, the Green Shirt Movement

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now came up with new political slogans and propaganda.

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Kibbo Kift dancing was out, marching was in.

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The Green Shirts became more and more militant.

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A young, unemployed man called Michael Murphy

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threw a green brick into the windows of Number 11 Downing Street.

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On it were two slogans - "Issue the National Dividend!"

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and "Power to the Green Shirts!"

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Social Credit had gone guerrilla, and the evolution of the Green Shirts

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from the mildly batty but entirely gentle Kibbo Kift

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to paramilitary street fighters

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is about as good a parable of the age as you're likely to get.

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By the summer of 1931, Government spending seemed out of control.

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The Treasury demanded a £67 million reduction in payments to the unemployed,

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which is the equivalent of £3.4 billion today.

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Could a Labour Government slash spending?

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And if not, would the Conservatives come in and do it instead?

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Very reluctantly, Ramsay MacDonald recommended the cuts to his Cabinet.

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REPORTER: What's going on behind these famous doors?

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The whole country and the rest of the world is watching

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to see how Great Britain is going to put its financial affairs in order.

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But the Cabinet was split. Many refused to agree.

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MacDonald's authority over his party had collapsed,

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and he felt he had no alternative but to offer his resignation to the King.

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But even before MacDonald had delivered his letter,

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the King announced that he trusted there was no question of him leaving office.

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MacDonald was the only man to lead the country through the crisis.

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Instead, MacDonald should form a National Government,

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including Conservatives and Liberals.

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Now, MacDonald knew that if he did this he'd be scuppered - in his own words,

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becoming "a ridiculous figure, unable to command support

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"and bring odium not only upon his party but himself".

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Yet, flattered by the King - at this moment of crisis,

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that little bit of magic royal oil - MacDonald agreed.

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For the national coalition to go ahead,

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MacDonald brought down his own Labour Government and Parliament was dissolved.

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On 28th September, he was expelled from the party he'd helped to create.

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Among Labour people to this day,

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Ramsay MacDonald is bitterly remembered as a traitor.

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But in the general election that followed, MacDonald was rewarded

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with one of the largest mandates ever won by a British Prime Minister.

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But with Tories Neville Chamberlain as Chancellor

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and Stanley Baldwin as the effective Deputy Leader,

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MacDonald now found himself at the beck and call of the Conservatives.

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CHEERING

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SLURRING: Conservatives win. Hooray for Ramsay Baldwin!

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One of Ramsay MacDonald's first challenges as the leader of the National Government

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was to paper over the cracks in the British Empire.

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REPORTER: Here he is at last, the mystery man of India, Mr Gandhi,

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dressed in just his loincloth, even in the chilly climes of Europe.

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He's carrying with him his pots and pans, which he declared at Customs.

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On September 12th 1931, Gandhi came to Britain to discuss the future of India.

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In the early '30s he'd begun a campaign

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of non-violent protest against British rule.

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The British Government reacted by arresting some 100,000 Indians,

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including Gandhi himself.

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The Empire was becoming a worldwide laughing stock.

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Here in Britain, Winston Churchill was infuriated by Gandhi's cheek

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and resigned in protest from the Government.

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Churchill saw the irritating little man in a loincloth

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as the beginning of the end for the British Empire.

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And nothing he said has worn quite as badly as his description of Gandhi

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as "a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, posing as a half-naked fakir".

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He said he'd like to see Gandhi bound, laid in the dust outside Delhi,

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and trampled upon by the Viceroy, riding an elephant.

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But now, to Churchill's horror,

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here he was having round-table talks with the British Government.

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While the talks were going on, Gandhi toured the country,

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visiting unemployed mill workers in Lancashire.

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MAN: Oh, he looks a likely lad.

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On November 5th, Gandhi was invited to tea with King George V at Buckingham Palace.

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The King was most unhappy.

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"I tell you what it is, Mr Gandhi," the King blurted out.

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"I am not having any of your damned interference in my Empire."

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Gandhi replied very calmly,

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"I must not be drawn into a political discussion with Your Majesty

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"while I am receiving Your Majesty's hospitality."

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As he was leaving the palace, he was asked by journalists

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if he really felt properly dressed for the occasion.

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"It was fine," said Gandhi.

