DOCSLIB.ORG

Margaret Thatcher & the Miners

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Margaret Thatcher & the Miners Pierre-François GOUIFFES MARGARET THATCHER & THE MINERS 1972-1985 Thirteen years that changed Britain Creative Commons Licence 2009 This e-book is the English translation of “Margaret Thatcher face aux mineurs”, Privat, France (2007) Comments on the French edition Lord Brittan (Home Secretary 1983-5, former Vice-President of the European Commission) “The fairness and accuracy of the book are impressive both in the narrative and the analysis. I am not aware of anything comparable to what Pierre-François Gouiffès has produced.” Dr Kim Howells MP (now Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, spokesman for the NUM South Wales area in 1983-5) “Mr. Gouiffès’ book describes key events, such as the 'winter of discontent' and the industrial disputes of the eighties which had a major impact on the Labour party.” Other material available on www.pfgouiffes.net or www.mtfam.fr TABLE OF CONTENT Foreword 3 Prologue: the rise and fall of ‘King Coal’ 12 Coal: its economic, social and symbolic importance in the United Kingdom during the 19th century 13 The painful aftermath of World War One 18 The search for consensus after 1945 24 Tensions escalate from the 1960s 29 The NUM victorious: the strikes of 1972 and 1974 42 Crystallization of conflict 43 The 1972 blitzkrieg strike 51 1974: an arm-wrestling contest leading to strike and General Election 63 The legacy of the strikes of the 1970s 75 1974-1984 : the Labour interlude and Margaret Thatcher's early performance 80 The Labour interlude 81 The early years of Margaret Thatcher 108 The 1984-5 strike part one: from explosion to war of attrition 133 First steps in the conflict 134 The flashpoint 143 2 MRS. THATCHER & THE MINERS The strike settles in for the duration 156 Mobilizing the state 170 The 1984-5 strike part two: disappointments, reversals of fortune and the twilight of the NUM 194 The battle for public opinion 195 The involvement of the trade union movement and the political left 208 The ‘October revolution’ and the final turning 221 The end 229 Epilogue and lessons from the strikes 241 Epilogue: the deep consequences for the United Kingdom 242 The miners’ strikes as a classical of polical and social warfare 262 Who’s who in the British miners’ strikes 1972/1974/1984-5 291 Institutions involved in the British miners’ strikes 1972/1974/1984-5 298 Chronology 302 Bibliography and sources 342 Notes 358 MRS. THATCHER & THE MINERS 3 FOREWORD 4 MRS. THATCHER & THE MINERS Prelude At midnight on Sunday January 9th 1972, the 280,000 miners of the 289 British coal pits launched their first national strike action since the great strike of 1926, almost half a century earlier. The decision to strike broke the three-month deadlock in pay negotiations between the State-owned National Coal Board (the NCB) and the National Union of Mineworkers (the NUM). The NCB could not offer anything better than a 7.9% increase, in line with the 8% public sector wage ceiling set by the Government of Prime Minister Edward Heath. This offer was unacceptable to the NUM, which continued to claim a £9 weekly pay increase on an average wage of £25 per week. The negotiations broke down under the threat of a national strike. Since November, an overtime ban had reduced the NCB coal output by 15%. In December a majority of miners voted for national strike action over pay. On the eve of the first strike day, Derek Ezra, the NCB chairman, broke off negotiations. He then explained to journalists that the strike would cost the NCB £12 million per week, cutting its financial resources and making it even less able and more unlikely to meet the miners’ wage claims. The unreasonable NUM claim would require £120 million, an amount far beyond the NCB’s resources without dramatic increases in the price of coal. However, the NCB’s communication also hinted at a quick and positive conclusion to the conflict. Yet the miners seemed determined to win their fight. A Welsh miner explained to the BBC: “We’re going into this now, not thinking it’s going to be over in a week or a fortnight. We’re intending to win this battle, however long it may take”. Lawrence Daly, General Secretary of the NUM, forecast that coal stocks would MRS. THATCHER & THE MINERS 5 drop very quickly and force NCB management to call in the only real negotiator, the Prime Minister and his Government. Meanwhile, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) planned to coordinate various