Alwyn Turner - All in it together : England in the early 21st century

ALL IN IT TOGETHER

Also by Alwyn Turner

Crisis? What Crisis? Britain in the 1970s

Rejoice! Rejoice! Britain in the 1980s

A Classless Society: Britain in the 1990s

The Last Post: Music, Remembrance and the Great War

The Biba Experience

The Man Who Invented the Daleks:

The Strange Worlds of Terry Nation

Halfway to Paradise: The Birth of British Rock

My Generation: The Glory Years of British Rock

Glam Rock: Dandies in the Underworld

Portmeirion (contributing editor)

The History of British Military Bands (three volumes)

Tribute: A Salute to the British Armed

Forces of the Second World War

England in the Early 21st Century

ALWYN TURNER

First published in Great Britain in 2021 by

Profile Books Ltd

29 Cloth Fair

London

EC1A 7JQ

www.profilebooks.com

Copyright Alwyn Turner, 2021

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781788166720

eISBN 9781782837862

Audio ISBN 9781782838470

For Thamasin

Manchester City fans of a certain vintage those who remembered the late-1960s team of Colin Bell, Franny Lee and Mike Summerbee would no doubt have disagreed, but Maine Road stadium in Moss Side was not a place where youd normally expect to witness a miracle. Let alone one that heralded the return of the messiah. Yet there it was: a column of sunlight falling through a moonless night sky, illuminating just Maine Road itself, while all around remained in darkness. Its daylight! exclaimed the television news reports. Its daylight inside the stadium and its night outside. Theres no explanation for the light. This isnt a hoax. And then a gawky, cheaply dressed Mancunian appeared on the screens. This is the work of God, and Im his son, he announced. God in human form.

Russell T. Daviess drama The Second Coming (2003) told the story of Steve Baxter, played by Christopher Eccleston, an ordinary, if awkward, man with three O levels (he failed French). He works at EasyRent Video in Salford, before hes suddenly struck by a blinding revelation that he is the son of God, a new messiah come to save humanity. Having grabbed the attention of the media with the Maine Road Miracle, he makes his first address to the world. You are becoming gods, he tells his audience. Youve unravelled DNA. Youre five years away from building your own people. And at the same time youre cultivating bacteria strong enough to kill every living thing. Then his voice changes, challenging now, taunting: Do you think youre ready for that much power? You lot? You lot? You cheeky bastards!

The point of the drama is that this is not a delusion. Steve really is the son of God. And hes confused, disorientated. His head is filled with the whole of Creation, but hes also a normal bloke, and he cant see what hes supposed to do with this level of consciousness. His coming will reveal to humanity the Third Testament, but how? All he knows is that he wont be the one writing it.

It takes an old schoolfriend, Judy, to figure it out. He must die. Just like last time, he must voluntarily give his life for humanity. But this time its going to be final. When you die, youre not ascending to paradise, she says. Youre dying properly and for ever, taking the whole thing with you. God and heaven and hell all dead. The end of this world and the start of a new one, without religion on our backs. She tells him that the dinner shes cooked for him is full of rat poison, and, recognising the truth of her words, he eats it anyway.

This, it transpires, is the Third Testament. Its the death of God, the emergence of humanity into a new evolutionary phase, without the need for the crutch of religion. As Judy puts it, As soon as we get rid of God, thats when we grow up.

The new millennium was not celebrated in Britain as a Christian event. A thousand years earlier, there had been fears among the faithful that the end was nigh; this time there was an entirely secular panic that a programming glitch known as Y2K or the millennium bug might damage the worlds computers. The official Millennium Experience, at the Dome in Greenwich, South London, did have a gallery called the Faith Zone (one of fourteen such zones), but the show was careful not to overdo the Christianity. The central values of modern society were deemed to be inclusion, diversity and tolerance, so it was important to celebrate all the mainstream religions practised in the country.

The same thinking was evident when Churches Together in England, an organisation that represented the main Christian denominations, issued a prayer for the occasion. Titled the Millennium Resolution, it mentioned neither God nor Jesus, as if this were the faith that dare not speak its name. Churches Together also took the opportunity to offer a general confession for the sins committed by Christians individually and collectively; the general secretary explained that there have been two thousand very positive years of Christianity, but there has also been a flip side.

The Second Coming, in other words, reflected the fact that Britain was now a post-Christian country, even if it was reluctant

On the other hand, there remained a residual respect for the churches. When the polling organisation MORI asked people in 2003 who they trusted to tell the truth, 71 per cent expressed faith in the clergy, comparable to the support enjoyed by judges, though a little way behind doctors and teachers. (Politicians and journalists came in last, each with an 18 per cent showing, unchanged in two decades.)

And culturally the old faith remained. In large parts of the country the popular image of the Church of England still persisted: a snug, carol-service and sweet-sherry image. It could be seen in the way that the most popular television comedies the ones that attracted the big audiences if not always the critics still included the reassuringly familiar touchstone of the vicar. A 2004 BBC series Britains Best Sitcom invited viewers votes, and Richard Curtiss old-fashioned entertainment The Vicar of What seemed to be the final episode of Dibley was broadcast on the first day of the millennium, but the show was briefly revived at Christmas in 2004 and again in 2006; on the latter occasion, it attracted over 13 million viewers, the highest rated programme on Christmas Day.

That same day, the long-running My Family (2000) introduced Kevin, the local vicar, who became a recurrent character. And six years on from that, in 2012, the highest-rated Christmas Day show was a special of