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"The King was wearing enough for both of us."

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Gandhi left Britain, as eventually his country would too.

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Elsewhere, new empires were rising.

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Meine deutschen Arbeiter, das deutsche Volk hat nur einen Wunsch...

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In 1933, Adolf Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany.

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He immediately began a massive expansion of the country's industrial production.

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In Italy, Benito Mussolini, or Il Duce, was planning the invasion of Abyssinia.

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MUSIC: "Rule, Britannia!" by Thomas Arne

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In Britain, we had a different sense of national destiny.

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Let's look the other way, vote for dull politicians and keep our fingers crossed.

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And after all, there were other distractions.

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# I've tasted their waffles and corn on the cob

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# But give me some hotpot... #

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Oi! Are you dreamin'? Come on!

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None bigger, none louder,

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than Britain's very own superstar of the talkies, Gracie Fields.

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This was a great age of film, and Gracie was, by far,

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the most popular entertainer in Britain.

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Even her director, Basil Dean, seemed puzzled by her success -

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what he called her "almost freakish drawing-power".

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"Gracie's personality literally bounces off the screen," he wrote.

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Queen Mary wondered how it was possible that she sang so beautifully,

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while at the same time making "those rough noises".

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# I'm walking in the shade Sticking out my chest

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# Hoping for the best Looking on the bright side of life... #

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Our Gracie was born Gracie Stansfield

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in 1898 above a chip shop in Rochdale, Lancashire.

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She escaped the cotton mills with a career in music hall,

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and by the time she was 25, she was a household name.

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In 1934, she appeared in the box office hit Sing As We Go,

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the story of a mouthy mill worker called Gracie Platt.

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Well, Grace, this lot's knocked the song and dance out of you.

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Oh, no, it hasn't, long face.

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Come on, lads and lasses, let's leave the mill in good style.

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Sing as we go!

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# Sing as we go and let the world go by

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# Singing a song we march along the highway

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# A song and a smile make it right worthwhile

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# So sing...as we go along. #

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When she hears she's going to lose her job in the Depression,

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Gracie takes it on the chin.

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"If we can't spin, we can still sing," she insists as she warbles her way

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out of the factory gates and off into an uncertain future.

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She gets on her bike and ends up here in Blackpool...

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..where she tries various jobs. She's a waitress...

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Hold on, you haven't said, "How do you do?" to me yet.

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..a spiritualist...

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Your astral form is very visible to me. It's bright red.

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I feel the radiation coming through to me at once.

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..and a vendor of Krunchy-Wunchy Toffee here on the seafront.

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Threepence or sixpence a packet, Krunchy-Wunchy Toffee.

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CHEERING

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After a series of adventures,

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Gracie returns triumphantly to the reopened factory.

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# Sing as we go along

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# Sing as we go and watch the world go by... #

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Fairytale or not, this is probably the worst film I have ever seen.

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But in the 1930s, Britain lapped it up.

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One critic at the time wrote,

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"In the cinema there is too much sex appeal.

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"But the performance of Gracie Fields brings a breath of fresh air.

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"This helps keep the right spirit of England together -

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"clean living and a total absence of anything unnatural."

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Except, of course, the unnatural appeal of Gracie Fields herself.

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In history, not everything can be explained.

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BOOING

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Boo!

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The worldwide fascist movement has made a new advance in Germany.

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They have reached power

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after polling over 17 million votes in a general election.

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And we believe that Britain will be the next country to give fascism a chance.

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In 1932, Oswald Mosley was ready for his next costume change.

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He launched the British Union of Fascists.

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CHEERING

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Fundraising for his new party, Mosley approached the businessman Israel Sieff

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who'd later run Marks & Spencer's.

0:27:280:27:31

Sieff obligingly organised a dinner for a dozen business leaders.

0:27:310:27:36

In what must be one of the most cack-handed attempts

0:27:360:27:40

at political fundraising in British history,

0:27:400:27:43

Mosley told Israel Sieff and the assembled gathering that,

0:27:430:27:46

"A political party must capitalise on emotion and have a hate plank.

0:27:460:27:52

"And today," he said, "the best hate plank is the Jews."

0:27:520:27:56

Realising that this might be just a little tactless, Mosley hastily added,

0:27:560:28:02

"Of course, this doesn't apply to Jews like you, Israel."

