Why Britons rejected fascism in the 1930s

Summary

HistoryExtra Podcast Episode Summary

Episode Title: Why Britons Rejected Fascism in the 1930s
Host: Spencer Mizzen
Guest: Alwyn Turner (Senior Lecturer in History, University of Chichester)
Date: March 9, 2026
Main Theme: A rich exploration into why Britain, unlike much of continental Europe, largely rejected fascist and other extremist movements during the interwar period, drawing on cultural, social, and political context from the 1920s and 1930s.

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Episode Overview

This episode investigates why, amidst the rise of fascist and authoritarian regimes across Europe in the early 20th century, Britain remained a steadfast parliamentary democracy. Host Spencer Mizzen talks to historian Alwyn Turner about the social, cultural, and political fabric that inoculated Britain against extremism. With references to the role of voluntary associations, popular culture, mass media censorship, economic differences, and the unique role of the monarchy, this conversation provides fresh insights into Britain’s exceptional path during a time of continental crisis.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The European Context: Rise of Dictatorships

• 01:14–04:41
  • Authoritarianism surged across Europe, with "whole swathe of countries... drifting into some form of dictatorship or authoritarian rule" (Turner, 03:08).
  • Even nations with robust democratic traditions, like Belgium and France, saw extremism grow: “It seemed as if there was no way of stopping this contagion.” (Turner, 04:34)
  • Fear of both Communist revolution (inspired by Russia) and fascist takeover permeated political consciousness across the continent.

2. Perception and Fear in Britain

• 04:41–05:28
  • British authorities and the public closely monitored developments abroad. Newspapers flagged Hitler as a significant threat early; he was labelled “the German Mussolini” even in the early 1920s.

3. Mosley and the Myth of British Fascism

• 05:28–07:18
  • Despite the global context, “Britain didn't narrowly escape the extremism that swept across Europe. It never came even vaguely close.” (Mizzen, 05:28)
  • The British Union of Fascists (BUF) under Oswald Mosley got disproportionate attention despite limited support—only 40,000 members at peak.
  • Turner calls this “dictatorship envy” (06:15), noting that Mosley “was a kind of a peripheral figure at the time, but today he's one of the best known politicians from the interwar period” (Mizzen, 05:40).

4. Why Mosley Never Convincingly Played the Dictator

• 07:18–09:02
  • Mosley’s upper-class background and political trajectory made him an unconvincing fascist leader:
    • “He looks unconvincing, as though he was playing a dictator in an amateur dramatic show.” (Mizzen quoting Turner, 07:18)
    • “The British don't really do demonstrative politicians... Much understatement is to be valued, and fascism does not deal with understatement.” (Turner, 08:36)

5. The Real Moment of Revolutionary Threat

• 09:17–10:14
  • Turner identifies the immediate post-WWI years, especially 1919-1920, as Britain’s most vulnerable period, but largely to left-wing revolution inspired by Russia and economic turmoil, not fascism.

6. The Role of “Cheap Luxuries” and Improving Living Standards

• 10:22–12:08
  • Drawing on George Orwell’s analysis, Turner points to the availability of “cheap luxuries” like football pools and fish & chips as stabilizers:
    • “...for most people, the 1930s were not that bad. The standard of living was improving. The gap between the rich and the poor was declining…A lot of the country was doing okay.” (Turner, 10:56)

7. Voluntary Associations as Democratic Training Grounds

• 12:08–15:09
  • The “great era of voluntary associations”—from the Women’s Institute to local hobby groups—instilled everyday democratic habits.
    • “All of that panoply of a democratic process is part of everyday life, and it’s part of your hobbies as well... It's what you do every Friday night when you go round to the British Legion because you’re on the Subcommittee for entertainment. It’s just baked into normality.” (Turner, 14:29)

8. British Culture and the Absence of Politics

• 17:00–18:17
  • Compared to France, Belgium, or Germany, political engagement in everyday clubs and entertainment was procedural and non-ideological—a bulwark against radicalism.

