 As the communist historian Eric Hobsbawm put it, "Suez and the coming of rock-and-roll divide twentieth century British history".In the 1960s, when hats for men were becoming unfashionable, former diplomat Geoffrey McDermott asked, with evident disdain, "who wears an Anthony Eden hat today?Only Mr Steptoe [a character in a BBC television sitcom], Mr Enoch Powell and, rather curiously, [Russian leader] Mr Kosygin.