665. Britain in the 70s: The Bailout from Hell (Part 4)

17:05Tom Holland:I mean, he lives like Stanley Baldwin. I can't imagine James Callaghan writing pornography.

17:11Dominic Sandbrook:The key variable there is that he didn't go to Harrow, because Stanley Baldwin did that at Harrow. That's well remembered. Also, Stanley Baldwin gave a tenth of his fortune to pay off the national debt. Let's remember that. And married a cricketer. Yeah, and married an excellent cricketer. Even Margaret Thatcher had warm words for Jim. She said he was a super politician and in other circumstances would have been a successful prime minister. And what circumstances are those, Dominic? Well, see, that's a very nice link, isn't it? I wrote that as a segue into the circumstances. So first of all, he's got no parliamentary majority.

17:41Dominic Sandbrook:We described last time, Labour have no majority in the House of Commons. So every vote now is knife edge. i mean literally life or death they are bringing people in these were very famous scenes in the late 70s they would bring elderly mps in on ambulances to vote and sometimes they would cheat so there's one famous example where they basically what they would often do is you do a thing called pairing where you would basically there's some 90 year old labor mp who's dying there's a 90 year old tory mp who's dying and you'd say well they can see each other out neither of them have to come in and vote.

18:11Dominic Sandbrook:And you'd agree that beforehand. And then on one occasion, Labour completely shamed themselves, going back on their word and bringing in this bloke on a trolley or whatever to vote. And that provoked a massive fight, like a physical brawl where people are piling into each other. Of course, this is pre-television. And this was the occasion in which a young Michael Heseltine seized the mace and kind of whirled it around his head and made a spectacle of himself and then was called Tarzan forever because of that.

18:40Tom Holland:It's the theme of a wonderful play by James Graham called This House. Really excellent.

18:45Dominic Sandbrook:Amazing play. That's one circumstance and the other circumstance is the economic legacy. Inflation has actually now started to fall, but it is still about 19%. And the bigger problem is that as we described last time, the international markets have now lost confidence in Britain's ability to run its economy, not least thanks to its massive borrowing so when Callaghan has his first meeting with Dennis Healy Healy says to him look the Bank of England have just spent two billion dollars in currency reserves that's a third of their entire reserves propping up the value of sterling and this can't continue and the next person who comes in to see him is the governor of the Bank of England he's called Gordon Richardson he says to Callaghan you know we're still borrowing far too much and this pressure from the markets is not going to ease anytime soon there is a very good chance that we're going to run out of money.

19:33Dominic Sandbrook:And when we do that, we will have to ask the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, for a loan. Now, the IMF had been set up in 1945. It's one of the great kind of institutions of the new world order.

19:46Tom Holland:By John Maynard Keynes, who is British. So, it's massively embarrassing.

19:51Dominic Sandbrook:Oh, the International Monetary Fund, some of their staff are British, some of their key figures are British. The fact that Britain, of all people will have to crawl to them. I think the technical term that you, again, by under UN regulations, you have to use for the IMF crisis is Britain goes cap in hand to the IMF.

20:09Tom Holland:Because loans are meant to be given to bankrupt third world countries.

20:13Dominic Sandbrook:Yes, exactly. A country like Britain, formerly the world's banker, should not be going to the IMF begging for cash. Now, a problem is the key contributors to the IMF are the Americans. And politics in America at this point is well to the right. The consensus in Washington is well to the right of what it is in London. The Americans will undoubtedly ask for very stringent terms, probably cuts. They'll say, you can have the money, but you have to sort your economy out. And for a Labour prime minister, this is obviously a nightmare. This is a massive embarrassment because there's nothing more likely to inflame your own activists than you bending the knee to the forces of American international capitalism.

20:53Dominic Sandbrook:And whenever people would say to Dennis Healy, Labour people would say to Dennis Healy, sort of Zach Polanski style, they'd say, why are you taking orders from the money markets? Dennis Healy would say, well, I mean, if we don't want to take orders from the money markets, we just shouldn't borrow money from them. And in that case, we should manage our finances a bit better. You know, what are we going to do about it? We shouldn't have got into this mess in the first place. Well, when you put it like that. Oh, I mean, I agree with him, but it doesn't go down well with some of his own enthusiasts.

21:20Dominic Sandbrook:Anyway, it takes two months for all this pressure to build, and by early June 76, it's really on. Now, remember, there was a point in the last episode, at the beginning of the week, when the pound was at$2.23. On the 3rd of June, it is down to$1.70. I mean, that is an extraordinary plunge. It's lost a considerable fraction of its value, and it is still falling. And the Bank of England say to Healy, we've run out of reserves to defend it. You've got to talk to the IMF. he needs five billion dollars to defend the pound and he can probably get that informally without having the humiliation of a proper application so he talks to the imf and they say look we've cobbled together some of the money most of it from the u.s federal reserve we can lend you the money but there are conditions the chairman of the federal reserve guy got arthur burns describes himself as a neanderthal conservative and he wants britain's lefty government to learn a lesson in discipline and then the u.s treasury secretary gerald ford's treasury secretary is a guy called bill simon he's even more hawkish in his memoirs he said i was keen to help a u.s ally but i'd no desire to play host to a parasite that's harsh he hates britain and healy said of bill simon he was far to the right of genghis khan displaying his hinterland there yeah very good a witty historical illusion his historical knowledge yeah you wouldn't get that from politicians today would you such a no such an obscure reference from dennis healy so anyway the deal is this britain will get its five billion but it has six months to pay it back and if he can't pay it back or if he needs more he will have to make a formal humiliating application that would mean opening britain's books to the IMF.

23:07Dominic Sandbrook:IMF inspectors, basically auditors, would have to fly into London to look at our books, and then they would tell us what cuts we had to do in order to get the money. I mean, that would be excruciating, excruciatingly embarrassing. And obviously, people want to avoid that. Anyway, for now, he's got this 5 billion to tide him over. We're into the summer. The temperature is literally rising, because this is the record breaking summer of 1976. You surely must remember this. I do.

23:38Tom Holland:Do you have amusing anecdotes? We went camping outside Porlock. Our second cousins who we'd never met came to meet us. They turned up, we didn't know who they were, and my brother threw a load of dry horse dung into their hair.

