SOURCE: “Rocking the Cradle,” in Times Literary Supplement, June 3, 1994, p. 30.

In the following review of Wake up Britain!, Haseler finds shortcomings in Johnson's lack of vision and “reactionary” protest against Britain's decline.

Paul Johnson's polemicism, always sweeping, surpasses even its own larger-than-life standards in his most recent addition to the great British decline industry. For anyone who wants a tour d'horizon of the country's national woes, Wake up Britain!: A Latter-Day Pamphlet is a perfect guide. Johnson, in what is essentially a series of essays, casts his eye across the full spectrum of failure—from the decline in law and order to the egregious abuses of the public sector and Welfare State, and from the conformity and mediocrity of Britain's culture to the loss of spirituality in the Church; and, of course, he engages with the worst supposed woe of all, the country's impending loss of national independence...