Jeevun Sandher and I discuss some highlights from the story of how England and Britain made itself into a modern democracy, and some of the contribution it made towards the development of the modern world

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Dr Jeevun Sandher, MP

Dr Jeevun Sandher MP is Labour’s Member of Parliament for Loughborough, Shepshed and the villages. He was elected in 2024 after overturning a long-held Conservative majority. An economist by training, Jeevun has dedicated his career to tackling inequality and raising living standards. He previously led the economics team at the New Economics Foundation and has advised on policies to deliver sustainable growth, fair wages, and stronger public services. In Parliament, he convened the Living Standards Coalition, a group of 100+ MPs working to support the government to quickly raise living standards for low- and middle-income households. He served on the Treasury Select Committee and now acts as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Department of Business and Trade. Jeevun champions bold, practical solutions, rooted in Labour values – and is a long-time podcast listener.

 

Transcript

David:  Hello everyone and welcome to the History of England and to a special episode. You will all know my whiggish delight, if I can use that word, in all matter’s constitutional, but maybe not also my delight in the great contribution. England, and indeed Britain more generally, made to the developmental Western democratic state, you might have spotted it with my blathering about Magna Carter, Simon de Montford, all that excited detail about the civil wars and the new thinking, sovereignty of the people, the levellers, Samuel Hartlib, and his thirst for improvement.

So, imagine my delight when I was contacted by a listener who suggested it might be a good idea to put all that fascinating story into one pithy podcast episode, and that was Dr. Jeevun Sandher, who is my partner in this bit of ‘casting. And he is also, coincidentally, the MP of my hometown, which is super exciting. Jeevun, welcome to the podcast.

David: You’re very nice, You’re very nice. Uh, Jeevun, could you introduce yourself, tell everyone more about who you are and what was the idea that inspired you to get in touch with me and what you’re hoping we and the listeners will get out of it?

Jeevun:  I am an MP or the MP for Loughborough. I am a long-time listener, first time writer as it were. There are two things behind this podcast. There’s the first, the high minded reason, and that’s the core idea of this, uh, episode, which I think we’ll go through, which is: why is it Britain, which for most of its history was this kind of, you know, to be blunt, something of a soggy backwater in human history and human affairs, on the edge of the Eurasian land mass, not really that important, seen as being not even necessarily that important in Europe at certain points, and then all of a sudden it’s the birthplace of sustained economic growth, the greatest reduction of human misery in the history of humanity. We should remember how, how big that, what that meant.

So, it meant that rather than every child under 15 having a 50% chance of dying, now it’s just 5%, a huge reduction in death and growth in the ideas of liberalism and the dignity of people and man. And so, something special happened in Britain and the long history of understanding, I think is really, important. And there’s a huge contribution to the world. And that’s the high-minded reason. But the, the low-minded reason, David, is because I’ve listened to this podcast for years. Um. And I’m in a privileged position where I can just ask sometimes and make it happen.

David: What is Low minded about that, Jeevun?

Jeevun: It was such, such a comfort and delight. Like I used to work in Somaliland for two years and I can’t remember how far in you’d gotten, but it was just such a, it is just such a brilliant podcast. I’ve listened for years. And I had the joy of starting, I think after you were like a hundred or so episodes in maybe even further.

 

So, I could just go straight through. And one final thing I wanna say, your episode on Richard II at Fool, Knave or Saviour, I think is the best episode of history podcasting There’s ever been made?

David: You do know I don’t vote in Loughborough anymore, don’t you?

Jeevun: No. Well, I do. Well, sadly, I do now.

David: Anyway, that’s very kind. Thank you very much. So. Today what we are going to do, we’ve called the episode the crucible of Modernity, which I’m afraid to say is a title I stole from a chap called Roy Porter, who wrote a wonderful book on the enlightenment, so that’s what we’re gonna call it. And what we’re gonna try and do is go chronologically through some major events.

I want to issue a whiggism warning. There’s always a danger in this of Some old whig story of an inevitable march to a perfect constitution. We really don’t mean to do that. History goes up and down, in and out. Nothing is inevitable, it goes backwards and forwards. Um, and in many ways the story is one of unintended consequences.

So no whigs here. Also, because we’re trying to do this nice and briefly, we’re gonna miss an awful lot out. Okay, those are my excuses.

Now to my outrage, Jeevun, I think you want to start with the death of an English icon. On the 14th of October 1066.

Jeevun: I did. Yes. And it’s, it is very sad when Harold dies. Um, so Norman Conquest, I think we could say is the birth of, I’m not gonna say modern English history, but modern(ish) English history. And I know people will, I know you will say, uh, you will point back to Athelstan and the rest, but I think something does change with the Norman Conquest. And to your point about unintended consequences, what happens after Norman Conquest or the legacies of it are completely unforeseeable and yet have important impacts later. So, I think, you know, the first thing to say is, of course William wins in 1066, as we all know. And then what happens?

I know, on a side note. I know, but the, the most, the most important, but the, it sounds like parliament, honestly.

David: I’m trying to make you feel at home

Jeevun: Uh, but I, uh, it does. It does. It does. But the Norman Conquest comes and William does of course take over, and he replaces an entire elite with his own kind of what we’d, really call a French nobility. But that leads to what I think we could probably call the Pax Normana, which is a sense of state building that allowed for commercial interests and other people to start to flourish within Britain. And it starts to become less about lots of war-ing areas and becomes a lot more about unified control.

