Then and now | The Enlightened Economist

Two of my newest reads have been Melvyn Bragg’s memoir of rising up in mid-Twentieth century, working class Cumbria, Back in the Day, and Alwyn Turner’s canter by way of early twenty first century British politics, All In It Together. They make fairly an instructive distinction. Bragg’s heat perspective on postwar optimism – regardless of materials hardships – enhances his personal story of educational success by way of grammar faculty and Oxford scholarships. Turner’s jolly however basically pessimistic account of a materially far richer nation is a contribution to the big and sadly still-growing literature on the UK’s decline. Each good reads, though as a working class child from the north west who clambered the social ladder through grammar faculty scholarship and Oxford (albeit 20+ years later) I significantly loved Back in the Day: choose in keeping with your temper.