More Jam Tomorrow

"I think we're at the bottoming-out moment, where it's as bad as it gets and something new can be reborn from what remains." Local newspapers are dying. Hundreds of once-proud titles are now clickbait merchants with no original reporting. Jim Waterson, the editor of London Centric, and Rachel Matthews, a journalism specialist at Liverpool John Moores University and the former news editor of the Gloucestershire Echo, talk about what it was like to work on a traditional local paper, why they failed and whether new kinds of reporting can emerge from the wreckage. The presenter is Ros Taylor. I drew on a 2026 DCMS report on local news provision and local public service performance, a 2026 King's College London study on 'zombie' titles, Local news launches, closures and the state of play in 2025 by the Public Interest News Foundation and the 4 May 1995 edition of the Gloucestershire Echo, pages of which you can find at my Instagram and Substack. The editor of the Lymington Times speaks in a 1963 BBC documentary, The Life of a Local Newspaper, which includes clearly faked footage of a reporter attending a house fire. Rachel was a consultant for the Preserving the Local Newspaper Archive project funded by The National Archives. She co-runs the Oral History Society Special History Group on Press and Journalism, which seeks to preserve people's past and current experiences of local and regional print journalism through oral history interviews. You can support More Jam Tomorrow with a one-off tip at https://ko-fi.com/morejamtomorrow.

Getting old. It's better than the alternative, right? But the way Britons think about retirement and old age has changed enormously since the second world war. Some of us seize the chance to emigrate to sunnier places. Others find themselves living in a society with a tendency to regard the elderly as an asset-rich burden on the public finances.   Should the state pension age keep rising? Are politicians, many of whom never truly retire, the right people to order the rest of us to keep working for longer?   Ros Taylor talks to Helen McCarthy, Professor of Modern and Contemporary British History at the University of Cambridge. She is writing a social and cultural history of retirement since 1945, to be published by Penguin (Allen Lane). Her article on Brits retiring overseas is available to read.   The extract from Beveridge: The Problem of Old Age is at the Socialist Health Association.   Jeremy Seabrook wrote about old age for the Guardian in 2010. His books include A World Growing Old.   The Thames TV report about pensioner Dick is available on YouTube, as is the 1981 interview with Margaret Thatcher and a 1969 BBC documentary about retirees abroad.   I also drew on the Guardian's obituary of Kingsley Amis, Commons library briefings on pensions in the UK and the communication of state pension age increases for women born in the 1950s, Finishing the job: launching the Pensions Commission and the Institute of Fiscal Studies' history of state pensions,    You can support More Jam Tomorrow with a one-off tip at https://ko-fi.com/morejamtomorrow.

Hugely unpopular, the poll tax helped bring down Margaret Thatcher. But she had plenty of warnings. Why did the Tories press ahead anyway? Why do ageing lefties remember the protests with nostalgia? And what are the lessons for anyone who dares to try to reform property taxes?   Ros Taylor was talking to Tony Travers, the co-author of Failure in British Government: The Politics of the Poll Tax and a Professor in Practice at the London School of Economics.   I also drew on The Poll Tax Rebellion in Haringey, a BBC Four interview with David Mellor, the Centre for Policy Studies' Of Dukes and Dustmen: Cautionary Rhymes on the Community Charge, CSpan footage of Prime Minister's Questions with Margaret Thatcher and Neil Kinnock, BBC news reports of the riot, a 1997 edition of Newsnight, Poll tax is history in the Guardian, and a Warwick Economic research paper: The UK poll tax and the declining electoral roll: unintended consequences? by Jeremy Smith and Iain Maclean. The description by Colin of the poll tax riot is from Bollocks to the Poll Tax by Colin Revolting and was read by Ned Palmer.