initiatives in support of the miners with regard to the NUM picket lines. The transport unions were expected to be especially supportive. The public doubted, however, that the miners would succeed in their fight. They had accepted, without any real opposition, a major restructuring and slimming down of their industry in the sixties because of cheap and abundant oil. The 58.8% December majority for strike action was only slightly higher than the required NUM constitutional majority of 55%, which raised questions as to whether the strike had solid support. The London correspondent of the French newspaper Le Monde explained that the strike could not have begun under worse conditions for the miners, who seemed doomed to defeat. However the miners’ strike conformed to the difficult British industrial context of the time which was marked by increasing unrest. As early as June 1970, only one month after taking office, the Heath Government had to face a dockers’ strike and could not avoid the declaration of a state of emergency. Then the municipal workers went on strike. In December 1970, the work to rule movement by electrical workers led to a second state of emergency and required electricity rationing and limited power cuts, for the first time since 1947. In 1971 the TUC and its affiliates fiercely opposed the Industrial Relations Bill, with a national one-day protest strike respected by two million workers, and disruption of newspaper printing. This was followed by a strike at the Ford Motor Company and a strike of postal workers. The first day of the miners’ national strike seemed like business as usual in industrial Britain of the early seventies. It was however the starting point of a critical sequence of British contemporary history, a sequence that 6 MRS. THATCHER & THE MINERS would end thirteen years later under the Premiership of Margaret Thatcher, then Cabinet member as Secretary for Education. A coherent historical cycle This book, written by a French observer with a great affection for Britain and a keen interest in the United Kingdom, aims to describe the full frontal confrontation between Her Majesty’s Government and the NUM, then the most powerful and feared trade union. It commenced on January 9th, 1972, thirty five years ago. The following thirteen years of confrontation were marked by three national strikes (1972, 1974 and 1984-5). The cycle ended conclusively in March 1985. This fascinating and turbulent sequence of events started with a Conservative Government under Edward Heath, first surrendering unconditionally to the NUM, then losing a general election and being politically destroyed after two short but extremely efficient miners’ strikes. Then a second Conservative Government, this time under Margaret Thatcher, successfully faced the longest (one year!) and toughest industrial confrontation to take place in the Western world in the twentieth century. This confrontation also resulted in irreparable damage to the NUM, the British trade union movement and the once mighty British coal industry. There is already a plethora of British literature about this sequence of events (especially the long 1984-5 strike), but most books on this subject tend to be both polemical and one-sided. However, to the surprise of this author, there are very few studies of the miners’ strikes of the seventies and no comprehensive review of the 1972-1985 period. It is clear that the strikes form an integrated sequence: the 1972 and 1974 strikes created key myths and legends, and the subsequent 1984-5 MRS. THATCHER & THE MINERS 7 conflict relied to a large extent on those myths. On the one hand, the Thatcher government wanted to exorcise the disasters of the seventies: the lessons from the past had been carefully learnt, and determination was shown both in the careful preparation and the operational management of the confrontation. On the other hand, the NUM leadership wanted to renew their victories of the seventies but largely overestimated their ability to do so; they also made significant strategic mistakes in pursuit of their cause, which turned out to be fatal. The book represents a synthesis of this extraordinary 1972-1985 period. It is based on existing literature, particularly in the United Kingdom. The book also includes original research and interviews with some of the key players of all sides during the period, in addition to an extensive review of contemporary material, eye-witness accounts and subsequent analyses of the strike. A major conflict refracted through warlike terminology The title of a recent British book on the 1984-5 is “Civil War without Guns1". This choice of title fully reflects the verbal violence of the three miners' strikes, marked by an abundant use of military terminology. In particular, the two key leaders used warlike language to describe what was seen as a military confrontation, or, even worse, as a civil war. Indeed Arthur Scargill compared the Conservative Government to the Nazi leadership in his NUM presidential speech in July 1983, while Mrs Thatcher would later characterise the NUM as “the enemy within” and gave the chapter on the strike in her autobiography the title of “Mr Scargill’s insurrection”.