Gray Watson writes of Jubilee (Derek Jarman, 1978) that ‘[if] England, this sceptred isle, has fallen into chaos and disarray, and needs to be redeemed, this is the manifestation at a national, political and historical level of an archetypal pattern of fall and redemption which embraces each individual psyche as well as the whole cosmos’ (1996: 44). Just as William Blake's poetic vision of Albion had embraced personal, nationalistic and cosmic mythologies, and had tried to steal them back from the usurping church and state, so Jarman wished to reclaim patriotism from those who had sullied it. In the late 1960s it had seemed that Swinging London was the cultural capital of the world, with Carnaby Street, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and Judith Merril had titled an anthology England Swings SF (1968). But it was a struggle to publish New Worlds – which moved from a monthly schedule to a supposed quarterly to an occasional paperback – and the British film industry went into one of its periodic retreats.

Harold Wilson had been the Labour Prime Minister since 16 October 1964, but was unexpectedly defeated by the Conservative Edward Heath on 18 June 1970, as inflation began to grow and unemployment increased. The union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was in danger of breaking up – there was a bombing campaign in Ireland and England by the IRA, and on 8 March 1973 a referendum over Northern Ireland joining the Republic of Ireland, which was defeated. The British economy shrank under Heath, as industrial unrest led to three-day weeks and frequent power cuts to conserve coal stocks for the first three months of 1974. Heath called a general election for 28 February 1974, under the slogan ‘Who Governs Britain?’, failing to gain a working majority even after negotiations with the Liberal Party. After Heath resigned on 4 March, Wilson formed a minority government, holding a further election on 10 October that returned a majority of three seats for Labour. The government began a programme of social reform and Britain voted to stay in the European Economic Community with a 5 June 1975 referendum. But unemployment was still rising when Wilson resigned on 16 March 1976, with James Callaghan voted in by the party to replace him from 5 April.