0:28:020:28:06

Sieff said nothing,

0:28:060:28:09

but rang his bell to alert the butler that Mosley would be leaving.

0:28:090:28:15

"But I haven't finished my brandy yet," spluttered Moseley.

0:28:150:28:19

"Charles, Sir Oswald is leaving."

0:28:190:28:23

And Mosley struggled.

0:28:270:28:29

While fascists overseas were holding vast military rallies

0:28:290:28:33

and making plans to invade other countries,

0:28:330:28:35

the British Blackshirts spent quite a lot of time frolicking at the seaside.

0:28:350:28:40

In organised camps they could learn about party principles, practise boxing,

0:28:440:28:48

relax in the sun or take a bracing dip.

0:28:480:28:51

Fascism-on-Sea.

0:28:510:28:53

As ever, Mosley was busy flirting, but not with women this time.

0:28:580:29:03

Nope - newspaper tycoons instead.

0:29:030:29:05

Lord Rothermere was a particular enthusiast,

0:29:100:29:13

and soon his newspaper, the Daily Mail,

0:29:130:29:15

was encouraging its readers to join the Blackshirts.

0:29:150:29:18

It ran pound-a-week prizes for the best letter on Why I Like The Blackshirts.

0:29:180:29:25

It ran beauty contests for Blackshirt women,

0:29:250:29:29

and in January 1934 it abandoned all pretence of neutrality

0:29:290:29:34

and ran the foamingly pro-Mosley headline, "Hurrah for the Blackshirts!"

0:29:340:29:41

Only a small splash for the Blackshirts...

0:29:510:29:54

..while at Westminster, politics as usual chugged on.

0:29:560:30:00

Ramsay MacDonald retired and Stanley Baldwin took over.

0:30:000:30:04

A placid-looking fellow, he didn't make waves, either.

0:30:060:30:11

Baldwin was always a strangely anonymous figure.

0:30:170:30:21

Once he was travelling on the train

0:30:210:30:24

and noticed that a fellow passenger was staring at him.

0:30:240:30:29

After a while, the man leaned forward and tapped him on the knee.

0:30:290:30:34

"You're Baldwin," he said.

0:30:340:30:37

"Harrow, '84."

0:30:370:30:39

And Baldwin nodded in agreement and his former school fellow seemed satisfied.

0:30:390:30:45

Then a few moments later he leaned forward and tapped the Prime Minister again.

0:30:470:30:52

"So," he said, "tell me,

0:30:520:30:55

"what are you doing now?"

0:30:550:30:58

Baldwin might have been bland, but he did make a lot of promises.

0:31:020:31:06

One was to take thousands off the dole queues by building houses across Britain.

0:31:060:31:11

On the Continent, the '30s building boom

0:31:160:31:20

had produced white, boxy, sharp-edged houses with flat roofs

0:31:200:31:25

inspired by modernist architects with an eye on the future.

0:31:250:31:28

We had a few here, but most Britons were having none of that.

0:31:310:31:35

Instead we got mock-Tudor and mock-Elizabethan homes

0:31:350:31:39

that gave the impression of unshakeable stability.

0:31:390:31:42

Homes for commuters spread out along the Metropolitan Railway and far beyond.

0:31:420:31:48

They called it Metroland.

0:31:480:31:50

European modernism seemed simply unable to answer some deep instinct in the British.

0:31:550:32:02

Something to do with our love of privacy on a small, crowded island.

0:32:020:32:07

Our sense that the past, for all its faults, was perhaps a kinder country.

0:32:070:32:14

Metroland expresses British conservatism,

0:32:140:32:18

our small dreams,

0:32:180:32:21

so easy to sneer at in an age of big, bad ideas.

0:32:210:32:28

At dawn on March 7th 1936, in contravention of the Treaty of Versailles,

0:32:340:32:40

Adolf Hitler ordered 19 German infantry battalions to march into the Rhineland.

0:32:400:32:47

The reaction in Britain was muted.

0:32:500:32:53

One diplomat said it was "no more than the Germans walking into their own backyard".

0:32:530:32:58

Winston Churchill disagreed.

0:33:010:33:05

CHURCHILL: There is a nation which has abandoned all its liberties

0:33:050:33:09

in order to augment its collective strength.