And we’ll talk later about Magna Carta, but it’s at least a little bit, I think, notable that it takes a couple of hundred years to get to that point. And of course, the final bit, but the most important bit, of course, in the Doomsday book, uh, both Loughborough and Shepshed, in my constituency feature, uh, Loughborough was then 39 households, and Shepshed was owned by King William and had 70 people which was twice as big, which I did not know.

What’s the key point is that there is economic growth in this period and economic growth there specifically. They’ll start to kick up quite a bit. Church building is starting to increase in this time. There’s increasing senses of urbanisation. I think real GDP growth was two to three times what it was pre conquest, so something around state building is happening.

And William’s control and then of course his successors, ends up setting the stage for later parliament as well as later political development. So it’s the beginning of political development. And one thing, which I think is often not spoken about enough, the Normans do abolish slavery. Something very important happens there.

And so, suddenly, well, not suddenly, but there is this, there are more people having voice. And I think the fundamental kind of contention around this episode as well as in Britain, I think is the idea of voice and the idea of a political system that interact to ensure that individuals have a say. More say and more flourishing within Britain than almost anywhere else in the world.

David: It’s incumbent on Jeevun to talk about Loughborough’s role in the great move towards a modern state and uh, they had a market. They were given a market in 1221. I think I got that from you.

Jeevun: They did. I mean that’s the most important bit of this period. Obviously, people talk about the Harrying of the North, but really it is Loughborough’s situation as a market town and, and the growth of a merchant town and a commercial revolution. This sets up what will later become incredibly important, which is the voice of those people within the political system.

So, there is something going on there. And you know, one small factor which becomes quite important later, which is the royal boroughs at this time, the ones who grant, if you like, um, tax raising powers are levied rather than putting out tax collectors. Those places that have merchant voice become a lot freer and going forward would end up not only contributing more to the Civil War and the parliamentarian side, but also later on, I think around the Great Reform Act as well. So there’s a huge long tail of this stuff that starts off in 1066.

David: Great. Lovely. Thank you, Jeevun. That’s, that’s very good. Now I will, uh, pick up the story by whizzing through a few hundred years of history and talk about three things, staying in the Middle Ages. I’m going to talk about two critical events and one under-sung hero. So first of all, obviously Magna Carta 1215, around about lunchtime.

Obviously, that has a big role in our history, and our historiography and our kind of national, uh, sense of ourselves. It is, of course, in a sense, really a peace treaty between the barons and the king, but critically it includes references to ‘all free men’, and it introduces the principle of consent, a king, limited subject to law, and to oversight by his people.

That is a principle which will go all the way through, and some of people late like John Lilburn in the 17th century will keep referring to Magna Carta. In the 18th century and beyond, Magna Carta becomes a national symbol. Something which it was not necessarily intended to be originally, but comes to mean much, much more. Secondly then, um, I was listening to a podcast called Mark Steele in is town, I dunno if you’ve, you’ve ever heard it Jeevun but you must go and see it. They haven’t done, they haven’t done Loughborough yet. But anyway, there you go. Will do one day.

Well, he was in Lewes actually, and he was talking about the Battle of Lewes in 1264, which is when Simon de Montfort meets Henry III in battle and gives him a bit of a kicking. And these are the events which follow 1258, our first constitution in the Provisions of Oxford. And Mark Steele’s Point was he was in the hometown of this mega event, in British history, the Birth of Parliament, and almost nobody knows anything about it outside Lewes. Nobody’s ever heard of it. And You know, ignorance about it is, is a shame; We should talk about it a lot more. I mean Simon, not necessarily the nicest kind of guy, probably wouldn’t have wanted to take him to see Granny for, for tea or whatever. But the impact is amazing because he, it is he that includes in an idea Parliament. Which before had just been a sort of Magnum Consilium, which included just the great men of the realm and the king.

He included in that the Commons, Barons from the towns, knights from the Shire, the idea of the community of the realm, and critically it was a bicameral parliament, so the Commons and the Lords in separate places. I think the Scots actually have a parliament earlier than the English, but that’s a unicameral place where the Lords can sit there while the commons vote and keep an eye on them and make sure they vote out the way they want.

So de Montfort has a big place in our history, the creation of Parliament, but there’s also a shout out to Edward I slightly extraordinary decision to, um, talk about Edward I in a parliamentary sense, given that he packaged up, he defeated de Montfort and packaged up his testicles and his head in a box and sent it to the wife of one of the baron’s.

You know, lovely, lovely thought, obviously. But despite that, it’s him that takes this parliament and embeds it in the body politic. He uses it for consent for statute law and taxation. That’s what I’m gonna say on that.

The unsung hero is a chap called Fortescu, 15th century lawyer. Something actually good that came out of a Lancastrian. I’ve always been a Yorkist. Obviously. He wrote a De Laudibus Legum Anglie an intellectual work, which gave weight and justification to the idea of sovereignty of the people, that the sovereignty was in, the people not in the king. He gave justification to that idea of England as a limited monarchy governed by law and Parliament.

All of these things, Magna Carta, Fortesque sovereignty of the People become national symbols. So you are talking about merchant voice, I think Jeevun as something that comes after Middle Ages as well.

