It is impossible not to share Hennessy’s hope that recent disasters will lead to better times, and his uncertainty about how or in what form this can be achieved. As Hennessy points out, the new government encouraged means-testing where possible, starting a persistent Conservative post-war trend. Those feeling more than usually apprehensive right now might like to turn to Relax: A User’s Guide to Life in the Age of Anxiety by Timothy Caulfield (Faber, January), a handbook that is informed as well as wise (Caulfield is a Canadian public health expert). These significant differences between the war and the Covid experiences are not discussed by Hennessy.

A Duty Of Care: Britain Before And After Covid | Stanfords A Duty Of Care: Britain Before And After Covid | Stanfords

Hard on his heels is Jim Down, with Life Support (Viking, March), the Covid diary of an ICU doctor at one of London’s leading hospitals. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic. A review of the development of the acceptance by the government of a duty of care for its citizens thro the NHS since the war. His report was, as Hennessy describes, very popular and Labour’s commitment to it contributed to their decisive election victory in 1945.Recognizing, like most of us, that this was an unusual time, he decided, unusually for him, to keep a daily diary.

Britain is too Peter Hennessy’s manifesto for post-pandemic Britain is too

His indifference to things that happen outside Britain (and especially in non-English-speaking countries) is so marked that he makes Nigel Farage look like Isaiah Berlin. Relatedly, expect a slew of books about mental health – though not all of them will toe the line that we’re experiencing an epidemic of mental illness: Losing Our Minds by Lucy Foulkes (Bodley Head, April), for instance, seeks to overturn this notion, especially as applied to the young. New Yorkers: A City and Its People in Our Time, Craig Taylor’s follow-up to his wondrous oral contemporary history, Londoners, is long awaited (John Murray, March), and it will be interesting to see how this book reads at a point when our urban centres feel so hollowed out. Occasionally, I dip back into the works of JK Galbraith – he was an economic historian, among many other things – just because they’re so brilliantly written. Hennessy points out that Labour quickly abandoned Beveridge’s (and Keynes’) recommendation that payment of benefits should be delayed for 20years to enable contributions to accumulate to cover the considerable costs.Also, their preference for maintaining and extending mean-tested benefits over restoring universalism. These friends rarely suggest that the people responsible for the problems of their country might be themselves. Peter Hennessy reported Whitehall for ten years, mainly for The Times, The Economist and the Financial Times. Social policy improvements included building more high-quality council houses and subsidizing renovation rather than demolition of old houses, introducing comprehensive schools and establishing the Open University, and initiating improvements to the pension system.