23:51Dominic Sandbrook:Brilliant story. And it reflects so well on your brother. Even then he liked war. Yeah, he did. Yes. You can take the boy out of that pit where they do the We Have Ways Festival, but you can't take the pit out of the boy. So in those days, they used Fahrenheit. So it was 90 degrees day after day. There was no rain. There was a massive drought. The trains kept breaking down. The roads were literally melting because they were using the wrong tarmac or whatever. I know you love Star Wars, Tom. This is the point at which George Lucas and co. were filming Star Wars at Elstree. And it was so hot that the electricians in the gantry fainted from heat exhaustion.

24:26Dominic Sandbrook:What about the poor bloke in the Chewbacca? Peter Mayhew, he collapsed with dehydration while they were filming.

24:31Tom Holland:But the Green Cross Code guy, he was all right, even though he was wearing black. Darth Vader. David Prowse. Didn't you meet him or something? I did. In Salisbury Library, he came in. He came gliding in. Then he said, hello, boys and girls.

24:46Dominic Sandbrook:It was not what we were expecting. No, not at all. So all that summer, as the heat is rising, Callaghan's ministers are arguing ferociously about the road ahead. On the one hand, Healy says, we're going to have to make these cuts. We're going to have to make them first before the IMF get here. Basically, if we don't make them to appease the markets, the IMF will make them for us. And Healy wants to cut spending by more than a billion pounds, which is basically two and a half percent of everybody's budget. Now, a lot of people don't agree, and they are led by our old friend, Tony Benn.

25:17Tom Holland:Are they using the word austerity at this point, or is that a slogan of a later age?

25:22Dominic Sandbrook:They're not using it. I think they might use it in passing every now and again, but they don't use it quite as much as would be used in the 2010s. It's not as common. But it's basically the same situation, isn't it? It's not a dissimilar situation. Now, Tony Benn says we don't need to make any cuts at all. He has another thing, another idea, which was called the alternative economic strategy with capital letters. And this was the cherished dream of the Labour left for about 15 years or so. And what this was, was like, capitalism is obviously terrible. Let's have a siege economy. We'll put up protectionist Trumpian tariffs.

25:56Dominic Sandbrook:will have state controls, stop British money going out, stop foreign goods coming in. The state should take over businesses and we should force those businesses not taking over to sign planning agreements with the government. I mean, if that sounds like a parody, I'll quote Tony Benn himself, a real labour policy of shaving jobs, import control, control of the banks and insurance companies, control of export, of capital, higher taxation of the rich and Britain leaving the common market. Because, of course, this would be incompatible with European membership. When they argue about this, Dennis Healy says, this is absolutely bonkers.

26:34Dominic Sandbrook:This would destroy people's living standards. And Tony Benn says to him, no, this is the patriotic alternative to surrendering to international capitalism. We should fight for our own people. The British establishment is now infected with the same spirit which afflicted France in 1940, the Vichy spirit of complete capitulation and defeatism. Of course, it's only, what, what is it, 35 years since Vichy?

26:58Tom Holland:But also since Healy had been storming the beaches at Antio. So Healy is absolutely outraged by this.

27:05Dominic Sandbrook:Healy had fought. Tony Benn had been in the RF but didn't see any action. And Tony Benn describes in his diaries, he says, Dennis sat there scarlet. He always blushes when he's in difficulty. I don't think he's in difficulty. He's furious. Puce with rage. But actually, the cabinet agreed to support Healy. Fine, we'll cut a billion pounds in spending. The question is, will it be enough? So we come to late August, which is the holiday season. Jim Callaghan has his holiday on his Sussex farm, bringing in the harvest, which is Thomas Hardy's idea of fun. So that's what he's doing. Dennis Healy's idea of fun is James Boswell and Dr.

27:41Dominic Sandbrook:Johnson's idea of fun. Oh, going to Scotland. He goes on a Scottish tour with his wife. They drive all the way up to the Isle of Skye, and then they end up in Ullapool, which is in the sort of far northwest of Scotland.

27:50Tom Holland:And I imagine he's reading a bit of Boswell, a bit of Burns, a bit of Scott with his hinterland. He's got the Russians with him.

27:57Dominic Sandbrook:He's probably got some Balzac. And he's very performatively piling them up at the breakfast table. Anyway, they get to this hotel at Ullapool on the quay. They go to bed, Hayley and Edna, his wife. And late at night, there's a call. And he goes downstairs, and it's a special branch. And they said, there's an IRA death threat against you. We're sending agents. And he says, fine. So he goes back upstairs to bed. Phone rings again. and he goes downstairs. It's the Treasury this time. They say, we've got terrible news. The pound has been tanking. It's been a dreadful day. You're going to have to come back to London or something.

28:28Dominic Sandbrook:Oh, fine. He goes back upstairs to bed. Phone rings again. He goes down. It's the Bank of England. They say, we want permission to spend 150 million pounds to defend the pound. Yeah, fine. And by the time he gets back to London, the news has got worse. The publicity for Britain is terrible. So on the 3rd of September, more than 20 ,000 British Leyland car workers. We haven't really talked about car strikes or British Leyland. In this series I think people should just imagine that all this time there have been constant car strikes and the Major and Fawlty Towers has been getting very cross about them.

28:58Dominic Sandbrook:Has Red Robbo turned up? Red Robbo is the union convener at Longbridge at the giant car plant in Birmingham.

29:06Tom Holland:Do you know who loved Red Robbo? It was the two Ronnies. They couldn't get enough of car strikes at British Leyland.

29:12Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, I mean I've written a whole chapter about Red Robbo and car strikes at British Leyland and I'm very happy to do I don't feel that that would be an episode for our overseas listeners, frankly.

29:22Tom Holland:We can indulge ourselves.

29:23Dominic Sandbrook:To give you a little, just a little soup song, a little taste of what that chapter might involve. The 20 ,000 car workers have walked out because of a demarcation dispute about who is responsible, and I quote, for pressing the buttons on a new control panel. And this is the kind of thing about which, you know, tens of thousands of people go out and strike and millions and millions of pounds would be lost. And this is the 11th major strike at Longbridge in six months, which gives you a flavour of the efficiency and the ruthlessness of the British car industry. So that was on what? Was that the 3rd of September?

29:56Dominic Sandbrook:On the 7th of September, Labour's national executive votes for the government to nationalise the four biggest banks. Now, obviously, the government are going to ignore this. But this, again, doesn't play well with Britain's creditors. You say obviously, if Labour Party just voted for it, why aren't they doing it? Well, Tony Benn joins us now on the Rest It's History. This is exactly what Tony Benn would say. Tony Benn would say, the party has just told you to nationalise the four biggest banks. You're in government. You should be doing the bidding of the party. Why are you ignoring the party? And James Callaghan and Dennis Healy would say, I don't care what the party says.

