Who Dares Wins: Britain, 1979-1982

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Thatcher, for all her unthinking evil, is painted as decisive and (unlike Boris Johnson) incorruptible and it’s hard to argue with that. Sandbrook does not gloss over the misery of a period that saw unemployment rise to 3 million and the shutdown of British industry and manufacturing. One of the best sections underlines the importance of the eclipse of Tory ‘wets’ such as Ian Gilmour and Jim Prior in favour of Norman Tebbit and Nigel Lawson – a crucial phase. Sport – for once in a History book – is not ignored and there is richly nostalgic discussion of snooker and the 1981 Ashes. The nuance of party politics in Britain is interesting up to a point – the rise of the Social Democratic Party and some Labour infighting that makes Jeremy Corbyn and his opponents look tame – but in a long book, some of the detail really should have been excised. In 2017, Fox co-authored the book SAS: Who Dares Wins: Leadership Secrets from the Special Forces, [6] with his fellow TV presenters and Special Forces soldiers Anthony Middleton, Matthew "Ollie" Ollerton and Colin Maclachlan. The book triggered an investigation by the British Ministry of Defence for alleged admissions of war crimes by the authors. [7]

Who Dares Wins - Dominic Sandbrook

I do need to reread some of the economic bits again as it's not my strongest suite and I struggle to hold that sort of information in my head.

The acclaimed historian of modern Britain, Dominic Sandbrook, tells the story of the early 1980s: the most dramatic, colourful and controversial years in our recent history. A statesman...waits until he hears the steps of God sounding through events, then leap up and grasps the hem of His garment. Thatcher was also to develop and apply a rigorous program of microeconomic reform throughout the 1980s, to induce greater productivity and provide more opportunities for wealth creation. The policies included privatising government monopolies and government owned industries, deregulating product markets to allow competition to increase incentives for efficiency, reducing the power of the trades unions to disrupt the economy, and improving the level of home ownership (by allowing tenants to buy council housing). This all-action, high-octane thriller from Sunday Times bestselling author Chris Ryan is perfect for fans of Andy McNab, Lee Child, Clive Cussler and Stephen Leather. Guaranteed to keep you hooked and get your pulse-racing...

Who Dares Wins: Britain, 1979-1982 by Dominic Sandbrook

Life and leadership lessons from the Special Forces, from the stars of Channel 4 series Who Dares Wins - including Sunday Times bestselling author of FIRST LEADING FROM THE FRONT , Ant Middleton But when Jacob is booted from the Regiment for a moment of madness, he disappears. Not even his family knows where he is, or even if he's still alive. All that is about to change. Absolutely breathtaking ... delicious ... an immense book ... If anyone wants to know what has been happening to Britain since the 1950s, it is difficult to imagine a more informative, or better-humoured guide ... Sandbrook’s chapters on the war have a Thucydidean coolness, balance and wisdom that is superb." A N Wilson, The TimesAnd it is worth reading. Sandbrook writes with great style and wit about a crucial period in Briain's post-war history that older readers will remember well. He covers most of the significant developments in all walks of life as he did in his previous books. During the Gulf War, Chris was the only member of an eight-man team to escape from Iraq, of which three colleagues were killed and four captured. It was the longest escape and evasion in the history of the SAS. Or did it? The reality was more complicated, says Sandbrook. Even before the Argentinian invasion the Tories had been on an upswing, inflation was falling, business improving, and their approval rate was more than 30%. This contrasts with the opening sections of the book, which lay out the sorry state of Britain at the turn of the 80s – economic decline, unemployment, inflation, violence in Northern Ireland, strikes, riots, and a general sense that our days of being “Great” were long gone. The received wisdom is that Thatcher set about destroying British industry by hammering the unions, instituting cash controls – monetarism – and plunging the country into recession. But, as Sandbrook argues, coal, steel and car-making had been in steep decline for years, and the recession would have happened even under Labour. Similarly, the right to buy, the Tories’ controversial sale of council houses, predated Thatcher by at least a decade; her twist on the policy was to make it law. Mrs Thatcher enjoyed watching snooker, though leisure was not something she understood