Jeevun: It does come out very important at the Middle Age, is it? So we think about Edward, for example, and de Montfort, all of them. Both them rather than so many in Parliament, both them summoning a commons, not a commons in the way that we would understand it at all, because these were not common people. What they were were people who weren’t in the nobility, but what they were on top of that were rich merchants, knights, and those for whom, if you like, the commercial life of Britain was incredibly important.

And very, very crucially, the taxation of course, that a king would get would be getting from parliament and would become about a negotiation between himself. And it was of course always himself. And those richer merchants. And those richer merchants are started to have more and a more the voice within British politics and the body politic in a way that is, I think, underappreciated at the time.

David: You’re absolutely right. I actually forgot to mention that, uh, because you’re absolutely right. The control of the commons of taxation is absolutely critical throughout, you know, it’s all about money to some degree. It’s not all about money, but money is a big thing, so that’s incredibly important.

The other big thing I should say come out Middle Ages in 1495 is Thomas Burton, who established Loughborough for grammar school, obviously. A major event and the school, which will one day welcome me through its doors.

Well, there you go. Shall I sing you the founder song? Let, let’s not do that. Time to move on. Okay. Well, my next contribution then to the story, everybody hates Henry VIII these days. It’s very interesting actually, how much everybody hates Henry VIII. Once upon a time he was this fantastic figure every looked up to now no head of state is, is less popular than Henry VII. He’s even less liked than Cromwell. But if we’re not going to like Henry VIII we can at least like or admire, like is the wrong word, admire the genius of his servant Thomas Cromwell, who starts the creation of a unified central state with strong institutions.

And I think one of the points you made when we were talking about this is the importance of the central institution, which we can probably bring that later. Henry VIII had this idea of the revolution in government by Cromwell and that idea has been picked away at and nobody thinks that Cromwell had really planned it in quite that way necessarily.

But what he does do is he sweeps away all the franchises and autonomous baronies and oddities that sat outside the central institutions and law. He is also responsible for the union with Wales, the Welsh might laugh at hollowly at the word union, but here we are, become one politically, everybody with the same rights across England and Wales. Everybody’s sitting in parliament away from the previous situation where there was an awful lot of legal discrimination against the Welsh .

That’s the reason we study the Tudors so much to a degree, is that start of the creation of a modern state and institutions. We focused a lot on the dissolution of the monasteries. Fair enough. But it’s also worth remembering at that time, Cromwell does institute the poor law. Very early days for poor law, and it takes a while for that to get going, and it’s not until Elizabeth that it really becomes what it is for hundreds of years, which is the most effective Poor law relief system in Europe. Incredibly coherent, required by statute not patchy and voluntary and hit and miss like the monasteries, much more generous than any other system in Europe. The poor law and that has a crucial role in the industrial revolution, which I think we’re going to go on and talk about, in that it gave an increasingly landless ordinary people a safety net when times went wrong with the lifecycle poverty in early, and old age. So the poor law is incredibly important. I never really get to talk about, so Thomas Cromwell and the Tudor creation of a centralized state, is a major stage in the development of modern Britain. You’ve got the next one. I think you are very lucky ’cause you’ve got the big one haven’t you.

Jeevun: Yeah, I have got the big one. This is the Revolution of Britain. And I think roughly speaking, they take from 1640 to 16 month to the end of the 17th century really. And there’s, there’s three things I would draw out. The first of which is, is that revolutions are, in my view, a fiscal phenomenon, i.e., if a leadership is able to gain taxation and pay their supporters off, there is no revolution. But when they can’t do so, they are in trouble. And the British glorious revolutions and the civil wars are no different. And I think we’ll come to that but think it’s very obvious and obviously later on, as I’m sure people listening will know the same thing is absolutely true of France as well. You know, France’s Revolution is all about fiscal power.

The second point I would say is that there’s more and more people’s voice taking place in Britain, and that’s very, very important because when their voice is being heard, that also means that policies are being made with the view of individual flourishing, which was not the case before.

And the third point that’s incredibly important is that parliamentary power then has a fiscal and state building benefit, because now it’s not about the personal. Whims of a monarch in terms of fiscal policy or in benefits or in state building that is now rooted in a wider collection of voice in people, and that’s incredibly important and will be important later on to take it all together.

What I think is really interesting is that it is about something a lot more fundamental than just the two factions of a particular royal family fighting as it is the War of the Roses. Instead, it is about the people being represented by parliament, or I suppose a section of the people fighting against a king and their absolute rule.

 

And so what happens? Very briefly, I’m gonna really cut this short and please don’t write into me, but Charles I effectively tried to raise finance from parliament. Being unable to do so, the power struggle between them resulted in a civil war, and Charles I is then executed. Which is seen as, and there’s a great quote by Tony Jennings at the time, and maybe you’ve said it before, David, but something along the lines of, “some people could say that it was necessary and that it had to happen, but no one could ever say that it was right.”

Something kind of fundamental changes in our views and our ideals about political power and individual rights at the time. We then have, I suppose you’d say the protector under Cromwell, but quite a difficult kind of meandering period almost. The restoration of Charles II and James II, and again, James II starts to bump up against Parliament.

And then finally, the glorious revolution when actually Parliament has primacy. All of that leads to a fundamental change in the political institutions and set of the United Kingdom that ends up setting the stage of both the industrial revolutions and Britain’s later power.