30:30Dominic Sandbrook:We'll do what we like. That's mad. And this was a constant problem for the Labour Party. And it reaches ahead in the early 1980s. when basically Ben and the activists launch a revolution against their own leadership and seize control of the party machinery from them, effectively, at the Labour Party conference. And they said, not unreasonably, we keep voting for these things and you just keep ignoring it and ripping up the manifesto and doing capitalist things. Callaghan would say, well, the reason we do that is because your ideas are mad. And this is probably not a recipe for harmony inside a major political party.

31:03Dominic Sandbrook:Anyway, not surprisingly, the markets are losing faith in the government's ability to govern. So the Bank of England spends another£175 million in an hour on the 8th of September, another£50 million in 10 minutes on the 9th, and the pound keeps on falling. And on Monday, the 27th of September, it hits$1.63, its lowest level yet. Now, on the same day, Monday the 27th the Labour conference opens in Blackpool you can well imagine what a happy occasion that's going to be given what's just happened the heat wave is over it's absolutely

31:39Tom Holland:pouring with rain because they had appointed a minister for drought hadn't they and then it immediately started bucketing down yeah they appointed a

31:47Dominic Sandbrook:minister for drought and he did a rain dance and then immediately it started shared his bath with his wife didn't he yes he encouraged people to share save water exactly so they all arrive in um they've been incredibly hot and sunburned and parched and they arrive in blackpool which i know you love blackpool i'm not a massive fan frankly it's pouring with rain and they're all really damp and miserable the activists are furious with the government so speaker after speaker gets up and denounces deniseed his cuts and says we want tariffs immediately we want protectionism we want nationalization of the banks we want all this bernard donahue who's gone up with Callaghan, writes in his diary, it was really terrible.

32:26Dominic Sandbrook:Everybody was depressed. Jim said to me, it was worse than ever before. But Tony Benn is in his pomp. He loves it. He says to the conference, we are paying the price for 20 years in which we've played down our criticism of capitalism. It's time to fight back against the blunt and inhuman force of the market economy. And people are sobbing with joy. Hey, brilliant. Yeah, brilliant. Love it. On day two of the conference, Callaghan gives his leader's speech, his first as prime minister. And this is actually one of those few speeches in modern British history that's really consequential and important.

33:01Dominic Sandbrook:It was written by his son-in-law, Peter Jay, who was the economics editor of the Times, and was a convert to monetarism. And it's a celebrated speech, and I think one of the bravest speeches ever given by a British party leader, because Callaghan gets up and he says his party, his own party, you are totally wrong. Like we have been completely wrong. He says, and I quote, for too long, we've been living on borrowed time. For too long, this country, all of us, yes, this conference too, has been ready to settle for borrowing money abroad to maintain our standards of life instead of grappling with the fundamental problem of British industry.

33:36Dominic Sandbrook:And then he goes on to say, the cozy world of the post-war consensus is gone. We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase unemployment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candor that that option no longer exists. And insofar as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step. In other words, what we've been doing is wrong and it didn't work and it's been inflationary and Keynesian economics, which is basically you spend when things are going badly, to create jobs for people and stuff.

34:14Dominic Sandbrook:Pay people to dig a hole. Pay people to dig a hole. Stop paying people to dig a hole. You're just creating to great inflation. We can't print money. We've been paying ourselves more than the value of what we produce. It's a cold, hard world out there. We need to cut our costs, tighten our belts, work harder, and earn our place in the world. Now, you can imagine how well this goes down with his listeners. So very unusually, right? of being very unusual for an incoming prime minister in his first conference. Many of his own national executive refused to clap him. There's no standing ovation. But the other party's papers, the Tory papers, say what a good speech that was.

34:54Dominic Sandbrook:You know, Jim speaks sense, Jim's facts of life, I think the Express called it. And Milton Friedman, the godfather of monetarism, said a few months later, it was one of the most remarkable speeches which any government leader has ever given. Today, historians say, well, this is a massive kind of way station on the road to Thatcherism. Callaghan is basically anticipating Thatcherism. Actually, Callaghan, and he's obviously not thinking that far ahead. He's thinking, as he said to his biographer, Kenneth Morgan, he said, I was sick of the extremism and economic illiteracy of my party activists. I wanted them to face up to reality.

35:32Dominic Sandbrook:But reality is about to confront all of them. In fact, about to punch them all in the face very hard. Because that same day, the 28th of September, Dennis Healy is about to fly off. The Chancellor, he's not there. He's going to fly off to Hong Kong for a Commonwealth Finance Minister's meeting. And after Hong Kong, he's going to go to Manila for a meeting of the IMF, ironically. And all that morning, before Callaghan gates the speech, the pound has been falling. So Healy gets in the car from the Treasury to go to Heathrow Airport for his flight to Hong Kong. and during the journey from central London to Heathrow, the pound falls by another two cents.

36:11Dominic Sandbrook:By the time he gets to the VIP lounge at Heathrow, he's in a massive dilemma. If he gets on the plane, he'll be out of communication for 17 hours. So if the pound falls more, no one will be able to talk to him or ask his advice. But if he doesn't go, the markets might completely panic. So he doesn't know what to do. And he rings Callaghan in Blackpool. Callaghan's about to give that speech and Callaghan says, I don't know what to do. And Callaghan says, don't get on the plane. Forget the Far Eastern trip. Get back to the Treasury. So 15 minutes before the plane is about to leave, Healy's aides start loading his bags back off the plane and into the car in full view of the press.

36:50Dominic Sandbrook:An hour later, he's back at the Treasury. The trip is off. What an extraordinary thing. He's turned around at the airport. The press, of course, go absolutely berserk. What's going on? The Chancellor changes his plans, literally at the last minute when the plane was about to leave. And the next morning, the Treasury confirms that Healy has, after all, applied to borrow the maximum possible$3.9 billion from the IMF. This is going to be one of the great humiliations in British history. And that night, Healy goes on TV and he says to the audience, we've applied for this loan. If we don't get the loan, the alternative would, and I quote, be policies so savage, I think they would lead to riots in the streets.

37:37Dominic Sandbrook:So massive stakes, Dominic. Massive.

37:39Tom Holland:Couldn't be higher. So is Healy going to get the money? How is Tony Benn going to take it? Will the Labour Party tear themselves apart? Can Sonny Jim cling on? And most importantly of all, will the Sex Pistols be back? Only one way to find out. Come back to us after the break.