9. Media Self-Censorship – The Role of BBFC and the BBC

• 18:17–24:24
  • The British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) and BBC deliberately kept politics off the agenda:
    • The BBFC “stops pretty much anything that is to do with politics or religion or race... British film and British cinema at the time is really quite a peaceful place.” (Turner, 18:17–19:37)
    • The BBC avoided political controversy, projecting mainstream values and further dampening potential for radicalization.
    • “There’s no real room on the BBC for a communist or a fascist because they’re outside the mainstream. And the BBC is very committed to the mainstream. Its bias is towards parliamentary democracy.” (Turner, 24:04)

10. The Monarchy as a Counterweight to Dictatorial Imagery

• 24:24–25:47
  • The king’s image replaced the cult of personality sought by authoritarian leaders. “All of that territory is taken over by the monarchy, which has limited political power. It has a huge amount of cultural power because it’s been there forever.” (Turner, 24:56)
  • Dictators’ symbols had no unoccupied space in British public life.

11. Expansion and Impact of the Franchise

• 25:47–27:51
  • The novelty of universal suffrage in Britain created greater participation and engagement than presumed; churn in party politics ultimately strengthened the parliamentary system.

12. The Lambeth Walk as a Symbol of British Resistance to Dictatorship

• 27:51–30:32
  • The dance song “The Lambeth Walk” became a spontaneous emblem of British democratic spirit.
    • “...in Germany it is banned...the Germans don't understand the implicit democracy that is involved in this song. Particularly the middle age section where it talks about ‘do as you’re damn well pleasy.’ This idea...is seen as being the antithesis of extremist politics.” (Turner, 28:19)
    • Clement Attlee: “In Germany, they can’t do the Lambeth Walk, they can only do the goose step.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Britain’s “dictatorship envy”:

  • “Not that we wanted a dictatorship, but we want to be involved in big stories that...this is the issue in Europe and Britain is sitting it out effectively.”
    — Alwyn Turner (06:15)

• On Mosley:

  • “He looks unconvincing, as though he was playing a dictator in an amateur dramatic show, which is a great description of him.”
    — Spencer Mizzen (07:18)

• On voluntary associations:

  • “All of that panoply of a democratic process is part of everyday life, and it's part of your hobbies as well. And I think Britain is more distinctive with this than any other country... It’s just baked into normality.”
    — Alwyn Turner (14:29)

• On British censorship:

  • “Other countries have censorship, but it tends to censor particular political views. In Britain it just censors politics as a whole. And consequently British cinema at the time is really quite a peaceful place.”
    — Alwyn Turner (19:15)

• On the monarchy as a counterweight to dictatorship:

  • “All of that territory is taken over by the monarchy... You can’t have that territory. It’s already taken by the king.”
    — Alwyn Turner (24:56)

• On “The Lambeth Walk”:

  • “In Germany it is banned in many places. And a large part of that is...the Germans don't understand the implicit democracy that is involved in this song...the idea of ‘do as you’re damn well pleasy’ is being the antithesis of extremist politics.”
    — Alwyn Turner (28:19)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:32] Setting the European Scene: Fascism’s rise
• [05:28] Why fascism never seriously threatened Britain
• [07:18] The problem with Mosley's appeal
• [09:17] Britain’s real revolutionary moment (post-WWI)
• [10:56] The “cheap luxuries” thesis and improving standards of living
• [12:29] How voluntary associations fostered democracy
• [17:07] Distinctiveness of British associational life
• [18:17] Self-censorship in British cinema
• [22:10] BBC’s role in keeping culture apolitical
• [24:24] The monarchy’s influence over public imagery
• [25:47] Expansion of the franchise and voter participation
• [27:51] The Lambeth Walk: pop culture as quiet resistance to extremism

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Tone and Language

The episode maintains a thoughtful, gently skeptical, and distinctly British tone—emphasizing understatement, humor, and self-reflection. Turner is analytical but approachable; his insights are delivered with a mix of scholarly rigour and everyday observation. The spirit of the conversation is factual, balanced, and refreshingly free of mythmaking.