Britain had only one colony in mainland South America – a coastal state next to Venezuela that it grabbed from the Dutch more than 200 years ago. This was British Guyana. By the 1950s, Britain had had enough – and the plan was to hold elections so the Guyanese could take over. But then the man they elected said he was inspired by Soviet Russia. The story of Britain's long exit from Guyana takes in the CIA, MI5, rigged elections and a beautiful American whom JFK considered one of the most dangerous communists in the western hemisphere. Ros Taylor spoke to historian of Guyana Clem Seecheran, who is the author of Sweetening Bitter Sugar: Jock Campbell, the Booker Reformer in British Guiana 1934-1966, and Rod Westmaas of Guyana Speaks. You can hear Seecheran talking at more length at the National Archives. Cheddi Jagan's life and work is archived at the Cheddi Jagan Research Centre, which also includes declassified British documents relating to the suspension of the constitution in 1953, from which the readings in this episode were taken. This 1866 history of British Guyana is also interesting. I drew on the National Security Archive's account of the CIA's involvement in British Guyana and on MI5's in The Defence of the Realm: The Authorised History of MI5 by Christopher Andrew,   You can see and hear Cheddi Jagan in the footage from News Room Guyana. Thanks to Yvonne Singh for suggestions of whom to contact.  Donate to More Jam Tomorrow at Ko-fi.com. Take our Series Five survey here.

For decades the Security Service did not officially exist. Now it posts on Instagram. But what is MI5? How has it transformed itself since the second world war? And what kind of people work there? Ros Taylor speaks to former Guardian security editor Richard Norton-Taylor and a former legal director of MI5, David Bickford. Richard Norton-Taylor is the former security editor of the Guardian and the author of several books including The State of Secrecy: Spies and the Media in Britain, and David Bickford, a former legal director of MI5 and MI6 and thriller author – you can get his latest, Cold Protocol, for £5 using the code on his website. The standard history of MI5 is The Defence of the Realm: The Authorised History of MI5 by Christopher Andrew, which is very long and currently available cheaply on Kindle. Not everyone rated it. Stella Rimington published her autobiography Open Secret, and Eliza Manningham-Buller wrote Securing Freedom. I also drew on an article by H Dylan, The Intelligence Lobby Before the Intelligence Lobby: MI5 Director General Stella Rimington and the Hunt for the New Legitimacy, Rimington's 1994 Richard Dimbleby lecture and MI5 director Ken McCallum's 2025 threat update,  The account of Anthony Blunt's confession can be found at the National Archives, as can the booklet on Observation. Margaret Thatcher's Commons statement about Blunt, Tony Blair's response to the 7/7 bombings and footage of the Bishopsgate IRA bombing are available online. The Imperial War Museum North's exhibition on spies is on until August. Donate to More Jam Tomorrow at Ko-fi.com.  

Dynamic, dreary – Britain has 2,300 miles of motorways, and the country would grind to a halt without these tarmac arteries. But they were part of a fast, futuristic post-war vision. Will we ever build another one?   Ros Taylor talks to Chris Marshall, who runs roads.org.uk, and the musician and comedy writer Jason Hazeley. You can find a special MJT motorway playlist on Spotify, compiled by Jason, Ros, producer David Turnbull and listeners.   Readings are by David Turnbull . Ernest Davies, MP for Enfield, spoke about the need for motorways in 1957 and R Gresham Cooke (Twickenham) discussed speed limits in 1958.   I drew on Motorways (James Drake, H L Yeadon and D I Evans, Faber & Faber, 1969), On Roads (Joe Moran, Profile Books, 2009) and Always a Welcome - the glove compartment history of the motorway service area (David Lawrence, Between Books).   The Motorway Archive contains a vast amount of detail.   The National Express 'Elaine' and Trusthouse Forte ads are on YouTube. The BBC  broadcast a documentary in 1969 on The Cost of Motorways. Egon Ronay's service station reviews are available here.   Donate to More Jam Tomorrow at Ko-fi.com.

