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I won’t miss waiting for the next financial disaster because we haven’t dealt with the underlying causes of the last one. Nor will I be disappointed not to experience the results of the proto-fascism that’s rearing its grisly head right now. It’s the sheer idiocy, the sheer wrongheadedness of the response that beggars belief. I mean, your society’s broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No, let’s blame the people with no power and no money and these immigrants who don’t even have the vote, yeah it must be their fucking fault. Iain Banks, final interview 2013
Welcome to the 1970s – now seen as the decade that tastes forgot ... All this happened on television. It Was Alright in the 1970s, Channel 4 2014
In 1970 protesters targeted the Miss World contest in London. ibid.
I want to be raped!’ ibid. Butterflies monologue
Nowhere did we smoke more it would seem than on television. ibid.
Only one of three TV channels ... A time before political correctness. It Was Alright in the 1970s II
What passed for seventies’ entertainment. ibid.
Where were the liberated female role models on TV? ibid.
Ford’s ‘she doesn’t know ...’ [ad nauseam] TV advertisement. ibid.
The Man Alive Report: Public Disgrace 1976 ... ‘Gay shirts ... I have in every way leaned backwards to be absolutely sure of my facts.’ ibid. rozzer
Sez Les 1972: The sketch show’s camp stereotype made regular appearances in silly outfits. ibid.
In ’70’s light entertainment camp was king or queen. ibid.
The Black and White Minstrel Show 1958 to 1978. ibid.
The Goodies’ South African ‘nig-nogs’ sketch. ibid.
Curry and Chips 1969 London Weekend TV: ‘Woman shot rather than raped’ sketch ... axed after six episodes. ibid.
Love thy Neighbour: Sambos … spades … ibid.
1977: Mind Your Language. ibid.
Waitress: Would you like to order, sir?
Margaret Thatcher: Yes. I would like a steak.
Waitress: How do you like it?
Margaret Thatcher: Oh, raw please.
Waitress: What about the vegetables?
Margaret Thatcher: Oh, they’ll have the same as me. Spitting Image
... Who has the moral courage to expose and root out those who try to rot us from within and hold us to ransom by anarchy, blackmail and brute force?
The Communist Trojan Horse is in our midst with its fellow-travellers wriggling their maggoty way inside its belly. Only firm and dynamic leadership can deal with this; it requires high moral courage. The Daily Telegraph, letter from General Walter Walker
This pageantry cloaks the British constitution. But what’s really at its heart? Have you ever heard of parts of it called Misc 7, OD, Odsa, Gen 29, Misc 94 or the LF – what do you think they are? In some ways these organisations are more secret than MI5 or MI6. And there are many more of them. These mysterious initials are amongst any prime minister’s most closely regarded secrets. These are the organisations who have really decided critical national issues over the last ten years. Duncan Campbell, Secret Society: The Secret Constitution: Secret Government Committees, BBC 1987
That power is most vulnerable but most critical at the time of a general election. In the last two elections outgoing governments used such committees for unusual tactics, which like details of the committees themselves, have no place in the textbooks that are supposed to teach us about the British constitution. ibid.
The tragic-comedy of Britain in the 1970s: it was a bad hair decade. Students were revolting. Militant unions were striking. Force was met with force. Asset-strippers were flourishing. As inflation and unemployment rocketed. The Lost World of the Seventies: A Report by Michael Cockerell, BBC 2012
A senior general – Sir Walter Walker – who was setting up his own private army to save the country from the catastrophe of a takeover by the Marxists. ibid.
Long Longford: self-appointed guardian of the country’s morals. ibid.
Sir Robert Mark who as London’s top policeman was on a mission to clean up Scotland Yard. ibid.
Sir Jimmy Goldsmith – the tycoon with a complex business and love life who believed the media were plotting to destroy capitalism. ibid.
General Walker had allowed the cameras to film how NATO prepared for war. ibid.
Lord Longford – the great moral crusader of the decade. He was a contradictory character. An hereditary earl who identified with the outcasts of society. He made headlines in the seventies by visiting notorious criminals in prison and for his campaign against pornography. ibid.
When the Longford Report was published it recommended much stricter laws on pornography. The government ignored it. ibid.
Goldsmith was fiercely protective of his business reputation ... Private Eye targeted Goldsmith; it depicted him as an asset-stripper. ibid.
Faced with evidence of widespread corruption, [Robert] Mark pledged to purge all bent detectives from the Force. ibid.
He found Scotland Yard a secretive Masonic place with its own inbred culture. ibid.
Mark’s prime target for reform was the Flying Squad. ibid.
The CID alone would no longer investigate corruption charges against its own officers. A-10 was run by the uniformed branch. ibid.
The Commissioner took dramatic action: in a dawn raid Bill Moody was arrested – he’d been head of the dirty squad and worked for A10. Also arrested was Ken Drury, the Flying Squad chief, who had been on the sunshine holiday with [James] Humphreys. The biggest fish of all was Commander Wally Virgo, who was in overall charge of both the Porn and Flying Squads. Humphreys claims he paid Virgo £2,000 in cash every month. ibid.
600 police officers who left Scotland Yard prematurely during Robert Marks’ five years at the top. ibid.
I am convinced that many Ugandans will donate generously to save their innocent friends ... Save Britain Fund. Idi Amin
I do not intend to be the first woman prime minister of a mediocre and declining Britain. (Great Britain & Thatcher) Margaret Thatcher
America has no truer friend than Great Britain. George Bush
This best British art is challenging, threatening, controversial. Janet Street-Porter, The Genius of British Art: Modern Times, Channel 4 2010
The Britain in fact that I grew up in: the stifling, narrow-minded country my parents embodied with their boring petty values. No wonder we were always arguing. ibid.
They actually transformed British society through a series of social and cultural revolutions. Their art said bollocks to British complacency. ibid.
The 1960s was the most marked decade of change Britain had ever seen ... Art was at the forefront of that renaissance. A new art that was revolutionary because it was made by young people. ibid.
Now Punk represented the ultimate in two fingers to the pompous self-satisfied pop that had gone before it. And the most important thing about Punk was that it was about attitude. Now everybody could be creative. ibid.
Concorde was a step into the unknown ... Concorde is a beautiful memorial to the unassuming smoking cardigan-wearing problem-solvers who are the real heroes of British engineering. It’s just a damn shame she’s been grounded. Rory McGrath’s Industrial Revelations: Best of British Engineering s5e2: Planes, Discovery 2008