The hidden majority

Another week, another great German conference – this time at the German Historical Institute London. Three days of papers on Conservatism in West Germany and Britain from the 1960s to the 1980s, organised by Martina Steber. I spoke about the British Conservative Party’s loss of confidence in their ‘natural’ connection to national history throughout the period and about the conflicting Tory and Whig attitudes to history in the party under Thatcher.

One of the papers which gave me most to think about was by Anna von der Goltz of Georgetown University. She spoke about the ‘alternative ‘68ers’ in West Germany – moderate conservative and non-left students, who often protested against their radical counterparts. They were by no means a marginal voice – around 50% of students at the time supported Kiesinger, the Christian Democrat Chancellor, while only 25% supported the student revolutionary Rudi Dutschke.

In the discussion afterwards, Richard Vinen pointed out that the iconic Cartier-Bresson photo of May ’68 in Paris (pictured above), almost certainly shows a young couple protesting in favour of de Gaulle. The Tricolore gives them away.

This was a welcome reminder always to look for the stories behind the stories, the hidden majority experience behind that of the glamorised, vocal, minority.

Anarchy on an Accordion, or lessons in throwing a great conference

Sophia Deboick and I spent last weekend having great fun at a British Cultural Studies conference on the British Monarchy at the Ruhr-Universität, Bochum. Although we were there as representatives of Republic, rather than in an academic capacity, it did throw up some interesting comparisons and made us both think about the way conferences are – and could be – done.

First, it was a collaborative event, organised by a pair of neighbouring universities (Bochum and Dortmund), primarily by the Cultural Studies departments but also drawing in other academics. Rather than gathering scholars on the basis of a common interest, it asked those who already work together to bring their different interests to bear on a common theme. Previous conferences (and books) by this group have explored James Bond and the interweaving histories of the Mini Cooper and mini skirt. The sense of a shared project was very clear and seemingly made for productive relations between colleagues.

Second, the conference actively involved students, who displayed the results of the semester’s work on the conference theme – as collaborative presentations, visual exhibitions and even musical performances. Linking teaching and research in this way seemed to be really fruitful, both for the students and for their tutors.

Finally, it was fun! As well as being housed in a cultural centre and advertised to the general public (with free entry), it also incorporated a “Show” in the evening – with royal impersonators, a quiz and punk performances from both students and staff. The atmosphere throughout was irreverent but unpretentious. The sight of a group of academics and students sharing their interests and their talents, being prepared to be silly and enjoying one another’s company was refreshing and inspiring.

Of course things always look more appealing from the outside. But this looked very appealing indeed.

Conference announcement

Progressivism: Past and Present
3 July 2012, Senate House, London
Supported by the Centre for British Politics, University of Nottingham

A one-day conference, looking at contemporary and historical uses of the word ‘progressive’. What does it really mean? Is it always good? Does it have any limits?

Further details and call for papers. Deadline for proposals: 5 March.

Cultural/political/intellectual historians, political scientists, politicians, journalists and policy makers all welcome.

Confirmed speakers to date include Jon Cruddas MP.

Joe Twyman, Head of the Political & Social team at YouGov, will also present the findings of a new poll on public understandings of the word ‘progressive’.

‘History is what happened in the past’: reflections on The Iron Lady

As many commentators have pointed out, The Iron Lady is a biopic of one of Britain’s most divisive prime ministers – with all the politics left out. We get neither critique nor hagiography. Sadly, this is not a case of balanced neutrality, but of an anodyne approach that also manages to remove all traces of exciting and contingent history from Thatcher’s story. There is no sense that any of the events depicted in the film could have turned out any other way.

Much discussion has been given to the decision to frame The Iron Lady through the wandering mind of Thatcher as a senile old woman. Had this device been used to contrast Thatcher’s own recollections with popular perceptions or to bring some other new perspective to the story, its alleged ‘tastelessness’ could perhaps have been justified. Instead, it serves as an excuse to takes us on a reassuring tour through our own memories (Thatcher’s Francis of Assisi moment: check; Howe’s resignation speech: check).  This is history as nostalgia. And it is bland enough to be shaped to suit any political predilection.