Britain was one of the last countries to go decimal – and had Margaret Thatcher not abolished the Metrication Board, we might have abandoned miles and pints too. Ros Taylor finds out how Britons were persuaded of the merits of getting rid of shillings and farthings, and why the revolution went unfinished. Mark Stocker is an art historian who works with the Museum of New Zealand (Te Papa Tongarewa) and is the author of When Britain Went Decimal: The Coinage of 1971. Warwick Cairns is the author of About The Size of It: The Common Sense Approach to Measuring Things. Seth Thévoz voiced a Commons speech by the MP for Horsham, Peter Hordern, in 1970. He also read an extract from a Guardian article by Anthony Burgess, Damned Dots (1966) which is not available online. Sir John Wrottesley's intervention in 1824 and the riposte can be read here. The BBC's Decimal Day 1971, Nationwide, ITV's Granny Gets the Point, the Royal Mint history of decimalisation and a Thames TV report on metrication were useful sources. Max Bygraves' Decimalisation is on YouTube. Your Guide to Decimal Money, circulated to all households, can be read online. A 1975 Conservative memo discussing metrication is at the Margaret Thatcher Archive. I also drew on Andrew J Cook's PhD thesis, Britain's Other D-Day: The Politics of Decimalisation (University of Huddersfield, 2020). The UK Metric Association and Metrication UK campaign to complete the metrication revolution.

"Ask a man whether women should wear slacks and the answer is almost certain to be a firm 'No.'" How did women get to wear the trousers? Ros Taylor talks to fashion expert Belinda Naylor and Purna Sen, who wore trousers to her sixth form in 1978 – and was thrown out. Belinda Naylor is a producer with an MA in fashion curation. Her Instagram, where you can find some of her favourite women in trousers, is @fashion_chatter. Purna Sen is the former head of human rights at the Commonwealth Secretariat and a visiting professor at London Metropolitan University. The extract from the Manchester Guardian in 1952 is voiced by Seth Thévoz. The clip from The Seven Year Itch starring Marilyn Monroe is available on YouTube. Man Alive: The Office Christmas Party (1970) is also on YouTube. In 2002 the Guardian explained why schools could still choose whether to impose skirts. I also drew on Amy Gower's doctoral thesis, Schoolgirls, identity and agency in England: 1970-2004, University of Reading, 2021. Lego has pictures of its early minifigures.

In 1948 Britain declared an Emergency in Malaya It wasn't really an emergency. It was a guerrilla war. And Britain would spend 12 years trying to drive communists out of its territory. What were we doing there? Ros Taylor talks to Open University history professor Karl Hack and Economist bureau chief Dominic Ziegler about what the UK did in Malaya, and why Singapore cultivates positive memories of British occupation.   The Imperial War Museum's exhibition Emergency Exits: The Fight for Independence in Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus is on until 26 March. Karl Hack is Professor of Asian and Imperial History at the Open University. He is the author of The Malayan Emergency: Revolution and counterinsurgency at the end of empire (Cambridge University Press). Dominic Ziegler is the Singapore bureau chief at The Economist. Faris Joraimi's writing is here. Footage of Australian soldiers in Malaya comes from a public relations film at the Australian War Memorial YouTube channel. Lee Kuan Yew's 1989 speech on immigration is on YouTube. Seth Thévoz voiced James Griffiths, secretary for the colonies, Anthony Eden (both in 1951) and Ernest Popplewell, the MP for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in 1952. All three speeches are in Hansard. Singapore's Heritage Trail tells the story of the second world war there. Freedom House publishes an annual report on Singapore. The British Army Review ran a special edition on the Malayan Emergency in 2018.  

'Oh, bugger orf!' We all know Received Pronunciation when we hear it. But what makes this accent distinctive? Why do people still pay to learn how to speak RP – and does it really bring the advantages it used to? Ros Taylor talks to voice coach and actor Alix Dunmore and Professor of Phonetics Jane Setter about how to spot an RP speaker – and how the accent has changed over the past century. Speeches by Lord Brabazon of Tara and Lord Wedgwood are taken from a Lords debate in 1943 and are voiced by historian Seth Thévoz. Alix Dunmore runs Alix Dunmore Accent Coaching. Jane Setter is Professor of Phonetics at the University of Reading. She is the author of Your Voice Speaks Volumes: It's not what you say but how you say it, the Cambridge Handbook of Phonetics and the Oxford Handbook of Language and Prejudice, as well as co-editor of the Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary. Queen Elizabeth II's 1957 Christmas speech is available at the Royal Family YouTube channel. Prince William' interview is here. 1943 BBC Archive audio is on Facebook, as is Daniel Craig reverting to Scouse. The BBC has investigated how Queen Elizabeth's accent changed during her reign. Stephen Fry, an RP speaker, hosted an entertaining episode of Fry's English Delight about spoken English.