Streakers into joggers

Press, 16 August 1980, Page 17

Streakers into joggers

The Seventies: Britain s Inward March. By Norman Shrapnel. Constable, 1980. 257 pp. Index. $24.40.

(Reviewed by

Naylor Hillary)

Norman Shrapnel, now aged 68, and a political columnist on tne “Guardian” in London for almost 20 years, has an entertaining, commentary on the House of Commons as theatre (“The Performers”) to his credit. Now he offers a sweeping assessment of Britain and the world in the 19705, mixing clever generalisations ana arresting details in the best columnist manner. The. emphasis es on political events and the way in which British politicians and public alike seemed less and less' sure of where they were, where they were going, or why. The result is eminently readable, often refreshing, and. rather better than such instant “histories” of an arbitrarily defined period tend to be. Full marks to.. Shrapnel for emphasising the abuse of language which has marked the decade, a time when Britain was threatened with an awful doom if “stagflation” changed into “slumpflation.” At the .very least in such a time, something awful was happening to the words with which “the experts” (not Mr Shrapnel’s favourite people) were trying to describe events. The author concludes that where George Orwell predicted a frightening political • “Newspeak” by 1984, economists, sociologists and politicians have achieved instead a “Nospeak,”- a language which disguises reality, rather than aiding communication.

A chronology of the decade begins with the death .of Bertrand Russell and ends with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It is a decade which began with streakers and ended with

masses of joggers, symbolic-perhaps of Britain’s piace in the world. Malcolm Muggeridge opened the 19705,- by announcing that death was the only thing which made life worth and in wave after wave of selfdestructive strikes Britain, in the 1970 s did indeed seem to be ' exhibiting a death wish. t But that was not the only, kind of exhibition. The permissive society of the previous decade declined into a grubby world which led to a. new moral revulsion. From . being fashionable, sex became a bore. “Quite a proportion of the mackintoshes lurking around the sex joints ■ had sociologists inside them.” It was also a decade of . “determined minorities” in which being ■ ■ determined seemed sometimes to be more, important than what, people were being determined about. It was the decade in which large words became'preferred to. short ones, not only' because they took longer to say, but because short words could be uncomfortably precise. Words changed meaning with bewildering rapidity. In 1970 a jolly old man could be described as “gay and bent.” By 1980 such a description was probably actionable. And so the swift little jibes roll on in a delicious procession, a vivid summary of Britain’s experience in the last 10 years and a reminder that in many matters, New Zealand is often not • far behind Britain in changing fashions, whether of language, dress, or art. On artistic matters for instance, Shrapnel suggests an over-liberation has brought a reaction, a revival of the most conventional tastes and standards. '‘Too often we had the barmy confronted • with the boring.” One does not need to go to Britain to perceive that confrontation.