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Takeaway

Britain’s resistance to fascism was not accidental. A blend of social resilience, democratic habits embedded in everyday life, strategic cultural self-censorship, stable traditions, and a unique role for the monarchy all created an environment where political extremism simply didn’t take root as it did elsewhere in Europe. Even the most memorable symbols of the time—be it the Lambeth Walk or the unflappable BBC—embodied an unshowy but robust commitment to democracy and pluralism.

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For Further Reading:
Alwyn Turner’s latest book, A Shell Shock Nation: Britain Between the Wars (mentioned at [30:32]), delves deeper into many of these themes.

Transcript

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The 1920s and 1930s were golden decades for extremism. Across Europe, dictators including Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini goose stepped their way into power. Yet in Britain, it was a different story. Here in conversation with Spencer Mizzen for this episode of a History Extra podcast, Alwyn Turner explains why, with a little help from the football pools, the Women's Institute and the Lambeth Walk, parliamentary democracy reigned supreme.

[Spencer Mizzen]

We're going to talk today about interwar Britain. More specifically, why Britain didn't succumb to Dictatorship and extremism in the 1920s and 30s. Now, before looking at the situation in Britain in more detail, I wonder if we could set the scene for our listeners by looking first at what was going on across continental Europe. We, we all know about the situation in Germany and Italy, but what strides was authoritarianism making elsewhere in Europe, perhaps in places we'd less expect it to.

[Alwyn Turner]

Well, the original concerns in the 1920s was Italy first, but also there were problems in Spain. This is long before the Spanish Civil War. There was the rise of Ataturk in Turkey. There are whole swathe of countries right across continental Europe that seemed to be drifting into some form of dictatorship or authoritarian rule and people concerned that democracy was a fragile flower that was possibly wilting. And then of course the 30s makes things worse with the rise of Hitler in a Germany that was already deeply destabilized. And beyond that there was Russia which had really kicked the whole thing off

and was feared greatly as a source of inspiration for discontented people elsewhere.

[Spencer Mizzen]

And this was a phenomenon that was kind of happening in places with quite strong democratic traditions as well, wasn't it?

[Alwyn Turner]

Indeed, yeah. I mean it seemed to be no respecter of what had previously been there. And even in the countries that didn't succumb to totalitarianism, there was still extremist politics being espoused in fairly substantial form in places like Belgium where there's a

far right groups that were doing very well in elections. In France, the Communist Party did very well in elections.

It seemed as if there was no way of stopping this contagion. It was growing and it was going to continue to grow.

[Spencer Mizzen]

How large did this loom in the imaginations of the authorities in Britain? I mean, how worried were they about this?

[Alwyn Turner]

The awareness was there. And particularly, I mean what was striking reading the, the newspapers of the time

is how early Hitler was identified as a serious disruptive force.

Originally billed as the German Mussolini back

in the early 1920s. But the, the Beer Hall Putsch was

given a great deal of attention and from there onwards he was always present in people's minds. And the concept of the British Hitler was by the end of the 1920s becoming a familiar idea that possibly there might be somebody in Britain who would rise in the same way.

[Spencer Mizzen]

Now, despite all this, in the feature you've written for History Extra magazine, I mean, you point out that Britain didn't narrowly escape the extremism that swept across Europe. It never came even vaguely close. And I've got to say I was quite surprised at how sort of badly the communists and for example, the British Union of Fascists performed at the polls in Britain. When you go back and look at the numbers given all that, why then do you think that someone like, say, Oswald Mosley, leader of the buf, loomed so large in our imaginations? I mean, you write that he was a kind of a peripheral figure at the time, but today he's one of the best known politicians from the interwar period, isn't he? Why do you think that is?