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Celebrities As Political Representatives: Explaining the Exchangeability of Celebrity Capital in the Political Field
    Celebrities as Political Representatives: Explaining the Exchangeability of Celebrity Capital in the Political Field Ellen Watts Royal Holloway, University of London Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Politics 2018 Declaration I, Ellen Watts, hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Ellen Watts September 17, 2018. 2 Abstract The ability of celebrities to become influential political actors is evident (Marsh et al., 2010; Street 2004; 2012, West and Orman, 2003; Wheeler, 2013); the process enabling this is not. While Driessens’ (2013) concept of celebrity capital provides a starting point, it remains unclear how celebrity capital is exchanged for political capital. Returning to Street’s (2004) argument that celebrities claim to speak for others provides an opportunity to address this. In this thesis I argue successful exchange is contingent on acceptance of such claims, and contribute an original model for understanding this process. I explore the implicit interconnections between Saward’s (2010) theory of representative claims, and Bourdieu’s (1991) work on political capital and the political field. On this basis, I argue celebrity capital has greater explanatory power in political contexts when fused with Saward’s theory of representative claims. Three qualitative case studies provide demonstrations of this process at work. Contributing to work on how celebrities are evaluated within political and cultural hierarchies (Inthorn and Street, 2011; Marshall, 2014; Mendick et al., 2018; Ribke, 2015; Skeggs and Wood, 2011), I ask which key factors influence this process.
    [Show full text]
  • CRITICAL THEORY and AUTHORITARIAN POPULISM Critical Theory and Authoritarian Populism
    CDSMS EDITED BY JEREMIAH MORELOCK CRITICAL THEORY AND AUTHORITARIAN POPULISM Critical Theory and Authoritarian Populism edited by Jeremiah Morelock Critical, Digital and Social Media Studies Series Editor: Christian Fuchs The peer-reviewed book series edited by Christian Fuchs publishes books that critically study the role of the internet and digital and social media in society. Titles analyse how power structures, digital capitalism, ideology and social struggles shape and are shaped by digital and social media. They use and develop critical theory discussing the political relevance and implications of studied topics. The series is a theoretical forum for in- ternet and social media research for books using methods and theories that challenge digital positivism; it also seeks to explore digital media ethics grounded in critical social theories and philosophy. Editorial Board Thomas Allmer, Mark Andrejevic, Miriyam Aouragh, Charles Brown, Eran Fisher, Peter Goodwin, Jonathan Hardy, Kylie Jarrett, Anastasia Kavada, Maria Michalis, Stefania Milan, Vincent Mosco, Jack Qiu, Jernej Amon Prodnik, Marisol Sandoval, Se- bastian Sevignani, Pieter Verdegem Published Critical Theory of Communication: New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet Christian Fuchs https://doi.org/10.16997/book1 Knowledge in the Age of Digital Capitalism: An Introduction to Cognitive Materialism Mariano Zukerfeld https://doi.org/10.16997/book3 Politicizing Digital Space: Theory, the Internet, and Renewing Democracy Trevor Garrison Smith https://doi.org/10.16997/book5 Capital, State, Empire: The New American Way of Digital Warfare Scott Timcke https://doi.org/10.16997/book6 The Spectacle 2.0: Reading Debord in the Context of Digital Capitalism Edited by Marco Briziarelli and Emiliana Armano https://doi.org/10.16997/book11 The Big Data Agenda: Data Ethics and Critical Data Studies Annika Richterich https://doi.org/10.16997/book14 Social Capital Online: Alienation and Accumulation Kane X.