0:33:090:33:13

There is a nation in the grip of a group of ruthless men

0:33:130:33:17

preaching a gospel of intolerance and racial pride,

0:33:170:33:21

unrestrained by law, by parliament or by public opinion.

0:33:210:33:25

Alarmed British officials were feeding Churchill secret information

0:33:310:33:35

about Britain's woeful lack of military preparations.

0:33:350:33:38

He understood the Nazis and he was worried.

0:33:380:33:42

On this, Churchill was right and he was relentless.

0:33:440:33:49

But he was mostly dismissed, not least by the Prime Minister.

0:33:490:33:53

Stanley Baldwin once said that he dreamt of making a speech to the House of Commons

0:33:570:34:02

that would go something like this.

0:34:020:34:05

"When Winston was born, lots of fairies swooped down on his cradle with gifts -

0:34:050:34:11

"imagination, eloquence, industry, ability.

0:34:110:34:16

"And then came a fairy who said,

0:34:160:34:19

"'No one person has the right to so many gifts,'

0:34:190:34:24

"and picked him up and gave him such a shake and a twist

0:34:240:34:28

"that with all these gifts, he was denied wisdom and judgment.

0:34:280:34:34

"And that is why, while in this House

0:34:340:34:37

"we delight to listen to his eloquence, we do not take his advice."

0:34:370:34:43

CHEERING

0:34:430:34:46

Instead, Britain was getting to know its own, home-grown, little Hitler.

0:34:520:34:57

This nation again and again in the great hours of its fate

0:35:020:35:07

has swept aside convention, has swept aside the little men of talk and of delay

0:35:070:35:13

and have decided to follow men of moment.

0:35:130:35:17

In October 1936, Oswald Mosley remarried.

0:35:190:35:23

His new bride, Diana, was part of one of Britain's most notorious families.

0:35:230:35:28

Yes, it's those Mitfords again.

0:35:280:35:32

Diana Mitford was the older sister of Jessica and Unity.

0:35:320:35:36

Like Unity, Diana was fascinated by Hitler.

0:35:360:35:40

So when it came to the wedding, what better place than Goebbels' private house,

0:35:400:35:45

with special guest Adolf Hitler?

0:35:450:35:48

Hitler gave the happy couple

0:35:540:35:57

a signed photograph of himself in a silver monogrammed frame,

0:35:570:36:01

complete with German eagle, presented in a leather case lined with red velvet.

0:36:010:36:06

Very nice.

0:36:060:36:08

With Diana at his side and increasingly under Hitler's spell,

0:36:080:36:12

Mosley now turned his party in a more violent and anti-Semitic direction.

0:36:120:36:17

REPORTER: 5,000 fascists rally to their mobilisation

0:36:210:36:23

for the much-advertised march through the East End.

0:36:230:36:26

And Sir Oswald Mosley, Blackshirt leader, arrives to inspect his followers.

0:36:260:36:31

On October 4th, Mosley organised a fascist march

0:36:320:36:36

through the predominantly Jewish areas of London's East End -

0:36:360:36:40

a deliberate act of intimidation.

0:36:400:36:42

But Britain's anti-fascists were ready and waiting.

0:36:490:36:52

REPORTER: Thousands of East Enders prepare to resist the invasion.

0:36:550:36:57

6,000 police are already concentrated in the area.

0:36:570:36:59

Others are rushed to reinforce them.

0:36:590:37:02

By around 2pm, some 50,000 Jews, communists, trade unionists,

0:37:030:37:09

Labour Party members and dockers

0:37:090:37:11

had arrived here at Gardiners Corner in Aldgate to halt the march, chanting,

0:37:110:37:18

"They shall not pass. They shall not pass,"

0:37:180:37:22

and, "One, two, three, four, five, we want Mosley, dead or alive."

0:37:220:37:27

Hundreds of policemen were soon holding the line

0:37:330:37:36

between the Blackshirts and the anti-fascists.

0:37:360:37:39

Word filtered out that the Chief of Police

0:37:420:37:44

had directed Mosley to march along Cable Street.

0:37:440:37:46

Demonstrators barricaded the street.

0:37:460:37:49

The police feared a riot.