38:21Tom Holland:At mintmobile.com slash history. Upfront payment of 45 for three month, five gigabyte plan required, equivalent to$15 per month. New customer offer for first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra.

38:37Dominic Sandbrook:See Mint Mobile for details.

38:44Dominic Sandbrook:Are you worried or just enjoying yourself?

38:47Tom Holland:enjoying myself I've always wanted to meet you

38:52Dominic Sandbrook:we'll meet afterwards shall we

38:54Tom Holland:you dirty sod you dirty old man

38:58Dominic Sandbrook:well keep going chief keep going go on you've got another five seconds say something outrageous

39:03Tom Holland:you dirty bastard go on again you dirty f***

39:11Dominic Sandbrook:what a clever boy what a f*** rotter

39:15Tom Holland:well that's it for tonight brilliant uh thank you dominic thank or should i say uh bill grundy welcome back to the rest is history that was more archive footage from the sex pistols controversial appearance on the today show on the early evening of wednesday the 1st of december 1976 and we'll be coming back to the sex pistols won't we but for now there is high drama in the dimension of international finance top Emily Dickinson quota Dennis Healey with his big eyebrows he'd been about to fly off to Hong Kong but he's cancelled it because the economy is tanking and now he's announced that Britain

39:52Dominic Sandbrook:is going to have to apply to the IMF for a loan yes exactly so the timing is horrendous because the Labour conference of course a meeting in Blackpool the activists not happy anyway so what are they going to make of this latest surrender to the forces of international capitalism now Healy had turned back at the airport on Tuesday the 28th of September. He made the official application on the Wednesday. Now on Thursday the 30th, as luck would have it, the conference, which is now in total tumult, is due to debate economic policy. Healy wants to fly up to the conference and make his case personally to the activists.

40:28Dominic Sandbrook:And Callaghan says to him, no, don't, it'll just inflame the delegates. They hate you already. And actually, under the Labour Party's slightly bizarre rules, if you're not a member of the national executive, You won't be allowed to speak from the platform. You'll have to speak from the floor like everybody else. And so Healy says, well, fine. Well, I've made the application now. I've got nothing to do. So because he's got a great hinterland, I don't think we've mentioned that, because of his hinterland, he says, I'll spend the day at the National Gallery looking at paintings from the Dutch Golden Age and I'll pick some out from my office.

41:01Dominic Sandbrook:He goes to the National Gallery and when he's there, an official rushes in and says, Callaghan's changed his mind. He wants you to go to Blackpool after all. And he's got a plane waiting at RAF Northolt to fly you to Blackpool. It's the 70s, so the plane is massively delayed because of rain. And Saheeli doesn't arrive in Blackpool's winter gardens until three o 'clock. And he's completely sodden. He walks in. He's incredibly red-faced. And as soon as he walks into the hall, the members of his own party start booing him, which is kind of a bad sign. He sits at the back, and the cameras are on him the whole time.

41:33Dominic Sandbrook:And as he sits there, I mean, it's beyond parody. Their conference are literally debating their plans to take Barclays Bank, Lloyds Bank, the Midland Bank, which is now HSBC, and NatWest into public ownership. And Healy's just sitting there shaking his head in horror and sort of scribbling notes. And then it's his turn to speak. He is the Chancellor of the Exchequer amid one of the worst financial crises in British history, but he's not allowed onto the platform and he's told he's got no more than five minutes to make his case. And when you watch the clip, I mean, he goes up to the front and he's not allowed onto the very top level.

42:08Dominic Sandbrook:And he's incredibly red faced. His tyres all askew. He looks like he hasn't slept in a week. So he's reassuring international investors in Britain, in other words. Definitely he is. And people are jeering him and shaking their fists at him and stuff. And he basically has to shout to be heard above the jeers. And he says to them, I come from the battlefront and all this stuff. And then he just slams the left. He says, there are some people who would like to stop the world and get off. They say, let us go to a siege economy. But they want a siege economy of a rather odd type. They want to stop the imports coming in, but to get total freedom for exports to get out.

42:44Tom Holland:Is that true? Kind of is. Because that's never going to work. I thought that Tony Benn was saying, no, we won't have any imports.

42:51Dominic Sandbrook:No, we won't have any imports. But they never really contemplate what that means in terms of your exports. because there's no world, right, in which you say to your trading partners, we're not going to have your imports, but you have to keep buying our stuff. I mean, that obviously doesn't happen. That's never going to happen. As Healy says, I've never heard of a siege in which you keep the enemy out of your castle, but the enemy allows you to come and go as you please. And he says that, and of course, that really inflames people because they don't like being laughed at. They don't like him talking down to them.

43:20Dominic Sandbrook:There's great howling from them at this. and then he says i'm going to negotiate with the imf on based on my existing policies and people are screaming at him tory policies because they think he's a tory you see and he says but when i say existing policies i mean things we do not like as well as things we do like it means sticking to the very painful cuts and public expenditure which the government has already decided and people are screaming at him no resign you're a tory and all this kind of thing and it's five minutes are up and so he just says that's what it means that's what i'm going to negotiate for and I asked the conference to support me in this task.

43:55Dominic Sandbrook:He's redder face than ever. He goes back to his seat. As he goes back to his seat, loads of people are sort of shaking their fists at him and shouting and all this kind of thing. Are they spittle flecked? Spittle flecked. There's a lot of spittle. Tony Benn says in his diary, I couldn't clap him. His speech was so vulgar and abusive. It's great footage.

44:12Tom Holland:Great TV.

44:13Dominic Sandbrook:It's the kind of thing that basically you would never see now in British politics. But it's great fun. It's terrible publicity for Britain. A few days later, the Treasury and the Bank of England had to put up interest rates to 15%, which was the highest level in history. I repeat, 15 % on your borrowing, on your mortgage, whatever. This is horrendous for the economy. And the most obvious price that is paid for this is unemployment. Unemployment had started rising in the late 60s. At the end of 1971, it had reached 1 million. And at the time, this was under Ted Heath, people had said, God, this is the end of the world.

44:50Dominic Sandbrook:This is the Great Depression all over again. A million people unemployed, unthinkable. And that's why Heath had thrown so much money around in an attempt to deal with it. Now under Callaghan, it's more like one and a half million and nudging upwards. And it's worse for young people. So by 1979, almost half of all under 25-year-olds are out of work. So the unemployment that we associate with Thatcher and Thatcherism had already begun.

45:17Tom Holland:And so what are you to do in that situation except become a punk rocker? Well, this is the thing.