And to take those three things in turn. On the fiscal side, because of all of this, the British state is able to raise revenue far, far more easily because they know that it has a broad sway of the people who now have a say and a fundamental say in political power. In a way, the French monarchy really starts to struggle with, and that fiscal power will be incredibly important.

The second really big thing is around the greater voice of the people. Now here I’m gonna talk about the Bill of Rights and the Declaration, but what’s really important to note about this is that whilst it’s codified at this time in the Bill of Rights, that doesn’t mean these things weren’t existing before, but it’s definitely if you like, written down at this time.

And the three things I would point to are property rights. So, the idea that people’s property cannot be seized, and that’s gonna be really important later on because people are able to produce and innovate and not be too worried about someone coming along and taking it. Taxation is now codified and it was sort of their defacto, but now really becomes top dog.

And thirdly, the ability to petition the Monarch and their idea of being able to say, I want things to change. They want them a voice to be here now. And all of that sets up the stage for later. The three things I would say are really kind of important. There’s a political benefit. Yes. People have greater voice.

 

 

 

There’s an economic benefit. Absolutely. But there’s also a philosophical benefit here as well, which is to say that. People are able now to more freely debate ideas and have their voice heard and as we’ll see, I think that starts to set the stage for the enlightenment. And then finally, the fiscal benefits of this moment, a really key one. Interest rates start to fall because people know that British government is fundamentally good for its own expenditure. And that will be a key driver in Britain’s power, if you like, in both Europe and the world, which I think you are about to cover.

David: I’m glad you mentioned property rights ’cause that’s something I sort of missed out when I did it in the podcast. I kicked myself, really. But yes, that knowledge that the king can’t just come and pinch your property is critical to everything that happens in Britain later. I’d also mention that religion, of course, is a massive motivator throughout the period.

Also that the civil wars are very much a British thing. Scotland, Ireland, England and Wales. All interconnected. Which takes me onto the Enlightenment actually, because one of the things that happens after the glorious revolution is the union with Scotland. And I’m terribly, I mean, horribly whiggish about the, uh, union with Scotland.

Cause I, I think the way we do that Union down is very wrong, it’s a very hard hearted union, it’s not done out of love and there are no great words. It’s a hard commercial deal which gives both sides most of what they want, and therefore it last and therefore it delivers enormous benefit and I personally think the Scottish Parliament is to be complimented with most incredibly mature decision that they took, which delivered enormous benefits to all of us.

The other thing, of course, in Anne’s reign is the act of succession. Which absolutely nailed the fact that the monarchy is no longer hereditary. It is effectively an elective monarchy decided by Parliament. This whole period and the British enlightenment must have been the most exciting place to live. The enlightenment is traditionally considered this thing about, about the French philosophers of the 18th century, an absolutely Britain was very part of a European wide movement, it’s a process that relies on a European community of science and thought, but Britain was at the very forefront, and leadership of it.

There are the big names of the Age of Scientific Discovery, Boyle Hook, Newton and on and on, political philosophy as well with Hobbes, and Locke and so on, and the Scottish Enlightenment, with Hutcheson, Hume, Adam Smith, and so many more. All of this is critical, to Western democracy and absolutely the very crucible of modernity. The age of reason, the idea that observation and experimentation could solve all the mysteries of the universe with hard work. The idea of a public sphere develops, national debate without fear because censorship in Britian has ended, newspapers become more widespread, and it’s not just about those individuals, those big names. Roy Porter again talks about Enlightenments plural. There are enlightenments all over Britain; locals societies develop in towns all over England, Wales and Scotland, as well as in all the cities in England. London, Edinburgh and Dublin are alive with new ideas of progress.

The French don’t often compliment us, but even the French recognized British achievement; Voltaire was full of admiration for the British system, that there was freedom that allowed people to debate, was a monarchy, it was stable, but that monarchy was limited, bit absolute like France. He called Britain the ‘island of reason’.

In that time also, institutions are created, which are still around financial – and political parties, through the range of parties at this time or earlier in the 17th century, which is an extraordinary period; I mean, if you think politics is hard now and language can get a bit immoderate, go and have a look at that period in parliament. Some of that stuff, I mean, it is absolutely horrendous. But from that emerges the party system. So, I think that the, the age of enlightenment, the age of improvement, the idea that anything is possible if you analyse and observe and experiment and reason, the idea of a public sphere where everybody can say anything and debate.

It is a period which absolutely changes the world, not just Britain, it is absolutely a European movement. The interaction between people across countries is critical to all of it. But Britain plays a massive role at the front of it. We think about the French Revolution, which is always seen as this great burst of modernity, and indeed the American Revolution was hugely influential. I think there’s a quote somewhere, Europeans dreamed the Enlightenment, the Americans made it real. Um, and the French Revolution, of course is essential.

So, the French Revolution comes along that’s seen as this big change and it is incredibly influential and in Britain there are corresponding societies having some of the same ideas. But in the end, the British in general did not embrace it ’cause to some degree they thought they already had it. The work of Hogarth although it’s known for its vicious social satire is also incredibly proud and patriotic. The British were proud of their system and they feared the violence that emerged from the revolution. And that ability to change and evolve without revolution, I think is something that comes out of what you are gonna talk about next.