0:37:510:37:53

At 3.40, the police ordered Mosley and his men to abandon their march.

0:37:530:37:58

They then turned on the demonstrators.

0:37:580:38:01

All around, there were running battles.

0:38:060:38:09

Horses' hooves went flying as children threw marbles onto the streets.

0:38:200:38:25

HORSE WHINNIES

0:38:250:38:28

Women emptied the unappealing contents of chamber pots onto policemen's heads.

0:38:280:38:33

More than 100 people were injured in the battle.

0:38:420:38:46

83 of the protesters were arrested.

0:38:460:38:48

It became known as the Battle of Cable Street.

0:38:560:39:01

The overwhelming public reaction

0:39:010:39:03

was one of disgust and - very important, this - mockery.

0:39:030:39:10

The interesting thing is how quickly Mosley became a national figure of fun.

0:39:130:39:19

The peaked cap, the shiny boots, all that shouting, just didn't work.

0:39:190:39:24

When we ask why Britain never fell for a totalitarian leader,

0:39:240:39:29

it's about our suspicion of all politicians,

0:39:290:39:31

our national inability to go the whole hog, and that sense of humour.

0:39:310:39:37

Cable Street was most unusual.

0:39:370:39:40

Generally, when people saw lines of marching men in silly uniforms,

0:39:400:39:45

they simply sniggered.

0:39:450:39:47

TRUMPET FANFARE

0:39:500:39:54

It hath pleased Almighty God

0:39:550:39:58

that the high and mighty Prince Edward Albert Christian George...

0:39:580:40:05

On Wednesday 22nd January 1936, King Edward VIII watched the proclamation

0:40:050:40:10

of his own accession to the throne from a window at St James's Palace.

0:40:100:40:15

..is now become King.

0:40:150:40:19

At his side was a 40-year-old American called Wallis Simpson.

0:40:190:40:24

God save the King.

0:40:240:40:27

Their drama would be played out

0:40:350:40:38

at a toy castle outside London called Fort Belvedere.

0:40:380:40:43

The new King was a super celebrity,

0:40:490:40:52

in many ways a perfect symbol of modernisation.

0:40:520:40:56

Informal, handsome, beautifully dressed,

0:40:560:40:58

this man was Hollywood-on-Thames at a time when frankly this country

0:40:580:41:06

didn't have a lot in the way of home-grown glamour.

0:41:060:41:09

But by the time he came to the throne, Edward had already been having an affair

0:41:130:41:18

for two years with the once-divorced and married Mrs Simpson.

0:41:180:41:24

His father, George V, had predicted trouble.

0:41:240:41:28

"When I'm dead," he once said, "that boy will ruin himself in 12 months."

0:41:280:41:35

Edward knew that his affair with a married woman would be a scandal.

0:41:490:41:53

But the British media kept their deferential distance.

0:41:530:41:57

The Americans had no such qualms,

0:41:570:42:00

and paparazzi followed the King and his mistress wherever they went.

0:42:000:42:05

REPORTER: Edward says she makes him happy.

0:42:050:42:08

Bright hours by the blue Mediterranean.

0:42:080:42:10

Exclusive Movietone pictures.

0:42:100:42:13

There have been rumours that he might elope with her

0:42:130:42:16

and abandon crown and throne for her.

0:42:160:42:19

In October 1936, the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, arrived at Number Ten

0:42:210:42:26

to discuss world events including the Spanish Civil War

0:42:260:42:30

and the mounting threat from Nazi Germany.

0:42:300:42:33

Baldwin's first question to Eden

0:42:360:42:39

was whether he'd had a lot of telegrams about the King.

0:42:390:42:42

Eden replied that he hadn't.

0:42:420:42:44

Baldwin said he'd had, "a great many, some from the most extraordinary people.

0:42:440:42:51

"I foresee I shall have a lot of trouble over this.

0:42:510:42:55

" I hope that you won't trouble me too much with foreign affairs just now."

0:42:550:43:00

By now, Wallis Simpson was filing for divorce from her second husband,

0:43:040:43:09

opening the way for her to marry Edward and become Queen.

0:43:090:43:13

Baldwin panicked and made an appointment to visit the King

0:43:130:43:18

at his Fort Belvedere retreat.