    [Show full text]
  • Dupagne and Seel’S (1998) High- Cism Reserved for the “Class Traitor” Jenkins
    Journalism Studies, Volume 5, Number 4, 2004, pp. 551–562 Book Reviews The Troubles of Journalism: a critical look The Troubles of Journalism is a small book with at what’s right and wrong with the press, big goals. It purports to diagnose “the causes of 2nd edn the malaise that seems to grip the news business WILLIAM A. HACHTEN today,” as well as to catalog the major economic, social, cultural and technological changes in Women and Journalism American journalism; to evaluate the impact of DEBORAH CHAMBERS,LINDA STEINER AND CAROLE the changes and the criticism they have trig- FLEMING gered; and to suggest what the changes have meant for America and the world. Meget Stoerre End Du Tror: avislaeserne og From the anecdotal opening of the preface det internationale through 14 chapters on an assortment of issues facing modern journalism, William Hachten JENS HENRIK HAAHR AND HANS HENRIK HOLM brings the observations and insights of a lengthy career to bear in this book. In essence, it takes Mass Communication Ethics: decision the tone of a valedictory address, rich with both making in postmodern culture, 2nd edn concern and celebration. While the intended LARRY Z. LESLIE audience is never made explicit, the book’s ma- terial and tone suggest it will be most effective From Bevan to Blair: fifty years’ reporting with students and lay readers. If that is the case, from the political frontline then the book succeeds at its goals. GEOFFREY GOODMAN Upper-level undergraduate students and en- try-level graduate students who find their way Technology, Television, and Competition: to The Troubles of Journalism generally consider it the politics of digital TV both enlightening and highly readable.
    [Show full text]
  • ED389242.Pdf
    DOCUMENT RESUME ED 389 242 HE 028 760 AUTHOR Saunders, Bob TITLE The Effects of Employment Legislation on Collective Bargaining. Mendip Papers MP-038. INSTITUTION Staff Coll., Bristol (England). PUB DATE 92 NOTE 18p. AVAILABLE FROM The Staff College, Coombe Lodge, Blagdon, Bristol BS18 6RG United Kingdom (3 British pounds). PUB TYPE Information Analyses (070) Viewpoints (Opinion/Position Papers, Essays, etc.)(120) EDRS PRICE .F01/PC01 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Collective Bargaining; Employment; Foreign Countries; Higher Education; *Labor Legislation; Labor Relations; Political Influences; Political Issues; Political Power; Unions IDENTIFIERS *United Kingdom ABSTRACT Employment legislation in the United Kingdom from before 1970 to the 1990s has changed and with it collective bargaining in higher education. Industrial relations before 1970 were treated as a voluntary activity virtually unregulated by law. Then the Remuneration of Teachers Act 1965 set up the Burnham Committees, which until 1987 were the forum for salary negotiations and associated matters. In the 1960s and 1970s the normal pattern of collective b&rgaining was that unions made demands and management resisted, trying to minimize the concession they needed to make. The Donovan Commission and the resulting Donovan Report (1968) led to a great deal of legislation between 1970 and 1978 aimed at encouraging better regulated collective bargaining at workplace level. Legislation from 1979 onwards was aimed at regulating the power of the trade unions and bringing about a shift in the balance of power between unions and employers. As a consequence employers are now likelier to take a tough line in their handling of disputes and resulting defeat for the unions.
