Finished Andrew Marr's measured, engaging and highly entertaining A History of Modern Britain today. Curiously I felt more detached from my country in his account of the Blair years than for any other period, but I suppose that was simply to do with the fact that I just wasn't there. Mind you, I wasn't there for the late Thatcher & Major years, but still recognised what was going on.
Found myself almost as enraged about Blair's complicity in the disastrous invasion of Iraq as I felt at the time. And even more puzzled. How on earth did the government convince itself that the mythical weapons of mass destruction existed? All in all, I'd say Blair's problem was, in the end, a simple one. He came to believe his own publicity. Very dangerous. For all of us.
In the end Marr's greatest insight seems to me about the growth of consumerism and its pernicious effects upon British culture: This history has told the story of the defeat of politics by shopping. Pithy, to say the least. But he has the humanity and good sense to recognise that there are many good things about shopping and many people's lives have changed in many ways for the better since I was a little lad. Including my own. But we've lost much along the way.
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