Ronald McIntosh was director general of the National Economic Development Council ('Neddy') at a time of great turbulence for Britain, and was thereby in a unique position to observe events from the inside. He worked closely with Edward Heath, Harold Wilson and James Callaghan, and was in frequent touch with Cabinet ministers, members of the shadow Cabinet, bankers, and industrialists (public and private) and with the major trade union leaders of the day, who wielded real power in the 1970s. McIntosh kept a diary of this momentous period, providing fascinating insight into how Britain was run. It begins in 1973 with the deepening crisis linked to the sharp rise in oil prices, and provides a day-by-day account of the Heath government, facing a miners' strike, the three-day week and industrial unrest. The diary covers the two elections of 1974, both narrowly won by Harold Wilson, Heath's replacement by Margaret Thatcher as Conservative leader, Wilson's surprise resignation, and the near collapse of the British economy in 1976, under Callaghan and Chancellor Denis Healey, from which it was rescued by the IMF. This perceptive and authoritative book casts new light on the last years of pre-Thatcherite Britain, giving a vivid contemporary account of what a wide range of influential and powerful leaders felt and feared in a period of relentless economic decline and deep social malaise.