    [Show full text]
  • Socialist Lawyer 04
    Winter 1987/1988 No.4 AIDS: The Legal lssues by Linda Webster and Phillipe Sands A Regressive Act The David Alton Bill- by Pat McGarthy and Tia Cockrell Tony Gifford 0G on Ghile's Gonstitutional Fraud Gay Rights Matter by David Geer A Licence to Hate: lncitement to Racial Hatred by J. Dexter Dias The Poll Tar: No Representation Without Taxation? by Bill Bowring Book Reviews and News Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers -- rì Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers llALDAtllE NEWS PRESIDENT: JohnPlatts-MitlsQ.c Kader Asmal; Fennis Augustine; Jack Gaster; VICE Tony Gifford Q.C.; Tess Gill; Jack Hendy; PRESIDENTS: Helena Kennedy; Dr Paul O'Higgins; Stephen Sedley Q.C.; Michael Seifert; David T\rrner- Samuels Q,C.; Professor Lord Wedderburn A Case to Answer? Q.c. The Society's Report on the policing of the Wapping dispute received publicity on TV, radio, newspapers and magazines. Nearly 2,000 copies have been sold through mail order and CHAIR: Joanna Dodson, News bookshops, Anyone who has still not purchased their copy can Barristers' Chambers, lReports order one from BEN EMMERSON,35, Wellington Street, 35 Wellington Street, London lVC2. Price: f2.50 plus 50p p&p. LondonWC2 Haldane News D.N. Pritt Memorial Lecture .....,........... 2 SECRETARY: Beverley Lang, 1 Dr Johnson's Buildings Day Courses for Trade Unionists Temple Haldane Ballot 0n Rule Changes ..........13 The Employment Committee has launched a highly London EC4. successful series ofday courses for trade unionists. Topics so 01-353 9328 far have been Industrial Tlibunal procedure and Public Order law in industrial disputes, For ãetails of further courses contact FIONA L'ARBALESTIER at 83, Ward Point, 2, TREASURER: PaulineHendy, Hotspur Street, London 5811.
    [Show full text]
  • Harold Wilson Obituary
    Make a contribution News Opinion Sport Culture Lifestyle UK World Business Football UK politics Environment Education Society Science Tech More Harold Wilson obituary Leading Labour beyond pipe dreams Geoffrey Goodman Thu 25 May 1995 09.59 EDT 18 Lord Wilson of Rievaulx, as he came improbably to be called - will not go down in the history books as one of Britain's greatest prime ministers. But, increasingly, he will be seen as a far bigger political figure than contemporary sceptics have allowed far more representative of that uniquely ambivalent mood of Britain in the 1960s and a far more rounded and caring, if unfulfilled, person. It is my view that he was a remarkable prime minister and, indeed, a quite remarkable man. Cynics had a field day ridiculing him at the time of his decline. Perhaps that was inevitable given his irresistible tendency to behave like the master of the Big Trick in the circus ring of politics - for whom there is nothing so humiliating as to have it demonstrated, often by fellow tricksters, that the Big Trick hasn't worked. James Harold Wilson happened to be prime minister leading a left wing party at a time when the mores of post-war political and economic change in Britain (and elsewhere) were just beginning to be perceived. Arguably it was the period of the greatest social and industrial change this century, even if the people - let alone the Wilson governments - were never fully aware of the nature of that change. Social relationships across the entire class spectrum were being transformed.
    [Show full text]
  • Political Power of Nuisance Law: Labor Picketing and the Courts In
    Fordham Law School FLASH: The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and History Faculty Scholarship 1998 Political Power of Nuisance Law: Labor Picketing and the Courts in Modern England, 1871-Present, The Rachel Vorspan Fordham University School of Law, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/faculty_scholarship Part of the Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, and the Labor and Employment Law Commons Recommended Citation Rachel Vorspan, Political Power of Nuisance Law: Labor Picketing and the Courts in Modern England, 1871-Present, The , 46 Buff. L. Rev. 593 (1998) Available at: http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/faculty_scholarship/344 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by FLASH: The orF dham Law Archive of Scholarship and History. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of FLASH: The orF dham Law Archive of Scholarship and History. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BUFFALO LAW REVIEW VOLUME 46 FALL 1998 NUMBER 3 The Political Power of Nuisance Law: Labor Picketing and the Courts in Modern England, 1871-Present RACHEL VORSPANt INTRODUCTION After decades of decline, the labor movements in America and England are enjoying a resurgence. Unions in the United States are experiencing greater vitality and political visibility,' and in 1997 a Labour government took power in England for the first time in eighteen years.! This t Associate Professor of Law, Fordham University. A.B., 1967, University of California, Berkeley; M.A., 1968, Ph.D., 1975, Columbia University (English History); J.D., 1979, Harvard Law School.
