The Nanny State Made Me
A Story of Britain and How to Save it

I thought The Nanny State Made Me was excellent. Stuart Maconie is a very good, engaging writer who combines thorough research, intelligence and genuine interest in people with a readable style and just the right leavening of wit and humour to lighten the subject without ever trivialising it. The boo......more

thanks to netgalley and the publishers for a free copy in return for an open and honest review. This book looks at the state or welfare state and how it helps and made people (cira 1945-1979) and Maconie with his social history wit and charm navigates us through different parts of what was coined "Th......more

Stuart Maconies has a distinctive voice and it readily leaps of the page. You can hear the author speak, in the way the sentences are expertly constructed and the cultural references he uses. I am not sure I like it all the time - he can come across as self aggrandising and I'm certainly left with t......more

Sophie’s first book of the month was The Nanny State Made Me by Stuart Maconie. The “Nanny State” is a British colloquialism for what many Americans would term “big government” – a government that provides medical care, social housing, libraries, leisure facilities, and other services for its people......more

As Maconie points out, it’s always posh right wing Tories who were brought up by nannies who rail against the nanny state. But for those of us from more humble backgrounds who, as I am, we’re part of the post-war baby boom, we owe a great deal to the nanny state. I did consider writing this kind of b......more