0:43:180:43:20

To calm his nerves, Baldwin first asked for a drink

0:43:240:43:28

and then he came straight to point.

0:43:280:43:30

"You may think me Victorian, sir.

0:43:300:43:33

"You may think my values are out of date.

0:43:330:43:37

"But I believe that I know how to interpret the mind of my own people.

0:43:370:43:41

"And although it is true that standards are lower since the war,

0:43:410:43:46

"that only leads people to expect higher standards from their King."

0:43:460:43:50

A few days later, the King received a letter

0:43:550:43:57

from his personal private secretary.

0:43:570:44:00

It warned him that his affair was doing untold damage.

0:44:000:44:04

The Government was threatening to resign.

0:44:040:44:07

Mrs Simpson, he concluded, MUST leave the country.

0:44:070:44:10

Two days later, on 11th December 1936, Edward spoke to his people.

0:44:160:44:22

EDWARD VIII: I have found it impossible to carry

0:44:220:44:27

the heavy burden of responsibility

0:44:270:44:29

and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do

0:44:290:44:37

without the help and support of the woman I love.

0:44:370:44:42

Britain erupted with an outpouring of support for the King,

0:44:490:44:53

but hostility towards Wallis Simpson.

0:44:530:44:55

In playgrounds across the country children chanted,

0:44:590:45:03

"Mrs Simpson stole our King!"

0:45:030:45:07

But I think she did this country an enormous favour,

0:45:070:45:11

for Edward was pro-German and just a little too close to the Nazis.

0:45:110:45:17

He even visited Hitler shortly after he abdicated.

0:45:170:45:20

By removing this vain, petulant and politically naive man from the throne,

0:45:250:45:31

Wallis Simpson also took away a real source of domestic danger.

0:45:310:45:37

Far from being a national blow,

0:45:370:45:40

the abdication was a great stroke of national luck.

0:45:400:45:46

As Britain recovered from abdication fever,

0:45:520:45:55

a little revolution was taking place at the seaside, and no, not a fascist one.

0:45:550:46:01

Its leader?

0:46:080:46:10

Billy Butlin.

0:46:100:46:12

Billy Butlin was a tough little character,

0:46:120:46:15

a natural showman who carried a cut-throat razor in his top pocket.

0:46:150:46:20

He told friends he had three aims in life - power, money and women.

0:46:220:46:28

He started off with a humble hoopla stall, but his big break came

0:46:300:46:34

when he bought the European licence for the new, all-American...

0:46:340:46:39

..Dodgem car.

0:46:410:46:43

The vision of a holiday camp came to Billy Butlin when he noticed

0:46:460:46:50

hordes of miserable holidaymakers wandering the streets in the rain,

0:46:500:46:54

desperately looking for something to do.

0:46:540:46:57

Not everything changes.

0:46:580:47:01

He found a location here in Skegness, and began to design the camp himself

0:47:040:47:09

with vast dining rooms, theatres and swimming pools.

0:47:090:47:13

Guests would stay in individual, hutch-like, mock-Tudor chalets.

0:47:230:47:27

Billy's first guest was Freda Monk from Nottingham.

0:47:310:47:36

Unable to contain her excitement, Freda had turned up a day early.

0:47:360:47:42

One of the managers found her wandering around the still unfinished camp.

0:47:420:47:47

Clutching her suitcase and looking lost, she was quickly bundled into her chalet.

0:47:470:47:54

Then it began to snow.

0:47:540:47:57

Freda spent her first night shivering with cold.

0:47:570:48:00

She was spotted the next morning having breakfast wearing her overcoat.

0:48:000:48:05

But Freda Monk didn't care about the weather.

0:48:050:48:09

She was just delighted to have a week away from ordinary life.

0:48:090:48:14

In 1938, the Government passed a new law

0:48:180:48:22

giving a week's paid holiday to all industrial workers in Britain.

0:48:220:48:25

Hello, dear. Well, this year, we've got holidays with pay.

0:48:270:48:31

Ooh!

0:48:310:48:32

# Who's been polishing the sun

0:48:320:48:34

# Brightening the sky today?

0:48:340:48:37

# They must have known just how I like it

0:48:370:48:40

# Cos everything's coming my way... #

0:48:400:48:43

Butlin came up with the catchy slogan, "Holidays with pay, holidays with play.

