The 70s2012

[final words of series]

Dominic Sandbrook:
The 70s had made Britain a far more tolerant and open-minded country, but also one that had fallen in love with money. Margaret Thatcher was astute enough to understand this, and that meant she reaped the political rewards. Of course nobody in 1979 thought that Margaret Thatcher would still be there eleven years later. And today we remember her as the prime minister who changed everything, for good or ill. But the reason she got there in the first place was that, more than any other politician of the day, she realised just how much Britain had changed already. She was taking over a country that was more ambitious, more affluent and more outgoing than it had been at the beginning of the 70s. And yet one that was also more anxious, more insecure and more individualistic. Now she didn't create all this - she inherited it. From sex and shopping to Europe and education - this was the great watershed in our modern history. And four decades on, we *still* live in the world the 70s made.