The Mayfair Set - Episode 4: Twilight of the Dogs (Part 2/6) [Adam Curtis Documentary]

The Mayfair Set is a series of programmes produced by Adam Curtis for the BBC, first broadcast in the summer of 1999.

The programme looked at how buccaneer capitalists of hot money were allowed to shape the climate of the Thatcher years, focusing on the rise of Colonel David Stirling, Jim Slater, James Goldsmith, and Tiny Rowland, all members of The Clermont club in the 1960s. It received the BAFTA Award for Best Factual Series or Strand in 2000.

By the 80s, the day of the buccaneering tycoons was over. Tiny Rowland, James Goldsmith and Mohammed Al Fayed were the only ones who were not finished.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Adam
• Curtis
• Margaret
• Thatcher
• Enron
• Capitalism
• Business
• Politics
• Democracy
• Clermont
• Club
• The
• Trap
• Power
• of
• Nightmares
• Century
• Self
• Suez
• UK
• British
• Tony
• Blair
• Saudi
• Oil
• Arab

[Ropponmatsu2]

Al Fayed was evidently the right kind of spiv...Didn't own his own bedsheet factory, and unlike Rowland could pay in cash....And has been waiting for a British passport ever since.

[motty82]

Could somebody please tell me the name of the piece of music that begins at 1:13?

[djsmurfie]

@TheDavi82 Except they aren't?

[dezmundo1251]

@amalmavani perhaps because al fayed had the ear of the right people and the politicians needed his influence more?

[dezmundo1251]

@TheDavi82 but it seems the question now is what on earth is going to emerge out of the ruins of free-market capitalism?

[amalmavani]

How ironic that Tiny R was stopped from buying Harrods because of questionable character, corruption etc.. and instead Al Fayed was allowed to buy it!

[postrealitysyndrome]

It seems the biggest problem with this "reconstruction of industry" is that nothing actually got rebuilt, only destroyed to redistribute wealth upwards.

[TheDavi82]

As always Adam Curtis' work is fascinating. But the Mayfair Set has even more resonance now when all the ideas of the political class from this period now lie in ruins.

[DanHadan]

LOL--'Sheikh' Mohamed Fayed, the impostor who conned Papa Doc before feeling Haiti, as middle man between the political classes of Europe and the Middle East: that speaks volumes.