0:48:430:48:48

"A week's holiday for a week's wage."

0:48:480:48:52

The morning-to-bedtime activities

0:48:580:49:01

provided by the relentlessly jolly Redcoats

0:49:010:49:03

seemed to be exactly what grey Britain needed.

0:49:030:49:07

Billy Butlin offered colour and fun and, for the time, surprisingly good food.

0:49:070:49:13

So when the news arrived about the Italians invading Abyssinia,

0:49:130:49:16

or the Nuremberg rallies,

0:49:160:49:18

here there was a constant diet of distraction,

0:49:180:49:21

from light opera to ballroom dancing

0:49:210:49:24

to the notorious knobbly-knees and glamorous-grannies contests.

0:49:240:49:28

You didn't get that in the Hitler Youth.

0:49:280:49:31

On 12th March 1938, Hitler's troops marched into Austria.

0:49:430:49:49

In Britain we had a new Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain.

0:49:560:50:00

He announced that, "Nothing could have arrested this action by Germany

0:50:030:50:07

"unless we and others had been prepared to use force to prevent it."

0:50:070:50:12

And they weren't.

0:50:120:50:14

Appeasement, not confrontation, was the British way.

0:50:140:50:18

The word "appeasement" is now loaded with shame and embarrassment.

0:50:210:50:28

But it once had a gentler meaning - simply to bring peace, or calm down.

0:50:280:50:34

And as a strategy for dealing with Hitler, never forget that it was hugely popular

0:50:340:50:39

with millions of Britons who supported it at every stage.

0:50:390:50:43

Appeasement was pursued by politicians and diplomats with skill,

0:50:430:50:49

determination and even nerve, like a chess game.

0:50:490:50:54

Only one problem - Hitler wasn't playing chess.

0:50:540:50:59

REPORTER: The guns boom from the mountains behind Gottesberg,

0:51:010:51:04

as a million German men turn field and forest into a practice battleground.

0:51:040:51:08

Once Austria was folded into the Reich,

0:51:110:51:13

Hitler turned his attention to part of Czechoslovakia,

0:51:130:51:15

the Sudetenland, on Germany's eastern border.

0:51:150:51:20

Chamberlain did nothing.

0:51:210:51:23

By all accounts, Chamberlain was not an appealing man.

0:51:250:51:29

He was cold and he was sarcastic.

0:51:290:51:32

But he wasn't stupid.

0:51:320:51:33

He'd had a finger in almost every international crisis

0:51:330:51:37

since the early 1930s.

0:51:370:51:39

He thought that only his wisdom had kept Britain out of the Spanish Civil War.

0:51:390:51:44

Only he could soothe Mussolini.

0:51:440:51:46

When he became Prime Minister at last, he said,

0:51:460:51:48

"I only have to raise a finger and the whole face of Europe is changed."

0:51:480:51:55

Chamberlain's problem wasn't ignorance.

0:51:550:51:58

It was colossal and tragic vanity.

0:51:580:52:02

REPORTER: A gasp of amazement and satisfaction runs around the world.

0:52:040:52:08

The Prime Minister decides to fly

0:52:080:52:09

to a personal meeting with the German Chancellor.

0:52:090:52:11

The world has realised that war would be a folly and a crime.

0:52:110:52:15

When Chamberlain arrived in Munich, he was greeted by saluting Nazis.

0:52:210:52:26

He responded by waving his homburg hat.

0:52:260:52:29

Then it was off to Hitler's Alpine retreat, Berchtesgaden,

0:52:330:52:37

and the mission of his life.

0:52:370:52:38

This was history's first modern summit, and it was give and take -

0:52:420:52:48

British give and German take.

0:52:480:52:51

Chamberlain accepted entirely that three million Czechs

0:52:510:52:55

wanted to leave their country and join the Reich,

0:52:550:52:59

and promised to do his bit to bully the Czech government into agreeing.

0:52:590:53:04

And in return he got what?

0:53:040:53:07

A short delay and the German promise not to actually invade Czechoslovakia,

0:53:070:53:13

unless, of course, they were provoked by "terrorist incidents" on the border.

0:53:130:53:19

Round one to Hitler.

