A Very British Coup is a 1982 novel by Chris Mullin, and a 1988 British television adaptation of the novel, adapted by Alan Plater and starring Ray McAnally. The television series, first screened on Channel 4, won Bafta and Emmy awards, and was syndicated to more than 30 countries. The journalist Johann Hari has cited the novel as offering a valuable contemporary insight into the thinking of the Bennite faction of the Labour Party at the time it was written. Daniel Defoes Robinson Crusoe; title page of 1719 newspaper edition A novel (from French nouvelle Italian novella, new) is an extended fictional narrative in prose. ... Chris Mullin MP Christopher John Mullin is an UK Labour politician, currently the member of Parliament for the English constituency of Sunderland South. ... 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Alan Frederick Plater, CBE (born 15 April 1935) is an English playwright and screenwriter, who has worked extensively in British television from the 1960s to the 2000s. ... Ray McAnally Irish Actor famous for his performances in films such as “The Mission” “My Left Foot”, and “A Very British Coup”. Ray McAnally was born in the Donegal seaside town of Buncrana on March 30th, 1926. ... Channel 4 is a public service television broadcaster in the United Kingdom (see British television). ... The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), is a British organization that hosts annual awards shows for film, television, childrens film and television, and interactive media. ... An Emmy Award. ... Johann Hari (born 1979) is a British journalist and writer. ... Tony Benn about to join March 2005 anti-war demo in London Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (born April 3, 1925), known as Tony Benn, formerly 2nd Viscount Stansgate, is a British politician on the left of the Labour Party. ...

Story

Harry Perkins, an unassuming, blue-collar, very left-wing Labour politician is elected Prime Minister, much to everyone's surprise, after Margaret Thatcher. The priorities of Perkins' government include the break-up of all newspaper monopolies, removal of all US bases on UK soil, unilateral nuclear disarmament and real open government. There is immediate scheming to depose him, with the U.S. playing a key but covert role. In politics, left-wing, political left, leftism, or simply the left, are terms which refer (with no particular precision) to the segment of the political spectrum typically associated with any of several strains of socialism, social democracy, or liberalism (especially in the American sense of the word), or with opposition... The Labour Party has since its formation in the early 20th century been the principal left wing political party in the United Kingdom (see British politics). ... Sir Robert Walpole, the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. ... Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS (born 13 October 1925) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990. ... This page is about the country United States of America. ... Covert operations are military or political activities that are not only clandestine (undertaken in a manner that disguises the identity of the perpetrators) but also covert, i. ...

The book was written around 1982 - 83, at a time when the British Labour party was in deep trouble and there was much debate about the direction in which it should go. It also has strong echoes of the persistent rumours that have circulated over the years (first becoming widespread public knowledge around 1986, after the publication of the novel but before the broadcast of the TV version) about attempts by the British and American security services, and other wings of the British Establishment, to undermine and depose Harold Wilson's Labour government of the mid-1970s. The endings of the novel and the television version are significantly different. Perhaps unsurprisingly, right wing tabloids like The Sun and Daily Mail condemned the series as socialist propaganda. 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, PC (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was one of the most prominent and successful British politicians of the 20th Century. ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1971 to 1980, inclusive. ... In politics, right-wing, the political right, or simply the right, are terms which refer, with no particular precision, to the segment of the political spectrum in opposition to left-wing politics. ... The Sun, a tabloid daily newspaper published in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, has the highest circulation of any daily English-language newspaper in the world, standing at around 3,200,000 copies daily in late-2004, but at one point in the past decade, almost 5... The Daily Mail is a British newspaper, currently a tabloid, first published in 1896. ... Socialism refers to a broad array of doctrines or political movements that envisage a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to social control. ... It has been suggested that Propaganda in the United States be merged into this article or section. ...

External links

• A Very British Coup at The Internet Movie Database
• Chris Mullin, The Guardian, 7 March 2006, "When the threat of a coup seemed more than fiction"