    [Show full text]
  • BAKALÁŘSKÁ PRÁCE Popular Culture and Margaret Thatcher, The
    ZÁPADOČESKÁ UNIVERZITA V PLZNI FAKULTA FILOZOFICKÁ BAKALÁŘSKÁ PRÁCE Popular Culture and Margaret Thatcher, the Media Image of the “Iron Lady“ Kateřina Tichá Plzeň 2018 Západočeská univerzita v Plzni Fakulta filozofická Katedra anglického jazyka a literatury Studijní program Filologie Studijní obor Cizí jazyky pro komerční praxi Kombinace angličtina – francouzština Bakalářská práce Popular Culture and Margaret Thatcher, the Media Image of the “Iron Lady“ Kateřina Tichá Vedoucí práce: Mgr. Tomáš Hostýnek Katedra anglického jazyka a literatury Fakulta filozofická Západočeské univerzity v Plzni Plzeň 2018 Prohlašuji, že jsem práci zpracovala samostatně a použila jen uvedených pramenů a literatury. Plzeň, duben 2018 ……………………… Touto cestou bych chtěla poděkovat Mgr. Tomášovi Hostýnkovi, za cenné rady a připomínky v průběhu psaní mé bakalářské práce, které pro mě byly velmi přínosné. Table of contents 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................ 1 2 EARLY LIFE 1925 – 1947 .......................................................... 3 2.1 Childhood ..................................................................................... 3 2.2 Education ...................................................................................... 3 2.3 Relation towards her parents ..................................................... 4 3 EARLY FORAY INTO POLITICS 1948 – 1959 ........................... 5 4 POLITICAL LIFE 1959 – 1979 ................................................... 7 4.1 Opposition ...................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Industrial Action Ballots: an Analysis of the Development of Law and Practice in Britain
    INDUSTRIAL ACTION BALLOTS: AN ANALYSIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF LAW AND PRACTICE IN BRITAIN Submitted for the degree of PhD by Jane Rosemary Elgar London School of Economics January 1997 UMI Number: U109678 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U109678 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 F Table of Contents Page Abstract 5 Preface 6 Research topic Outline of chapters Methodology Chapter 1 The Industrial Relations Context 20 1.1 Industrial relations background 1.2 Changing patterns of industrial action 1.3 The ’strike problem’ and the role of industrial conflict legislation 1.4 An approach to understanding the impact of industrial action ballots Chapter 2 Historical Development of Law on Industrial Action Balloting 44 2.1 Introduction 2.2 The voluntarist tradition 2.3 Compulsory strike ballot policies and proposals 2.4 Enforcement mechanisms 2.5 Conclusions Chapter 3 The Law 65 3.1 Legislation 3.2 Enforcement provisions 3.3 Judicial interpretation of the balloting
    [Show full text]
  • The Crown Would Not Stand Between Me and Frontline Service
    CREATED BY Peter Morgan EPISODE 4.04 “Favourites” While Margaret Thatcher struggles with the disappearance of her favorite child, Elizabeth reexamines her relationships with her four children. WRITTEN BY: Peter Morgan DIRECTED BY: Paul Whittington ORIGINAL BROADCAST: November 15, 2020 NOTE: This is a transcription of the spoken dialogue and audio, with time-code reference, provided without cost by 8FLiX.com for your entertainment, convenience, and study. This version may not be exactly as written in the original script; however, the intellectual property is still reserved by the original source and may be subject to copyright. EPISODE CAST Olivia Colman ... Queen Elizabeth II Tobias Menzies ... Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh Helena Bonham Carter ... Princess Margaret Gillian Anderson ... Margaret Thatcher Josh O'Connor ... Prince Charles Emma Corrin ... Princess Diana Marion Bailey ... Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Erin Doherty ... Princess Anne Stephen Boxer ... Denis Thatcher Angus Imrie ... Prince Edward Tom Byrne ... Prince Andrew Freddie Fox ... Mark Thatcher Rebecca Humphries ... Carol Thatcher Sam Phillips ... Equerry Charles Edwards ... Martin Charteris P a g e | 1 1 00:00:06,080 --> 00:00:10,400 -[engine revving] -[announcer speaking French] 2 00:00:15,080 --> 00:00:16,320 [crowd cheering] 3 00:00:16,400 --> 00:00:18,400 [announcer continues in French] 4 00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:23,880 And then up to… 5 00:00:26,440 --> 00:00:28,440 [man counting down in French] 6 00:00:30,880 --> 00:00:32,040 [tires screech] 7 00:00:32,120 --> 00:00:34,120 [announcer speaking French] 8 00:00:37,720 --> 00:00:38,600 Ready? 9 00:00:40,280 --> 00:00:41,160 Ready.