[Alwyn Turner]

We might call it dictatorship envy. Not that we wanted a dictatorship, but we want to be involved in big stories that clearly this is the issue in Europe and Britain is sitting it out effectively. Oswald Mosley is at his peak. He had 40,000 members of the British Union of Fascists, and that was only for a couple of months. And by comparison with other parties, absolutely nothing, completely irrelevant. But he got a lot of attention

at the time in a country where

politics was not exactly diverse because the national government was in power. The national government had won such a massive majority in 1931, that was really not much opposition. And Mosley is a colorful figure. Everything else seems quite bland and managerial. And then you get this very strange and very active and very charismatic figure. He attracts a lot of press attention and he's attracted a huge amount of historical attention, which I think is probably slightly undeserved.

[Spencer Mizzen]

I mean, you write that he looks unconvincing, as though he was playing a dictator in an amateur dramatic show, which is a great description of him. Why did he look unconvincing in a way that to a lot of people, at least Hitler and Mussolini did not?

[Alwyn Turner]

Some of it is to do with the character himself, that Mosley is a very upper class figure, hereditary baronet. He is originally elected as a Conservative mp, which seems entirely right. He then defects from the party, becomes an independent, becomes a Labour cabinet minister,

all of which is perfectly mainstream.

And to move from that into adopting the rhetoric and the gestures and the clothing of a fascist leader is too big a jump. It just doesn't sit with him. He looks perfectly right in the earlier newsreels where he's wearing three piece tweed suit and looking like a proper gentleman with his hands in his lapels when he's, when he's making a speech and all of that, that fits him, but it doesn't fit in with this new thing that is clearly not part of British political culture and not part of his world at all. Whereas Hitler and Mussolini come from nowhere. They're not established figures within the mainstream who then go, they're coming in and it's much easier, I guess. But beyond that, I think there's also the issue that the British don't really do demonstrative politicians in the same way we don't do really do demonstrative anything. Much understatement is to be valued, and fascism does not deal with understatement.

[Spencer Mizzen]

Now, if there was a moment when the forces of the far left and the far right were at their strongest, when it looked like they might actually shake up Britain's political establishment, when was that?

[Alwyn Turner]

I think the real threat was in the immediate aftermath of the First World War.

1919 was a very disruptive year, not because of the fascists who did not yet exist, but the economy was going into recession. There was a short boom after the war, and then by the end of 1919, going into 1920, massive economic problems. The economist described 1920 as one of the worst years for depression since the Industrial Revolution.

Huge unemployment. Many of the unemployed were ex servicemen. Many of them, it was feared, had weapons, because demobilization is a very messy process always. And there was this genuine fear that inspired by the Russian Revolution, inspired by

the Irish War of Independence, there might actually be a rising in mainland Britain.

And I think that was the point in those early years.

There were riots and there were strikes, and that was when possibly things might have gone wrong.

[Spencer Mizzen]

But as you write in the article, obviously Britain didn't succumb to dictatorship in this period. And you identify a number of reasons why that might have been the case. I wonder if we could look at a few of those in a bit of detail. One of them was, in the words of George Orwell, as you say, cheap luxuries. In the Road to Wigan, Peer, the great novelist argued that everything from the football pools to fish and chips kept the working class quiescent. I mean, would you say he was onto something there?

[Alwyn Turner]

I think what he's getting at to some extent is accurate that although we talk about the hungry 30s and for obvious reasons, as a great deal of attention is paid to those areas of very high unemployment and hunger marches and all of that, actually, for most people, the 1930s were not that bad. The standard of living was improving. The gap between the rich and the poor was declining. There was a huge program of house building. People were living in better quality accommodation. There were more consumer durables available cheaply. And Britain was not hit as bad by the depression as many other countries. And that's not necessarily to our credit, because some of that is because the economy had effectively flatlined for much of the 1920s, anyway, so we didn't have so far to fall. But compared to America, let alone Germany, the Depression was not as destructive as it might have been. And without wishing to minimise the suffering that was clearly there in much of the north and deindustrializing cities and towns, a lot of the country was doing okay.