45:23Dominic Sandbrook:This is the social context for the rise of punk. So the look of punk and the style of it, the kind of ripped clothes, the hair, the sort of aggression, they're there in embryo in pubs and clubs in 1975, maybe even in 1974. But it's no accident, I think that it ceases public attention in the summer and autumn of 1976 at precisely the point when the economy is tanking when Britain's going to the IMF and all the newspapers are full of laments about rising unemployment and there being no future the Sex Pistols great refrain so the pistols themselves had first been mentioned by the NME in December 1975 they're all about 12 years old and they're going to be the next big thing I left that 12 years old but then the really big article is by Charles Shah Murray.

46:13Dominic Sandbrook:He reviewed my first book. That's an honour. He called me the hoodie historian. Brilliant. Throwing whatever passes for gang signs at the University of Sheffield. What an honour. Well, anyway, Charles Shah Murray wrote the first big article on the Sex Pistols. Their music is coming from the straight out of school and onto the dole death trap, which we seem to have engineered for our young. The 76 British terminal stasis, the modern urban blind alley. You wanted sex pistols and now you've got them. Trouble is, they look like they aren't going to go away. Now, at this point, as we alluded to earlier, they haven't actually released a record.

46:50Dominic Sandbrook:So Anarchy in the UK didn't come out until the end of November. But just as the Beatles, in the second half of 1963, the Beatles are perfectly cast, really, to seize the moment. The newspapers love the Beatles because they seem to reflect all sorts of other trends, you know, sort of meritocracy, the northern cheekiness, all of this kind of thing, that are very fashionable in 1963. And the optimism and agility in an age when the economy is booming. The Sex Pistols seem perfectly cast to capture the mood in 1976. So Tony Parsons in The Enemy in early October says, they're the quintessential product of the United Kingdom in the 1970s.

47:32Dominic Sandbrook:the music they play reflects their times no more no less and then they get their first appearance a week later in the national newspapers in the sun the sun did a double page spread and it illustrated it with handcuffs and swastikas it described them as hell's angels in a clockwork orange nightmare and it had a nice quote from john lyden johnny rotten we want chaos to come life's not going to get any better for kids on the dole until it gets worse first it's quite like David Bowie. David Bowie and the fascism. There's a sort of nihilism, I think, in British popular culture in the mid-70s. It's sort of, we want to see everything get worse, and only then will it get better.

48:13Dominic Sandbrook:And a sort of exasperation. I think people of that generation looked at your Callaghan's and your Healers and your kind of trade union leaders and stuff, and they just thought, I have nothing in common with these people. I'm sick of them going on about the war. I'm sick of their massive glasses and their beer and sandwiches and their pay deals. I just want to smash everything up. And I guess you could argue they got the Prime Minister that they deserved, somebody who did smash everything up. Anyway, Johnny Rotten said he wanted everything to get worse. And frankly, it looks as though he's going to get his wish.

48:46Dominic Sandbrook:Because at the beginning of November, the six-man IMF team fly into London. And this is seen in the newspapers and in the media generally, and I think by the public, as a moment of overwhelming national disgrace. It's like Britain is an incompetent business that's gone into administration. And all the newspapers run profiles of these six people. There is an Englishman, an Australian, an American, a German, a New Zealander, and a Greek. So basically, it's the cast of a terrible, very, very inappropriate 1970s joke. They're all staying at Brown's Hotel under false names, excitingly. They go to see Dennis Healy in Downing Street.

49:24Dominic Sandbrook:Remember, he now has to open the books. He has to show them Britain's accounts. and he says, you know, the books aren't ready. You'll have to hang around. So they're just hanging around London waiting for the books to be ready. Well, in Browns, I mean, that's quite nice. Isn't it a nice hotel? It's lovely having tea in Browns. I mean, what a nice thing. But actually the real drama isn't Britain versus the IMF. It's Callaghan's government against each other. So the issue is whether they're going to make these cuts. And this sounds like a very dry technical thing, but to any Labour government, this is absolutely existential.

49:55Dominic Sandbrook:And there's history here. in 1931 Ramsey MacDonald's Labour government had come under similar pressure in the depression they too had been put under pressure to make cuts the pound beleaguered and the cabinet had split and Ramsey MacDonald the prime minister had ended up basically leaving his own party the Labour Party to lead a Tory dominated coalition and he was seen as the great traitor of Labour Party history for doing this and the Labour left are obsessed with this and Tony Benn starts at this point he starts going to meetings with the he gets the minutes from the cabinet meetings from 1931 and he starts performatively walking around with them under his arm putting them out on the table for everyone to see because he's basically saying to Jim Callaghan you're Ramsay MacDonald I know what you're like and all this kind of thing and also Tony Benn has lost patience with Callaghan because Callaghan, he thinks, has really let himself down and let the Labour movement and socialism down.

50:55Dominic Sandbrook:Because when Chairman Mao died, Callaghan refused to have a moment of reflection. Ben was absolutely appalled that Callaghan wouldn't pay tribute to Chairman Mao in British Cabinet. He says in his diary, Mao merited a moment of reflection. He will undoubtedly be regarded as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, figures of the 20th century. He's certainly towers above any other 20th century figure I can think of in his philosophical contribution and military genius. And the fact that Callaghan refuses to see this, he says, is a sign that Jim is just a Tory. So I think listeners can make up their own minds about this.

51:36Dominic Sandbrook:You know, are you with Chairman Mao or are you with Jim Callaghan? I know who you're with, Dominic. Are you with Chairman Mao? I'm not with Chairman Mao. I hate Chairman Mao. Chairman Mao's a terrible man. He's an absolutely terrible man. He made war on birds. And this is a sign of... You can't go around making war on birds. Tony Benn's terrible, terrible judgment. I mean - I like James Callaghan.

51:56Tom Holland:Yeah, he's great. I like the fact he's from Hampshire. I like the fact he had a farm. I like the fact that he approved of the Royal Navy.

52:03Dominic Sandbrook:No, I like him. So Callaghan and Healy have a problem with Tony Benn. He despises them now for their lack of affection for Chairman Mao, but also their enthusiasm for cuts. The other person they have to worry about is the foreign secretary, who is called Anthony Crosland. I mentioned him briefly. Oh, the lounge lizard. Lounge lizard. Actually, I basically fell down a rabbit hole of looking at photographs online of Tony Crosden trying to find the appropriate terminology. He looks uncannily, I think, like David Cameron. He's like a sort of more lounge lizard-esque David Cameron. Kind of fleshy. He's become quite fleshy.

