I’ll have to look out for the documentary – they sometimes pop up over here.

“Tired and Emotional”
Wed 25 Jan, 21:00 – 22:00 60 mins
Do drink and politics mix?
The history of British politics is partly one of mammoth drinking sessions and politicians fortifying themselves to cope with the demands of the job. From Churchill’s whisky glass to George Brown’s tired and emotional reputation, some of our leaders’ best, and worst, professional episodes have been carried out under the influence.
Eddie Mair explores the history of drink in the corridors of power, and how social attitudes of what is, and isn’t, acceptable have changed from ’squiffy’ Asquith and William Pitt the Younger to the Liberal Democrat’s recent woes.

Unfortunately, this was a hugely missed opportunity: shallow, ‘whimsical’, narrative history which never rose anywhere near the level of analysis. Perhaps we should move into Anglo-Australian television production, Brett?

Dan’s book hasn’t turned up here yet, but as it happens I got impatient and ordered it from Amazon UK the other day! Which with my luck probably means it will be in the local bookshops next week, and cheaper too …

Incidentally, Calder’s ‘Myth of the Blitz’ is one of the most interesting books I’ve ever read, and can perhaps be said to have changed my life. The fact that my now PhD supervisor Dan Todman – of ‘TrenchFever’ and “The Great War: Myth & Memory” – set it as part of my MA course proved a major turning point for me. It, and Dan, made me challenge my own prejudices against “Military History” (although the exceptions continue to prove the rule in that field, for me personally). Over time, this became why, although we perhaps look like on odd match on paper, and I had more obvious and, er, “senior” candidates available, I specifically asked Dan to supervise me in writing a PhD on the ‘mythic’ 1960s.

Has Dan’s book reached Australia yet? I would strongly recommend it: discursive yet narrative; empirical yet cultural; rational yet passionately engaged; about WWI (specifically the Western Front) yet far more universally relevant; and simply, accessibly and amusingly written. If you haven’t read it yet, I really think you should. And he doesn’t know I’m saying this!

Yet, for reasons I can only summarize as chronic class-deference in this Old Country, we still seem to find the amount that Churchill, in particular, consumed to be an ‘amusing’ part of the Churchill myth. It is sometimes linked with his apparent ‘battle’ with depression – but I’ve never seen it suggested that the booze might have fuelled, not masked or ‘medicated’ his depression… Now don’t misunderstand me: I’m neither belittling the personal horror which is alcoholism, nor suggesting that we apply current values retrospectively and ahistorically. But while we might accept that Churchill’s consumption may have added to his ‘Great Man’ status in the discourses of the time, why do we still seem happy to smile at that as part of his myth in _absolute_ terms?

As for applying censoriousness to our current ‘leaders’, I believe the turning point came at the end of the 80s/early 90s with the rise of the ‘psychiatrization of everything’, the ‘Oprah-’ and ‘Diana-fication’ of the public spheres, and the widespread use (and sometimes over-use) of Prozac. The strange Blairite combination of puritanism and ‘touch-feelyness’ is an extension of all of this; but then, I wrote my best 6,000 word MA paper on these last points. As it is rather a hobbyhorse of mine, all highly inflammatory, and wildly off the topic of the 1906 Liberal landslide, I shall stop!

I can’t say there would be a similar issue here in Australia. But then, of course, our previous-PM-but-one (Bob Hawke) held the world’s record for the fastest consumption of beer, which probably qualifies him to be a National Living Treasure :)