    [Show full text]
  • On the Very Idea of a “Political” Work of Art*
    The Journal of Political Philosophy: Volume 29, Number 1, 2021, pp. 25–45 On the Very Idea of a “Political” Work of Art* Diarmuid Costello Philosophy, University of Warwick I. “POLITICAL ART” AND/OR “POLITICAL ARTISTS” RT can be “political” in a variety of ways. Mobilizing these differences offers Acorrespondingly many ways for artists producing “political art” to understand themselves, and the activity in which they are engaged. To demonstrate this, I focus on a particular work of art (The Battle of Orgreave, 2001), by a particular contemporary artist (Jeremy Deller), seeking to locate it within this broader possibility space. The work consists in a re-enactment, as art, of a notoriously bloody confrontation that took place between police and picketing miners during the 1984–5 National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) strike. Deller has said of an earlier work, Acid Brass (1999), comprising the rearrangement for brass band of various acid house anthems from the 1980s: “It was a political work but not, I hope, in a hectoring way. To be called a ‘political artist’ is, for me, a kiss of death, as it suggests a fixed or dogmatic position like that of a politician.” Of The Battle of Orgreave. he remarked in the same interview: I went to a number of historical re-enactments, and they mostly seemed drained of the political and social narratives behind the original events … I wanted instead to work with re-enactors on a wholly political re-enactment of a battle … one that had taken place within living memory, that would be re-staged in the place it had happened, involving many of the people who had been there the first time round.1 *An early draft of this article was given at the Art and Politics symposium, held in conjunction with Jeremy Deller’s exhibition English Magic at Margate Contemporary (Nov.
    [Show full text]
  • This Is a Pre-Proof Version. for Citation Consult Final Published Version in Hart, C. and Kelsey, D. (Eds.), Discourses of Diso
    This is a pre-proof version. For citation consult final published version in Hart, C. and Kelsey, D. (eds.), Discourses of Disorder: Riots, Strikes and Protests in the Media. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. pp.133-153. Metaphor and the (1984-85) Miners’ Strike: A Multimodal Analysis Christopher Hart 0. Introduction Recent research in Cognitive Linguistics and Cognitive Linguistic Critical Discourse Studies (CL-CDS) has shown that metaphor plays a significant role in structuring our understanding of social identities, actions and events. This research also demonstrates that metaphorical modes of understanding are not restricted in their articulation to language but find expression too in visual and multimodal genres of communication. In this chapter, I show how one metaphorical framing – STRIKE IS WAR – featured in multimodal media representations of the 1984-85 British Miners’ Strike. I analyse this metaphorical framing from a critical semiotic standpoint to argue that the conceptualisations invoked by these framing efforts served to ‘otherise’ the miners while simultaneously legitimating the actions during the strike of the Government and the police. I begin, in Section 1, with a brief introduction to the British Miners’ Strike. In Section 2, I introduce in more detail cognitive metaphor theory and the notion of multimodal metaphor. In Section 3, I briefly introduce the data to be analysed. In Section 5, I show how the STRIKE IS WAR metaphor featured in the language of news reports as well as in two multimodal genres - press photographs and editorial cartoons - and consider the potential (de)legitimating effects of this framing. Finally, in Section 5, I offer some conclusions.
    [Show full text]