52:37Dominic Sandbrook:Rubicon. He's much more baggy-faced by this point because he's proven he'd been drinking a lot more and smoking and stuff. He was the great intellectual of the Labour Party in the 50s. wrote a book called The Future of Socialism. And he basically said Britain should become a Scandinavian social democracy with American lifestyle. So massive taxes, huge fridges. His dream has been overtaken by events, but he still hankers after this sort of 1950s, 1960s Keynesian dream of like, let's tax and spend loads and all this. And he also sees Healy as a rival and he wants to use this against him. So his argument is, it's mad to have any cuts.

53:15Dominic Sandbrook:We've got a million people unemployed. What are we thinking? It'll provoke loads of strikes. Just tell the IMF that they're being stupid. A cat, Crosland like Healy, is incredibly arrogant. He says, just tell the IMF they're fools. Just tell them they're wrong and they'll have to listen. So Callaghan has this problem. He has got the foreign secretary against him. He's got Ben against him and he's got the IMF. How is he going to handle this and keep his government together? And the answer is that he actually handles it brilliantly. It's one of the great examples of prime ministerial management in British history.

53:44Tom Holland:I think it was cited by Daniel Finkelstein in the Times as an example that Keir Starmer could learn from.

53:52Dominic Sandbrook:God, that's high praise. Because you know, Danny Finkelstein, do you know what one of his enthusiasms? It's a podcast called The Rest is History. He's a big fan of The Rest is History. Hello, Danny. Hope you enjoyed that mention. Yeah, he should write another column in the Times. About how good we are. That's exactly what it is. He should write two columns. What about how good Jim Callaghan is and what about how good we are? And everyone will enjoy that. So what Callaghan does is in the next two months, he has 26 cabinet meetings. And he basically says to his ministers, fine, you talk this out.

54:21Dominic Sandbrook:You talk yourselves into exhaustion and I'll be the umpire. And that's what he does. And basically, Healy, the chancellor, has to do 26 of these meetings where he allows his colleagues to argue with him. And he basically has to fight back. And he's working these punishing days. He's redder than ever. he gets shingles but he puts up a tremendous performance because this is what he's all about basically fighting off he loves a fight he loves a bare knuckle intellectual brawl does he have any time off to read emily dickinson no he's having a terrible time he's starting work at six and working till midnight almost like our routine yes tell me about it so they have all these meetings i guess the key one is the 23rd of november not only the argument with each other argument with the IMF.

55:09Dominic Sandbrook:And Healy has persuaded the IMF to moderate their demands. So Britain will have to make$1.5 billion of cuts next year and another$3 billion in 1978-79. Healy says to his colleagues, look, this will be very painful, but the IMF will approve it. The Americans will approve it. It'll be good for our image. It'll be good for confidence. Let's do this. Crosland then speaks up and he says, this is mad. He says, and I quote, tell the IMF, the Americans and the Germans, if you demand any more of us we should put up the shutters wind down our defense commitments and introduce a siege economy now this crosstalk says this will frighten them they need our troops in west germany and they don't want us to have a siege economy and to be a north korea off the coast of france so they will blink they will give us the money and they won't demand any cuts and we'll be laughing so it's a bit brexit it's very brexit it's very brexit it's basically we'll blackmail the imf If they need us more than we need them.

56:04Dominic Sandbrook:Now, we tried that with the European Union in the late 2010s, didn't we? And I don't feel it worked out brilliantly, personally. I'm not expressing a view about Brexit. I'm expressing a view about a negotiating strategy. And I feel like the claim that German car makers, you know, we were so important that they would come to our rescue. That was not realized. Anyway, there's obviously no way the IMF would give into this blackmail. This is absolutely mad. but a lot of Callaghan's ministers quite like this because they will do anything to avoid the cuts again Callaghan plays it very cleverly he says look take a week to think about it we'll come back in a week we'll come back next Wednesday and we'll make up our minds one way or the other and over the weekend he and Crossland have to go to the Hague for some European meeting and on the way back Callaghan says to Crossland whatever happens I'm going to side with Dennis like I'm telling you now I'm siding with Dennis and the implication is if you keep fighting you will bring down this government and none of us want that so the week goes by and we get to the decisive day which is wednesday the 1st of december callaghan's ministers arrive at number 10 they're told there's a half hour delay which is very unusual for a cabinet meeting and the reason is that callaghan has been locked in the upstairs room well not locked in but he's been in an upstairs room if he's locked in that'd be a bit weird oh by hester thrale yeah yes exactly Barcy Williams has come back and locked them in the room so they can't have lunch.

57:30Dominic Sandbrook:With the managing director of the IMF, who's flown in from Washington, and Callaghan has persuaded him to drop the one and a half billion cuts to just one billion cuts in the first year. So that's a bit of a win. A win for Britain. Callaghan finally comes downstairs. It's 10.30. He says, we'll go around the table and we'll decide what we're going to do. He starts with Tony Benn of the critics. And Tony Benn says, let's have a siege economy. Come on, let's become North Korea. And this completely backfires because basically Callaghan's staff have secretly been preparing ammunition to use against Tony Benn and they've distributed it to Callaghan's younger loyalist ministers who are people like Shirley Williams and Bill Rogers who go on to form the breakaway Social Democratic Party in the 80s.

58:13Dominic Sandbrook:And they get absolutely stuck into Benn. The questions that you were asking, Tom, who's going to lend us any money if we have a siege economy? How many people will lose their jobs because no one's buying our exports? What do you think our trading partners will do if you ban their imports? They're not going to buy British goods anymore. What are you going to do about that? And Ben has to admit that he doesn't know the answers to these questions. And it's very sad. People start laughing at him. They start laughing at him and making fun of him in the meeting. And Callaghan actually has to intervene and to tell them to listen to him with respect because they're being nasty to Tony Ben.

58:49Dominic Sandbrook:So that's Tony Ben. and then it's Crosland the foreign secretary Crosland wants his blackmail plan he says let's threaten the siege economy or talk about our role in Cyprus or our troops in Germany or our membership of the EEC and then Schmidt the German chancellor and Ford the US president will soon give way but in the last week people have been talking about this and they've lost some of their former enthusiasm you know the more he sort of says it'll be fine they'll give him of course they'll blink people think will they really probably they won't and so that night the night of wednesday the 1st of december loads of ministers come to um crossland's room in the commons they say we're not going to support you we're going to support dennis and actually crossland himself finally cracks and he goes to see jim callahan he says i'm still right but i guess i'll go along with you now while this has been going on in the house of commons there's been another dramatic development because that evening, Thames TV's early evening family-friendly Today Show was going to feature everyone's favourite band, Queen.

