It’s a good book.

If they only knew the current deficit!

It would be interesting to see such a programme done today, given what has happened over the last few months.

They don't do anything close to being this creative. Our media are a bunch of compromised plodders.

Dennis as leader and Crosland as chancellor would have been a great combo following the loss of '79. Alas, we all know what really happened!

On the basis of this? What is there to suggest that we would have been in any better position if he had? Not to mention he helped destroy one of the most progressive institutions ever founded, the grammar schools.

Well, Labour was in a woeful state throughout the 80s. Healey would have been a stronger opposition leader and would have also fought the left of the party. There's no way of knowing if he would have a won a GE (maybe not), but he would have made a greater effort to protect British manufacturing whilst still opening up Britain to world markets. His version of monetarism was softer than Thatcher's (he called it sado-monetarism) and he would have made an effort to do something about unemployment and poverty. Also, he wasn't allergic to borrowing, would have kept moderately high taxes on the highest rates and this would have meant that public services and infrastructure wouldn't have been in such a parlous state throughout the 1980s. Crosland had sound knowledge of economics, so he would have been a competent chancellor. Calling grammar schools progressive is bizarre - they held back social mobility and, whilst they were good for a minority, more individuals went to university and mobilised upwards after the extension of comprehensive schools. The Conservatives recognised that they were unfair and accepted Labour's reforms. Thatcher didn't do anything to increase the number of grammar schools and, when Theresa May proposed to build more, it was quashed by the majority of her own party.

I have a lot of respect for Healey and Callaghan, but they were good men in a totally intellectually bankrupt and idiotic party. Unfortunately for the country, there was hardly anyone else around them of their calibre and all through that period the party was being infiltrated by the likes of Ken Livingstone and his mates. I agree Healey should have been leader. It would have forced a split with the Bennite left, instead of forcing those on the 'right' out into the SDP, as happened. However, I would concede, the Tories of the period weren't much better, Thatcher included. I agree that a Healeyesque approach may have been more beneficial for the country long term, but he couldn't have delivered what was needed through the vehicle of the Labour party... certainly not at that time, pre the well deserved drubbing that Thatcher gave them. Your comments on the grammar schools are borderline insane, I'm afraid. They gave opportunities to the brightest working class kids that no generation had had before. The reason more people are going to university now is because higher education has become a business and courses have been devalued

Sadly the infiltration had happened in the '70s and Labour were no longer a serious party of government, very much like to today under Corbyn. It's become a sort of super pressure group full of activists trying to signal their virtue -doesn't make for a healthy democratic system. Same for the industry, it was really murdered in the late '60s and '70s much of what happened in the '80s under Thatcher was merely putting it out of its misery.

'... somebody should’ve pointed out to him that his Alternative Economic Strategy looked more like Oswald Mosley.' - But that was when Mosley looked more like Keynes than Mussolini. He was driven to the absurd blackshirt extreme by Labour's cowardice.

Right! The chancellor looks like Vasily legasoz

Of course. And the absurd idea that to reach socialism you have to get the capitalist economy 'right'. Socialism is intended to replace capitalism, not patch it up.

So many of Britain's problems in the 1970s were caused by the oil shock, made worse by the bust following the "Barber Boom" when the previous Conservative government had let the economy seriously overheat. A Conservative government that Margaret Thatcher was a senior member of, and which the released records now show was preparing to go to the IMF itself before it lost office in 1974, leaving the Labour party to deal with the mess.

@@th8257 Yes, the problems were caused by the oil shocks. But then the Labour Party was unable to make the tough economic decisions with its union base.

@@erickleefeld4883- it wasn’t just oil shocks but declining productivity. The UK was losing out economically to the likes of Germany, France and the Nordic states (excluding Norway due to oil).

'Why are socialists so resistant to learning from experience?' You seem to have completely misunderstood the arguments in the programme and also the Greek situation.

@@channelfogg6629 you've just proved his point with that answer.

You clearly don't know much of what happened. They actually had a significant amount of success in altering the terms offered by the IMF. Denis Healey famously threatened the IMF with a general election, in which Labour would campaign as "The people versus the IMF"

@@th8257 You are right. I don't know much of what happened. It is quite difficult to get details. I don't see how Healey's threat to call a general election would have been effective. Election held; Labour return to power; UK Gov to IMF - lend us money on our terms. IMF reply - NO!. Tsipras tried something like that when dealing with EU/IMF terms of loan to Greece. He held a referendum, which he won. And on the night of victory the EU told him to accept the terms of the loan or Greece would be ejected from the Euro. He capitulated. But thanks for the reply.

​@@channelfogg6629yes, Greece didn't even meet the criteria for being accepted into the EU, which alas, meant they had Greece by the short and curlies.