Jeevun: Yeah, and the Britain’s revolution is glorious and it’s not violent, but that doesn’t mean it’s not as far reaching or indeed as fantastic in its implications and the has ability to move. Not seamlessly, obviously, but peacefully and gradually with a sense of, I suppose, some sense of natural unity by the end of it. It is a fantastic achievement, which then sets up the enlightenment, which then sets up the industrial revolution.

Now the Joel Mokyr, who’s just won the Nobel Prize for Economics, his view, and it’s one that I come somewhat closer to than others, which is he says that basically the reason why Britain has the Industrial Revolution is almost entirely due to the enlightenment, and it’s entirely due to the interaction between the ideas of the time.

To your point about progress of how people could get better. Rather than, how can I be good? That becomes the question. And then on the other side of it, the ability to debate those ideas as a base. Right? And so, you need to have both things that happen. And so, the within the glorious revolution that is that moment that starts to crystallize these long running trends you have, if you like the base conditions to what would then become the industrial revolution?

And the Industrial Revolution is a great quote by Kpol, which I think has really sets it up, and it says about the industrial revolution, “Between 1780 and 1850, in less than three generations, a far reaching revolution without precedent in the history of mankind changed the face of England,” and from then on the world was no longer the same.

And that is completely right. And I don’t say this is because I’m an economist, although of course I would, but objectively the things that begin to happen in the Industrial Revolution is the greatest reduction in grief that humanity has ever known and the greatest sense of our progress. So, the first thing to say is, you know, human population was roughly 500 million bouncing around until after the industrial revolution.

When suddenly everything starts to, if you like, explode to the point at which we are today. Child mortality, the kids who die before they’re 15, goes from half to 50% of people’s children die by the age of 15 to 4.3% globally today. And of course, far, far, far lower in places like the United Kingdom.

The entire ability to not be scratching in the dirt, desperately hoping something grows, you could feed your kids. Something could only be possible because of the productivity improvements that come out of the Enlightenment, and that industrial revolution begins to go and be spread throughout the world.And this is a moment where we see the progress we have today, that we see in our hospitals, the places that we live. All of this really start at this moment.

The second thing to say, not only is that a really special moment, but it is worth pausing and thinking about not just the politics at this moment, but the ideas at this moment, and the ideas become and are incredibly important, both political ideas as well as of course, technological and industrial one.

And the third bit to say, which is I think a little bit more surprising is that this led to a rise in national income, the Industrial Revolution in the first period, but it doesn’t lead to a rise in living standards, and that’s a very surprising bit, but a very important bit. So, the first thing to say is the sustained economic growth.

What is going on here? It’s inventors who are able to innovate, know they’re able to keep the proceeds of their innovations because of protected property rights. It’s because of relatively free movement of people being able to work and go to work at those factories. I’d say to be given with, of course, not really by something they desire, but something that they have to do and the ability of merchants to end up pushing for changes in monopolies and other rights that are held by the nobility or the king. And at this point in time, really what becomes truer and truer is that people know their innovations are able to lead to, or they’re able to keep the fruits, if you like, of their labour. Now, while the innovations come a lot earlier, the factories come up a bit later, but clearly this thing starts to move forward and the UK population triples at this time between 1700 &1850.

There’s just a huge change. But the ideas around life, there was an incredibly important driving this bit of time and you cannot, I think, understand this period without understanding the ideas of human progress and innovation that are taking a moment. But a really key idea at this time, I think is underappreciated now, is the right to produce and trade freely.

That is not a right in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, for example. Whereas the other rights that you think of, uh, to freedom, to speech, to a decent living, which have a route in this time. What’s a very important economic reason in this time is, is not appreciated, not encapsulated, and yet is an incredibly important reason that does lead to a part of human flourishing.

And maybe that’s because, you know, people who point to a Declaration of Human Rights are lefty liberals and not hard-nosed businessmen, but if they were, they would no doubt be writing about the right to produce and trade. Now, I would certainly agree, David, somewhere sandals, I hear, you know, it’s great.

But it’s a wonder moment, right? And that’s where we are. But, and this is the, the final, I think, really important bit, which sets up some of the later conflicts and later growth in human history, which is whilst the economy is growing at this time, wages are not really growing at this time.

What is happening is between the 1740 and 1840, for example, output per person, not even in gross terms, is up by about 50%. Wages, total wages up by 12% and hours up by 20%. What that means is wages are actually declining over this period of economic growth. Men were shorter in 1850 than they were in 1760, and there’s a technological reason for that, which leads to political rupture later on.

Although I think there’s some debate about this, but the technological rupture is inventions like the hand loom, for example, or the mechanized loom, which are replacing artisans. They’re replacing the labour done by them and they’re now augmenting human labour. So, what’s happening is the jobs that human beings were previously doing are now being done by a machine.

Production is greatest. There’s still a way to employ these people, but these are, people are being employed, if you like, in lower productivity work, and that is resulting in lower wage to the lower living standards for these people. And so living standards are declining even as economic growth is growing at this particular point.

In human history today, we see something similar happen over the past 30 or 40 years. The economy’s growing but living standards are not growing for everybody. Technology does things that are appreciated and unanticipated, and of course what starts to happen partly because of this and partly because of other things, is a growing desire for change and reform. And that David, I think, is over to you.

