On 15 August 1940, at the height of the Second World War, Antony and Basil Fisher went to battle. The two brothers were fighter pilots in the RAF’s 111 Hurricane Squadron and set out together on an airborne mission. For one of the brothers it would prove to be fatal. In the midst of chaos, Basil’s plane was shot down and he fell to his death after his parachute burst into flames. Antony watched on, helpless.
This terrible scene forms the opening sequence of the first episode of Invisible Hands, a new documentary on BBC Radio 4, presented by David Dimbleby. The series takes the creeping ascent of free-market ideology in Britain as its subject: from a renegade idea to a dominant force in British politics. As the series argues, Antony Fisher is important – he was the architect of the free-market rise. After experiencing the horrific tragedy of the war, Fisher vowed to make the world a better place. His method for doing so was not to set up a charity or enter into politics; rather he founded the Institute of Economic Affairs.
The six-part series forensically dissects the dissemination of free-market capitalism throughout the British political system. From Friedrich Hayek’s first writings to Keith Joseph’s campaigning and the eventual emergence of Thatcherism, Dimbleby narrates how deregulation and privatisation came to define Britain in the 1980s and beyond.
Invisible Hands stops short of completely denouncing the free market (it was made by the BBC, of course), but it clearly shows the damage that has been wrought by its diffusion across the public realm. Episode four details Nigel Lawson’s “Big Bang” and how it helped to bring down one of Britain’s oldest banks, while episode five profiles James Goldsmith, whose Referendum Party arguably paved the way for Brexit and the rise of Reform. This compelling series carefully explains the economic backstory of Britain today and cautiously hints at what may be to come.
Invisible Hands
BBC Radio 4
[See also: Why George Osborne still runs Britain]
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This article appears in the 14 May 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Why George Osborne still runs Britain