Pinkoes and Traitors – the BBC and the nation 1974-1987 by Jean Seaton, Profile Books, 326pp, £30
For those who find it all too easy to resist the attractions of Caversham - and the BBC paper archives there situated - Asa Briggs is a savior. He has been there and has the t-shirt. A History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom: five volumes published between 1961 and 1995, covering the period from 1897 to 1974, 4094 pages, lots of pix, pounds of figs. And it’s all yours for a mere £660.
And now we also have Jean Seaton’s Pinkoes and Traitors: The BBC and the nation 1974-1987, dedicated to Lord Briggs and explicitly announcing that its start date is dictated by the 1974 end-point of his history. It is hard not to see this book as a continuation of Brigg’s masterwork and therefore judge it, ultimately unfairly, to be deficient by comparison. This is because it does not really compare: it is not 1000+ pages long (as are the later Briggs volumes); its scholarly apparatus is not comprehensive; its style is, largely, more journalistic than magisterial. It does not pretend to Briggs’ level of comprehensiveness nor to the chronological regularity of his narrative.
