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The interwar years, and especially the 1930s, are associated with high unemployment. There is truth in this view. Unemployment never fell below 1 million insured workers in this period, and in 1932 it rose to 3 million. Jobs were lost especially in the 'depressed areas'. Many jobs were lost in the shipyards of the north-east, in the cotton mills of Lancashire and in the coal mines of South Wales. On the other hand, the number of jobs in the motor industry grew from 227,000 in 1920 to 516,000 in 1938 (more than those in steel-making and ship-building put together). The number of workers in electrical engineering almost doubled between the wars. There was growth not only in the 'new industries' but in professional and clerical employment. Even in the 1930s employment in Britain increased by 17%.

Wages rates rose slightly in the 1920s, fell back in the Depression years of 1929-33, but then resumed their upward trend. Average weekly earnings were indeed twice as high in 1938 as they had been in 1913. In addition, there had during this period been a significant fall in the price of goods, especially of food. The cost-of-living index fell by a third between 1920 and 1939. Real wages rose steeply in the 1930s.

Other factors making for prosperity included smaller families, with two or three children per family becoming the norm, cheap mortgages, and the mass production of motor cars, motor cycles, radios, gramophones and other consumer goods. Large numbers of Britons could now afford new pastimes, such as going to the cinema every week or going on holiday every year.

It has been argued that even for the unemployed and the poor, things were getting better. Certainly government after the First World War spent more on social services than ever before. By 1920 unemployment insurance was extended to virtually all workers, except those in agriculture and domestic service. Pensions were widened in 1925, and governments regularly...