I began this series of daries with some reflections prompted by a re-reading of Halévy's volumes on England from 1895 to 1914, and I propose now to end it with some reflections prompted by a re-reading of Tawney's Equality. If the conclusion which again suggests itself is plus ça change, that is not because there have not been changes in our society which neither Halévy, Tawney nor anybody else can be claimed to have foreseen. It is because the responses to these changes, whether by academics, journalists, politicians, or the electorate at large, have been articulated within a set of ideological assumptions and constraints which are not significantly different under Thatcher from what they were under Asquith and Lloyd George.

LRB 4 August 1988 | PDF Download