David: Though first speaking to your point, of course, we can mention Leicester again because of course one of the signs of that disenchantment of the changes in ordinary people’s lives away to a more mechanized system is the machine smasher Ned Lud! Who comes from Ansty, very much in my hood when I was a kid, you know, and the Luddites were one of the most famous reactions to industrialisation.

Jeevun: Oh wait, David, can I mention one person I forgot to mention? John Heath Coat, who is in Loughborough, who makes a lace production machine, who then has it smashed up by Luddite, an ex-Luddite and has to move it to Devon. Yes. On Market Street, which I’m not quite sure exactly where on Market Street, but I’m going to go and find it.

David: Is, is that right?It’s also the time when Taylors come to Loughborough of course, the bell makers 1855. Anyway, enough of Loughborough.

Jeevun: Not enough, there’s never enough of Loughborough. We should have done, we should have done a thousand years of Loughborough, not of Britain is my view, but.

David: We should have done, ah, we’ve blown it. Uh, anyway, just a couple of points about the 19th Century on the more political side. Mass democracy doesn’t really come until 1868 and 1884 Reform Acts, when the franchise is massively increased and we get this kind of popular democracy, which really hadn’t existed, even after the Great Format Act – because although it’s a massive change in 1832, really doesn’t extend the franchise that much.

So by the end of the 19th century, we have got far more mass democracy on the way to a full democracy, which of course won’t be finally achieved until 1928, when all women get the vote. But even then, it’s a great change. The other thing is the constant debate, and I think conflict running throughout the reform story, a lot of change becomes because of mass protest but without ever breaking into mass violence. A great example of this, I think is 1848 and the height of the chartist movement who have a program of six main point. They don’t get approval for that immediately despite massive demonstrations, but within 20 years, five of those six are embedded in law, so they do get almost all they set out to achieve. The only one that wasn’t adopted is annual parliaments, and I’m sure we’re all happy about that.

Jeevun – would you want an election every year? I mean, anyway, so that was a bad idea.

Daivd: But in 1848, at the same time as this massive demonstration is going on, states were undergoing violent change throughout Europe – over 50 states, in what has been called the Year of Revolutions. In France, this is the time they finally get rid of the monarchy, for example, and so in Britain we manage to achieve change without that kind of civil war.

So that was my little bit about politics in the nineteenth century. I can’t believe how much we’re missing out on this. But anyway, we’ve gotta keep going, so that’s good. So now I think those things you were talking about in terms of average wealth and individual living standards gets tackled or begins to be tackled. You wanna talk about labour movement?

Jeevun: Yeah, so, and it’s a question by the way, me and my researcher had this debate about what leads to the rise of the labour movement and its increasing power. Is it that increasingly eviscerating conditions are leading to people, if you like a good desire to organize, or is it actually that what’s happening in this time, and I think specifically after like 1850 ish, is the growing wages of, I suppose you’d call it a proletariat at this time, given the Marxist are such that they’re able to, if you like, gain across class just because they have the wages and ability to organize i.e., they have the resources to do so both physically as well as in monetary tab.

David: I dunno if it’s relevant – sorry I’m interrupting but it’s interesting isn’t it, that from the 1860s, the working classes are able to take something they’ve never had before. They’re able to take holidays – before they’ve had festival days and all the rest of it. Now they go on a holiday according to their own desires, which of course leads us to mention Thomas Cook and the first package holiday in Loughborough. So, I managed to squeeze that in, but it’s surely relevant that the working class have much more consciousness; they’re organizing in order to improve their conditions. So maybe it’s a bit of both.

Jeevun: Yeah. Something changes and something changes or starts to change this time, and what you begin to see is the growing rise in labour movement. I would say that, you know, you think about Charter itself. The petition’s getting millions and millions of signatures, which even now in a population that’s much, much larger is something that feels quite unheard of.

The general strike in 1842, people are starting to move and organize and to demand a greater voice and rights in parliament and in the country. And this moment is important in a way that we ourselves don’t really appreciate today. The idea that everyone should have something of a decent, liveable wage is something we take for granted, but actually for most of human history, of course, that’s not something that’s there.

What’s the truth of all most of human history is you will have subsistence wages because that’s basically what the economic system can afford, and political systems tended towards complete or maximum inequality. Now that all starts to kind of if you like, change in a set of demands that are now increasingly being heard.

So, you’ve pointed to the great reform, being a Labour Party politician and person and uh, with my own trade union background, I would think about the growing power of the labour movement and the trade unions themselves. So, trade unions legally recognized and formally so in 1871, but their membership starts to increase rapidly over this time and gets to around 1.5 million towards the end of the 19th century.

Still, not, by the way, a huge number of workers, it’s fair to say, and the ideal of Britain and the British Labor Party would like to think of an organized working class with unifier demands and representations founded in materialism. The truth is a lot more complicated. There always was a lot more work class tourism than we like to admit.

But there is a sense of growing consciousness and desire for the labour movement and the working class to have rights and wages. And what I would say is the intellectual issues and the ideas here are incredibly interesting and varied. So, so part of this is as, as we would think of as being Marxists. So basically, there’s a materialist clash between capitalism and or the owners of capital and workers.

And the job is effectively, well not the job, but by nature of history, the workers will gain the means of production. They’ll be far, far better off. But what is also true is that is not the only idea that is percolating at this time. So, the idea of Methodism, for example, or the idea of Christian socialism or rather dignity of people, and we start to see some industrialists start to encapsulate this idea of their own way in which they organize work, but the idea that actually, yes.

