The Politics of 1951-71
The politics of two decades, writes David Watt, are those of the ‘New Elizabethan Age’.
It is typical of the antique arrogance of the British that they should, on all solemn occasions, mark the passage of time by reference to their own rulers and not to minor external events such as the foundation of one of the great religions.
Let others count laboriously from Christ or Mohammed; the English Statute Book prefers to record that we are living in the twentieth year of our Sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth, the Second, of that name.
This being so, and History Today's anniversary being, without doubt, a solemn occasion, it seems right to recall at the outset that the twenty-one years of the magazine’s life have coincided pretty well with the present reign. The politics of History Today’s times is those of the New Elizabethan Age.
A new Elizabethan Age! The words echo a bit eerily down the years, but how much was expected of them in 1952! It needed only the accident of that one royal name to unloose a flood of frustrated eloquence and hope. Leader-writers could hardly contain their excitement as they predicted the release of energy, self-confidence and creativity.
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