Nothing that could be considered related to British history since 1945 on terrestrial TV this week, unless one counts ITV clips programme of election over the last 50 years (Weds 6th, 10:40pm Unforgettable Election Moments: 60 Years On) which I don’t. (Was 1959, not 1955 the first TV election in the UK, and does not even that overstate it a bit?) Not even Radio 4 can step into this breach, although at a push Archive of 4’s The New Language of Pain could be considered relevant (Saturday 2nd May, 8:00pm). The programme which looks at the changing way in which people have described pain, which (if we are lucky) we raise more questions than it answers.
UPDATE.
I didn’t look at the BBC Parliament Channel, which often has interest snippets from the past on it (they has a fantastic six hours of coverage from the February 1974 election night programme a couple of Christmases ago). It thought that it would be dedicated to the general election at the moment, but we have a number of interesting programmes coming up over the weekend.
From 9:00pm to 9:35pm Saturday 2nd May we have a trio of programmes When Nobody Wins with Professor Iain McLean will give, one assumes, a perspective based on the devolved settlement; Professor Peter Hennessy will certainly be the most historically grounded; and Catherin Haddon of the Institute of Government may relate to more immediate constitutional concerns.
On Sunday, Peter Snow looks at TV coverage of the elections in 60 years of Swing on Sunday at 9pm on the Parliament Channel.
British Contemporary History 