How would you define “history” or “modern”? With almost nothing about arts and culture, sociology or such new technology as the internet, this is a political (and economic) history, and so only a partial one. As for “modern”, Marr means from 1945 onward. Some will find that to be like considering a tree without reference to its roots.

These faults aside, most of this is splendid stuff. From long service as a political journalist and broadcaster, Marr is, of course, steeped in politics, and yet has remained kind and humane. On the rare occasions when he excoriates a politician, he or she deserves it. Marr reminds us, for example, of the 1980s “pompous left-wing MP Eric Heffer”, who once began a speech in the Commons with the words: “I, like Jesus Christ, am the son of a carpenter.” Or when Marr criticises, as he does new Labour's unending “spin”, he allows the facts to speak for themselves. Meanwhile, his gift for the vignette is virtuoso: “Like a political Dylan Thomas, [Nye Bevan's] lavish talents were only matched by his skill in lavishly squandering them.”

His general political insights are profound. “The best [political] speeches are made on the lip of the curve of the track, an inch away from crashing into incoherence”. Admirably, if too briefly, he raises largely ignored issues such as North Sea oil. His waspish wit is a delight. “[The Labour leader Michael] Foot's politics were those of a would-be parliamentary revolutionary detained in a second-hand bookshop”.

A History of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr
Pan, £9.99 Buy the book here

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