0:53:190:53:22

Britain was selling Czechoslovakia down the river,

0:53:270:53:31

but when Chamberlain returned home, this diplomatic disgrace

0:53:310:53:35

was greeted with huge enthusiasm.

0:53:350:53:38

Anything to avoid war.

0:53:380:53:39

REPORTER: The tumult and the clamour are for the man who has brought to politics

0:53:410:53:45

the commonsense point of view of the man in the street.

0:53:450:53:47

On his sane judgment we base our hopes of peace and happiness.

0:53:470:53:51

CHEERING

0:53:510:53:54

Hip, hip, hooray! Hip, hip, hooray!

0:53:540:53:59

Two weeks later, Chamberlain was off again.

0:54:030:54:06

At a summit on the Rhine,

0:54:060:54:07

Hitler gave notice that German troops were now ready to invade the Sudetenland.

0:54:070:54:12

Chamberlain protested, but Hitler had decided he was a ninny.

0:54:140:54:19

But in Britain, the mood was now rapidly changing.

0:54:220:54:25

Preparations for war were under way.

0:54:250:54:29

Churchill's instincts had been right all along,

0:54:290:54:31

and at last people were starting to listen.

0:54:310:54:34

One senior official at the Foreign Office wrote in his diary that he knew

0:54:400:54:44

Britain was in no condition to fight, "But I'd rather be beat than dishonoured.

0:54:440:54:50

"How can we look any foreigner in the face after this?"

0:54:500:54:55

Then Hitler blinked.

0:54:580:55:01

Instead of invading Czechoslovakia, he called yet another summit.

0:55:010:55:05

Chamberlain called it

0:55:050:55:08

"the last, desperate snatch at the last tuft on the very verge of the precipice".

0:55:080:55:14

The summit didn't achieve much.

0:55:180:55:23

Chamberlain persuaded Hitler to sign a waffle-filled piece of paper.

0:55:230:55:26

REPORTER: And the Prime Minister comes home,

0:55:340:55:37

home to a welcome that he will never forget.

0:55:370:55:40

On his return, Chamberlain was met by a large crowd waiting in the rain.

0:55:400:55:45

He waved his precious piece of paper and read it out.

0:55:450:55:49

"We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German naval agreement

0:55:490:55:54

"as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples

0:55:540:55:58

"never to go to war with one another again."

0:55:580:56:01

CHEERING

0:56:010:56:03

Back at Downing Street, there was another cheering crowd.

0:56:090:56:13

Chamberlain leaned out of a window

0:56:160:56:19

and announced that he had brought back peace with honour.

0:56:190:56:22

It was, he said, "peace for our time".

0:56:220:56:25

On 1st September 1939, German forces invaded Poland.

0:56:380:56:44

Chamberlain gave Hitler an ultimatum - withdraw or face the consequence.

0:56:460:56:52

REPORTER: The fateful hour of 11 has struck

0:56:560:56:58

and Britain's final warning to Hitler having been ignored,

0:56:580:57:02

a state of war once more exists between Great Britain and Germany.

0:57:020:57:06

With the declaration of war, there was a steady crescendo

0:57:080:57:11

of demands for Winston Churchill's return to government.

0:57:110:57:15

Chamberlain bowed to the inevitable

0:57:150:57:17

and invited Churchill to join his War Cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty.

0:57:170:57:23

We tried again and again to prevent this war.

0:57:230:57:27

And for the sake of peace we've put up with a lot of things happening

0:57:270:57:31

which ought not to have happened.

0:57:310:57:34

But now we are at war, and we are going to make war,

0:57:340:57:37

and persevere in making war until the other side have had enough of it.

0:57:370:57:45

Churchill hadn't set foot in the Admiralty since 1915.

0:57:510:57:55

But when he went in and opened a cupboard, he found one of his own old maps

0:57:550:58:01

charting Royal Naval positions from the Great War still hanging there.

0:58:010:58:06

Later that day, the Admiralty sent the fleet a signal.

0:58:060:58:11

It consisted of just three words.

0:58:110:58:15

"Winston is back."

0:58:150:58:18

In the next programme, Churchill to the rescue...

0:58:300:58:35

Spitfire magic...

0:58:350:58:36

tanks, yanks...

0:58:360:58:40

and Dad's Army.

0:58:400:58:42

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