Describing her surprise at the intense and bitter debates over the drafting of the National Curriculum for History, Margaret Thatcher remarked: ‘Though not an historian myself, I had a very clear – and I naïvely imagined uncontroversial – idea of what history was. History is what happened in the past.’ This film seems to take a similar view. Event follows event, and the fact that they ‘happened’ is authenticated by grainy archive footage (police horses charging poll tax rioters: check; topless women greeting the return of troops from the Falklands: check). Why they happened and whether they mattered do not seem to be questions worth asking.

However, when the time came to reflect on her own life as history, Thatcher’s view became rather more nuanced. While donating her papers to the Churchill Archives Centre in 2002, she offered a couple of ‘friendly warnings’ to historians. First, that in the historical documents, ‘the mood of the moment was lost. Tension and trouble […] are efficiently smoothed away by the note-takers.‘ Second, she ‘caution[ed] against politicians or historians imagining that a knowledge of the facts and access to past experience alone provide the answers to the most important questions’ – instead, a firm set of beliefs and instincts are required. She effectively argued for a greater awareness of historical contingency and for a clear political commitment. If only the makers of The Iron Lady had heeded these warnings, we might have had a more exciting, more contentious, and a fundamentally more interesting film.

Dreams of a Life

Back in October I saw a preview of Carol Morley’s documentary Dreams of a Life at the London Film Festival. The film is an attempt by Morley to piece together the life-story of Joyce Carol Vincent, a 38 year old who lay decomposed and undiscovered for three years after her death – the TV and Christmas tree lights still on.

Dreams of a Life clearly has a great deal to say to anyone interested in contemporary relationships and urban isolation. But it should also be of interest to historians. Like so many documentaries (see my previous piece on Waltz with Bashir), it is intrinsically concerned with questions of evidence, interpretation, truth and memory.

Morley discovers that Joyce was bubbly and beautiful, surrounded by friends and lovers. Yet inconsistencies and holes in the recollections of her friends trouble and disturb this impression. Did she deliberately hide particular sides of herself? Did they only see what they wanted to see? Or are they being selective when speaking to a camera?

Throughout the film we are made aware of the instability of oral testimony. In a particularly striking instance, one interviewee writes to Morley to correct his story of a particular day – now revealing that he had been punched by Joyce’s ex-boyfriend, a central character in the film. This irrevocably changes our impression of the ex and the way he presents his own story. Yet, it so nearly remained hidden.

Some of the key people in Joyce’s life (her sisters, a mysterious fiancée) were not willing to be interviewed.  Others presumably remain unknown, even to Morley. This leaves us wondering how different our impressions of Joyce’s life might look if different people had come forward – or if some had been more or less frank on camera. It is striking that only one person (an ex-boyfriend) is at all critical of her. He appears bitter; but is perhaps simply honest.

Morley painstakingly recovers the contradictory strands of Joyce’s life but makes no attempt to artificially reconcile them. In letting the piece stand as it is, she forces us to think about the traces and impressions we leave behind us and to ask how well we can be known by others – whether friends and family, historians or filmmakers.

History, memory and communism

I have a new article out in British Politics.* It’s about the final years of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). In particular, I’m trying to understand the way in which history and memory were used and understood by members as the party was breaking up.

The connection between history, memory and political identity is something I’m interested in anyway, but the CPGB is a particularly interesting case. It had a very strong sense of collective memory, which meant that members’ understandings of their own lives were inextricably bound up with narratives of the party and with the sense of ‘being communist’. The breakdown of this identity as the CPGB broke up and the USSR collapsed was painful for many members and led to intense discussions and attempts to build new narratives of the past and new identities for the future.

