That Option No Longer Exists: Britain 1974-1976, by John Medhurst (Zero Books, £11.99)

If there is one thing that nearly all historical accounts of Britain in the 1970s agree upon it is that the country was politically chaotic, economically in decline and culturally barren. 

It was only with the advent of the Thatcher era that the admittedly harsh but fundamentally necessary measures were taken that would put society back on track. Or so the conventional narrative goes. 

That Option No Longer Exists has a completely different outlook in arguing that for most working-class people, the 1970s were a period of growth, development and stability. 

Unemployment was fairly low, wealth disparities the narrowest they had been for a long time and, although wages did sometimes lag behind inflation, the blow was often softened by widening health and social provision.

Economically, growth rates were hardly at crisis point, raising the question that if the ’70s were a complete failure, how is that the legacy of Thatcherism is regarded as being an unqualified success? Medhurst makes the often neglected point that decline in profit was actually down to the fact there was a transfer of wealth from the top to the bottom of society and for the ruling elite that was the really unforgivable feature of the decade.

On the left, this was very much a time of excitement. Although it’s doubtful that the country was in a revolutionary situation, there had been a number of significant victories on the part of a militant and fighting labour movement — victories at UCS and Saltley Gate, the release of the Pentonville Five, the defeat of the Industrial Relations Bill and the eventual collapse of Tory rule being particularly important turning points. 

Marxist organisations often saw a rise both in interest, membership and in paper sales. Groups based around the demands of, among others, women, gay people and environmentalists flourished while the emergence of a popular and progressive counter-culture made a mockery of much of the so-called swinging ’60s. Globally, national liberation and anti-imperialist forces had also made a series of quite stunning victories. 

Critical of both right-wing social democrats and of an unrealistic, authoritarian and dogmatic left, it’s unsurprising that Medhurst reserves much of his enthusiasm not only for these newer social movements but in the struggle for industrial democracy.

Inside Parliament, this involved the work of Tony Benn and allies such as Eric Heffer and Stuart Holland, particularly as expressed through the Alternative Economic Strategy, the National Enterprise Board and in efforts to at least tame the City and Whitehall. 

Outside Parliament, the author highlights the efforts of Ken Coates, the Institute for Workers’ Control and the workers’ plan put forward at Lucas Aerospace. Much of the book details opposition to these initiatives, sometimes by the “old left,” sometimes by Harold Wilson, Denis Healey and Jim Callaghan and sometimes by the state and its security services. They had few qualms about taking action against democratically elected governments if they weren’t behaving themselves. 

Occasionally, it’s unclear what point the author is actually making, particularly when it comes to the whole question of the EU, the social contract debacle and of personalities like Michael Foot. 

At other points his own views are a little too intrusive — there’s a tirade against the Bolshevik “coup” and their “dictatorial” practices and a call for a British-style Syriza. 

But it’s a wonderful book. Read it in tandem with Andy Beckett’s When The Lights Went Out — both are excellent answers to the 1970s myth-mongers.