That Option No Longer Exists – Britain 1974–76 - Softcover

The 1970s were a turning point in a fiercely contested transition between the exhaustion of the post-war order and what was to follow the welfare state. Because of the radical directions and possibilities opened up by the wider left of the 70s and the powerful interests challenged by their self-confident democracy - the period has since been demonised by media, corporate and political establishments alike. And yet retrieving the real history and ideas born in the experimental turmoil of those years, is vital for breaking out of the present era of reaction. In That Option No Longer Exists John Medhurst has done the left a huge service by carrying out exactly this retrieval and doing it with rigour and flair. A really excellent book. --Hilary Wainwright, editor Red Pepper, author Beyond the Fragments.

It is time to look afresh at the 1970s. It was not a grey decade of decline, defeat and power blackouts. Bursting with cultural experimentation, sexual liberation and industrial militancy, the 1970s saw the ruling elites of Britain challenged at every level, most especially by a Labour left led by Tony Benn which aimed to effect a "fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of wealth and power in favour of working people". That Option No Longer Exists reveals a hidden history - how Benn and the left tried to reform British industry, to introduce democracy in the workplace and overturn the power of Finance; and how Whitehall, the security services and the City fought back, paving the way for Thatcher to re-establish the rule of money and the markets. Britain almost took a different path in 1974-76 to that of massive wealth inequality, the dominance of the City, and the slow death of the welfare state. This is the story of a struggle within government almost forgotten, and of a tragic turning point in British history.