59:56But Queen pulled out.

59:59Dominic Sandbrook:Because Freddie had to go to the dentist. Is that right? He had to go to the dentist. That's a good fact. So their publicist at EMI said to the bookers at Thames, we've got another group. Join our other group instead. And they said, sure, what could possibly go wrong? And this was the Sex Pistols. This was the genesis of their interview with Bill Grundy. So listeners will now have heard the original archive footage, won't they? And so you listening to this will be able to make up your own minds about what was going on. The Pistols, as you say, Tom, thought that Bill Grundy was drunk. I don't think he seems that drunk when you actually see the real archive.

1:00:35Tom Holland:But maybe he's such a kind of consummate drunk that he can get away with it. i mean michael parkinson said he was always drunk yeah i know lots of people said he was a big

1:00:46Dominic Sandbrook:drinker but he if so then he would have been drunk and done loads of today programs it's hard to work out exactly why he loses it so completely because actually although people always use that or used at the time the newspapers said oh the pistols are scum and all this kind of thing the swearing it's kind of not their fault because he goads them he tells them to do it go on chief say something outrageous and all this kind of thing the result is this massive media furore so i'm going to read a line that i've used so often in my books but i don't really know what it means the switchboard is jammed i never know what how that works how many calls must you get now so how many people realistically are ringing tv companies anyway 10 people are ringing tv whatever the switchboard is jammed and the next day's papers go completely berserk and we have these tremendous headlines the filth and the fury fury at filthy tv chat and so on and the bbc get the blame don't they even though it wasn't on the bbc i love this daily express published a long editor explaining why this was all the bbc even though it wasn't on the bbc and the bbc had nothing

1:02:01Tom Holland:But the Express aren't going to let a little thing like that get in the way.

1:02:04Dominic Sandbrook:No, the Express said it's the BBC's fault because the BBC panders to the ignorance and tastelessness of those who enjoy the noises of punk rock. I love that, the noises of punk rock. Anyway, it completely changed the lives of the Sex Pistols, this interview, because it made them household names. They're plastered across the newspapers. It meant that from this point onwards, it would be impossible for them ever to be judged on the basis of their music. And they've got Silver Jubilee coming up. They've got the Silver Jubilee. Perfect timing. Exactly. And they become this, even though their music is not that popular, they become a genuine public phenomenon.

1:02:44Dominic Sandbrook:They become the supreme emblems of the breakdown and nihilism of the 1970s, and this before they've ever really had a hit. And as for Bill Grundy, Tom, a terrible fate, Bill Grundy. A warning from history. A warning from history. he literally ends up being banished to present a books podcast so the next morning the second of december as callaghan's ministers assemble for another meeting the papers are full of the pistols but i'm happy to say there is no filth and fury in downing street very good look at that that's so good so callaghan and healy of one cross and throws in the towel ben ben's grumpy about it but the cabinet will take the deal.

1:03:26Dominic Sandbrook:Britain will cut public spending by a billion pounds next year and one and a half billion pounds the year afterwards and in return it'll get four billion dollars right now to defend the pound. It is at once a total humiliation for Britain and a great political achievement by Callaghan because he hasn't lost a single minister, he's kept his government together. This was a crisis that was brewing before he became PM and he's somehow come out of it with his reputation enhanced. And even Tony Benn, who is usually, what did Callaghan call him? A canting hypocrite. And Tony Benn is usually so scathing about any other Labour politician.

1:04:02Tom Holland:Yeah, Harold Wilson's birthday. Odious.

1:04:04Dominic Sandbrook:Odious. In his diary, he wrote afterwards, Jim is a much better prime minister than Wilson. He's much more candid and open with people. He doesn't try to double talk them as Wilson did. Wilson has simply disappeared from sight. Nobody thinks about him anymore. So 10 days before Christmas, they unveiled the deal to the House of Commons. There are going to be big cuts to all the budgets. There's going to be higher charges for things like gas and telephones, which, of course, in these days in the 70s are public utilities. But the Labour left don't rebel. Amazingly, Callaghan and Healy have got away with it.

1:04:38Dominic Sandbrook:There's a little twist to the story. It actually turned out that because the Treasury had got their figures wrong, Britain was borrowing less money than everybody thought. So Healy only needed half of the loan and was able to repay it early. Now, of course, people don't know that initially. And at the time, people saw this as the whole business was seen as an abject national humiliation. And on the left, as well as on the right, there's a brilliant editorial in the Sunday Mirror. Perhaps the politicians who have got us into our present mess would like to know what the British people are fed up with most of all.

1:05:10Dominic Sandbrook:not the fall in the pound not ever-rising food prices not the erosion of their pay packets not even the weather what the british people are fed up with most is feeling ashamed oh that's terrible isn't it as for the political significance of this moment historic significance it depends where you stand so if you're like tony ben and you're on the left you see this moment the imf bailout as the definitive moment in british history when socialism was betrayed so in the 1980s, the left of the Labour Party, lots of Labour activists said Callaghan and Healy were the people who prepared the way for Margaret Thatcher, and they never forgave them for it.

1:05:49Dominic Sandbrook:Well into the 80s, when Healy would get up to give a speech, activists would scream IMF at him. They'd kind of chant it at him. Now, if they hadn't won, what if Tony Benn had got his way and we had had a siege economy? I mean, I think it's very unlikely, but I don't think the result would have been very good. I think it would have been high inflation, tanking living standards. I think there would have been a surge in unemployment and there probably would have been an even greater swing to the right eventually. And actually, François Mitterrand tried something a little bit similar in France in the 1980s.

1:06:22Dominic Sandbrook:He gave it up after two years or something, didn't he? And he got Jacques Delors in to sort out his finances and to swing to the right towards austerity. So the French did try it and it didn't really work. And I don't think it would have worked in Britain. However, I think Ben is right in one respect. I think this was a big turning point. And I think he's actually right that Callaghan and Healy do prepare the ground for Margaret Thatcher to some degree. Because in the space of a few months, what they've basically done is they've ditched tax and spend Keynesianism. They've abandoned the idea of full employment, and they're moving towards what later seen as monetarism.

1:06:58Dominic Sandbrook:So a year later, a year after this, 1977, Haley said to his cabinet colleagues, he said, we'll never again live in a Britain where everybody has a job. Keynesianism has failed. And in 1979, there's a telling exchange, which Ben records in his diaries between him and Callaghan about globalisation. So Ben says, how is it that British businesses are allowed to order coal from Australia and ships from Japan just because they're cheaper than British products? That shouldn't be allowed. And Callaghan says to him, we mustn't be insular, Tony. The state can't do anything about this. If those goods are cheaper, we should buy them from wherever they come from.