From their Christian upbringing, they believe that people should be able to live decent lives. And then if you like, a bit of a, a more intellectual, high flying highfaluting tradition where the liberalism gap and liberalism will start to kind of, if you like, be bridged within that moment. The idea of reforming slowly but surely capitalism to move forward, but all of it, all of it is around at this point in time, how is it workers are gonna gain a decent standard of living in a society which can produce it, but for those who aren’t, the workers able to be able to get add, if you like, capture it.

David: Tremendous stuff, and I think the labour movement is incredibly influential. And one of the things that it affects is the nature of liberalism. Obviously throughout the 19th century, the liberal party was the major player opposite the Tories. Classical liberalism though was not the sort of thing that we imagine liberalism to be today.

Classical liberalism was driven by the freedom of the individual from state or monopoly control. It emphasized the rule of law and laissez faire economics, the invisible hand of the market. The new liberalism that I think partly arises after the labour movement in the early 20th century emphasized a positive freedom state, the responsibility of state intervention to give everyone the ability to succeed and be free to access opportunity.

And that required a complete change in attitude and policies. And what we get is the foundations of social welfare and that sense of communal responsibility. So again, I’m complaining about a lot about things that have been forgotten in in British history, sorry about that, but the great reforming ministries of Campbell Bannerman, Asquith and Lloyd George in the early 1900’s seem to be largely forgotten, which is an absolute tragedy ’cause it’s the most extraordinary time.

The Old Age Pensions Act in 1908, National Insurance in 1911, boards set up to establish minimum wages, job centres, workers’ rights, and then Lloyd George, the big set piece, Lloyd George People’s Budget, which included a super tax on the very wealthy, utterly radical, who could have thought it ?

Jeevun: I know who could have thought.

David: And it led them to a constitutional crisis, which eventually broke and constrained the power of the lords to change it from a leader in parliament to be an advisor, if you like, of commons. It’s an amazing period and leaping on to the 1920s, and the acts that gave more people the vote than any other in 1918 and 1928, finally saw women get the vote after 50 years of campaigning by suffragists and suffragettes. So, it’s an extraordinary period. And now I think you want to talk about another extraordinary period in our story the second World War.

Jeevun: Now the, the ideas of what the state and the ways in which people should live is really becoming crystallized or rather becoming towards our modern understanding of it all. And I think you are right around how important Lloyd George is. I mean, the good news is they taught me that in school, which was nice. Um, they also taught me World War II three times, which, you know, is not necessary.

David: They taught me that actually, but I don’t think my daughter’s got taught anything like this, the 19th century seems dropped out. I’m gonna start moaning again. I can do old curmudgeon, but yes, we did it as well. We did the long, 19th century.

Jeevun: Everything was so much better in the past, it was better back in our day.

David: I think it’s fair to say the kids nowadays have no sense of it. is It’ll be even better in the future though.

Jeevun: Well, let’s hope so. Fingers crossed. Um, you know, wish me luck. But they, the parliament’s voice or parliament itself, which I should have kept at the beginning of this podcast. Parliament comes from ‘parlay’, which is voice to, to have a voice. Now the idea it being, I suppose, almost equally distributed because of women, of course, not having the full franchise, the idea that each and every person should have an equal voice in the say in the country is now becoming almost perfected, almost there.

And the idea of what Britain should be or what people should expect from that, coming out of that is also becoming perfected. But what has to happen now is a moment of possibility, and that’s what I think the most important part if you like, the end of the second World War.

So the Second World War leads to dramatic changes. Obviously the most horrific war in the history of humankind, the bloodiest war in the history of humankind, the great power wars at that time. I mean, we can’t really conceive of how big it was. You know, 70 million people died in the Second World War. You know, you think about those numbers compared to some of the conflicts today.

They don’t even compare in a, in a global population that was far, far smaller. So the huge amount of bloodshed was horrific. What it also meant was that Britain’s project to help fight that war ended up being a totally national effort, and everybody was put in the system, and everybody was risking everything they had in a shared project of struggle, survival, and then protecting democracy.

And for me, what captured this moment is, of all places bizarrely, and in 1941, The Times wrote this on the eve of the Battle of Britain, “If we speak of democracy, we do not mean a democracy which maintains the right to vote, but forgets the right to work and the right to live. If we speak of freedom, we do not mean a rugged individualism, which excludes social organization and economic planning. If we speak of equality, we do not mean a political equality null by social and economic privilege, and if we speak of economic reconstruction, we think less of maximum, although this job will be required than that of equitable distribution.” This is from the Times. And the Times is encapsulating a moment in this history, which is a moment that says we can all, or we are all giving into the collective sacrifice and effort of the nation.

And from that, every single person is deserving of something in return, and that thing in return is the ability to have a minimum of life guaranteed. What happens after that, of course, is Bevridge and the creation of the welfare state. But one thing I wanna touch on before we get there, this is also a time when Britain’s army is of course multicultural.

So, 2 million Indians fighting in the British Army, 2 million Indians fighting in not Asia as you’d expect, but of course to protect democracy that had spread across the globe and at least the ideas that have been circulating and percolating from the British state and the British nation have already transmitted across.