[Spencer Mizzen]

You also remarked that the interwar period was the great era of voluntary associations. I wonder if you could tell us a bit more about that phenomenon, please. Why were they so incredibly popular? And why would these clubs kind of act as a bulwark against extremism and dictatorship?

[Alwyn Turner]

There's kind of two aspects to the voluntary club organizations. There are the really big national and international ones. The Women's Institute, the British Legion, these very large organizations that had separate branches. The League of Nations Union was another one. They enjoyed peak membership. And I think some of that was to do with the fact that, as now, people were concerned that culture was becoming something that we consumed rather than participated in. We'd had at the end of the 19th century the invention of film, of the gramophone record, the recorded sound. These don't allow for participation. The radio turns up in the 1920s, and it seemed as if everything was becoming rather passive. And as now, there is a reaction against that, where people wish to participate, wish to belong, and wish to feel as if they are part of something bigger than themselves. And so you get the rise of community singing. The Daily Express starts putting on concerts at the Albert hall, where thousands of people come together, get issued with song sheets, and they all join in singing together. At the FA cup final, people start singing Abide With Me. And that becomes part of the ritual of the football season. So I think there's that side of it where the culture seems to be becoming something that we can't enjoy being part of. And therefore we will find a place where we can. Alongside that, you also have the continuation and proliferation of just masses and masses of small clubs and societies, independent groups that might be devoted to rose growing or to penal reform, or to foreign films or to anything that is a specific little interest of your own. And what's distinctive about that, I think, is that these are all organized in very conventional ways. You tend to elect a committee, you have a treasurer. You read the minutes for the last meetings, and you take minutes of this meeting. All of that panoply of a democratic process is part of everyday life, and it's part of your hobbies as well. And I think Britain is more distinctive with this than any other country. It becomes embedded and becomes part of the warp and weft of normal society that you have these democratic processes. It's not something you do every five years when you go and cast a vote. It's what you do every Friday night when you go round to the British Legion because you're on the Subcommittee for entertainment. It's just baked into normality.

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[Spencer Mizzen]

So was it baked into normality in a way that it wasn't in, say, France, Belgium or Germany?

[Alwyn Turner]

Yes, I think it is. It's not simply the groups having shared interests coming together, it's the process whereby they do that. And that's been going on for so long in Britain. And I guess ultimately that's really why Britain is not attracted to extremist politics is the history, the continuity of centuries of institutions and of stable borders allows that stuff to grow. And so it's not simply that you haven't been invaded, it's that you've had the time of peace, that you can develop those structures. And as I Say it's not simply the big institutions which is obviously the important part of resisting extremism. Is it the big national formal institutions, it's the everyday ones that I think matter as well.

[Spencer Mizzen]

So you cite in your feature is, as you put it, the complete absence of politics in British cultural life. There's one really interesting example you mentioned and that's in the realm of film, the cinema. Can you tell us a little bit more about that please? About the role that say the British Board of Film Censors played in sort of keeping film and politics separate?

[Alwyn Turner]

Yeah, the British Board of Film Censors is a fascinating institution. It's created by the film industry itself in order to avoid government interference, government censorship, and in order to produce this system of certifying films with a U certificate or an A certificate for adult film which is entirely intended to circumvent local councils making their own decisions. And so the BBFC is created by the film industry to regulate itself and it decides that in order to do this it should have nothing controversial ever to say and films have to be pre submitted before they get released. And the BBFC stops pretty much anything that is to do with politics or religion or race. It will not allow you to criticize any foreign government. So that even late on films like the Lady Vanishes, Alfred Hitchcock's film from 1938, 39, where it is very clear that the people who are trying to stop our heroes are German. They are not identified as German because that would go against the BBFC's regulations and imply a criticism of a foreign government at a time when it was fairly clear that we probably should be criticizing foreign governments. But the result of all of that very heavy handed censorship is that it is completely apolitical. Other countries have censorship, but it tends to censor particular political views. In Britain it just censors politics as a whole. Everything is out of bounds. And consequently British film and British cinema at the time is really quite a peaceful place. Russian films don't get certificates from the BBFC because they are inherently communist, obviously. And you get to a stage where there is nothing being discussed in movies, there is a complete silence about it. And it's a bit like those pubs that used to say no politics, no religion, there's simply no discussion, no talk. And I think the effect of that is to make everything seem much quieter and nicer somehow. I'm not saying we ought to go to one worries about the level of the censorship possibly, but it does have a dampening effect. I think.

