Focusing on the constitutional developments in the UK since the 2014 Scottish referendum, Peter Hennessy and Andrew Blick conduct a thorough examination of the political tensions and changes over the past decade. Their analysis serves as an "audit" of significant events, exploring how these developments have shaped the current landscape of British governance and identity.
In this insightful volume, constitutional expert Peter Hennessy shares selected journalism, unpublished lectures, and personal reflections on post-war Britain. He examines the evolution of prime ministers, life in the House of Lords, and the impact of Brexit, offering a unique perspective on a changing political landscape.
Peter Hennessy charts the turbulent years of 2021 and 2022.
The Bonfire of the Decencies offers a range of suggestions about what might be done to repair and restore the British constitution.
One of our most celebrated historians shows how we can use the lessons of the past to build a new post-covid society in Britain The 'duty of care' which the state owes to its citizens is a phrase much used, but what has it actually meant in Britain historically? And what should it mean in the future, once the immediate Covid crisis has passed? In A Duty of Care, Peter Hennessy divides post-war British history into BC (before covid) and AC (after covid). He looks back to Sir William Beveridge's classic identification of the 'five giants' against which society had to battle - want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness - and laid the foundations for the modern welfare state in his wartime report. He examines the steady assault on the giants by successive post-war governments and asks what the comparable giants are now. He lays out the 'road to 2045' with 'a new Beveridge' to build a consensus for post-covid Britain with the ambition and on the scale that was achieved by the first.
Harold Macmillan famously said in 1960 that the wind of change was blowing over Africa and the remaining British Empire. But it was blowing over Britain too - its society; its relationship with Europe; its nuclear and defence policy. And where it was not blowing hard enough - the United Kingdom's economy - great efforts were made to sweep away the cobwebs of old industrial practices and poor labour relations. Life was lived in the knowledge that it could end in a single afternoon of thermonuclear exchange if the uneasy, armed peace of the Cold War tipped into a Third World War. In Winds of Change we see Macmillan gradually working out his 'grand design' - how to be part of both a tight transatlantic alliance and Europe, dealing with his fellow geostrategists Kennedy and de Gaulle. The centre of the book is 1963 - the year of the Profumo Crisis, the Great Train Robbery, the satire boom, de Gaulle's veto of Britain's first application to join the EEC, the fall of Macmillan and the unexpected succession to the premiership of Alec Douglas-Home. Then, in 1964, the battle of what Hennessy calls the tweedy aristocrat and the tweedy meritocrat - Harold Wilson, who would end 13 years of Conservative rule and usher in a new era. As in his acclaimed histories of British life in the two previous decades, Never Again and Having it so Good, Peter Hennessy explains the political, economic, cultural and social aspects of a nation with inimitable wit and empathy. No historian knows the by-ways as well the highways of the archives so well, and no one conveys the flavour of the period so engagingly. The early sixties live again in these pages. -- Provided by publisher
On the BBC radio show Reflections with Peter Hennessy, the preeminent historian of British political life interviewed leading figures from the UK's governing parties during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Bringing together transcripts of the collected interviews for the first time, The Complete Reflections features interviews the biggest names from the Thatcher era, the New Labour years, and the coalition government of the 2010s. In The Complete Reflections, Peter Hennessy and Robert Shepherd provide not only an overview of the past three decades of British politics but also delve into the minds of those at the forefront of public life during times of great change. Hennessy's deep knowledge and understanding of the lives and motivations of his interviewees, along with the obvious esteem in which they hold their interlocutor, leads to frank and revealing conversations in which the subject is not an object but an equal, giving these exchanges a unique veracity. The results are portraits of high authority, in which interviews become the chronicles that endure above all others--nothing less than the first draft of history.
Harold Macmillan emerges as a central figure in this exploration of post-war Britain, set against the backdrop of Cold War tensions. The book delves into the multifaceted impacts on the nation, examining political, economic, cultural, and social dimensions. It provides a comprehensive analysis of the era, highlighting how these elements intertwine and influence the cultural climate of the time.
Accompanying the acclaimed BBC Radio 4 program, Reflections features interviews with twelve of Britain’s most influential political figures from the last twenty years. Presented by Peter Hennessy, one of the UK’s most renowned historians, each interview not only offers an honest and frank assessment of a political career, but also acts as a biography filled with fresh insights and moments of new revelation. From one of the longest-serving Prime Ministers and three of the Conservative leaders who stood against him, to dominant figures of late Thatcherism, stalwarts of successive New Labour cabinets, and leaders of the Liberal Democrats, Hennessy brings his characteristic style to each encounter. The politicians included in this volume Tony Blair, Michael Heseltine, Vince Cable, Margaret Hodge, William Hague, Harriet Harman, Michael Howard, Paddy Ashdown, Sayeeda Warsi, David Blunkett, Iain Duncan Smith and Kenneth Baker.
“The historian,” wrote E. L. Doctorow, “will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like.” This book sees Peter Hennessy and Robert Shepard combine both approaches with the art of the interviewer, a craft at once sensitive and probing. Reflections collects transcripts of the best interviews from the BBC Radio 4 series Reflections with Peter Hennessy, a show on which the British political elite have spoken candidly about their careers and the moments that came to define their political lives. Supplementing the interviews are short biographies and profiles of the interviewees, allowing readers a fuller picture of each speaker’s background and professional trajectory. This revealing book includes conversations with political heavyweights such as former prime minister John Major; former foreign secretaries Margaret Beckett, David Owen, and Jack Straw; Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock; Liberal Party leader David Steel; and chancellor of exchequer Nigel Lawson. In addition, Reflections presents interviews with leading women, including Shirley Williams and Clare Short, who spent years at the forefront of their parties in Westminster. The latest volume in the popular Haus Curiosities series, Reflections offers valuable insights from some of today’s most influential political figures.