Category: Popular memory
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Deny, normalise and obfuscate: The Home Office in the 1980s and the abuse of South Asian women
The ‘missing’ files of the Home Office relating to an alleged child-sex ring given by Conservative MP Geoffrey Dickens to Home Secretary Leon Brittan is not that surprising. We know that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office kept silent about a hundreds of thousands of files that were thought to be ‘missing’ or ‘destroyed’ during the decolonisation process…
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The British left and immigration: Weekly Worker cites Hatful of History blog
This post is just a brief one to note that Peter Manson from the Weekly Worker (the newspaper of the new-ish CPGB – more info on their origins here) quotes from this blog at length in a discussion of the British left (primarily the Communist Party of Britain and the Socialist Party) and their position…
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The Conversation (UK) On Rik Mayall, The Young Ones and Thatcher
I just thought I’d mention that The Conversation (UK) has published a short piece by myself on The Young Ones as Mayall’s ground-breaking achievement and what the show reveals about Britain under Thatcher in the 1980s. You can read it here.
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In tribute to Rik Mayall: The Young Ones, Thatcherism and the People’s Poet
It is very saddening news to hear of the sudden death of Rik Mayall at the age of 56. As Rick, the lefty sociology student in The Young Ones, Mayall helped create one of the greatest contemporary portrayals of life in Thatcherite Britain, while indulging in surreal and off-the-wall comedy. The longevity of The Young…
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June 4, 1976: Sex Pistols play Manchester for the very first time…
In the history of British popular culture, June 4, 1976 is a significant date. The Sex Pistols played at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall to a small room of people. It is one of their first gigs outside London. Like the saying about the first Velvet Underground LP, nearly everyone in the audience that night…
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The Youtube clip I’ve been waiting for: Tony Martin doing Billy Bragg
This is the greatest bit from The Late Show. I’m glad someone’s finally uploaded it. Enjoy!
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South Africa and anti-Apartheid in British popular culture before Mandela (1976-1983)
This post is partly inspired by my work on The Young Ones and the cultural depictions of the history of Thatcherite Britain. In the first episode, ‘Demolition’, which aired in late 1982, Rick and Neil have an argument over whether the vegetables in the meal were from South Africa (there was an international campaign for a boycott…
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Mr Gove, film can never replicate historical ‘truth’
The last few days has seen a historiographical debate about the First World War played out in the media between Michael Gove, the Conservative Education Minister, and several different historians, including Richard J. Evans and Tristram Hunt, with plenty of others weighing in (see this article in The Guardian for a good summary). One of Gove’s…
New Historical Express 