[Spencer Mizzen]

I was going to ask you about that though, because as you say, looking back from 100 years on, it could seem a little bit heavy handed. Was there any pushback to it at the time?

[Alwyn Turner]

Not really, no. There were people who wished to see

films that they weren't allowed to see,

foreign films, but because there was nothing being made in Britain that people felt we're being excluded from because it wasn't made. That's part of the way that the BBFC operates is you submit the script before making the movie. And so Walter Greenwood's classic novel Love on the Dole was a successful book. It transferred to the stage with some success. They submitted a script to the BBFC and the BBFC simply refused it. So it was never made. It was eventually made in a different version, much toned down in the 1940s by which stage it was a historical piece. The moment had passed when it really mattered. It wasn't there because it seemed too political. And that does have an effect, I think, means you just simply don't talk about this stuff. And that to me feels an important bit of it. And the BBC plays its part in this as well because the BBC doesn't like controversy.

[Spencer Mizzen]

Yeah. Tell us a little bit more about the rise of the BBC in this period then. I mean, how did the interwar commitment to keeping politics out of culture shape the evolution of public service broadcasting in Britain?

[Alwyn Turner]

Well, to start with, the BBC is not allowed to discuss politics. The government is quite clear that. But this is not its territory and some of that is because of the campaigning of other vested interest groups. The newspapers in particular. I mean, to start with, the BBC is not allowed to broadcast News bulletins until 7 o' clock at night because it would interfere with newspaper sales.

[Spencer Mizzen]

Yeah, that's unimaginable now.

[Alwyn Turner]

Yeah, it is, yes. It's not until the general strike, which closed down newspaper production, that the BBC started doing bulletins. Before that, and of course, once that dam is broken, that's it. But there was a definite feel that this was not what the BBC should be doing. As a monopoly broadcaster with only one national channel, one national radio station, it shouldn't be broadcasting anything that might disturb, upset, offend a large number of people. And so it's about compromise, it's about finding some kind of middle ground, common ground that will be acceptable to pretty much everybody, because it has to be. The BBC is so big, by the end of the 1920s there are 3 million radio licenses in the country. This is the precursor of the television licence. You have to have a license for the radio. 3 million radio licenses by the end of the 1920s. By the end of the 1930s, it's 9 million. That's virtually every home in the country is getting. The BBC. It is the dominant cultural force by a very long margin, even bigger than the cinema. And in that context, it doesn't want to upset people. It will broadcast dramas that have political themes, but even there, it gets a bit nervous depending on the mood of the nation at the time. And so there's a pacifist play that is banned in 1937 because by that stage, appeasement is on the way out. We're into rearmament.

It's no longer appropriate.

Five years earlier it would have been. Okay, so there is some political material, but there's no real room on the BBC for a communist or a fascist because they're outside the mainstream. And the BBC is very committed to the mainstream. It's biases towards parliamentary democracy.

[Spencer Mizzen]

Okay, how much credit can King George V take for all this? Because iconography, portraiture, image is very sort of important to the rise of authoritarian regimes across Europe. In Germany and Italy, there are images of Hitler and Mussolini everywhere in their respective nations. In Britain, however, coin's carried the portrait not of a politician, but of a king. How important is that fact to this story?

