David Dimbleby is to present a new six-part BBC podcast exploring the UK’s economic revolution and its embracing of free market capitalism.
Available on BBC Sounds and BBC Radio, Invisible Hands will tell the story of how the nation’s economy was changed forever and set the stage for Margaret Thatcher’s reforms, the City’s big bang and beyond.
The broadcasting legend, who witnessed the idea unfold first-hand across his years as a BBC political reporter and presenter, will take listeners through the dramatic twists and turns of its evolution.
Dimbleby said: “Looking back on a lifetime interviewing politicians and debating their ideas I think that none was more radical than the theory of free market capitalism.
“In the mid-1970s no one knew what it really meant or where the idea came from. This is the story of how this revolutionary idea took hold, challenging old assumptions and redefining British society.
“It begins with a fighter pilot shot down in the Battle of Britain, an ambitious chicken farmer and a politician nick-named the mad monk who embraced the idea with such enthusiasm that he persuaded the government to abandon the old way of running Britain for a new and as yet untried theory.
“I was seven when the Second World War ended, and in this series, I trace the history of the revolutionary idea that spans my own lifespan, and now defines every part of our lives in Britain.”
The History Podcast: Invisible Hands will begin on 26th March on BBC Radio 4 and Sounds.