Pinkoes and Traitors: The BBC and the Nation, 1974 1987 by Jean Seaton

The title comes from the Dear Bill letters in Private Eye, imagining Denis Thatcher’s view of the corporation. And indeed, the years related in Jean Seaton’s scholarly but eye-poppingly riveting history saw the BBC repeatedly cringing under vigorous contumely from government and rival media. Here are the final years of Wilson and Callaghan, the winter of discontent, Thatcher, the Falklands, and the bombing of Libya when Norman Tebbit called Kate Adie “a traitor”. There’s a royal wedding, the miners’ strike, spiralling inflation and IRA bombings; but also Life on Earth, Live Aid, Grange Hill, EastEnders,I, Claudius, Dennis Potter and David Munrow,Swap Shop and Savile, and the last days of the Black and White Minstrels. All in 13 years!