Here we go again . . . my, my, how can we resist the lure of the 70s?
[Ben Macintyre is a columnist and Associate Editor on The Times.]
I lived though the 1970s once already. Do I really have to go through it all again?
Suddenly, almost overnight, we have slipped back three decades: a plunging economy, a tottering Labour government, flares, Leonard Cohen singing miserably, football teams failing to qualify for international tournaments, Doctor Who. . .
It is like being stuck in some extended version ofLife on Mars. Everyone is humming Abba again and talking about belt-tightening. What next? Angel Delight and fondue sets and shag-pile carpets? Chirpy Chirpy, Cheep Cheep? Mateus bloody Rosé?
Our collective rush back to the 1970s is partly due to the economy, stupid. (A cliché that would not be born for another two decades.) It is easy to exaggerate the economic parallels but impossible to ignore them. In the 1970s, a global boom was brought to a halt by soaring oil prices, amid rising unemployment and swelling inflation. House prices collapsed. Economic growth all but shuddered to a stop. Strikers demanded higher wages.
The rubbish is not piling up in the streets as it did in the Winter of Discontent but the whiff of industrial and social unrest is in the air again today.
The political echoes are deafening. Harold Wilson was the preeminent politician of his day, but then stood down to hand over to a former Chancellor, Jim Callaghan, who did not have the same touch. A centre-left coalition began to go pear-shaped. A young Tory opposition flexed its muscles. It is déjà vu all over again...
Read entire article at Times (UK)
I lived though the 1970s once already. Do I really have to go through it all again?
Suddenly, almost overnight, we have slipped back three decades: a plunging economy, a tottering Labour government, flares, Leonard Cohen singing miserably, football teams failing to qualify for international tournaments, Doctor Who. . .
It is like being stuck in some extended version ofLife on Mars. Everyone is humming Abba again and talking about belt-tightening. What next? Angel Delight and fondue sets and shag-pile carpets? Chirpy Chirpy, Cheep Cheep? Mateus bloody Rosé?
Our collective rush back to the 1970s is partly due to the economy, stupid. (A cliché that would not be born for another two decades.) It is easy to exaggerate the economic parallels but impossible to ignore them. In the 1970s, a global boom was brought to a halt by soaring oil prices, amid rising unemployment and swelling inflation. House prices collapsed. Economic growth all but shuddered to a stop. Strikers demanded higher wages.
The rubbish is not piling up in the streets as it did in the Winter of Discontent but the whiff of industrial and social unrest is in the air again today.
The political echoes are deafening. Harold Wilson was the preeminent politician of his day, but then stood down to hand over to a former Chancellor, Jim Callaghan, who did not have the same touch. A centre-left coalition began to go pear-shaped. A young Tory opposition flexed its muscles. It is déjà vu all over again...