There were fateful choices in the autumn of 1931 and the months that followed whose consequences affect us today. The beliefs still current in British exceptionalism – attachment to laissez-faire economics and pursuit of the chimera of global Britain – have their roots in the choices made then, which became embedded in our culture, especially on the right.
Challenging what should be stone-dead myths and reinventing a conception of what Britain can and should be demands understanding our past, the better to escape it.