At this point, they are Britain’s dominions, and we’ve spoken of course about America, and we think very naturally about the ways in which that happened. But of course, given my own background, I think of India as well, that coming out or towards the end of Second World War, those ideas of individual liberty and flourishing and the idea of how we’re having a voice in parliament also are transmitted within the history of Britain, but are beginning to be transmitted or are being transmitted around the world.

That something is happening in this moment, and people are seeing it happen in this moment. And that’s the incredibly important part of its history. And for us in England, for us in Britain, of course, the idea that what is defining us at this moment of shared project and as I said, sacrifice, is not how we are born or how we look, but what we are doing and what we’re contributing.

 

Now, that’s not to say that Britain in, uh, 1945 was not racist. It’s nowhere near, uh, as liberal as we are today, but the reason we are the least racist nation on earth today at least has its roots in this period and at least has read this period as I would argue. And that’s a really important moment and I would say really starts to get towards what our understanding of the Enlightenment today. And I would say that by the end of. 1945 in terms of the Universal Declaration, Declaration of Human Rights, our understanding of what people should be guaranteed by the state and indeed in England and in Britain, hasn’t changed radically from that moment.

That this moment really starts to set it in stone. And this is the long history that we’ve gone through to get to this moment. And then, of course, the welfare state. And there’s two things here that are really important. The first of which is that welfare states are much more generous in Europe than in America, precisely because of the risk that people are undergoing.

And people, if you like, react to that risk in, in return, say I want a more generous welfare state in return, but also the idea and the possibility of the state to do things. The idea of if you could fight a total war and defeat Fascism, then the state could also set up an education, a healthcare system, national insurance. A jobs guarantee that will help guarantee the fundamental basic needs of human life and human dignity and living. And that is clear in the States. The idea of possibility becomes clear in this time. And one thing that’s difficult, I suppose, about my job is to argue for the possible, and in World War II, what is very clear is what comes out of it is a state where you see what is possible and people then demand something in return.

David: Thank you Jeevun, and we decided that we would stop here. Although there is of course a lot of history left. I don’t know what we’ve achieved outta that, but I’d enjoy it. So, Jeevun, what does all that mean to you? Do you have any general thoughts? General themes, golden threads that lead through all this

Jeevun: We should be so proud of Britain. I’m so proud of our history, so proud of our contribution both nationally and to the world. And to understand the full contribution is to understand our history. Two thing happen in Britain, which is a soggy backwater for most of human history, which is not the important bit, which is Constantinople and the Silk Roads and the Middle East and the Eurasian Land Mass or China turn state formation, or even in Europe or France and Spain that has all these big powers.

But something is happening in Britain that starts and takes place over a thousand years. And there’s two real key bits of that. The first of which is a set of ideas that emphasize individual rights and flourishing. And these start to take hold and be built through time, slowly but surely, a begin to take, if you like, seed a begin to expand to greater, greater numbers of people.

And the second of which is a political system that gives voice to a wider and wider section of society. Those two things. The political system of voice as well as a set of ideas go and feed off each other in, I’ll say a virtuous circle, but it’s never really quite as simple or straightforward as that.

But they begin to feed on one another in a way that absolutely monarchy doesn’t like, but it does then set up the stage for what is later sustained economic growth. The ideas of individual importance across the globe and the political system of democracy, and those are three things that are transformational for humanity and humankind that come out of, I would argue, Britain and the Enlightenment.

And one thing I think is really important to know which to say that Britain’s growth to be the most powerful nation of earth from being this soggy back water. One thing we know it doesn’t cause this moment is Empire. The reason we know that is because there were Empires for all of humid history from Mongolia to the Romans, to Asia, but they didn’t achieve either the growth in prosperity or indeed the ideas that would take place in Britain.

Now, that’s not to say the British Empire is perfect, it’s not. It is to say that we shouldn’t be too eager to judge previous generations because fundamentally it goes back and they’re all our fathers and grandfathers and great grandfathers. We shouldn’t visit their sins upon current generations. What is clear is that Britain’s leadership of growth ideas and politics are what leads to, if you like, its own generation of the globe irrespective, or rather even considering some of the extraction that also took place during its own domination of global affairs. Well, that’s why big, big takeaway and we should know that and take that as a reason of comfort going forward.

David: Great. Okay. Because it is always slightly, um, slightly difficult isn’t it, to, uh, to be patriotic and talk about the great things that have happened in Britain. But one of the reasons for me doing the podcast was to tell a history is always honest and open, which doesn’t hide from the many difficult and terrible things in Britain’s history, but essentially always sympathetic to Britain, because it’s my place, why wouldn’t I be?

And for me, a few of the things that run through that is that strong central institutions and symbols play a massive role. Those national symbols are very important because they give you an idea that you could be better. So if, if there is an ideal, maybe we don’t achieve it all the time, I’m sure we don’t, but if there is an ideal, it’s best to strive for that.

And rather than constantly telling yourself how you have failed, talking about what we could achieve, what are the great things that we have done that have moved the dial of human existence, and what more can we do to be better? So anyway, that’s all very far too emotional. What won’t do that again? Oh dear. Awkward.

So, Jeevun thank you very much, um, very kind of you to inspire to do this with you. I hope we’ve done something that people want to listen to, maybe they won’t probably get lots of terrible comments and I’m sorry we missed so much out. Thank you so much Jeevun, thank you all for listening and I hope people have a great day.Great, thanks a lot Jeevun.