The Making of Modern Britain
I have to admit I have a bit of a soft spot for the acclaimed Scottish political commentator Andrew Marr, for some unfathomable reason he appears to have the ability to make politics slightly interesting, making his Sunday morning programme The Andrew Marr Show highly watchable. However, where he really excels is in producing political history programmes like The Making of Modern Britain, which was produced in 2009 and is currently being repeated on BBC 4, I firmly believe that programmes like these should be made compulsory for any child slightly interested in 20th century history and the social upheaval that came with it. Although I like to think that I had a good understanding of the events of that century I never have really understood how the early part of the century were dominated by country house politics. The sun may never have set on the British empire that particular time but at home the country was ran by upper and middle grandees who cared little for the working classes, the allowed them (and allowed is the right word) to receive a pittance of a wage whilst the led a life of squalor and deprivation, Thatcher may have banged on about benefits of Victorian and Edwardian values which is fine if you’re a Tory but not if you were working class, Marr dazzlingly captures the mood of the time and how the working man was no longer willing to doff his cap, women also wanted recognition craving the right to vote and organised a campaign led by the very aggressive suffragette movement. Reform was slowly coming and the Tories were fighting hard to resist, but the beauty of the series that it not only about politics and this where Marr’s series brilliantly succeeds, he manages to effortlessly intertwine the politics of the time with advances in technology, covering everything from aviation to the cinema and that before he even begins to talk about futility of war. Britain and the working man and woman have come a long way from slums and grime that they forced to live in, like any working class man The Frozen Northerner has never forgotten where he has come from, the only difference is that Andrew Marr explains it much better.
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