But this was about history as well as memory. Marxism is explicitly based on an interpretation of history and the historical process. This had long caused tensions within the CPGB, with most of its leading historians leaving the party in 1956. In 1989, Marxists (and Marxist historians in particular) struggled to make sense of the new historical context and the fear that history may not be on their side after all.

However, this wasn’t a problem for all communists. Other parties, such as the New Communist Party, Communist Party of Britain and Socialist Workers Party, interpreted the events of 1989 rather differently and so were able to hold their narratives and their identities together.

*If you don’t have a subscription to British Politics but would like to read it, let me know.

What is political?

I have recently been looking at press coverage of the first election of the London County Council in 1889. I have been struck by the way that commentators from across the political spectrum insisted on treating the elections as non-political, even going out of their way to recommend candidates with whom they disagreed on most matters. The constant refrain seems to have been that these were administrative posts and that to take account of the candidates’ political positions would be ‘to act as insanely as to choose the captain of your ship by his politics instead of by his knowledge of navigation’ (Spectator, 12 Jan 1889).

Often, this was a response to the corruption of the late Metropolitan Board of Works, so that, in the words of the Pall Mall Gazette (5 Jan 1889), ’Other things being equal, it would be desirable, no doubt, to have nobody but good all-round Radicals upon the Council; but to insist as a sine quá non upon a candidate being right upon ground rents is really no more to the purpose than it would be to insist upon his being a vegetarian or a Primitive Methodist. […] An upright Tory will make a far better County Councillor than a shady Radical; and to this extent at any rate the ratepayer will do well to prefer men to measures.’

Yet, there was also a powerful sense that most of the matters with which the new London County Council would have to deal were not political at all. One letter to the Radical paper, The Star, spelled this out very plainly:

Equalisation of rates, the bearing by rich London an equal share in the heavy burden of poor London in the East and elsewhere; open spaces as playgrounds for the pallid children of the overworked who crowd the unsanitary dwellings of the artisan and laborer [sic]; a reformed higher educated, and more efficient police; cheaper water, better light, fewer drinking shops, and lower rates – these are subjects altogether apart from politics, and Liberals, Radicals, Unionists, and Tories will do well to sink their political feelings and unitedly support those who have proved themselves the people’s friends. (6 Nov 1888)

This is so striking because of the difficulty of imagining questions of taxation and redistribution being conceived as ‘subjects altogether apart from politics’. It brings to mind the old Electoral Commission adverts in which a non-voter who grumbles about various matters of state and municipal provision is reprimanded with the words ‘If you don’t do politics, what do you do?’

The most likely explanation seems to be that by ‘politics’, the various commentators mean ‘national politics’ and the key dividing lines that had grown up within them, the most potent being between Unionists and supporters of Home Rule for Ireland. The Spectator recommended Lord Thring to its readers, despite his support for Home Rule, on the grounds that ‘He has too much belief in Local Government. That is no reason why he should not be supported when Local Government is what we want’ (12 Jan 1889). This is a salutary reminder that our current political divisions and frames of reference are contingent and temporary, not primordial and inevitable.

Another letter to the Star (9 Nov 1888) complained that its editors were falling into a trap: ‘It is all very well for Tories and drones to preach no politics’ and to encourage voters to judge on experience and good character because this was likely to benefit the same class interests it always had. Instead, the writer urged working-class voters ‘to avail yourselves of the opportunity now afforded you and elect one of your own class to the County Council.’ Yet, while the direct representation of the working class remained paltry, constituency after constituency went against its parliamentary voting record and returned members with radical liberal or socialist views. A seemingly non-partisan election resulted in a radically interventionist and redistributive Council.

Unsurprisingly, claims of apoliticality did not last long. The Council members soon formed themselves into parties: a Progressive majority and Moderate opposition and within a fortnight of the election the Spectator was complaining of “party bias” and political intrigue (2 Feb 1889). What is more surprising is the ubiquity such claims achieved during the first election campaign.