Good account of bad times

Perhaps because he talks so much and has been in politics for so long, Roy Hattersley has the happy knack of making you believe that he was there at the events he describes. And if he wasn’t, he most certainly should have been, to the undeniable advantage of all concerned.

For instance, the miners should have not had their war against the coalowners in 1926, precipitating the abortive General Strike, because it was the wrong time. Hattersley could have told them that, had it not happened six years before he was born. But by heavens, he tells them now. ‘It was a bad moment for the miners to choose,’ he intones gravely. They were ‘too proud for their own good,’ a fine old northern expression. The men in Nottinghamshire didn’t want to come out (they never did) and coal stocks were high (they usually were). For good measure, he adds that ‘this was not the last time that the miners’ leaders precipitated a strike at a time when defeat was almost certain.’