1:07:39Dominic Sandbrook:And of course, in our lifetimes, we have grown up thinking that he was right and that free trade and globalization are the way forward. But we now, in the 2020s, find ourselves in an age when the US president, I'm guessing, would have said that Tony Benn was right and that you should always put your own country first and that who cares? you know if tariffs are what you need then tariffs is what you do though tony ben wouldn't have approved of attacking iran would he no i think that's probably the only respect in which they would be singing from the same hymn sheet i guess um anyway tony ben much less orange and i don't think donald trump has been stung on his penis by a wasp that that fact that may not even be true

1:08:26Tom Holland:Of course it's true, Dominic.

1:08:28Dominic Sandbrook:Well, it's on the rest of history, so it must be. It's the single most important fact of post-war British politics. So anyway, this whole story ends with Britain a lot closer to Thatcherism at the end of 1976 than it was when we began at the beginning of 1975. To Thatcherism, but not to Thatcher. Because people may be wondering, you know, they started the series with Margaret Thatcher becoming leader. Where's she been in all this? And the truth is, she's not been relevant. She's not part of the story. She's been Tory leader all this time, but she's been struggling in the House of Commons still.

1:09:00Dominic Sandbrook:Callaghan is brilliant at dealing with her in a very, I have to say, a very sexist way. He basically pats her on her head when she gets up to oppose him. And at one point, he actually uses the expression, now, now, little lady, to her, which drives her mad. But everybody kind of laughs. He is miles ahead in polls of who people would prefer as prime minister. even with the Tory press he's remarkably popular and that Christmas the rabidly right-wing Daily Express says perhaps we are quite lucky in old Jim Callaghan but his luck is about to run out because we will come back to the 1970s later on not immediately but later on in a third and final series which will come to the winter of discontent the election of 1979 and Margaret Thatcher's transformation from an ugly duckling into an Argentine smiting swan.

1:09:55Dominic Sandbrook:And that is all ahead.

1:09:57Tom Holland:But Dominic, just because people are going to have to wait a year now for more 1970s Britain doesn't mean that there is going to be any lack of history in the intervening months. So we have coming up the Mona Lisa, Battle of Marathon, First World War, the Tudor Cold War, the Odyssey, loads and loads of stuff to come. And if you are an Athelstan, then we have an unbelievable treat for you because coming up is going to be the opportunity to win not just a copy of Dominic's great book, Seasons in the Sun, but a signed copy. So if you're an Athelstan and you want to be in with a chance of winning, just add your email address to the form in the episode description but for now dominic thank you no one better in the whole world to talk about britain in the 1970s than you so what a treat it's been thank you everyone for listening and we will be back with the mona leesa next week bye bye bye

1:11:06Dominic Sandbrook:we have reached the thrilling climax to our epic mini series about photography and history which is exclusively for our Rest is History club members. So we thought we would give you one last taste of the series that we're doing with the great photographer Chris Floyd. And in this, the climactic episode, we're looking at the story of technology and photography, how inventions like the Leica and Polaroid, the Flash and the Strobe have transformed the way we see the world and the way that we understand modern history. It really is a richly fascinating and colourful episode and we're going to give you a little snippet of it right now.

1:11:46Dominic Sandbrook:And that's what Kodachrome does. It allows you to bring out the colour and so suddenly the world, I always think this makes such a difference in the way we view the recent past. We think of it in terms of black and white and colour. We find it hard, I think, to empathise with people who live in a black and white world rather than the colour one. They just seem old-fashioned and stuffy, you know, the Kaiser or something. Because he's black and white, they move in a jerky way in the film of the time and we feel very distanced from them whereas as soon as you see something in color i don't know the vietnam war or something it feels like it could be today yeah and it affects the way that

1:12:19Tom Holland:we think about the recent past so much of the way we see that period in our sort of collective memory from the say the 40s to the 70s um is defined by the look of kodachrome it's kodachrome that makes us think about that so when you know you go into the 50s you have a photographer like called ernst has who documented new york in color all on kodachrome how we think of new york in the 50s when we think of it as a color prospect is defined by the colors of kodachrome you have these deep rich reds the opposites the reds in that they don't bleed into each other and leak they they

1:12:51Dominic Sandbrook:remain really sharply defined when you get that in these photos of farmers in the depression they're i mean that they they really really don't look like 1930s photographs you can see the texture of the skin you can almost see every pore there's a kind of almost a kind of high

1:13:07Tom Holland:definition look to them do you not think yeah and they also look like us i mean they look like people we would know i mean they are you know they look like people that live in where do they live i

1:13:17Dominic Sandbrook:would say they live in somewhere like enstone really near us yeah in north oxford yeah they

1:13:23Tom Holland:look like enstone people you know toiling in the fields of of enstone between woodstock and

1:13:28Dominic Sandbrook:chipping norton okay well that's a niche reference there for the listeners thank you so much for listening to that now if you want to hear that episode the preceding three episodes in this epic series and our other mini series the rest is history club then all you need to do is to head to the rest is history.com find the sign up page it's right there it's dead simple you can join in just a couple of quicks it's amazingly good value So on that bombshell, thank you very much for listening and goodbye. It is out of control in the White House right now.

1:14:02Tom Holland:Welcome to The Rest is Politics US. I'm Katty Kay. I'm Anthony Scaramucci.

1:14:07Dominic Sandbrook:Who is the worst politician in Washington right now?

1:14:10Tom Holland:They don't know how to manage Donald Trump.

1:14:13Dominic Sandbrook:I talked to the people that organized the abduction. I'm telling you why they did it.

1:14:18Tom Holland:The White House isn't a bind, Anthony. Here's what I would say to you about FAFA. The chaos is the strategy. It should not have happened, and it is a violation of international law. Is he losing control of the party? I survived 11 days in Trump's White House. I know the SOB. I've been covering politics in Washington for almost 30 years. Twice a week, we break down what's really going on in Trump's White House.

1:14:42Dominic Sandbrook:The big issue for the United States is going to be we were once seen as a benevolent superpower,

1:14:48Tom Holland:and now we're seen as an aggressor. You know, he can lie about a lot of things, but he can't lie about what people are feeling about the economy. If you really want to understand what's going on in Trump's mind, just search The Rest is Politics U.S. wherever you get your podcasts.