[Alwyn Turner]

I think it is massively important. To a large extent. It's because we don't think about it. It is so much part of the national fabric already that you don't even consider that this is happening. But it is the stuff that any other country. It's what a dictator wishes to do. If you walk down the street in Moscow, you will see a picture of Stalin in a shop window. All of that, that wish to be the visible embodiment of the state that's already been taken. All of that territory is taken over by the monarchy, which has limited political power. It has a huge amount of cultural power because it's been there forever. As far as anybody's concerned, this is just a fact of life. It's not something that's been decided. And so the scope for a dictator is massively reduced. You can't have that territory. It's already taken by the king.

[Spencer Mizzen]

It's always interesting to compare the present day with the events of a century ago. What was the prevailing view of politicians back in the 1920s and 30s? I mean, judging by the numbers, I guess you could say there was a significant amount of political participation and engagement amongst the wider population.

[Alwyn Turner]

Well, it was still a novelty element, of course, the 1918 representation of the people's act had given the vote to all men. The working class were now allowed to vote. Most women were now allowed to vote. And by 1928 that had become all women. We had universal franchise. It's still a novelty for much of the country that you're allowed to participate in this. I think the parallel with then and now is the struggle of our electoral system of first past the post, which is intended for two major parties trying to deal with multiple parties. And so you've got the decline of the Liberals, the rise of the Labour Party, and even that is not the whole story, because at one point in the 1931 election, there are three Liberal parties, there are two Labour parties as well as the Independent Labour Party and Scottish national parties emerging. This massive parties jumbling around. And you can see the same kind of instability there that we've enjoyed or endured recently. Four Prime Ministers in the space of three years in 1922-24, three years of elections. There is this churn as the system tries to adjust. Ultimately it does so and it settles down into Conservative Labour as the two dominant forces, having started with the Conservative Liberal. So maybe one should take some comfort from this, that even at periods of great instability, the system will ultimately adjust and maybe things settle down. Of course, it did take a world war, but nonetheless.

[Spencer Mizzen]

Oh, and towards the end of the feature, you observe that if there was a single cultural symbol of Britain's instinctive distrust of the dictator, it was perhaps the Lambeth Walk. So tell us a little bit about this song, its evolution and how it found itself on sort of the front line of a clash of values. Is Europe lurched towards another conflict, the Lambeth Walkers.

[Alwyn Turner]

It's a song that comes from the show Me and My Girl, which had started in London on stage, unsuccessfully. It was doing very poorly and it looked as if it might have to come off. And in one of those nice quirks of cultural fate, there was a band, bandleader was scheduled to make a broadcast on the BBC on the radio and had to cancel at very short notice. And so to replace the program, the BBC broadcast an extract from a live performance of Me and My Girl, including the Lambeth Walk. It was a big hit, box office went wild and the show was established. And that song in particular, it's a really simple, nice little song, catchy melody, it comes with a dance. This is the great period of dance bands and dances, generally the 1920s and 30s. But the Lambeth Walk is different to the others. Things like the Charleston and the Black Bottom, all of these dances that have come from America terribly athletic. They required a huge amount of energy to perform them the Lambeth Walk. You just have to kind of strut it along a bit and sway your shoulders and occasionally jerk your thumb in the air. Everybody can do it and everybody does. It becomes right across society is classless, is ageless. It is so simple to do. It is so catchy. It is the big hit of 1938. The Times talks about it as this is going to be the Tipperary of the next war. It is covered by musicians around the world and in Germany it is banned in many places. And a large part of that is it is, as it's seen from Britain, is that the Germans don't understand the implicit democracy that is involved in this song. And particularly the Middle Age section where it talks about do as you're damn well pleasy, Life is nice and easy. This idea of do as you're damn well pleasey is seen as being the antithesis of extremist politics. Clement Attlee, the leader of the Labour Party, says, in Germany they can't do the Lambeth Walk, they can only do the goose step. And that that seems to be the cultural opposition between the two.

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That was Arwen Turner speaking to Spencer Mizzen. Arwen Turner is a Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Chichester and an author of numerous books on 20th century Britain. His latest, which tells the story of the UK in the 1920s and 1930s, is a shell shock Nation Britain between the war.

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