Richard Vinen
Maggie Rising
Promised You a Miracle: UK80–82
By Andy Beckett
Allen Lane 436pp £20
Thatcher’s Trial: Six Months that Defined a Leader
By Kwasi Kwarteng
Bloomsbury 248pp £20
In March 1981 British civil servants acted out a secret war game about how to respond to a Soviet attack. The exercise ended when they pressed the button for a nuclear strike. Ministers occasionally popped their heads round the door but, in general, paid little attention to this grim charade. They had worries of their own. Ten days earlier the budget had attracted fierce criticism, including, famously, a protest from 364 economists, one of whom said that he foresaw ‘apocalypse’. The previous month the government had backed down when faced with the threat of a miners’ strike – a humiliating moment for ministers who were haunted by the way that the miners had toppled the Heath government in 1974.
Recapturing the disturbing uncertainty of the early 1980s is important because Thatcherism is often presented as though it caused a sudden switch of mood: one moment picket lines and The Clash; the next Duran Duran and City traders shouting into mobile phones. At the time, it seemed that the most
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Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
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literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
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Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm