British Culture

This third edition of British Culture is the complete introduction to culture and
the arts in Britain today. Extensively illustrated and offering a wider range of
topics than ever before, David P. Christopher identifies and analyses key areas in
language, literature, film, TV, social media, popular music, sport and other fields,
setting each one in a clear, historical context.
British Culture enables students of British society to understand and enjoy a
fascinating range of contemporary arts through an examination of current trends,
such as the influence of business and commerce, the effects of globalisation and
the spread of digital communications. This new edition features:

• fully revised and updated chapters analysing a range of key areas within British
culture;
• new chapters on cyberculture, cultural heritage and festivals;
• extracts from novels and plays.

This student-friendly edition also strengthens reading and study skills through
follow-up activities, weblinks and suggestions for further research, available on
its companion website.
 David P. Christopher’s book is an engaging analysis of contemporary life and arts
and, together with its companion website (www.routledge.com/cw/christopher), is
essential reading for every student of modern Britain.

Formerly Associate Professor at the University of La Rioja, Dr David P. Chris-

topher is a researcher and author in culture, media and language, and collabo-
rates with universities and arts organisations worldwide.
British Culture
An introduction
Third Edition

David P. Christopher
Third edition published 2015
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 David Christopher
The right of David Christopher to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
First edition published by Routledge 1999
Second edition published by Routledge 2006
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Christopher, David, 1958–
British culture : an introduction / David P. Christopher. – Third edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Great Britain—Civilization—20th century. 2. Great Britain—
Civilization—21st century. 3. Popular culture—Great Britain—
History—20th century. 4. Popular culture—Great Britain—
History—21st century. I. Title.
DA566.4.C46 2015
941.082—dc23
2014042160
ISBN: 978-0-415-81082-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-81085-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-73724-9 (ebk)

Typeset in Goudy
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
For Alex
This page intentionally left blank
Contents

List of illustrations viii

Acknowledgements xii
Introduction xiii
Timeline xix

1 The social and cultural context 1

2 Language in culture 31

3 Cyberculture 48

4 Newspapers, magazines and journalism 66

5 Literature 85

6 Theatre 115

7 Cinema 138

8 Television and radio 165

9 Art, architecture and design 194

10 Popular music and fashion 231

11 Sport 264

12 Cultural heritage 285

Glossary 309
Index 315
Illustrations

Figures
1.1 A souvenir from English football’s greatest day, the 1966 World
Cup Final. A final united ‘hurrah’ before the strife of the 1970s
and 1980s. 8
1.2 A view of the Docklands financial district; temples of Mammon
and symbols of the 1980s, seen across the River Thames from
the ship Cutty Sark in Greenwich. 15
1.3 ‘Tent City’, which was set up outside St Paul’s Cathedral to
protest against economic inequality and the lack of affordable
housing in the UK in 2011–12. 22
1.4 The Sun newspaper, possibly Mrs Thatcher’s greatest ally during
her time as Prime Minister, says goodbye in April 2012. 25
2.1 A cartoon in the satirical magazine Punch of 1932 illustrates
sociolinguistic change in rural areas following the advent of radio.
Some villagers have begun copying the ‘BBC accent’, believing it
superior. The elderly man in the chair is depicted as comfortably
un-aspirational! Text under the cartoon reads: ‘Tourist. “I suppose
that’s your oldest inhabitant?” Village Schoolmaster. “Yes, Sir.
Quaint survival; quite a period-piece, in fact. The village’s sole
remaining exponent of a pre-B.B.C. accent.”’ 35
2.2 Eats, Shoots & Leaves: the last word in punctuation – and an
unexpected bestseller in 2003. 42
2.3 Language can be an emotive subject. In 2014 members of the
Welsh Language Society protested in Aberystwyth, Wales,
demanding better promotion of Welsh. 44
3.1 Anxiety about the effects of mass media, particularly on women
and children, is not new. This cartoon appeared in the satirical
magazine Punch in 1906, soon after the development of radio
communications. Text under the cartoon reads: ‘IV.–Development
of Wireless Telegraphy. Scene in Hyde Park. (These two figures are
not communicating with one another. The lady is receiving an
amatory message, and the gentleman some racing results.)’ 55
 Illustrations ix
3.2 The lurid colours and content of the GTA cover designs
recall fairground and pinball art of the 1960s. 61
3.3 Lara Croft ready for action. 64
4.1 Many people still buy their press at a newsagent’s or have it
delivered to the home, despite the availability of most papers
online. 69
4.2 Men’s magazines – a new phenomenon in British publishing
which for some commentators indicates masculinity in crisis. 82
5.1 Martin Amis taking part in an interview. 101
5.2 Creating a distinctive book cover has become a fine art. 105
5.3 Poet, playwright and author Benjamin Zephaniah receives an
honorary doctorate. 110
5.4 A child attempts ‘Potteresque’ magic on the legendary Platform
9¾, a popular tourist spot at King’s Cross Station in London. 113
6.1 The Gate Theatre, in Notting Hill, the smallest ‘off West End’
theatre in London. 116
6.2 A scene from Romans in Britain. 121
6.3 The Palace Theatre in London’s West End, built in 1891 as
an opera house. 124
6.4 The Edinburgh Festival on a chilly August day in the Scottish
capital. 135
7.1 The latest incarnation of James Bond, Daniel Craig, with the
traditional Aston Martin DB5. 145
7.2 In praise of pop: the Preacher (Eric Clapton) parades pop culture
icon Marilyn Monroe before the disabled congregation. A scene
from the Ken Russell film Tommy. 148
7.3 The Screen on the Green, a place to see independent films
in Islington, London. 153
7.4 The Coronet, an independent cinema in Notting Hill, London. 157
8.1 TV has become a less communal and more individual activity.
But unlike in the picture, young people are today more likely to
be alone in their rooms while simultaneously viewing two or
three screens. 166
8.2 A TV licence. This unremarkable document is said to ensure
political and commercial independence, high-quality programmes
and the cultural centrality of television in Britain. 168
8.3 Broadcasting House, old (on the left) and new – the BBC
headquarters in Portland Place, London. 171
8.4 The Rovers’ Return in Coronation Street – probably the best
known pub in Britain. 174
8.5 A Dalek, enemy of Doctor Who and the stuff of nightmares for
a generation of young Britons. 178
9.1 A Bigger Splash – one of David Hockney’s best-known works,
completed in 1967. 200
9.2 Sky Mirror, Nottingham, by Anish Kapoor. 202
x Illustrations
9.3 Urban art in Whitecross St., London, depicting Samuel Baylis,
a founder of the Radical Club, the forerunner of the Liberal Party. 209
9.4 Art enhances public spaces – a boy attempts to decorate a figure
amid the office blocks in the City of London. 211
9.5 Buildings in the City of London. The older, neo-classical Royal
Exchange building is in the foreground, while (left–right)
Tower 42, the ‘Gherkin’ and the ‘Cheesegrater’ jostle for
attention at the back. 215
9.6 A residential area of the Barbican complex, in the City of London.
A Brutalist design for living, with its own cinemas, art gallery,
library and conservatory. 217
9.7 The ‘iron cage’ offices of 1 Finsbury Avenue, London, by Arup
Associates. Completed in 1984, they recall George Orwell’s
dystopian novel set in the same year. 220
9.8 The London Eye, with the Royal Festival Hall to the right. 227
9.9 The headquarters of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6)
at 85 Albert Embankment, London. Architect – Terry Farrell. 228
10.1 A poster for the Windsor Jazz and Blues Festival of 1967. By the
mid-1960s, rock bands were displacing jazz combos and beginning
to dominate the festival scene, as the line-up indicates. 237
10.2 Over 50 years after their first gig in London, the Rolling Stones
continue to break records for their performances and record sales. 239
10.3 Fashionable footwear for the man-about-town, c. 1973. Boots for
the stage went several inches higher. 245
10.4 A commemorative plaque in Heddon St., London marks the
location of the cover photo for the iconic Ziggy Stardust album. 248
10.5 A Sex Pistols tour poster from 1976 – many gigs were cancelled
by the local authorities. 250
10.6 Record sleeves – the working man’s art collection. Records are
popular with collectors, and some artists still release their work
in vinyl as well as in digital formats. 257
10.7 Concert tickets were once dull and stubby, but by the 1990s had
colour, holograms and more detailed designs, to help prevent
forgeries of increasingly expensive items. 262
11.1 Football clubs seemed to grow organically out of the small,
terraced communities they represented. 269
11.2 Tossing the caber – a traditional sport at the Highland Games. 273
12.1 The Lloyd’s Building in London – a machine for working in – was
given a Grade I listing in 2011. 290
12.2 A blue plaque in the City of London, close to the Church of
St Bartholomew. 291
12.3 Heritage of the imagination. The address is 221b Baker St., London,
residence of Sherlock Holmes, the man who never lived and never
died. Yet, his fictional home is now a major attraction for overseas
visitors. Note there is even a blue plaque on the wall. 293
 Illustrations xi
12.4 A battle scene is re-enacted at the Honourable Artillery Ground,
surrounded by the bastions of modern business in the heart
of London. 294
12.5 Chinese New Year in Soho, London. 297
12.6 A scene more usually associated with medieval barbarism, yet
this could be a garden in suburban Britain on Bonfire Night. 300
12.7 Glastonbury Festival – the largest event of its kind in the world. 304
12.8 Morris men and women in action. 306

Table
4.1 British daily newspapers, their circulations and owners. 68
Acknowledgements

This book describes some of the most significant features of cultural and artistic
life in modern Britain. Such a work is indebted to a wide variety of descriptive
and analytic texts, and some of those used in its compilation can be found in the
sections on further reading on the companion website.
A large number of people have made this third edition possible in different
ways, and I am also extremely grateful to all at Routledge for their commitment to
the book, to Amy Welmers for her persistence, and especially to Dr Eve Setch for
her assistance, patience and enthusiasm beyond the call of duty. Finally, I would
like to express my special gratitude to Nargis, who helped all along the way.
Introduction

For the student of British Studies, British Culture and Civilisation, English Phi-
lology, English, Media and Communications, or merely the interested reader,
there are many textbooks, journals and articles which analyse and comment on
different aspects of cultural life; for example, the feminist novel, ethnicity in
television soap opera, or the status of BritArt. However, it is often difficult to
acquire the basic knowledge on which the debates are founded without carrying
out extensive research in texts that assume background knowledge and that are
mostly written for British-based specialists.
This book aims to meet that need by introducing the reader to the latest
debates and developments in society and the arts, and linking them to selected
texts and authors from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Thus,
developments in language, journalism, literature, theatre, music, film, television,
sport, art and architecture, cyberculture and heritage are presented, in order to
show how they have often mirrored social trends, and sometimes have contrasted
with them in surprising and unexpected ways. In this respect the book presents
a contextual history, which illustrates how different texts and practices from the
UK connect to the broader patterns of social and cultural life.
To overseas students, the question of differences between ‘English’ and ‘British’
and the UK may be confusing. England, Scotland and Wales together constitute
the island of Great Britain. The United Kingdom refers to Great Britain and
Northern Ireland. ‘British’ is the nationality of people from the United Kingdom,
and ‘English’ is the language predominantly spoken there.
A related matter is the question of what is meant by ‘English’, when referring
to a particular subject area, for example literature. Although textbooks on the
topic refer primarily to the literature of England, they frequently extend their
coverage to literature written in English from other home countries, for example
Scotland. They may also include literature written in English from Common-
wealth countries, such as South Africa. The term ‘English’ is therefore used flex-
ibly, but for the purposes of this book, the main focus is on texts and practices
created by people in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
A similar question may arise over what constitutes a ‘British’ film. In order
to receive government or lottery funding, there has to be ‘substantial British
involvement’ in the sense of using British actors, crew and locations. But many
xiv Introduction
other films considered to be quintessentially British are financed jointly between
US and UK companies; for example, the James Bond films are financed by
MGM, Warner pays for Harry Potter, while the production company Working
Title (which made Love Actually, Bridget Jones and Billy Elliot) is financed by Uni-
versal. As with the literature chapter, the main focus of the chapter on cinema
is on films created in and about people in the UK, even though some or all the
finance may be from elsewhere.
A separate issue is that any text about ‘British culture’ must immediately recog-
nise the problematic nature of a concept containing numerous differences as well
as similarities. Since the 1950s the expression and experience of cultural life in
Britain has become fragmented and reshaped by the influences of youth, gender,
ethnicity and region, and in more recent times has been made more diverse and
plural by the advent of digital communications. Production and distribution have
become quicker and easier and cultural material of all kinds has proliferated. But,
at the same time, many kinds have become less profitable. Thus, for example,
the industries of print, film, music and broadcasting are currently undergoing sea
changes, faced with falling profits due to alternative digital formats, free access
and increased competition from other sources. Apart from these constrictions,
there has been a major international recession which has hit demand for British
cultural products at home and abroad. Consequently, major producers are much
more cautious about what gets made, played and shown.
The term ‘culture’ also deserves some discussion. Precise definitions of the term
have always been elusive and frequently elitist. However, at the present time
in British society trends point towards a more inclusive notion that embraces
a broad range of texts and practices. This is reflected in public administration,
with the government’s own Department of Culture, Media and Sport, headed by
its own Culture Secretary, as well as in arts criticism, with comment and reviews
within the British media frequently appearing under the heading of ‘culture’.
Thus, it may be said that culture is about ways of living, and the arts are expres-
sions of it, which take the form of texts, such as books, films etc., and practices
such as sport, drama, music and so on.
Furthermore, selection of material for this book does not make a clear distinc-
tion between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture, reflecting a trend in western society to see
the arts as existing on a continuum or scale from traditional, staid, more ‘difficult’
or conservative forms, for example opera, ballet and classical music, through to
popular forms that connect more closely with the times in which we live.
Moreover, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ examples exist within all categories of arts, and
while some examples, such as a Beatles song, may be more easily accessible than
others, this does not imply their inferiority. Indeed, such a dichotomy of cul-
ture is further problematised given that the status accorded to different authors
and works evolves over time, as indeed do boundaries between high and low
forms. Thus, for example, in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
Shakespeare’s plays were regarded as part of folk or popular culture, especially
overseas, and were performed in ways and places that would be highly unlikely
today.
 Introduction xv
A similar tendency can be observed across the arts in music, theatre and other
fields, where art forms evolve and survive through variation, competition and
selection. At the same time, the status accorded to them changes, in a process not
of great leaps, but of gradual modification. For example, more recently in archi-
tecture, some examples of municipal modernism of the 1960s, which were once
derided as actively ugly and brutal, have been similarly subjected to a process of
aesthetic re-evaluation. This has resulted in the status of some buildings, from
shopping centres to car parks, being completely transformed from stains on the
urban landscape to listed historic landmarks – architectural visions of the future
to be respected and admired as part of Britain’s architectural heritage.
The selection of material in this book is obviously bound by a degree of subjec-
tivity. Although there are important works and writers who have not been given
the attention they might deserve, the choice here is not significantly out of step
with the main trends of the period. Similarly, trends do not change simultane-
ously, and any particular ‘scene’ is always plural and varied, with many earlier
styles co-existing with more recent ones. But it is hoped that the reader will be
aware of these inevitabilities and will consider the cited works, and read some of
the suggested material in the chapter booklists. In this way they can form their
own opinions about different types of material, and their relevance to particular
areas of critical and cultural interest.

Aims of the book

The main aim of this book is to provide readers with a map of the terrain: to offer
signposts and co-ordinates to the people, places and events that make up substan-
tial and evolving areas of cultural life, and from where they may go on to examine
the broader, theoretical issues involved in their research.
A subsequent concern is the study of change. Many textbooks consider
aspects of cultural life as if they were inert or static. But as the rhythms of social
and cultural change continue to quicken, it is possible that, having entered
the third millennium, we stand before a period of transition as fundamental as
those of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The evolution of digi-
tal communications attests to this, where only ten years ago, the patterns of
production, distribution and consumption of cultural products were very dif-
ferent to those of today, which has brought profound and unstoppable changes
to political, social, cultural and economic life. Thus, the book reflects on the
main changes that have taken place in the recent past and identifies the major
developments taking place in Britain today.
Third, the book recognises the need to provide a historical context for its sub-
ject matter. This involves more than just a chapter on the cultural context cre-
ated by recent social and political events. Such information is certainly necessary,
given that students’ knowledge of even relatively recent history may be limited.
But it is also included because an important development in the recent study of
culture has been the importance now accorded to historical analysis, which con-
tributes to our understanding of society and the arts past and present. Creative
xvi Introduction
material is produced in a particular social, political and economic context, and
these are examined in detail and presented along with discussion of the work.
A fourth aim is to give particular attention to changing expressions of ethnic-
ity and gender. The period under review has coincided with the break-up of the
British Empire and an expansion of the Commonwealth, which has led to the
immigration of people of numerous nationalities, languages, cultures and heri-
tages, whose expression increasingly contributes to the themes and trends found
in cultural and artistic life.
Similarly, the second wave of the feminist movement, which started in the
1960s, has brought about fundamental changes in the position of women in soci-
ety, their relations with men, and the consequent changes in men’s identity, roles
and relations with women. At the same time, issues of sexuality have also under-
gone periods of accelerated change. Until the 1980s it was difficult for lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender people (LGBT) to gain any form of recognition and
acceptance, but in 2014 freedoms and rights have become enshrined in law, and
same-sex marriage is now permitted in the home nations with the exception of
Northern Ireland. This period has therefore witnessed the impact of social move-
ments of race, ethnicity, multiculturalism, gender and sexuality, and their sub-
sequent transition from the margins into the mainstream of cultural expression.
A fifth focus of attention is that of the recent withdrawal of public support for
artistic works, and the consequent need for patronage and profitability. Since the
1980s there has been an increasing trend away from publicly funded arts, towards
private sponsorship and profitability, which has profoundly affected what gets
made and how. Similarly the advent and widespread availability of broadband
communications and digital media have meant there is now much greater compe-
tition for audiences, as well as a change in audience preferences, due to the prolif-
eration of digital platforms, channels, social media and a much wider spectrum of
home entertainment. These issues are given special attention in the first chapter
on the social and cultural context, as well as in the chapter on cyberculture, and
their impact on separate fields is discussed throughout the book.
To the British reader, a sixth aim is to keep alive the increasingly short popular
memory, to provide a ‘defence against forgetting’ where this is due to the regular
inundation of images and news through television, radio, newspapers and the
internet. For readers outside Britain, the study of another culture may provide
a useful comparison with one’s own. It should be a liberating experience which
improves understanding and imagination, and helps to provide new perspectives
and thoughts.
The book is also intended to strengthen study skills, through follow-up activities
and suggestions for further reading provided in the book’s website, for exploitation
in pairs, small groups and individual research (see also ‘Using this book’ below).

Using this book

The book is designed to be flexible, for use either at home or in class, and can
easily be adapted to the needs of particular courses. Chapters can be studied in a
 Introduction xvii
different order or omitted, as each one is written as an independent unit. How-
ever, the reader may find the first chapter on social and political change par-
ticularly relevant to an understanding of thematic chapters, since it provides a
context for their study. A timeline, glossary and index are also provided to assist
the reader.
For classroom use, it is suggested that teachers assemble their own archive of
material to supplement the text, which can be developed and exploited accord-
ing to the aims of the course, the level of the students, their interests and so on.
Material widely available on the internet on sites such as YouTube and elsewhere
might include video recordings of films, plays and television programmes; audio
recordings of music, radio news and reviews; as well as books, pictures and other
visual aids. Photocopies of old newspapers also make interesting documents for
exploitation in and out of class. BBC Television’s Learning Zone offers another
good resource.
Almost all the material mentioned in the text is available on video or sound
recordings and is often broadcast on terrestrial and satellite television channels.
Websites of all the major television stations offer archives which can be searched
for relevant audio-visual material, as do those of the major newspapers, and the
British Council has substantial web resources. Other material may be obtained
from literary or pictorial sources (see below for more information), and sociology
and media/cultural studies textbooks can also provide a rich source of contem-
porary material.
The website for this book provides a substantial number of discussion topics
and activities related to the themes of each chapter. These can be chosen and
dealt with in class according to students’ particular interests or needs, and may be
used for subsequent projects or essays. Alternatively, it may be necessary to obtain
more information before beginning a longer piece of work and some suggestions
on further reading are provided in each relevant section.

Sources of information
For those beginning to explore a particular topic related to the study of Britain,
the internet is an essential tool which students and teachers can use to consult
a variety of topics and terms. Major encyclopaedias and dictionaries – online or
otherwise – contain many relevant entries, although reliable online sources will
usually be more up-to-date. Similarly, reference texts and online material provide
useful sources, along with short lists of books and articles to guide further reading.
Students may wish to prepare a longer piece of work such as a dissertation, and
for such research the sites mentioned above offer a wealth of information. Stu-
dents are always advised to read widely, as different sources may report the same
stories in different ways.
With regard to other sources, such as books, films, plays and music, most if not
all are easily obtainable from university or public libraries in Britain, or from larger
bookshops, or may be found online. Films, television series and sound recordings
are also available in video and compact disc format from many stockists, or on
xviii Introduction
loan from the British Library (which incorporates the National Sound Archive),
the British Film Institute, the BBC or the British Council. The scripts from many
plays are also available from good bookshops and can be ordered or downloaded
online.
Students should also become familiar with the main journals relevant to their
field of interest. They usually appear three or four times a year, and the informa-
tion and debates contained in them are usually more up to date than those in
books, which take longer to write and publish. Although journal articles can
be technical and difficult to understand for someone new to the field, many of
the leading journals publish articles of general interest that are accessible to the
reader with only a limited knowledge of the subject.
Finally, for selected statistical information on many aspects of cultural and
social life in Britain, Social Trends, the Annual Abstract of Statistics and the
General Lifestyle Survey are good starting points. They appear every year, are
easily found on government websites, and can be downloaded with commentary.
Timeline

1939–45 Second World War.

1944 The Butler Education Act greatly improves the opportunities for uni-
versity education and social mobility among the post-war generation.
1945 Labour government elected. Churchill and Conservatives rejected.
1948 Labour’s grand strategy to reshape society is introduced, based around
a comprehensive welfare system, the nationalisation of key industries
and free health care for all. The first immigrants arrive from the West
Indies to help a growing economy, a key moment in the evolution of
Britain’s ethnic profile.
1951 Conservative government elected. Festival of Britain takes place, the
centenary of the Great Exhibition of 1851.
1953 The Coronation of Elizabeth II. Panorama current affairs programme
starts on BBC.
1954 Rationing finally ends.
1955 Conservative government re-elected. Independent commercial tele-
vision begins broadcasting. Rock and roll music comes to Britain in
the film The Blackboard Jungle. First English-language performance of
Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot .
1956 Egypt takes control of the Suez Canal, and for the first time in recent
history, Britain makes a politically embarrassing withdrawal, which
is widely seen as a weakening of British influence abroad. Pop Art
receives its first major exhibition, This is Tomorrow, at London’s Whi-
techapel Gallery. John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger opens at the
Royal Court Theatre in London. Public anxiety about youth culture,
as ‘Teddy Boys’ are increasingly reported as anti-social and violent in
the popular press.
1957 The Uses of Literacy by Richard Hoggart published, expressing
anxiety over popular culture, especially commercial television and
xx Timeline
popular music. The affluence – rather than poverty and deprivation –
of young people is said to be partly to blame.
1958 Political dissent grows – the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
founded. Race riots in Notting Hill.
1959 Conservative government re-elected.
1960 National Service (military service) ended. The contraceptive pill
introduced and made available from 1961, but mainly to married
women. Gambling legalised. Following a test case of the Obscene
Publications Act, Lady Chatterley’s Lover published in the UK, more
than 30 years after D.H. Lawrence wrote it. First episode of the long-
running TV soap opera Coronation Street (ITV) broadcast.
1961 The UK applies for membership of the European Economic Com-
munity (now the EU). Amnesty International established by British
lawyer Peter Benenson. Political satire now well established in tele-
vision and radio; The satirical magazine Private Eye launched.
1962 The Commonwealth Immigration Act restricts immigration to the
UK. The Rolling Stones play their first gig in London. The James
Bond film Dr No released, starring Sean Connery. Social realism is
well established in British film, drama and TV.
1963 Youth culture emerges. New ideas take hold across the arts and par-
ticularly in music, promoting freedom and hedonism and sexuality.
‘Beatlemania’ breaks out, a year after the release of the Beatles’ first
single. Oh, What a Lovely War! staged by Joan Littlewood’s Theatre
Workshop at Theatre Royal Stratford East in east London. The BBC
ends its ban on mentioning politics, royalty, religion and sex in com-
edy programmes.
1964 Labour government elected with Harold Wilson as Prime Minis-
ter. BBC2 begins broadcasting. ‘Baby boom’ peaks in the UK. More
public anxiety over youth culture, as hysterical reports appear in the
popular, tabloid press over youth subcultures Mods and Rockers.
The pirate radio station Radio Caroline begins broadcasting types of
music not played by the BBC.
1965 Capital punishment suspended. Cigarette advertising banned from
British television. The Post Office Tower in London the tallest build-
ing in Britain. The Greater London Council established. Mary Quant
launches the mini-skirt.
1966 Documentary drama about homelessness Cathy Come Home shown
on BBC and brings changes in the law. Student rebellion at the
London School of Economics. First Notting Hill Carnival in London.
Feminist movement gathers pace. England hosts and wins the foot-
ball World Cup.
 Timeline xxi
1967 The Abortion Law Reform Act allows legal terminations. Sexual
Offences Act legalises homosexual acts between consenting adults
over 21. First mass demonstration against the Vietnam War. Marine
Broadcasting Act forces many pirate radio stations to close, while
the BBC launches the new stations Radio 1, 2, 3 and 4. The Beatles
release Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard. BBC2 starts transmitting in
colour. The Purcell Room and the Queen Elizabeth Hall open at the
South Bank arts complex.
1968 Enoch Powell makes controversial ‘rivers of blood’ immigration
speech. Hair musical opens in London. The Beatles’ film Yellow
Submarine. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick). Theatres Act
removes the need to license individual plays.
1969 Divorce Reform Act makes divorce easier to obtain. Death Penalty
abolished. British troops patrol the streets of Northern Ireland, mark-
ing the beginning of an armed struggle which will kill more than
2000 people. Oh! Calcutta! by Kenneth Tynan. Gilbert and George
begin as ‘living sculptures’. Film Kes (Ken Loach) released. Last pub-
lic performance of the Beatles on the roof of the Apple Corps build-
ing in Saville Row, London.
1970 Conservative government elected with Edward Heath as Prime
Minister. The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer published, to great
acclaim by the movement for women’s liberation, which holds a
major conference at Oxford. Equal Pay Act introduced (not to take
effect until 1975).
1971 The divorce rate remains low, with only six divorces per 1000 people.
First women’s liberation march. First Gay Pride march. A Clockwork
Orange (Stanley Kubrick) released. Jesus Christ Superstar by Andrew
Lloyd-Webber and Tim Rice. Bleak Moments (Mike Leigh). Metric
‘decimal’ currency replaces pounds, shillings and pence.
1972 Miners’ strike and a coal shortage results in a three-day working
week. Prime Minister Edward Heath capitulates to the miners and
abandons confrontation with the trade unions. Cosmopolitan maga-
zine goes on sale in Britain. David Bowie releases Ziggy Stardust album
to popular acclaim.
1973 A state of emergency is declared in Britain, following a second min-
ers’ strike, a power workers’ strike, power cuts and reduced TV trans-
missions. Oil prices quadruple. Unprecedented levels of inflation.
UK joins the European Economic Community (now the European
Union). Ecology Party founded, which later becomes the Green Party.
Skinhead youth subculture and football hooliganism. Glam rock at
its peak. Independent local radio begins. Equus by Peter Schaffer,
Magnificence by Howard Brenton, Freedom of the City by Brian Friel.
xxii Timeline
1974 Unemployment over one million, inflation peaks at 25 per cent. Stock
market collapses and coal-miners still on strike. Three-day working
week introduced to save electricity. Narrow election victory for Labour
with Harold Wilson as Prime Minister again. A repeat election held
soon afterwards establishes Labour’s majority. First summer solstice
festival at Stonehenge. IRA bombing campaign comes to mainland
Britain, with bombs in London, Guildford and Birmingham. The oral
contraceptive known as ‘the Pill’ is freely prescribed to single women.
1975 Economy in crisis with 1.25 million unemployed and inflation at 21
per cent. The Sex Discrimination Act and the Equal Pay Act intro-
duced, aiming to end discrimination over offers of work and pay to men
and women. Margaret Thatcher becomes Britain’s first party leader, as
leader of the opposition Conservative Party. Pressure (Horace Ové),
the first full length feature by a black director, released. No Man’s Land
by Harold Pinter. Love Thy Neighbour (BBC). The Sweeney (ITV).
1976 Car giant British Leyland bankrupt and taken into public ownership,
exemplifying the decline of British industry. Harold Wilson resigns
as Labour Prime Minister, replaced by James Callaghan. Jeremy
Thorpe, leader of the Liberal party, resigns following allegations of
homosexual relationship. Race Relations Act makes it unlawful to
discriminate on grounds of race, colour, nationality or ethnic origins.
Political violence claims 296 lives in Northern Ireland. Rock Against
Racism movement starts. Prostitution exhibition opens at ICA. Punk
rock explodes onto the music scene.
1977 Economic crisis continues. Severe spending cuts imposed on health
and education following bail-outs by the International Monetary
Fund. Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee celebrating 25 years on the
throne. Sex Pistols’ alternative ‘anthem’ ‘God Save the Queen’
Number 2 in the charts. The Clash release ‘White Riot’. 55 per cent
of women between 15 and 65 now in the UK labour force.
1978 Winter sees many strikes by low-paid public sector workers, which
the press dubs the ‘winter of discontent’ (after a line from the begin-
ning of Shakespeare’s play Richard III). The film Jubilee (Derek Jar-
man) released, a punk satire on the Queen’s Silver Jubilee year. BBC
bans Tom Robinson song ‘Glad to be Gay’. Space Invaders machines
appear in pubs and clubs.
1979 A watershed year, as Margaret Thatcher elected Prime Minister.
Trade-union membership peaks at 13.3 million. Privatisation pro-
gramme begins with BP oil company. New, ‘alternative’ comedy
shows appear. Barbican Estate in London completed.
1980 John Lennon murdered in New York. Inglan is a Bitch and Bass Cul-
ture by Lynton Kwesi Johnson. Romans in Britain by Howard Brenton.
Translations by Brian Friel. Yes, Minister (BBC) political satire.
 Timeline xxiii
1981 Unemployment rises quickly to almost three million. Riots break out
in cities around Britain. Prince Charles and Diana marry. Chariots
of Fire (Hugh Hudson). Brideshead Revisited (ITV). MTV launched.
Salman Rushdie wins the Booker Prize for Midnight’s Children. Burn-
ing an Illusion (Menelik Shabazz). Maeve (Pat Murphy and John
Davies).
1982 War with Argentina over the Malvinas/Falkland Islands. Boys from
the Blackstuff (BBC drama). The Great Fire of London by Peter Ack-
royd. New classification system for films introduced. Gandhi (Rich-
ard Attenborough). Pink Floyd – The Wall (Alan Parker). Channel 4
begins broadcasting. Annual WOMAD (World of Music and Dance)
festival begins.
1983 Conservatives win second election under Thatcher. Waterland by
Graham Swift. The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde by Peter Ackroyd.
Educating Rita (Lewis Gilbert). The Ploughman’s Lunch (Richard Eyre).
1984 Nationwide miners’ strike in 1984–5. IRA bombers hit Conserva-
tive Party conference in Brighton. Turner Prize for contemporary art
introduced. Money by Martin Amis. A Passage to India (David Lean).
Another Country (Marek Kanievska). Territories (Isaac Julien). Spit-
ting Image (ITV).
1985 More rioting in cities around Britain. Miners’ strike collapses. Pravda:
A Fleet Street Comedy by David Hare and Howard Brenton. A Room
with a View (James Ivory). The screenplay of My Beautiful Laundrette
by Hanif Kureishi is nominated for an Oscar. EastEnders (BBC).
Edge of Darkness (BBC). Live Aid shows. Saatchi Gallery opens in
London.
1986 A three-year economic boom starts. The year of ‘Big Bang’ as
London’s Stock Exchange closes and online trading begins. Major
national industries are privatised. The futuristic Lloyd’s Building
completed (Richard Rogers). Einstein’s Monsters by Martin Amis.
An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro. Insular Posses-
sion by Timothy Mo. Remembrance (Isaac Julien). Yes, Prime Min-
ister (BBC).
1987 Conservative government wins election for a third time. Serious
Money by Caryl Churchill. Maurice (James Ivory). The Belly of an
Architect (Peter Greenaway). Prick Up Your Ears (Stephen Frears).
Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (Stephen Frears). Secret Society (BBC).
1988 Warehouse parties around Britain spread ‘rave’ music subculture.
Warehouse exhibition Freeze in London’s Docklands organised by
Damien Hirst. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie leads to death
threats against the author. Inna Liverpool by Benjamin Zephaniah.
High Hopes (Mike Leigh).
xxiv Timeline
1989 Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web. New satellite TV sta-
tions broadcasting to the UK. Acid House youth culture. The Clon-
ing of Joanna May by Fay Weldon. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo
Ishiguro.
1990 An economic recession sets in until mid-1990s. Thatcher resigns;
John Major becomes new Conservative Prime Minister. Riots follow
the introduction of the Poll Tax. The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif
Kureishi. Racing Demon by David Hare. Have I Got News for You
political satire panel game begins on BBC.
1991 First Gulf War. Canary Wharf tower finished. Murmuring Judges by
David Hare. Time’s Arrow by Martin Amis. The Famished Road by
Ben Okri. Life is Sweet (Mike Leigh). BBC World Service TV begins
broadcasting. The 1991 Broadcasting Act exposes broadcasting to
market forces.
1992 John Major leads the Conservatives to a fourth election victory.
Department of National Heritage created. Church of England votes
in favour of women’s ordination. Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby.
1993 Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh. The Remains of the Day (James Ivory).
Gaelic television begins broadcasting. Paul Ince is the first black
footballer to captain England.
1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act is introduced to counter grow-
ing public disorder, despite strong opposition. The homosexual age of
consent lowered from 21 to 18. First women priests ordained by the
Church of England. The Acid House and How Late it Was, How Late
by Irvine Welsh. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. Riff Raff and Raining
Stones (Ken Loach). Shallow Grave (Danny Boyle). Bhaji on the Beach
(Gurinder Chadha). Channel Tunnel rail link opens. National Lot-
tery introduced, which contributes to arts and sport projects. Blur
release Parklife and Oasis debut with Definitely Maybe.
1995 Disability Discrimination Act introduced. Michael Collins (Neil Jor-
dan). Land and Freedom (Ken Loach). Braveheart (Mel Gibson). The
Madness of King George (Nicholas Hytner). Trainspotting (Danny
Boyle). Damien Hirst wins Turner Prize for Mother and Child Divided
(1991).
1996 Euro ’96 football tournament in England. Britpop reaches its zenith,
with 2.5 million applications for Knebworth pop festival. Out first
gay TV drama. Propa Propaganda by Benjamin Zephaniah. Jude
(Michael Winterbottom). Secrets and Lies (Mike Leigh). Brassed Off
(Mark Herman).
1997 A feeling of social and cultural renewal as Labour government elected
with large majority. Tony Blair becomes Prime Minister. Hong Kong
 Timeline xxv
handed back to China. Scotland and Wales vote in favour of devo-
lution. Princess Diana dies in car crash. The Full Monty (Peter Cat-
taneo). About a Boy by Nick Hornby. Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen
Fielding. Mrs Brown (John Madden). Nil by Mouth (Gary Oldman).
Success of the exhibition Sensation confirms high levels of interest in
new British art. In television, Channel 5 begins broadcasting. Grand
Theft Auto video game launched.
1998 Belfast (‘Good Friday’) Agreement in Northern Ireland results in
Northern Ireland Assembly elections. Angel of the North sculpture
(Antony Gormley); England, England (Julian Barnes); My Name is
Joe (Ken Loach); My Son the Fanatic (Udayan Prasad). Introduc-
tion of digital television. Media talk of ‘Cool Britannia’ follow-
ing a wave of successful, distinctively English creative projects in
mid-1990s.
1999 The first Scottish Parliament since 1707 elected. National Assembly
for Wales and Northern Ireland Assembly assume devolved powers.
House of Lords Act reduces number of hereditary peers entitled to sit
in Parliament from over 750 to 92. A former High Court judge finds
‘institutional racism’ in the Metropolitan Police. Britain decides not
to join the euro.
2000 Millennium Projects around Britain. In London, the Dome is the
focal point. Big Brother ‘reality’ television show launched. Ban on
homosexuals in the armed forces lifted. The homosexual age of con-
sent lowered to 16.
2001 Second election victory for the Labour Party under Tony Blair. Ter-
rorist attack on the twin towers in New York, now known as 9/11.
The government takes military action in Afghanistan. A new ‘morn-
ing after’ pill (a female contraceptive) made available in shops. New
comedy series The Office shown on BBC2 to popular acclaim. BBC
Director-General Greg Dyke describes the BBC as ‘hideously white’,
and not representative of the people it serves.
2002 Immigration and Asylum Act. The House of Lords passes measures
allowing gay couples to adopt children. Gurinder Chadha’s low-
budget film Bend it Like Beckham is a major commercial success. Com-
monwealth Games held in Manchester. Queen Elizabeth’s Golden
Jubilee celebrates a 50 year reign, with celebrations around the
country.
2003 Invasion of Iraq. Anti-war march the largest ever, with over 2 mil-
lion people on the streets. Unemployment remains low at around
1.5 million. England wins Rugby Union World Cup. Popular ‘reality’
television shows I’m a Celebrity – Get Me Out of Here!, Pop Idol and
Fame Academy attract huge audiences.
xxvi Timeline
2004 First citizenship ceremony in the UK – new citizens take the tra-
ditional oath of allegiance to the Queen and pledge to uphold UK
democratic values. Gender Recognition Act gives transsexual peo-
ple the right to seek legal recognition in their acquired gender. The
Higher Education Act introduces variable tuition fees from 2006.
The Office wins the award for the best comedy at the Golden Globes
in America. Fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the first two
parts of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic Lord of the Rings trilogy. UK première of
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Liverpool awarded UNESCO
world heritage status.
2005 Labour Party wins historic third term under Tony Blair. The IRA
announces a formal end to its armed campaign. Suicide bombers
attack London in July, 52 are killed. Freedom of Information Act
brought into force establishing a public right of access to informa-
tion held by public bodies. Civil partnerships approved for same-sex
couples, giving them equal rights. Fox hunting made illegal. Doctor
Who returns to British TV after 16 years.
2006 Unemployment falls. Climate change and sustainable energy legisla-
tion introduced. Casino Royale (Martin Campbell) sees a ‘reboot’ of
the James Bond franchise. Rock n Roll (Tom Stoppard)
2007 Gordon Brown succeeds Tony Blair as Prime Minister. British troops
begin withdrawal from Iraq. Leaders of the Northern Ireland Assem-
bly take up post. SNP becomes the largest party in the Scottish Par-
liament. This Is England (Shane Meadows) portrays youth culture of
the 1980s. Atonement (Joe Wright) wins Golden Globe Award. David
Hockney shows the landscape painting Bigger Trees Near Warter.
2008 Financial crisis hits. Government part-nationalises three UK banks
and supports the financial system after record stock-market falls.
Economy enters recession after 16 years of growth. Church of England
votes to allow women bishops. Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle)
wins eight Oscars.
2009 Scandal over MPs’ expenses claims. Chilcot enquiry into the Iraq
War opens. Coldplay and Adele win Grammy Awards.
2010 Coalition government formed between Conservatives and Liberal
Democrats, with David Cameron as Prime Minister and Nick Clegg
as Deputy. Large-scale cuts in public spending announced. The King’s
Speech (Tom Hooper) wins four Oscars. Glastonbury Festival 40th
anniversary.
2011 British forces begin to withdraw from Afghanistan. News of the
World, one of the biggest-selling newspapers in the UK, closes fol-
lowing phone-hacking allegations. Riots and looting in many cities
 Timeline xxvii
following the killing of Mark Duggan by police in London. Occupy
London tent city outside St Paul’s Cathedral. Referendum on chang-
ing the voting system. Plans to change to ‘AV’ system are rejected.
Amy Winehouse dies, aged 27.
2012 Britain hosts the Olympic and Paralympics to international acclaim.
Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. Britain comes out of reces-
sion, The ‘Shard’ in London opens, Europe’s tallest building. Rolling
Stones 50th anniversary tour.
2013 Rupert Murdoch appears at the Leveson Enquiry into press stan-
dards. Crisis of trust in major institutions of Parliament, press, police
and financial institutions. A soldier, Lee Rigby, murdered by Islamic
extremists in a south London street. Derry–Londonderry is UK City
of Culture.
2014 Internet access available to around 90 per cent of adults. Same-sex
marriage is legalized in England and Wales.
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1 The social and cultural context

Introduction
Since the 1950s, Britain has experienced a period of accelerated social and cul-
tural change. This has coincided with the disintegration of the British Empire,
the expansion of the Commonwealth, and the immigration of people of numer-
ous nationalities, languages and cultures, producing an ethnically diverse coun-
try with a plurality of identities and heritages. It has also been transformed by
the women’s movement. The entry of women into the labour market and their
increasing independence has brought about fundamental changes to their posi-
tion in society, and their relations with men. Similarly, the emergence of youth
as an identifiable group with attitudes, values and beliefs different to those of the
previous generation has helped shape the characteristics of the country since the
mid-twentieth century.
The impact of ethnicity, feminism and youth in Britain has been felt across
the arts. From 1948 and the founding of the Arts Council, their expression was
actively encouraged with funds for experimental and even counter-cultural styles,
as artists, writers and others sought inspiration from these transformational social
movements. The sense of progress, change and renewal continued until the mid-
1970s when, economically and socially, the country began to stagnate amid high
inflation, strikes and rising unemployment, and there was enthusiasm for change.
The Conservative Party led by Margaret Thatcher was elected in 1979. This
marked a key turning point. For the next 18 years, Thatcherism brought about
the greatest political, economic and cultural shift in Britain of the twentieth
century, as free-market economics, a ‘culture’ of individualism, private enterprise
and the values of the market place came to replace the socialist ideals of nation-
alisation and attempts to redistribute wealth through high rates of taxation. In the
arts, as in almost every area of society, state subsidies and benefits were reduced or
disappeared. Plays, films and exhibitions were seen as products for consumption by
consumers in a competitive market place, while it was left to a culture of impro-
visation and home-brew to create challenging new works outside the mainstream.
The consensus politics of the post-war era disappeared under Thatcherism,
and for 18 years the country became politically polarised between the Tory Party
and its laissez-faire philosophy of free markets, and the socialist ideals of the
political left. Paradoxically, this resulted in some key works and movements in
2 The social and cultural context
literature, art and music, film and other fields, as the inequalities, violence and
greed of the Thatcher years served as potent sources of inspiration.
But, by the mid-1990s the Conservative government was suffering from weak
leadership, corruption and profound internal divisions among its leading mem-
bers, particularly over Britain’s relationship with Europe. There was enthusiasm
for change, and the victory of the Labour Party in 1997 provided the country
and its cultural life with a sense of renewal and self-confidence, and in the years
that followed there was a period of relative prosperity and stability, characterised
by record levels of low unemployment, low inflation, rising living standards and
investment in public services.
The Labour Party had changed, and redefined itself for modern times. Under
its new leader Tony Blair, it was no longer the party of nationalisation or high
taxation, and its agenda was supportive of businesses large and small. But unlike
the previous Conservative administration, it sought to work with all sections of
society, seeking mutual agreement for public benefit. However, in the arts, there
was no return to the levels of patronage, investment and encouragement of previ-
ous Labour administrations, and the spread of business values in their production
and management became the norm, as practices once found only in the private
sector continued to be expressed in most areas of the economy.
There were many turbulent episodes during Labour’s time in office, for example
the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But throughout, the economy remained stable
with low unemployment and low inflation. The cultural field was reinvigorated
with a series of measures to support equal opportunities for minorities of all kinds,
and official support for the British arts, which enjoyed their highest profile since
the 1960s.
In 2007 Tony Blair resigned and his Chancellor Gordon Brown became Prime
Minister. But, despite the promise of renewal, an international economic crisis
began to take hold. In 2010 an election was held, but no party emerged with an
overall majority and a coalition government between the Conservatives and Lib-
eral Democrats was formed, with Tory leader David Cameron as Prime Minister.
Faced with the greatest and longest economic crisis for many decades, a crisis of
public trust in major institutions and widespread uncertainty about the future, a
programme of cuts in public spending was announced, with the cultural indus-
tries among those worst affected.

New Jerusalem

Economy, politics and society

During the first half of the 20th century, for the majority of people most of the
time in Britain, there was poverty and profound social inequality. Food was scarce,
unemployment was common, most houses had no bathroom or indoor toilet, and
children left school in their early teens. Most areas of the economy were left to
private enterprise, and there were no pensions, health service or social insurance.
It was not until the late 1940s that conditions began to substantially improve
 The social and cultural context 3
for the majority, following a programme of social and economic reconstruction
which would redefine the country until the 1980s.
Planning for the new society began during World War II, when the coalition
government aimed to introduce more equality and progress in key areas such as
health, education, transport and housing. Significantly, it was widely believed on
both the political left and right, that the way to achieve this was not with private
enterprise, but with centralised planning by experts, along rational, scientific lines.
In 1942 a manifesto for social change arrived with the Beveridge Report. A
former director of the London School of Economics, William Beveridge identi-
fied several areas for reform. In a key passage, he wrote: ‘Want is one of only five
giants on the road to reconstruction, and in some ways it is the easiest to attack.
The others are Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness.’ A sixth giant – ‘the
poverty of aspiration’ – was identified by economist John Maynard Keynes. As
president of the Council for the Encouragement of Music and Arts (CEMA),
Keynes advocated their funding on the same level as health and education, as it
was felt that the arts offered an important means of social improvement.
In education, reform quickly began with the 1944 Butler Education Act, which
made education free of charge in state grammar schools for children aged 11–18,
as long as they passed the ‘11-plus’ examination at age 11. This was an important
measure, as it was widely believed that education was key to promoting social
mobility, and the new exam offered all children the same opportunities to reach
university, regardless of their parent’s financial circumstances.
After the end of the Second World War, industry was in ruins, homes were
destroyed and many people struggled to survive. In 1945 the coalition govern-
ment was disbanded and a general election was held. Despite his success as a war-
time prime minister, Churchill and his Conservative Party were firmly rejected in
favour of a Labour Party led by Clement Attlee, who introduced further plans for
a more equal and open society.
There was consensus among the main parties that the state had to provide
jobs, homes and decent living standards in a way that it had never done before,
and after the reform of education came the nationalisation of all key industries,
such as coal, transport, iron and steel, to secure efficiency and mass employment.
This was followed in 1948 by the setting up of the ‘welfare state’ and the National
Health Service (NHS), which provided social security and health care free of
charge to all citizens. It was a brave attempt to build what the Labour govern-
ment called the ‘new Jerusalem’, in which the poverty of generations would be
abolished, and people of all classes, incomes and races would be cared for by the
state from the cradle to the grave.
Abroad, reform continued with the gradual dissolution of the British Empire,
which had begun with the granting of independence to India in 1947. But,
despite the progress made on many fronts, it was still a time of austerity, with
queuing, shortages and inconveniences in most areas of the economy. The gener-
ation that had won the war also wanted fun and consumerism, which the govern-
ment had conspicuously failed to deliver. Consequently, despite some of the most
progressive social measures ever introduced in Britain, the Labour government
4 The social and cultural context
was rejected in the election of 1951. But, instead of reverting to a free-market
economy, the incoming Tory Party continued the style of patrician government
set by the outgoing Labour Party; it governed not only in the interests of land-
owners, factory owners and other business people, but in the interests of society
as a whole. This way of managing society became known as the ‘post-war consen-
sus’, and characterised the way in which the country was governed by both main
parties until the late 1970s.
In 1951 the Festival of Britain was organised to improve the country’s morale.
It marked the centenary of the Great Exhibition of 1851, which had been held
in London’s Hyde Park to celebrate imperial achievements. Amid the post-war
gloom, it was a rare moment of national self-expression, with parties, parades,
speeches and optimism. It was a modest beginning to a decade in which produc-
tion rose, consumerism increased and crime rates fell. The rationing of foodstuffs
and other goods, which had been introduced at the beginning of the war in 1939,
was finally removed in 1954. The economy was booming, and between 1955 and
1960 average industrial earnings rose by 34 per cent. With their new prosperity
many ordinary people were able to discover cars, fashions and foreign holidays.
Greeting this new wave of prosperity, Tory Prime Minister Harold Macmillan
famously announced in 1957 that ‘[British] people have never had it so good’,
which was particularly true of the young, white working class, who were becom-
ing the first generation of consumers, and who had the choices, finance and free
time to be able to create a culture of their own.

Social change and public anxiety

Economic affluence and the socialist policies of the post-war Labour govern-
ment led to rapid social change. Britain’s economic growth created high lev-
els of demand for manual labour, particularly in low-paid areas of work such as
transport, health and catering. But there was a shortage, so the British municipal
authorities began to offer jobs to Commonwealth citizens in the West Indies,
India, Pakistan, Africa and Hong Kong. Members of Parliament from the two
main parties went to the Caribbean territories on a recruitment exercise, and on
21 June 1948 the ship Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury, to the east of London,
bringing 492 Commonwealth citizens from the West Indies to Britain. As the
country attempted to rebuild its shattered economy, many found work in the
newly nationalised essential industries, for example the health service, the rail-
ways, and in important manufacturing sectors such as textiles and automobiles.
The initial motive for migration was usually to work and save money before
returning to the country of origin. But economic realities meant that, within a few
years, the family and relatives also migrated to join their menfolk in cities around
the UK. However, the process of immigration did not go smoothly. Britain was
a strange, cold, alien country compared with the ones they had left behind, and
large immigrant communities grew in poor, inner-city areas where housing was
cheap and menial jobs plentiful. The latter was particularly important, as many
immigrants had to accept jobs for which they were overqualified; medical staff
 The social and cultural context 5
were cleaning hospitals, bus drivers were cleaning the streets. But the presence
of large immigrant communities disturbed the local population. Daily lives began
to change, and as immigration increased, race became a source of social conflict.
Prejudice and discrimination from employers, workmates and landlords became
a regular feature of the immigrant experience, and several areas became the focal
point for racial tensions, most infamously the Notting Hill area of London, where
rioting broke out in 1958.
While immigration was mostly a working-class concern, middle-class worries
centred on the increasing danger of nuclear war. Britain had successfully tested
a nuclear bomb in Australia in 1953, but there was a strong feeling among the
political left that the country would be safer without such weapons. A group of
leading writers, musicians, artists and others formed the Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament (CND), some of the founder members including the philosopher
Bertrand Russell, the composer Benjamin Britten, the sculptor Henry Moore,
the historian A.J.P. Taylor, and the novelists E.M. Forster and Doris Lessing. At
Easter in 1958 some 5,000 protesters marched from London to Aldermaston, the
site of a nuclear research establishment. Bands and folk singers accompanied a
mixture of pacifists, Christians, trade unionists, young parents and children. The
movement captured the public imagination and became increasingly influential.
The following year some 50,000 took part, and the march became not just an
annual event, but marked the beginning of a trend towards popular, organised
protest that has since become a common feature of the British political landscape.
The idea of communism was still attractive to many middle-class intellectuals,
and the decade witnessed the exposure of a notorious spy ring, involving Kim
Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt, who had met at Cam-
bridge University and subsequently passed Western secrets to the Soviet Union.
Maclean, Burgess and Blunt were also gay, but at that time homosexuality was
illegal and still seen as deeply subversive and taboo. Politically and socially, homo-
sexual men had to be deferential, conformist and skilled at leading a ‘double life’
of sexual and political ambiguity. Between 1950 and 1954 the annual prosecution
rate of gay men rose by 50 per cent, amid a belief that homosexuals could well be
spies, and therefore a security risk for the government and country.

The debate about popular culture

In a decade that witnessed the decline of deference to authority and an appar-
ent increase in lawlessness among young people, the marches at Aldermaston
were symptomatic of much larger social changes to come. Due to the post-war
‘baby boom’, by 1959 there were over four million single people aged between
13 and 25. Society was younger. It was also richer and more image-conscious.
Moreover, with full employment, it was easy to achieve financial independence
at an early age, and businesses began to market their products to teenagers who
now had enough money to create a new world of their own. During the 1950s
electronic goods such as televisions, small radios and record players had become
cheap and widely available, and by 1960 most homes contained at least one.
6 The social and cultural context
Cultural material was increasingly created for mass audiences in the form of tele-
vision programmes, popular music and films. The sale of popular novels, women’s
magazines, sensational newspapers and comics also increased to meet demand
for light entertainment. Coffee bars and ‘melody’ (music) bars opened, providing
meeting places for a generation with money to spend on leisure and pleasure.
Record players, radios and clothes were essential equipment in this increasingly
classless, hedonistic demographic. A ‘youth’ culture was emerging.
Around 1953 one of the most visible signs of change could be seen on the
streets with the appearance of ‘Teddy Boys’ or ‘Teds’, urban working-class gangs
dressed in colourful suits which recalled the Edwardian era of the early twenti-
eth century, mixed with elements of the American rock ’n’ roll culture. More
seriously, their behaviour was said to be threatening and brutal, and there were
frequent newspaper reports of violent confrontations. The mass media, especially
the tabloid press, began to report incidents involving the ‘Teds’, and presented a
scary, shocking image that succeeded in its aim of frightening people and selling
many newspapers.
Youth crime became a major cause of public concern. Even though unemploy-
ment was low, crimes by offenders under 21 rose from around 24,000 in 1955 to
over 45,000 in 1959, prompting frequent debates about the relationship between
affluence and crime. While politicians generally ignored the new commercial
culture, social commentators and academics were concerned about the mass
consumption by newly affluent youth of music, films, comics and other forms
of entertainment that had been created simply to make profits. They believed
that if standards and quality in the arts fell, so would standards of education and
behaviour in society.
The influence of television was often blamed, especially the content of the
newly created commercial television channel (ITV), with its adverts, game shows
and other cheap, populist programmes. It was believed that the displays of afflu-
ence and conspicuous consumption of goods in advertisements and game shows
were likely to excite feelings of envy, and make impressionable young men more
likely to become violent and steal goods that they could not afford. There was also
widespread public anxiety over the negative influence of rock ’n’ roll music whose
suggestive rhythms and lyrics were thought to encourage teenage promiscuity.
Like many earlier critics such as Matthew Arnold and T.S. Eliot, F.R. Leavis
argued that great works of art carried a moral, civilising message, which was edu-
cational and served to improve the individual and society. But mass-produced
forms of music, art and popular entertainment did not and could not do this.
Instead, they only encouraged individualism, hedonism, laziness and decadence.
For those holding such beliefs, the connection between mass, popular culture
and rising crime was clear. Moreover, while the study of crime had previously
been concerned with individual pathology, levels of intelligence and the role of
poverty, the idea that affluence could be responsible was difficult to understand
or appreciate.
Other commentators blamed rising rates of divorce and abortion on increasing
equality for women, while rises in juvenile crime, violence and sexual promiscuity
 The social and cultural context 7
were said to be the result of a lack of discipline in schools and in society. How-
ever, studies showed that the sexual behaviour of young people in fact changed
very little, and that it was stories circulating in increasingly competitive and
sensationalist newspapers that tried to frighten people and increase their sales by
suggesting otherwise.
Public anxiety over the spread of popular culture produced several influential
books which pontificated over the probable consequences. In The Uses of Literacy
(1957), Richard Hoggart argued that the absence of moral content in popular
literature and the arts made it more difficult for the ordinary person to become
educated, wise and cultured. In The Long Revolution (1961) Raymond Williams
considered the collective, social consequences, believing it would lead to an
increase in materialism and self-interest, a reduction in the importance of the
social services such as education and health, and a less radical, more individualist
Labour Party. But he also believed that the negative effects could be combated
with education and strong, left-wing government.
In spite of the worries about moral decay and cultural decline, by the end of
the 1950s the consumer society had become firmly established, and society was
about to be transformed. Its ethic of individualism and pleasure-seeking con-
trasted sharply with the collectivism and austerity that marked the beginning of
the decade.

Progress and pop (1960–70)

In spite of the material gains of the 1950s, by the mid-1960s there was a feel-
ing of disappointment with a Conservative Party that had been in power for
13 years. The country had changed greatly, developing into a dynamic consumer
society, but the old-fashioned speech, manners and dress of the Macmil-
lan government identified them with a much earlier age. The party had also
begun to appear disorganised and out of touch with politics and people. In the
mid-1950s there were stories of top civil servants defecting to Russia. In 1956
there was a major government failure in the handling of the Suez Canal cri-
sis, which resulted in a brief war and an embarrassing retreat. Later in 1963 the
Minister for War, John Profumo, resigned from government after admitting he
had lied to Parliament about his affair with a prostitute. As a result, the pub-
lic was beginning to lose respect for the government, its institutions and the
ruling class.
In 1964 the Labour Party won the election with Harold Wilson as its leader.
With the rapid advances in science and industry, the Prime Minister famously
spoke of ‘the white heat of the technological revolution’, and, with a televi-
sion in nearly every home, the new revolution could be seen by all. There was
optimism and confidence in the future, a consumer boom and rising aspirations.
Demand grew for secretarial, clerical and administrative skills, creating posts
that were frequently taken by women. Tall, modernist offices and apartment
blocks, cars, supermarkets, domestic appliances and a commercial mass media
all became part of everyday life. There was work, wealth and welfare, on a scale
8 The social and cultural context
never seen before. In sport, the 1966 football World Cup was held in cities
around Britain, with England emerging triumphant against West Germany in
a thrilling final at Wembley Stadium in London. The sun shone on Britain in
every sense, and the country was proud and united in victory, but faced with
gathering economic problems and social divisions, it was a final cheer of glory,

Figure 1.1 A souvenir from English football’s greatest day, the 1966 World Cup Final. A
final united ‘hurrah’ before the strife of the 1970s and 1980s.
© David Christopher
 The social and cultural context 9
togetherness and patriotism in a shared national history, the like of which would
perhaps never be seen again.
In spite of material improvements in the standard of living, dissent flourished.
Numerous groups began to demand new freedoms – political, economic and
personal – as rights. The government responded with a retreat from strict social
controls and punishments, many of which had been introduced in the Victorian
era. Capital punishment was suspended in 1965 and never returned, and criminal
law was reformed in areas affecting private morality such as obscenity, homosexu-
ality, abortion and gambling. In 1960 gambling was legalised, and many betting
shops, bingo halls and clubs appeared on British high streets. Homosexuality was
legalised in 1967, and in 1969 18-year-olds were given the right to vote, nine
years after the abolition of compulsory military service.
However, not everyone approved of the changes that the 1960s brought. The
Church of England, other Protestant churches and the Roman Catholic churches
remained firmly traditional, but their influence gradually declined. Similarly,
the political right opposed liberal reform, and when economic growth began to
slow down around 1966 the Tory politician Enoch Powell began stirring up anti-
immigrant sentiments. With almost half a million West Indians in Britain, in a
speech to the Conservative Party Conference in October 1968 Powell warned
that integration was impossible. In another speech in Birmingham the same
year, his inflammatory rhetoric used lines from an epic poem by Virgil, ‘Like the
Roman, I see the River Tiber foaming with much blood’, a stance which was to
be exploited by racist organisations such as the British National Front. Although
he was sacked from the shadow cabinet by the party leader Edward Heath, it was
a sharp warning of the increased polarisation of society that would characterise
Britain in the 1970s.
But significant advances were achieved in the position of women. To fight for
equality of opportunity and against discrimination, the British women’s move-
ment modelled itself on the women’s movement in America, with the holding
of marches, sit-ins and strikes to achieve their aims. Soon, a mixture of effective
campaigns and public support resulted in new laws that gave women the rights
they had demanded. In 1967 the Abortion Act permitted legal terminations
for social and health reasons. The same year, the Family Planning Act enabled
women to obtain contraceptives on the NHS, and in the 1974 the oral contra-
ceptive known as ‘the Pill’, was prescribed free of charge to single women. The
Divorce Reform Act of 1969 also made divorce easier to obtain, by allowing mar-
ried women to break away from violent and abusive relationships.
Before the advances of the 1960s many women’s lives were conditioned by
their reproductive abilities. But on taking control of their fertility, they could
begin to control their lives. They could decide if they wanted to become wives
and mothers, or if they wanted to plan or postpone family life to fit in with their
work. These measures helped to ensure that women could take control of their
lives and their futures in a way never seen before.
As well as demands for more personal independence, the 1960s also witnessed
demands for greater regional autonomy, as Scottish, Welsh and Irish national-
ists all began to demand political freedom. In 1968 there were riots in Northern
10 The social and cultural context
Ireland where the Civil Rights Association demanded equal treatment for Cath-
olics and Protestants. In 1969 the British government sent troops to suppress the
rebels, where they remained into the twenty-first century.
While public opinion over Northern Ireland remained divided, the major
reforms that took place were largely regarded as positive. Moreover, although
some commentators said the fun and freedom of the 1960s were only charac-
teristic of ‘swinging London’ and rarely happened ‘north of Watford’, many
social reforms of the period were both national and liberating for millions of
people. Before the 1960s it was rarely possible to challenge the decisions taken
by the police and magistrates. There was capital punishment. Theatre censor-
ship was implemented by ex-military gentlemen with an office in St James’s
Palace. Gay men were often blackmailed, as homosexuality was a punishable
offence. In schools there was beating and caning, and secret files were kept
on students. The position of women was particularly unjust and often precari-
ous as there were no equal rights in law and discrimination was widespread.
Divorce was difficult to obtain, and required witnesses to sexual misbehaviour.
Contraception was not easily available, and illegal abortions were dangerous
and often went wrong. Single mothers and the children of the very poor were
routinely separated from their parents, as were the blind and disabled. How-
ever, by the early 1970s all that had changed.

Anger and division (1970–79)

In 1970 the Conservative Party was returned to power with Edward Heath as
its leader. In contrast to the optimism, hedonism and progress of the 1960s, it
was the beginning of a decade marked by social division, strikes, high inflation,
unemployment and political violence. The period was also characterised by steep
immigration: between 1968 and 1974 a final, major phase took place when over
70,000 Kenyan and Ugandan Asians arrived as refugees, and by 1974 there were
over one million Afro-Caribbean and Asian immigrants in Britain. Later, at a
time of growing unemployment, high inflation and social anxiety, the National
Front began openly to provoke black communities and their supporters. Con-
flict intensified following the ‘Spaghetti House siege’ in 1975, when three Afro-
Caribbeans attempted a robbery and took hostages in a restaurant in the Brixton
area of London. The National Front was able to exploit the growing tension,
and for a short time it became a significant force in British politics, beating the
Liberal Party in several contests.
In a climate of demands for personal and political rights on every side, Scottish
and Welsh Nationalist parties began to press home their demands for indepen-
dence with vigorous campaigns, marches and forms of direct action, while the
Irish Republican Army (IRA) began a bombing campaign in several British cities
with the loss of many lives.
Apart from the political troubles, the economy was stagnating. By 1973,
unemployment was still very low at around 3.5 per cent, but inflation was accel-
erating to over 20 per cent, provoking even more strikes. Economists believed
 The social and cultural context 11
the long-term decline of mining, shipbuilding, steel production and motor-
vehicle manufacture were all significant contributors to the economic malaise.
Heavy industries were no longer competitive in global markets. The resistance
of the trade unions to industrial change, the tendency of management to think
and plan only for the short term, as well as high rates of inflation and the oil
crisis of the mid-1970s were all said to be contributory to Britain’s economic
performance.
Nevertheless, for the early part of the decade there was still a sense of living in
prosperous times. Sales of houses and cars continued to rise, and sleek new mod-
ernist flats, houses, shops and offices changed the face of Britain’s cities. Women’s
rights had made progress, and by the mid-1970s around half of all women were
employed, although despite the Equal Pay Act of 1970, they were still earning
around 25 per cent less for the same work, and in mainstream entertainment
women were still portrayed as playthings for men, and sexism was commonplace.
Greater affluence allowed more people to take holidays abroad, with Spain the
preferred destination. Most visitors had little interest in the culture, but were
attracted by the weather, the pleasure to be had, and the assurance that fish ’n’
chips, a pint of Watney’s Red Barrel and a copy of the Daily Mirror could be all
bought within a stone’s throw of the hotel. The new affluence made Britons more
confident and individualist. Youth was experimenting with a sexually ambiguous
look, long hair, eye make-up, glitter and platform shoes. Space travel was becom-
ing commonplace, and a sense of being in new, alien territory applied as much to
the British high streets, as it did to the moon.
But, as the decade progressed, the economy took a rapid downturn. Fuelled
by rising oil prices, inflation escalated quickly, and strikes became numerous.
In Downing Street, the Tory Prime Minister Edward Heath had been unable to
steer the economy effectively through troubled economic waters, and in 1974
with inflation at 25 per cent and prolonged strikes by the mineworkers’ union,
the lights went out around the country in a series of national power cuts, which
quickly forced an election. The result showed a narrow victory for the Labour
Party with a minority government. Its leader Harold Wilson was able to settle the
miners’ strike, and in a second election the same year Labour won with a small
majority. Disillusion with mainstream politics and an increasing public interest in
the environment saw the creation of the Green Party in the UK in 1973. But its
message of recycling and pacifism in rural enclaves was slow to catch on in heavily
urbanised Britain, as political tension continued. International Marxists became
more numerous, and various anarchist groups were visible, vocal and violent.
Towards the end of the decade social fragmentation across Britain was increas-
ingly obvious. The tension was amplified by the popular press, as the Sun, the
Daily Mirror and others carried sensational stories about racial violence, robbery,
football hooliganism, pornography and rape. Punks appeared on streets, their
shocking appearance reflecting a sense of disgust with a society that seemed to
have abandoned its youth and its future. Confrontation appeared to be every-
where, and towards the end of the 1970s there was an acute sense of public
desperation.
12 The social and cultural context

The end of consensus: Britain under the Tories (1979–97)

Following the Conservative Party defeat in the 1974 election, Margaret Thatcher,
a grocer’s daughter from the market town of Grantham in Lincolnshire, became
the first female leader of a British political party. Her early publicity depicted
her as a happily married suburban housewife, cheerfully washing up in her semi-
detached house. But at the same time she was developing economic ideas that
were guided by the fashionable theories of monetarism. These involved reducing
inflation with high interest rates, and submitting all aspects of the economy to
free-market economics and the laws of supply and demand.
The late 1970s were times of strikes and confrontation, and many electors
were attracted by her forceful personality and the simple certainties of her free-
market ideology. It recalled a Victorian Britain when nation and Empire were at
their height, but conveniently forgot the inequality, exploitation and suffering
on which imperial success was based, and the need to police and control it with
tough laws and punishments. Moreover, in a decade when the political and eco-
nomic achievements of feminism had been remarkable, she would be Britain’s
first woman prime minister. Yet Thatcher would do little to help the situation of
women, and many argued she set back the movement by ten years.
Thatcher went on to lead the Conservatives to victory in the election of 1979,
and the party remained in power until 1997. But in the early 1980s, as Thatcher
began to implement her policies of withdrawing state support for nationalised
industries, Britain’s economic crisis worsened. Manufacturing declined, and the
shipbuilding, mining and steel industries practically disappeared. The regions of
Scotland, the north of England, Wales and the West Midlands had traditionally
depended on this kind of industry, and were economically devastated. Unem-
ployment rose to over 13 per cent, and with more than three million people out
of work the government became deeply unpopular. There was civil and indus-
trial conflict in most areas, and in April 1981 rioting broke out in the streets of
Brixton, south London, and in other cities around the country. It was spontane-
ous and anarchic, directed against the police and the local environment. The
crisis seemed to deepen on 2 April 1982, when Thatcher led Britain into war
with Argentina over the occupation of the Falklands Islands. However, when the
British forces emerged victorious on 14 June, Thatcher was able to exploit the
moment and distract attention from the economic crisis at home.
Next, the government forged a closer alliance with the USA to develop a
Cold War strategy that involved holding nuclear weapons as a deterrent. A cen-
tral element of policy was that of mutually assured destruction (MAD) of both
parties in case of a strike by the forces of the Soviet Union. The government’s
policies were supported by virtually all the daily newspapers except the Guardian,
the Daily Mirror, and from August 1982 The Voice , a new weekly paper aimed at
young black Britons. With the press on its side, in spite of record unemployment,
riots and a war, the Conservatives emerged victorious in the general election of
1983, and the economic and political ideas that came to be known as Thatcher-
ism began to be fully expressed and implemented. These included an even greater
 The social and cultural context 13
reduction of public spending, and measures to privatise industries in the pub-
lic sector, such as gas, steel, transport and telecommunications. The measures
were highly unpopular with the working class and unemployed, and resulted in
more violent industrial disputes. They were also expensive to implement, being
at great cost to the welfare state, but the discovery of oil in the North Sea in the
1970s helped to finance Thatcher’s project.
To cement the government’s authority, she next addressed those she called
‘the enemy within’: the powerful trade unions, the miners, left-wing local gov-
ernments, the IRA and its supporters, immigrants, the ‘greens’ and ‘unreliable’
members of her own party. The most notorious confrontation was the miners’
strike of 1984–5, which Thatcher saw as part of her plan to break the power of
the trade unions. She became known as the ‘Iron Lady’ and passed legislation to
weaken the unions’ power permanently.
The trade unions showed their opposition to Thatcher in their readiness to
strike, while many other protest groups also emerged composed mainly of middle-
class activists. The most notable was the establishing of a women’s ‘peace camp’
outside Greenham Common air base in 1981 against the stationing of nuclear
weapons there. Other protest groups were more concerned about the environ-
ment, such as Greenpeace, the Ramblers’ Association, Friends of the Earth and
Hunt Saboteurs Association, which all increased their memberships.
The Arts Council was created to support the arts in 1946 under the chairman-
ship of the economist John Maynard Keynes, and had never interfered with the
work of artists and performers, even when their work was critical of government.
Its ideology was supported by parties on the left and right, and helped to support
British theatre, music and the visual arts in its mission to bring a civilising influ-
ence to society. But in the 1980s its funding was sharply reduced, and the arts
were treated as any other area of economic activity. The effects were widely felt.
For the first time, many museums and galleries began to charge admission prices,
while to attract subsidies, arts productions became less critical and adventur-
ous and more populist, for example by showing Shakespeare’s plays in ways that
removed their social content and stressed their sentimental aspects.
While the expression ‘Thatcherite’ was being applied (often pejoratively)
from 1979, the term ‘Thatcherism’ only began to be heard after the British gen-
eral election of 1983 following Thatcher’s re-election. Her majority was large
enough for the party to reject the ‘middle road’ consensus politics that had char-
acterised the post-war period. The party increasingly spread the view that state
management and regulation of the economy was wrong; that large government
bureaucracies and nationalised industries were inefficient; and that subsidies for
business and industry promoted poor practice and laziness, a view that recalled
the thinking of early nineteenth-century economists.
But implementing Thatcherism came at a high social cost. Industrial strife
increased, reaching a bitter, violent peak with the miners’ strike of 1984–5.
Crime rose dramatically, and during 1985–6 there were more riots in cities around
Britain. Burglary, car theft, violent crime and vandalism all increased. Football hoo-
liganism became a serious social problem, and relations between the police and
14 The social and cultural context
public were tense. Commentators on the political right blamed the permissive
society of the 1960s, which had allowed the young to grow up with no respect
for the police, teachers or authority. In contrast, those on the left blamed high
unemployment (almost four million), homelessness (around one million) and
the loss of community, which an ethos of economic individualism had promoted.
Moreover, the withdrawal of state support for nationalised industries had deci-
mated communities, particularly those who depended on mining and shipbuild-
ing; and as with the British involvement in the Iraq war some 30 years later, there
was no plan for withdrawal, no exit plan to deal with the human casualties of lost
economic support. The social and economic aftershocks are still reverberating.
Tory policies had the most severe consequences for the poorly educated and
least skilled, who were unable to obtain manual work as they had done in previ-
ous generations. Some of the major casualties were immigrants and their fami-
lies, and there were riots in many poor, racially mixed inner-city areas in 1979,
1981 and again in 1985. Many women also suffered, in particular those who
transferred from manufacturing work to low-paid, part-time service industries
in which there were no company pensions or union benefits. However, those
on a different social level were beginning to occupy posts in traditional male-
dominated areas such as business, law and banks. Many could enjoy the benefits
of financial and personal freedom, and were postponing marriage and children
until much later in life.
In the mid-1980s, towards the end of the Tories’ second term in government,
restrictions on moneylending and share-dealing were lifted, and the financial
sector boomed. Credit was easy to obtain and taxes were cut. Share prices rose
quickly, especially those of newly privatised public industries such as British Air-
ways, British Steel, and all the public utilities including gas, water and telecom-
munications. The dominant economic influences in Britain changed from heavy
industry and manufacturing to financial services and North Sea oil revenues. By
1986 the economy was stronger, and house prices were rising sharply. There was
an air of excitement and optimism as a new society emerged. Britain became
more affluent and competitive; spending on restaurants, clothes, cars, homes and
holidays reached record levels, fuelled by a new generation of aspirational, stylish
and image-conscious consumers. But, the benefits were felt chiefly in the south.
In the north, the traditional heavy industries of steel, mining and shipbuilding
were being closed down, with the resulting widespread, long-term unemploy-
ment, and little or none of the benefits of the economic boom being experienced
in the south-east.
Advertising and publicity became fine arts, even in politics. The Conservatives
employed the services of the Saatchi and Saatchi advertising agency to promote
the party, creating their logo of a flaming blue torch, a symbol closely associated
with the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire. Meanwhile, Labour adopted a red
rose as its logo, and hired the services of Hugh Hudson, the director of Chariots,
to make a publicity film of the leader Neil Kinnock.
Following a third election victory in 1987 Thatcher claimed she had cured
Britain of its strikes, low productivity and low investment for ever. But the same
year the economy began to stagnate again when share prices crashed. In a brief
 The social and cultural context 15

Figure 1.2 A view of the Docklands financial district; temples of Mammon and symbols of
the 1980s, seen across the River Thames from the ship Cutty Sark in Greenwich.
© David Christopher

phase of recovery, house prices continued to rise dramatically, as did inflation. But
government spending was further reduced, resulting in greater poverty and inse-
curity for the unemployed and sick. Homeless beggars appeared on the streets, the
use of illegal drugs increased, the numbers of sufferers from HIV and AIDS grew
alarmingly, and warnings about sexual behaviour were broadcast on television.
16 The social and cultural context
The spread of AIDS prompted more open, public discussion of gay lifestyles,
but this was opposed by the Tory government, who in 1987 introduced the Local
Government Act with its infamous Clause 28, which prohibited state schools
from ‘promoting homosexuality’, in other words from teaching students that
it is acceptable or normal. To counter this, groups promoting gay rights began
campaigning for a better understanding of homosexuality with more widespread
publicity, a high-profile annual Gay Pride march, and membership of pressure
groups increased such as Stonewall, Act Up and Outrage. Gay men and women
in public life were still reluctant to openly declare their homosexuality, fearing it
would lead to criticism and censure, and some tactics involved public exposure
(‘outing’) of those in politics and the media, which guaranteed high levels of
public interest.
By 1990 it was becoming increasingly difficult for Thatcher to keep her party
united, particularly over the issue of closer political and economic integration
with Europe, an issue that she had always opposed, and that would go on to
divide the party into the next century. The same year, violent rioting broke out
in London when the Tory government introduced the ‘poll tax’. Eventually, a
combination of recession, antipathy to Europe and the universally unpopular poll
tax dislodged Thatcher after 11 years in Downing Street, and one of the most
controversial periods in British politics. To replace her, John Major was elected
as the new leader of an increasingly divided party and a fractious nation. He man-
aged briefly to reverse the Conservatives’ fortunes with an unexpected victory in
the 1992 election, bringing a record fourth consecutive Tory victory.
For the first half of the 1990s there was an overwhelming sense of public disil-
lusionment. Studies repeatedly showed that public confidence in all the major
institutions had fallen, especially in Parliament, the legal system and the press.
And throughout the decade, the monarchy looked increasingly fragile and irrel-
evant, amid the devolution of power to Scotland, the plans of the Labour govern-
ment to abolish the House of Lords and the increasing popularity of the pressure
group Charter88 with its demands for the introduction of a British republic.
By the middle of the 1990s there were more internal divisions in the Major gov-
ernment over weak leadership, an uncaring attitude towards more vulnerable sec-
tions of the community and doubts over closer European integration. In response,
Major attempted a nostalgic appeal to traditional values under the banner of
‘Back to Basics’. But the press saw this as an opportunity to expose Tory hypocrisy
with frequent allegations of ‘sleaze’ – financial and moral impropriety – within
the party. As a result, several high-profile politicians such as Jeffrey Archer and
David Mellor were arrested or forced to resign, amid high levels of public interest,
incredulity and amusement. There seemed to be no end to the hypocrisy when
it later emerged that Major himself had departed from his own ‘family values’ in
having an affair with married Tory MP Edwina Currie, who subsequently served
as a junior minister in his government.
The decline in popularity of the Conservatives continued, and gave the Labour
Party an opportunity to reorganise. Tony Blair was elected the new leader follow-
ing the death of John Smith. Young and charismatic, he set about transforming
 The social and cultural context 17
the party, leaving behind the traditional socialist beliefs about stronger unions,
nationalisation of the major industries and redistribution of wealth. Many of
Labour’s traditional supporters worried that the party was becoming too much
like the Conservatives, but Blair repeated his message about party principles
being futile without power.

Forward with ‘New’ Labour (1997–2007)

Economy, politics and society

As the Tory Party faltered in a storm of sleaze and incompetence, the opinion
polls swung strongly in favour of Labour, and in May 1997 the party gained a
historic electoral victory, with a massive majority of 179 MPs. The early days of
Blair’s rule brought important political changes in terms of devolution at home
and intervention abroad. In 1997 Hong Kong was handed back to China. Then
plans were made for a devolution of power to Scotland, an assembly to aid regional
autonomy for Wales and a peace treaty with Northern Ireland, which diminished
political violence in the home nations. The theme of devolution continued with
a return of power to the London area and the establishing of the Greater London
Authority with its own mayor and assembly. Labour supporters saw devolution of
power as a democratic response to people’s needs but critics said Blair was presid-
ing over the break-up of the UK.
Since 1945 the Conservative Party had presented a strong challenge to Labour,
but now it was divided and weak. In its place, the press repositioned itself as the
‘unofficial’ opposition, subjecting the government to intense, critical scrutiny.
Consequently, there was a need to maintain order to ensure party unity, which
was often reported as Blair’s obsession with centralisation and control. However,
changes in the landscape of British politics now meant that government was sub-
ject to more external controls than internal ones. These came in the form of the
European Union (EU), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World
Bank, the press, big corporations and business tycoons, which now limit more
than ever what government can do.
As the Cold War disappeared, so did political ideology in the Labour Party,
which was no longer committed to programmes of nationalisation and high lev-
els of taxation for the richest earners. With pragmatic economic management
the economy showed steady improvement, and the persistent post-war worries of
inflation, unemployment and nuclear war diminished. Economic stability con-
tinued, and by 2004 inflation was low at 2–3 per cent, and there was almost
full employment for the first time since records were kept. Some 70 per cent of
people owned their own homes, although between 1997 and 2002 house prices
doubled, making it more difficult for people to buy for the first time, or to buy a
larger house.
New issues of education, health and social security came to dominate the
domestic political agenda. In 1975 only 7 per cent of the population went to
university, but in 2005 the figure was 33 per cent and rising. But education came
18 The social and cultural context
at a price, as for the first time university fees were introduced, and students were
offered loans from the government, except for Scots studying at Scottish uni-
versities, whose education remained fee free. Public health in particular was a
major concern, as the government attempted to modernise and improve the
NHS. Although hunger and malnutrition had once been the problem, in 2004 it
was obesity, as 67.6 per cent of men and 56.4 per cent of women were classed as
overweight. Food standards also become a public issue and the risk posed by eat-
ing ‘fast’ food such as burgers and frozen meals, and ‘junk’ food such as sweets and
chocolates which exacerbated the problem, especially among school children.
Alcohol consumption was also increasing, especially ‘binge’ drinking where large
amounts of alcohol are consumed in a short time, often leading to anti-social
behaviour and juvenile crime. The incidence of sexually transmitted diseases and
cancer also rose, while the traditional pleasures of sex, smoking and sunshine
were revealed to carry greater health risks than had earlier been suspected.
Despite greater economic stability and material prosperity, political partici-
pation continued to decline. In the election of 2001 only 39 per cent of peo-
ple under 25 voted, and the total percentage of voters was the lowest since the
election of 1918 (59.4 per cent). Public trust in politicians and institutions was
falling, and would shortly get worse. The royal family was one of the first institu-
tions to be affected in this way. The best of British family values were said to be
exemplified by the House of Windsor, and were accentuated by the glamour, style
and romance of the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in
1981. But in giving confessional interviews to the media, Diana was said to have
damaged the public image of the royal family, as had many press intrusions and
‘confessions’ by former employees. However, Queen Elizabeth remained highly
respected, and the movement for a British republic weak. There had been no
discussion of a different head of state, and in 2003 research by ITV and YouGov
showed that 80 per cent of Britons wanted the monarchy to stay.
The Anglican Church also became less influential. The public felt it had been
unable to give clear guidance on many issues from abortion to genetic research,
and had problems accepting women and gay clergy, especially to senior positions.
In 1997 over 90 per cent said they did not attend church regularly, a statistic
which has risen to around 94 per cent in 2014.
Abroad, the absence of any obvious foreign enemy gave Blair a greater certainty
about Britain’s role in the world. When controversial wars erupted, his sense of
moral outrage led to several overseas interventions and his advocacy of the use
of force around the world, initially for humanitarian reasons. In his first six years
in office Blair ordered British troops into battle five times, more than any other
prime minister in British history. This included Iraq (1998 and 2003), Kosovo
(1999), Sierra Leone (2000) and Afghanistan (2001). The attacks on New York’s
World Trade Center in 2001 – commonly known as ‘9/11’ – convinced Blair to
support American president George W. Bush in the ‘war on terror’, which in
2003 involved the invasion of Iraq, despite a demonstration against it by over two
million people in Britain. The strength of US arms technology ensured the coun-
try was swiftly overrun, but almost every day since, there have been deaths and
 The social and cultural context 19
injuries of Iraqi civilians and British and US army personnel, as well as questions
about Blair’s judgement and honesty over the reason given for the intervention –
that Iraq held weapons of mass destruction, which has since been shown to be
untrue.

The art of ‘Cool Britannia’

In the mid-1990s it seemed as if the country was emerging from a cultural ice age,
as Britain became more self-confident, diverse and expressive. The rapid changes
in society and politics of the late 1990s, and the establishing of the Department
for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) reinvigorated the creative industries of
fashion, design, architecture and pop music. After years of popular discontent
with the Conservative government, many felt the time was right to express feel-
ings of national pride again, a feeling heightened in 1996 when England hosted
the Euro ’96 football championship, the national team playing with character
and spirit before passionate crowds. The flag of St George (rather than the Union
flag) had been adopted by numerous England fans and was ubiquitous not only
in the stadiums, but in cars and houses around the country, in a show of national
unity rarely seen since the country held the football World Cup in 1966.
The Euro ’96 tournament was the prelude to a powerful sense of renewal across
the country, which was emphasised by the size of Labour’s victory in the election
of the following year. Blair’s interest in the music scene (he had once played in
a band called Ugly Rumours) helped create a sense of expectation across the
arts, and in 1997 musicians and designers were invited to a reception in Down-
ing Street, echoing a similar gesture by former Labour Prime Minister Harold
Wilson in 1964, who invited the Beatles and others to a reception there. Like
Wilson, Blair was keen to present a new image of Britain as a youthful, progres-
sive, dynamic place for pop, fashion, film and design.
The cultural ferment drew much press attention. In an article in the Indepen-
dent on Sunday, 15 March 1998, entitled ‘The Cool Economy’, the journalist
Peter Koenig referred to ‘Cool Britannia’, a pun on the patriotic song ‘Rule Bri-
tannia’. The name quickly became used to label almost any cultural activity that
renounced American influences, and stood proud and alone in splendid isolation.
This brief but significant period for the arts has since come to be understood as
an expression of many things: a celebration of youthful communality; a reasser-
tion of national identity through the arts and sport; a joyful reaction to 18 years
of Tory rule and the class divide; a time when people seemed to express a desire
to be part of a larger community, which since the 1980s had almost been lost.
On the other hand, the new trends were sometimes criticised as elitist, on the
grounds that in a multicultural country they were mainly embraced by white,
middle-class males, while the more ethnically diverse arts such as the sounds of
British club culture went relatively ignored by the press. Moreover, the terms
‘Britpop’ and other ‘BritArts’ were inaccurate, as almost all the styles and trends
were made in England, indicating a clear trend towards the centralisation of
creative activity.
20 The social and cultural context
Britpop provided the background to the millennium celebrations, which cen-
tred around the construction of an enormous dome at Greenwich in London,
while a programme of other public-sector projects including arts buildings, sports
stadiums and transport schemes was created to greet the new century. In the area
of arts administration, the Department for National Heritage was replaced by the
DCMS, which took responsibility for policy and expenditure on museums and
galleries, the Arts Councils of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland,
plus regulation of the film industry, broadcasting and the press.
But despite many centrally directed initiatives for the development of creative
activity, public funding of the arts has declined, being replaced by an individ-
ualistic entrepreneurial ethic. Most projects are now largely self-funded, using
online fund-raising, or ‘crowdsourcing’, schemes such as Kickstarter, although
some projects are assisted by funds from the National Lottery, which began in
1994. Camelot – the company contracted to run it – pays 28 pence in every
pound towards a variety of health, education, environmental, sports, arts and
heritage projects around Britain. Critics argue that a decline in centralised fund-
ing has necessarily led to a commercialisation of the arts, and to a ‘dumbing
down’; that trying to attract large audiences leads to a reduction in quality and
variety. However, others argue against a ‘patrician’ model of funding that only
funds those projects that a small number of official ‘specialists’ think are good for
‘the people’. Instead, they believe that limited funding enables works to be more
responsive to public wants and needs, in turn leading to greater access and wider
public involvement, as well as the freedom to be critical of officialdom.

The age of insecurity (2007– )

By the mid-2000s, it seemed the years of economic boom and bust had been
cured for ever. The threat of a nuclear holocaust largely disappeared with the
collapse of communism in the early 1990s, which in turn prompted the disap-
pearance of ideology in the political parties. The divide between left and right,
which characterised politics and society since the 1970s, had vanished, and by
2007 the Labour Party was often being accused by its own supporters of resem-
bling the Tory Party, and vice-versa. The ‘tribal’ identities of the main parties
and their supporters had also weakened. Home owners and business people no
longer automatically voted Tory, while those who cared about a more equal and
tolerant society did not automatically vote Labour, and in many cases did not
even bother to vote at all, as political participation and electoral turnouts fell,
and people felt the boom years would continue for ever. Society was also more
secular and ethnically diverse, and less hierarchical, more liberal, tolerant, with
higher living standards and improved levels of health and education than at any
other time.
The British were said to be richer and more tolerant than ever before. They
were pro-capitalist, pro-social solidarity, secular, individualistic and libertarian
about personal behaviour. However, research also revealed the British to be
depressed, apathetic, celebrity obsessed and, in an age of uncertainty about the
 The social and cultural context 21
future, badly in debt. Moreover, surveys persistently showed that social inequality
was still extensive.
In 2007 Tony Blair resigned and Chancellor Gordon Brown took over as Prime
Minister. The government was looking tired and unimaginative after ten years in
office, and there was growing dissatisfaction among the electorate, fuelled by an
anti-Labour press. Politically, storm clouds also seemed to be gathering, following
terrorism in London with the bomb attacks of 7/7 and increasing tension with
Muslim communities. But, despite the promise of renewal as Brown walked into
Downing Street, an international economic crisis began to take hold. Britain was
about to become the latest victim of the raw power of global economic forces, as
reverberations from America’s troubled financial sector spread out around the
world which would put an end to New Labour’s years of abundance.
In 2010 an election was held, but no party emerged with an overall majority.
The electorate had lost confidence in Brown’s leadership and ability to deal with
the new economic problems, and a coalition government was formed between the
Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, with Tory leader David Cameron as Prime
Minister. Shortly afterwards, and faced with the greatest economic crisis for many
decades and widespread uncertainty about the future, a programme of cuts in pub-
lic spending took effect, with further reductions in subsidies and grants to the arts,
in order to repay government debts.
The economic crisis had many consequences for Britain, with unemployment
almost 10 per cent (2.7 million), the highest since 1994, with homelessness,
‘payday’ loan shops, pawnbrokers, food banks, and the spectre of international
terrorism on the streets of Britain’s cities. The crude visibility of the recession’s
consequences stoked a crisis of public trust in major institutions. The banks and
financial services were the first to suffer, when in 2008 the Royal Bank of Scot-
land, Lloyds TSB and HBOS had to be bailed out by the government. At the
same time, leading executives in these and other banks were shown to be receiv-
ing huge salaries and bonus payments, despite their conspicuous lack of success.
Public anger was expressed most notably in the Occupy London protest, a non-
violent encampment organised to protest against economic inequality. Set up for
nine months in 2011–12 outside St Paul’s Cathedral and close to the London
Stock Exchange, the campers and their issues attracted much public interest and
media attention.
In 2009 and subsequently, public trust in politicians fell even further when
many politicians on both sides of Parliament were exposed by the press for mak-
ing exaggerated or non-existent expenses claims. In a time of public austerity this
was seen as particularly serious, especially as some were advocating harsh punish-
ments for those caught falsely claiming social security benefits. Many resignations
followed. Also accused by the public were the utility companies of gas, electricity
and water, which had been privatized during the Thatcher years. Prices rose by
almost 100 per cent between 2002 and 2012, while the government did nothing
to change the situation, which further intensified public anger and disgust in a
time of economic hardship, cuts in social security benefits and unemployment
running at 2.6 million.
Figure 1.3 ‘Tent City’, which was set up outside St Paul’s Cathedral to protest against
economic inequality and the lack of affordable housing in the UK in 2011–12.
© Tony French/Alamy
 The social and cultural context 23
For the British press it was also a turbulent time, as circulations and profits fell
dramatically, due to a number of causes. The presence of free, online content was
blamed, as was the presence of rolling, 24-hour news on the radio and television.
But the emergence of a major scandal in the house of News International (now
known as News UK), the company founded by Rupert Murdoch, was also said to
have a major effect, particularly as NI held a big percentage of sales in the UK.
This involved serious accusations and a police investigation (Operation Weet-
ing) into how reporters had illegally listened to the phone messages of celebrities,
politicians, the royal family, a murdered schoolgirl and the families of deceased
British soldiers and others, as well as the payment of bribes to police to obtain pri-
vate information. A powerful, weekly tabloid newspaper, the News of the World,
was closed down, and in 2011–12 the Leveson Inquiry, a judicial inquiry into
press standards, took place. Many resignations followed and Murdoch appeared
to answer questions, amid high levels of public interest.
Media scandals continued at the BBC, which became the butt of frequent
public criticism, following a police inquiry (Operation Yewtree) into allegations
of sex abuse against children and sexual harassment in general, by many of its
light entertainers of the 1970s and 1980s, including Jimmy Savile, Rolf Harris,
Stuart Hall and Dave Lee Travis, amid high levels of public disgust and revul-
sion. In a time of recession and cuts, the amounts paid by the public through
the TV licence to attract and retain its ‘top talent’ were also criticised, and in
2012 the Director-General George Entwistle was forced into a humiliating public
resignation.
The year 2012 brought some light relief, with the Diamond Jubilee celebrations
of Queen Elizabeth II in Britain and the Commonwealth, as well as the Olympic
and Paralympic Games in London. The former was marked by pageantry, a river
parade, music and fireworks on a scale rarely seen, while the Olympics showed
that, despite the parlous state of the economy, Britain could still put on a show
which was the envy of the world.
But domestically the problems continued with a lowering of public confidence
in the police, following a number of high-profile incidents. In particular, there
were allegations of racism, and the treatment of young black people in large cities
has become a major cause of public concern. In 1999 the Macpherson Report had
made similar allegations of racism in London’s Metropolitan Police Force, but
more recently the policy of ‘stop-and-search’ has allowed police to randomly stop
suspects on the street and search them, and this has resulted in a disproportionate
number of young black men being detained, often without reason.
Tensions with ethnic communities worsened in 2011 when a young man, Mark
Duggan, was shot and killed in a police operation in London, which led to riot-
ing and looting in the capital and around the country. On a previous occasion,
a young Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes, was shot and killed on a
London Underground train, in a case of mistaken identity. Other issues followed,
including violent and provocative tactics when dealing with peaceful demonstra-
tors, collusion by officers attempting to incriminate an innocent government
minister, the behaviour of some undercover officers who had started personal
24 The social and cultural context
relationships with those they were investigating and the sale of information to
journalists from the national press.
Even the reported crime rates could not be trusted. Despite the impact of the
recession, overall crime rates fell by 25 per cent between 2007 and 2013, figures
that went completely against public expectations. However, an inquiry found
police officers to have been failing to record crime in some areas, in order to
reach ‘targets’ set by senior officers. Consequently, in 2014 the UK Statistics
Authority declared it could not approve the crime figures submitted by police in
England and Wales.
It seemed the state was not only impotent in the face of global economic
forces; in a free society it was virtually powerless to regulate the police, banks,
media and energy companies, many of whom had powerful public relations
departments to defend their interests. Democracy itself seemed under threat,
and there was a public mood of quiet anger, frustration and despair, memora-
bly reflected in the popular wartime slogan of ‘Keep calm and carry on’, which
became a popular slogan adorning T-shirts, coffee mugs and office walls around
the country. It also seemed the ideal political moment to hold the scheduled ref-
erendum on Scottish independence. In September 2014 Scots went to the polls
to answer the question ‘Should Scotland be an independent country?’ With a
turnout of almost 85 per cent, the highest for any election in the UK since the
introduction of universal suffrage in 1918, 55.3 per cent said ‘No’ compared with
44.7 per cent who said ‘Yes’, effectively silencing the question of home rule for
the foreseeable future.
Despite the stoical mood of the British public, when Mrs Thatcher’s death was
announced in April 2013, old divisions briefly re-emerged in the media and on
the streets between Tory Party loyalists and those for whom Thatcher was the
most divisive and damaging prime minister ever to occupy Downing Street. In
the mining communities of the north there were parties and bonfires, and it is
said not a bottle of champagne could be bought anywhere. Meanwhile, in Lon-
don crowds lined the route from Westminster to St Paul’s, as Thatcher received a
controversial ceremonial funeral.

The multicultural society

In most successful countries immigration increases when the economy is strong.
In previous centuries population movements took place from rural England, Ire-
land and Scotland to the industrial cities. In the early years of the new mil-
lennium the success of the British economy attracted the ambitious and the
dispossessed from around the world. The census of 2011 showed that in England
and Wales 7.5  million (around 4.5 per cent) were born abroad, with approxi-
mately half arriving between 2001 and 2011. India, Poland, Pakistan, Ireland and
Germany were the main countries of origin. Of these, 80 per cent said they were
white British, 5 per cent fewer than in 2001. London has become the most inter-
national city in Britain, and of a resident population of around 7.5 million, only
around 5 million were born in the UK. The other 2.5 million constitute almost
half the total minority ethnic population of Britain, of which Indians (around
 The social and cultural context 25

Figure 1.4 The Sun newspaper, possibly Mrs Thatcher’s greatest ally during her time as
Prime Minister, says goodbye in April 2012.
© Kathy deWitt/Alamy

200,000), Bangladeshis (around 115,000), Irish (around 113,000) and Jamaicans

(around 108,000) are the most numerous foreign-born groups.
In terms of religious faith, 59.3 per cent (33.2 million) of the British popula-
tion identified themselves as Christian, while some 4.8 per cent (2.7 million)
said they were Muslim, the most significant minority. The Muslim population is
26 The social and cultural context
mostly of Pakistani and Kashmiri descent, and live mostly in London, Bradford,
Birmingham, Leicester and Oldham. There are mosques in most towns, and halal
shops and restaurants are easy to find. Many Kashmiris came to Britain in the
1960s with the aim of earning money before returning. But due to the unstable
politics of their home region they were unable or unwilling to do so and stayed
on, forming communities in deprived areas where unemployment is high. Today,
many have settled and formed young families; around 50 per cent of the com-
munity are aged under 25. But levels of achievement are often low; around a
quarter of families have no qualifications, and around a fifth earned their living
from taxi driving.
After the devastating events of 11 September 2001 in America, when the
country was attacked by suicide bombers, the subsequent wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq, as well a second wave of mass asylum-driven immigration into Britain,
fear of terrorism increased, and immigration and asylum seeking became contro-
versial issues. Tension rose in communities with large populations of Muslims,
and continued following the ‘7/7’ suicide bombings in London on 7 July 2005.
The question of how to successfully integrate Muslims into British society is
frequently raised, yet studies show a mismatch between how Muslims are per-
ceived by white British and others, and how Muslims perceive themselves. A
report by Essex University in 2012 showed many non-Muslims assume Muslims
struggle with Britishness and loyalty to their homeland. Yet it was found that
Muslims identify with Britishness more than any other Britons, with 83 per cent
describing themselves as ‘proud’, compared with 79 per cent of others, and 77 per
cent strongly identifying with Britain, compared with only 50 per cent of the
wider population. However, the study found that 47 per cent of Britons see Mus-
lims as a threat, and only 28 per cent thought Muslims wanted to integrate into
British society. The small number who view British society with contempt fre-
quently explained their disaffection as the result of being labelled outsiders in the
first place.
Acts of Parliament and other measures to promote equality of opportunity
and facilitate integration and assimilation appear to have been largely successful
in the UK, since a new demographic trend is the growth of the mixed-race popu-
lation. The 2012 census revealed over one million people were born of inter-
racial parentage, although it has been estimated this figure could be closer to
two million, due to many of those with parents of different ethnicities describ-
ing themselves as ‘black’ or ‘white’ rather than ‘mixed’ or ‘other’. Current
evidence therefore seems to suggest there is an increasing amount of mixing
and assimilation taking place, which has led to a gradual disappearance of the pro-
nounced racial boundaries that characterised British society between the 1960s
and 1990s. In the arts, ethnically distinctive forms of expression have dimin-
ished, while an increasing number of leading figures such as the athlete Jessica
Ennis, racing driver Lewis Hamilton and singer Leona Lewis are all of mixed-
race families.
Nevertheless, during the recession years of the late ‘noughties’, immigration
was frequently said by some political parties to be the cause of many of Britain’s
 The social and cultural context 27
economic and social problems. The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP)
campaigns to take Britain out of the EU and severely restrict immigration, poli-
cies that have contributed to its growing popularity among disillusioned voters
of all parties. But others argue that the issue of immigration is used by UKIP
and others as an easy target, when the real causes of current problems such as
unemployment, unaffordable housing and declining public services are far more
complex and difficult to deal with.

Gender issues
In spite of the progress made by the women’s movement since the 1960s, Britain’s
institutions remain largely male dominated. Within Parliament there are still
relatively few female MPs, with 24 in 1945, 41 in 1987, and of the 650 represen-
tatives in the 2010 election, there were only 143 women, with 81 in the Labour
Party and 49 in the Conservative Party. The former has recognised the need to
recruit more women candidates and has used all-women shortlists as means to
achieve this. Although it was initially in breach of the Sex Discrimination Act
(1975), the law was changed and the Equality Act (2010) allows an exemption
until 2030. In contrast, the Church has been less responsive to social change.
Within the Church of England, women were first ordained in 1994, but were
excluded from becoming bishops. However, this was due to change in 2015, fol-
lowing pressure to promote females into the rolecapa.
Despite the resistance in some traditional quarters of politics and the Church,
compared with only 20 years ago many women have been able to make con-
siderable advances in their chosen careers, although, mostly, those who do so
are white, middle-class, university graduates. However, in 2013 women earned
approximately 20 per cent less than men in business, industry and government,
even when doing similar types of work. In 2012 almost 20 per cent of company
directors of the UK’s 100 largest listed companies, 20 per cent of university pro-
fessors and 20 per cent of judges were women. Despite progress being made during
the past ten years, there were still concerns that not enough progress was being
made, leading to allegations of a ‘glass ceiling’ for women – the illusion of the
possibility of progress.
Within the domestic sphere, divorce rates have continued to rise, and in 2004
some 45 per cent of marriages in Britain ended in divorce. The figure increased
from one in three in 1994 to almost one in two in 2013, leaving many women
in single-parent households. Divorce, separation, delayed parenthood, work and
job insecurity mean women tend to marry later and have children much later.
Yet growing equality and liberation do not seem to equal happiness, and in 2012
it was estimated that around one in four women require treatment for depression
at some time. One conclusion is that an incompatibility exists between home
and working lives; that for many women, ‘having it all’ means doing it all, and
frequently doing it alone.
The progress of the last decade in gender equality extended to lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues. Only 35 years previously these had
28 The social and cultural context
been largely ignored or marginalised, but in the mid-2000s they had become
increasingly accepted and mainstream, and a series of laws were introduced to
promote equality in relationships and the workplace. The age of consent was
reduced from 18 to 16 in the year 2000, the same as for heterosexual relation-
ships. With greater public tolerance, and employment law that makes discrimina-
tion illegal, more individuals publicly declared their sexuality, even in traditional
fields, such as Parliament, the armed forces, the police and the Church. In 2004,
MPs voted to give same-sex couples the same property, taxation and pension
rights as married couples, and gay civil partnerships and marriages were officially
recognised in the Civil Partnership Act (2004) and the Marriage (Same Sex
Couples) Act (2013), which gave gay and lesbian couples the same rights and
responsibilities as married, heterosexual couples in the UK. Around 8000 cer-
emonies per year are conducted, around half with male couples.
The Equality Act (2007) also made it illegal to discriminate in the provision
of goods and services to same-sex couples, from rooms in hotels to fertilisation
treatment. Although most people welcomed the legislation, and were much more
understanding of gay and lesbian sexuality, it has been more problematic for the
Church of England, which has been divided over the issue. Some ministers are
in favour of holding same-sex marriages in church, while others are against it,
claiming it contradicts biblical teachings and canon law.

The arts in an age of insecurity

From the 1950s to the 1990s the artistic realm had been closely connected to
the political. Advances made by the political left regarding inequalities of class,
ethnicity, gender, sexuality, demands for women’s rights, abortion, divorce and
promotion of alternative lifestyles all inspired many cultural works, which in turn
helped to force change. But, by the twenty-first century there was a growing dis-
connection. With social progress supported by new legislation, many issues that had
once spurred creativity were increasingly considered to have lost much of their
potency. They had either diminished in importance, become mainstream, or had
become impossible to present to a mass audience. And, even though new chal-
lenges emerged, for example an international economic recession, global warm-
ing, terrorism, overseas wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the rapacious nature of the
financial services industry, a crisis of trust in politics, government and media, as
well as concerns about new diseases and the role of the food and tobacco manu-
facturers in obesity and smoking, there were few clear lines of creative expression
over how to engage with or solve what were often complex, global problems.
Unlike in previous decades, there was less optimism or certainty about the future,
and less of a belief that politics, science and progressive government could deliver
a better society.
Just as contemporary social issues have become more complex and diverse, so
have British audiences. The traditional working class has fragmented and largely
disappeared, through loss of heavy industries, the reduction in the need for man-
ual work, and the rise of retailing and financial services. Increased educational
 The social and cultural context 29
opportunities and fewer social distinctions have also created a more diverse and
generally better educated population, with a variety of tastes and preferences. The
presence of many established ethnic communities and new immigrant groups has
also resulted in new audiences with disparate political and social attitudes.
The presence of diverse populations with varied attitudes, values, preferences
and interests creates a problem for both politicians and the creative industries, as
it becomes more difficult to address them collectively. Thus, it has become much
harder to find large, profitable audiences for creative works. Nevertheless, in
2012 the UK’s creative industries outperformed all other sectors of the economy.
They are said to be worth £71.4 billion per year, employing 1.68 million people,
5.6 per cent of the workforce.
At the same time, the trend away from publicly funded arts has continued,
and amid a global economic recession the coalition government has continued
to make cuts to arts funding. Consequently, to finance most professional projects,
the support of a major organisation is needed, or private financial support from
sponsors and investors has to be found. All these demand project profitability,
and therefore less risk-taking, and there is currently a reluctance to fund critical
or experimental new works. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the need for audiences and
profitability has sometimes led to accusations of ‘dumbing down’; that is, making
cultural material that is simplified and lacking in intellectual content or rigour,
in order to appeal to a mass audience.
The online abundance of free or low-cost books, films, music, newspapers and
information of all kinds has also intensified the situation, and made profitability
harder to achieve. Therefore, there is now much more caution about what gets
made, played and shown. Today, the route is open for almost anyone to become
a film-maker, photographer, musician, writer, citizen journalist, critic and so
on. But, while the processes of production, distribution and consumption have
become much more affordable, democratic and fun, they are frequently less prof-
itable unless they are done with the financial support of a major organisation.
In the new millennium the arts are increasingly used for instrumental pur-
poses. Public and business organisations regularly sponsor projects, exhibitions
and awards in order to gain publicity, earn cultural capital and enhance their
image. For example, Bailey’s Irish Cream sponsors the Women’s Prize for Fiction,
and the car manufacturer Chevrolet sponsors Manchester United’s kit. Similarly,
architecture by famous architects is often used to draw attention to a company,
city or region, such as Richard Rogers’ Lloyd’s building in London, or the Sage
Cultural Centre and Baltic Gallery in Newcastle/Gateshead. On a smaller scale,
sports and community arts projects are also used to foster social cohesion, bring-
ing people together around a shared interest, such as photographic projects,
drama or creative writing. Overseas, British arts are given platforms in exhibi-
tions, festivals and shows curated by the British government and others as part
of ‘soft’ diplomacy, to win friends, cement cultural credibility and attract people
to Britain.
But perhaps the most convincing evidence of the power of the arts to influence
people and move minds is that, despite the difficulty of developing a lucrative
30 The social and cultural context
career in many creative fields, subjects such as television, drama and media stud-
ies continue to be some of the most popular courses in British higher education.

Popular culture in the twenty-first century

Around 1960 the word ‘culture’ referred to ‘the best’ that had been thought,
said, written, painted, played. It was patronised by the state, and was something
closely associated with education and improvement. The term was generally used
in what today would be called an ‘elitist’ sense. This is known as the ‘Arnold posi-
tion’, after Matthew Arnold, which sees culture as works and practices of artistic
and intellectual activity,
However, today the term is used more broadly to refer to a diverse range of tastes
and entertainments – both popular and specialised – and to all the media and
signifying practices of different communities, as well as those of the country as a
whole. As such, the term is used in a more descriptive, anthropological sense. In
this view, culture is everything which isn’t nature; culture is made by humans and
defines us as humans. Critics argue that the difficulty with this is that it includes
everything and excludes nothing. Nevertheless, such a view currently prevails in
most areas of arts education, in community arts and in most areas of academia. In
contrast, the ‘Arnoldian’ view is sometimes considered to be controversial, apart
from in some traditional cultural fields such as ballet, opera and classical music.
Ways of discussing culture have also changed since the 1960s. Instead of citing
canonical works and showing deference towards them, discussion now involves
asking questions about how works emerged in the past, whose interests they
served, how the public reacted, why popular entertainments and practices were
frequently marginalised, derided and ignored, as well as understanding that tra-
ditions are not fixed and immutable, but have always been subject to evolution
and change. Consequently, debates about ‘high’ and ‘low’ forms are rarely heard
today, and there is greater emphasis on the role of the arts as entertainment and
information, rather than as a source of improvement, as well as a recognition that
both good and bad examples exist of different cultural forms.
As in the 1960s, there is still some concern expressed among the public and
critics about the political and moral emptiness of some modern works. This is
perhaps unsurprising, given that the great common causes of religion, war and
political ideology, which inspired writers and artists in the twentieth century,
have diminished or disappeared altogether. Moreover, many of Raymond Wil-
liams’s predictions of 1961 have some true, as has his wish for a broader education
in schools and universities. Today many courses include studies of society, the
press, film, television and drama, and cultural studies, media and communica-
tions are among the most commonly taught subjects in universities, and wide
public and scholarly interest has led to their being the most rapidly growing fields
of employment in Britain.
2 Language in culture

Introduction
The past 400 years have seen an exponential growth in the number of English
speakers worldwide. As fields such as education, entertainment, business, sci-
ence, technology and the internet have become globalised, knowledge of English
has become essential, and today around two billion people, or almost one third of
the world’s population, have some knowledge of the language. It is the official or
semi-official language of government in 60 countries, and has a significant role
in 28 more.
However, use of English is not uniform. Within Britain diversity is widespread,
particularly in speech. Many dialects co-exist, and differences are apparent even
after travelling just a few miles. Regional accents can also be heard on radio and
television, but standard English grammar and vocabulary is retained for most
kinds of broadcasting.
The British Isles are also home to Welsh, Irish, Scottish-Gaelic and Scots,
which are separate languages with long histories and considerable literatures.
Linguistic diversity has also increased due to immigration, particularly over the
past 70 years. In 2011 the national census revealed that Polish had become the
most commonly spoken foreign language in the UK, with 546,000 speakers, fol-
lowed by Tamil with 420,000 speakers. London remains the most international
and multicultural of UK cities, with 53 main languages and 107 varieties spo-
ken there. But perhaps the most surprising fact is that 62 per cent of the British
population have absolutely no knowledge of any language other than English,
even though some 76 per cent said they thought having another language was
useful.
Despite its diversity and perhaps because of it, there has never been an official,
regulatory body to standardise the language, and make official pronouncements
about it, either nationally or internationally. Dictionaries such as the Oxford
English Dictionary (OED) tend to reflect how words are actually used, rather than
how they should be used, and grammar books tend to also reflect current usage
and habits. This is known as a descriptive approach to linguistics, rather than a
prescriptive one, and contrasts markedly with the approach of many other coun-
tries to matters of correctness and authority in language.
32 Language in culture
A brief history of English
Like many of the world’s languages, English is a hybrid, a linguistic ‘stew’ which
has absorbed varied elements of speech brought by ancient conquering tribes and
nationalities. Latin is one of the most influential, which was introduced by the
Romans around 2,000 years ago. From approximately 500–1200 AD, it was the
official language of the Church, government, education and the law, co-existing
with dialects spoken by other settlers and conquerors from northern Europe. In
the area of Anglia, English was commonly spoken by the Anglo-Saxons, which
was based on the Germanic dialects of Angle, Saxon and Jute invaders who had
crossed the North Sea from lands which now form part of Holland, Germany and
Denmark.
As the population grew and spread, English gradually mixed with other dialects
to become Old English. Few documents survive from the period, but Beowulf,
an epic poem written around the year 1000 in what today seems like an exotic
foreign language, is widely recognised as the earliest surviving literary work in
English. Its theme is a man’s heroic battle against a monster, which attacks his
mead hall, or pub, in a tale of high excitement and violence that would not be
out of place in a modern video game.
Around the twelfth century population movements increased, and dialects from
around the country mixed with Norman French, which was spoken in England
following the Norman conquest of 1066 from northern France. This language was
known as Middle English. Over the next three centuries thousands of new words
were created, adopted and absorbed by government, Church, the law and the mili-
tary, as well as in education, the arts and at all levels of society, to form the basis
of the modern English language. At the same time, political and religious power
became more centralised in London, and there was a trend towards standardisa-
tion of the written language, particularly for legal and religious texts, and by 1500
written English was beginning to resemble the language of today.
The next three centuries brought the international spread of English. On voy-
ages of trade, discovery and invasion, the language was exported to the con-
tinents of North America, Africa, Asia and Australasia, where it became the
language of the ruling class, the voice of authority. But due to both its relative
isolation and contact with local languages, neither speech nor writing remained
standardised, and different varieties emerged, such as ‘Singlish’ in Singapore. In
the Caribbean islands of the West Indies, English mixed with African dialects
brought by slaves to form exotic hybrids known as ‘pidgins’. These subsequently
evolved into linguistically standardised ‘creole’ forms of language which would
eventually return to Britain with post-war immigration, and influence English
literature, theatre, popular music and other fields.
In Britain meanwhile, the influence of Latin declined, although until the
mid-twentieth century it was still widely taught in grammar schools. These were
so-called because they provided instruction in Latin grammar which until the
1960s was important for university entrance, particularly for the study of religion,
medicine, law, science, music and foreign languages. In this way, Latin became a
 Language in culture 33
symbol of culture, education and professional aspiration, and many universities,
schools and colleges retained Latin mottos such as ‘Alta Pete’ (‘Aim High’), to
express their ideals and convey a sense of classical tradition.
Today, Latin is not usually required for higher education, and is rarely taught
in schools, even though it is still used for some ceremonial purposes at the Uni-
versities of Oxford and Cambridge. However, the launch year of many artistic
works such as films, books, television programmes, and the year of completion of
public buildings and monuments, still tends to be written using Latin, or Roman
numerals. Latin abbreviations can also be seen on some British coins, and the
use of Norman French for some formalities still persists in Parliament, in a tradi-
tion which began soon after the conquest of 1066, when it became the official
language of government.

Speech and social background

The way English is spoken varies around the world, but some of the greatest
variety can be heard in the regions of Britain. Among the most distinctive are
the dialects of Glasgow, Liverpool, the West Midlands, Northern Ireland, York-
shire, Newcastle and east London. They contain many non-standard words and
their intonation and distinctive pronunciation of vowels makes them easy to
recognise. In Liverpool the dialect is known as Scouse – a mixture of Lancashire,
Irish and Welsh speech – while the vernacular form of east London is Cockney, a
dialect famous for its rhyming slang.
The dialect speech of London’s black communities is also highly distinctive.
In the late twentieth century, forms of speech used by some Afro-Caribbean
immigrants and their descendants mixed dialect speech from the West Indies
(Caribbean creole) with the English accent of the locality. This distinct form of
language was known as black British English or black English vernacular (BEV).
But in recent times there has been a more pronounced trend towards multicul-
tural London English (MLE), a dialect originally spoken by working-class youth
in predominantly black neighbourhoods of London such as Tottenham. Known
locally as ‘Jafaican’, MLE is composed of many elements of creole from the Carib-
bean islands of Jamaica, Trinidad and others, as well as diverse elements from
South Asian languages, African American English and Cockney. A common fea-
ture is that question tags, for example ‘doesn’t it’, ‘won’t you’ and ‘aren’t I’ and so
on – which for foreign learners are usually difficult to acquire – are spoken only
as ‘is it’ or ‘innit’, even by native speakers themselves. It has spread out via con-
tact with speakers from other areas, as well as through local radio and internet
stations, and become widely adopted by young men and women of varied social
backgrounds outside London and around south-east England.
MLE is commonly used in performances by many black-British hip-hoppers and
grime MCs such as Dizzee Rascal and Akala, probably in imitation of Jamaican
hip-hop and ragga music stars, such as Beenie Man and Vybz Kartel. But research
indicates the growth and spread of MLE is more likely to be the consequence of
growing up in a culturally diverse city, and exposure to ‘second-language’ English;
34 Language in culture
that is, the non-standard English spoken by the city’s diverse overseas population
mixed with local London English.

Received pronunciation
Clearly, accent and dialect give the listener clues not just about a speaker’s geo-
graphical background, but also their social hinterland. Non-standard features are
commonly present in the speech of people who have had less formal education,
and who have spent most or all their lives in the same locality. They are also
more common in male speech. Since the eighteenth century this characteristic
has often been exploited by novelists and dramatists who used dialect to create
characters, express their identities and make social comment. For example, in
his novels of London low-life, the Victorian storyteller Charles Dickens made
frequent attempts to re-create Cockney, as did American novelists Herman Mel-
ville and Jack London during their time in Britain. The classic works of Thomas
Hardy (Dorset), William Wordsworth (Cumberland) and later D.H. Lawrence
(Nottinghamshire) are all well known for their use of plain, everyday speech of
the regions in which they lived and worked, and link language to the manners,
morals and class of their characters.
The trend in Victorian literature to represent accents of the locality contrasted
with growing public interest in establishing common standards of English. An
increasing demand for education, as well as the need to administer an expanding
British Empire required clear standards of language which would be intelligible to
all foreign subjects. A number of acts were introduced around the mid-nineteenth
century, making education compulsory between the ages of 5 and 13. Class sizes
grew, and the number of public schools expanded, where children of the aristoc-
racy, gentry and of wealthy merchants from around Britain were brought together
and taught a standard form of written English, based on a variety used in govern-
ment documents around the mid-fifteenth century.
But the most significant development was that educators also desired a stan-
dard not only of written English, but of pronunciation, to eliminate what they
considered to be a cacophony of regional accents. Grammarians recommended
the speech of London and the Court as the most correct and desirable. This car-
ried many regional features found in the speech of the south-eastern counties of
England, as far north as Cambridge and as far west as Oxford. But it was selected
because it was the variety spoken by the ruling class – by the aristocracy and
Court – and therefore carried authority. It was sometimes called ‘Queen’s English’
and later became known as ‘received pronunciation’ (often abbreviated to RP),
which everyone could be expected to ‘receive’, that is, understand.
The British Empire and its army, Church, government and administration,
and later the BBC, all recruited the products of the British public schools, many
of whom went on to occupy positions of power and influence. In this way, RP
became the voice of the ruling class, and for many it was and still is synonymous
with power, privilege and authority. Consequently, RP can now be described not
as a regional accent, but a social one.
 Language in culture 35

Figure 2.1 A cartoon in the satirical magazine Punch of 1932 illustrates sociolinguistic
change in rural areas following the advent of radio. Some villagers have begun
copying the ‘BBC accent’, believing it superior. The elderly man in the chair is
depicted as comfortably un-aspirational!
© World History Archive/Alamy

A high degree of social significance came to be attached to RP, whose prestige

and authority implied the inferiority of regional accents and vocabulary. Dia-
lect speakers became socially stigmatised as rustic, provincial, poor and unedu-
cated. What had previously been considered as linguistic differences came to
be seen as linguistic errors, and the socially ambitious began to modify their
speech towards that of their betters. This phenomenon was noted as early as
1912 when George Bernard Shaw observed, ‘It is impossible for an Englishman
to open his mouth without making another Englishman hate or despise him’.
Shaw later wrote the play Pygmalion (1913), in which the language teacher
Professor Higgins (based on the British phonetician Henry Sweet) convinces
poor flower-seller Eliza Doolittle that, with pronunciation lessons, he can make
her appear sophisticated and aristocratic. The play was later adapted into the
musical My Fair Lady .
The arrival of public broadcasting in 1922 helped to extend the social prestige
of RP. Although it was spoken by only 2–3 per cent of the population, it was
36 Language in culture
preferred by the BBC because it was widely understood and respected. An advi-
sory committee was appointed to resolve any doubts about pronunciation. Their
judgements on correctness helped to make the broadcaster an unofficial authority
on language, and helped create ‘BBC English’. Moreover, RP’s clear vowel sounds
and exaggerated intonation aided voice projection in large theatres and over the
airwaves, and it was later adopted in drama schools as a standard for teaching pur-
poses. When the ‘talkies’ replaced silent films in Britain during the 1920s some
actors had to retire because their untutored accents were not suitable.
Due to the dominance of RP, for many years non-standard regional speech was
rarely heard on television, radio or at the cinema, except in the roles of ‘charac-
ter’ actors: players and performers who were spontaneous and open, but usually
had minor parts as poor, comic or deviant characters, such as rural farmworkers
or petty criminals. Similarly, in popular entertainment the success of ‘figures of
fun’ such as Tommy Trinder (a Cockney) and George Formby (from Lancashire)
largely depended on the comic effects produced by their strong regional accents.
During the Second World War their unconventional speech was even used to
fool the enemy. For a brief period the BBC radio news was read by the comedy
actor Wilfred Pickles, whose strong Yorkshire accent could not be easily under-
stood by German Intelligence.
However, a number of post-war education reforms, in particular the Butler
Education Act of 1944, greatly improved educational opportunities for a genera-
tion of working-class and lower-middle-class children. There was an expansion of
the university sector and improved access for students from all social backgrounds
and regions, which led to greater social mobility and less deference based on tra-
ditional prejudices, such as the way someone spoke.

Speech and the arts

In the post-war period there was a greater openness and authenticity in the arts,
and from the mid-1950s authentic representations of regional speech could be
heard in theatre, television and film. Writers such as Harold Pinter and Joe Orton
accurately used regional dialects to make their plays more realistic, as did televi-
sion drama series such as Armchair Theatre, soap operas such as Coronation Street
from Manchester and crime series such as Z Cars from Liverpool. All of these
helped to present a more honest and complete view of British life, characters and
accents to audiences around the country. In film, adaptations of ‘realist’ novels
and plays, for example Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and The Loneliness of
the Long Distance Runner, accurately portrayed working-class life, and to play the
leading roles, well-known actors such as Albert Finney and Tom Courtney had to
rediscover the northern accents they had lost at drama school.
The emergence of popular culture brought a wider acceptance of regional
speech, particularly as it suddenly become possible for less formally educated indi-
viduals to obtain social advancement in new professions such as popular music,
photography, art, design and fashion. In the 1960s, the Beatles from Liverpool,
together with the Rolling Stones and the Who from London showed the way,
 Language in culture 37
and attracted intense public and media interest. New radio stations dedicated to
popular music, such as BBC Radio 1, and television shows such as Ready Steady
Go! and Juke Box Jury provided new stages for the amplification of accented
speech in interviews and comment. Later in the decade, Sean Connery (Scot-
tish), Richard Burton (Welsh) and Michael Caine (from London) became some
of the most popular actors of the time, playing glamorous, sophisticated roles with
non-RP accents. Their talent, status and self-confidence helped regional speech
become fashionable and frequently imitated, especially among the young.
In the latter half of the twentieth century, attitudes to language became more
tolerant, relaxed and less prejudiced. With greater social convergence and less
deference, the RP voice has become less influential and is no longer widely
regarded as the ‘best’ pronunciation. Indeed, the ‘marked’ or ‘advanced’ RP
that linguists associate with the royal family and with high-ranking members of
the armed forces, civil service, Church and so on tends to mark the speaker as
being old fashioned, detached and remote from mainstream society, and is even
rejected by some young people who see it as an unfashionable symbol of tradi-
tional values and authority. One consequence is that some speakers, including
the Queen herself, are noted to have modified their accents. After watching the
Queen’s Christmas broadcasts between the 1950s and the 1980s, one study found
that her pronunciation of vowels tended to shift towards more modern and less
old-fashioned forms. Comparable shifts were also noted in the speech of the for-
mer Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who, it was said, modified
her pronunciation in order to broaden her appeal to a larger number of voters.
Similarly, although marked RP was used some years ago by BBC newsreaders and
commentators on prestigious cultural and artistic events, such as coronations,
Wimbledon tennis, equestrian events and arts programmes, it is now considered
antiquated, and is rarely heard except as the object of satire in comedy shows.
Despite a wider acceptance of regional accents studies show some still have
more positive connotations than others, particularly where a high degree of
credibility is required, such as in advertising, public relations and news report-
ing. Research suggests that the most desirable accent within England is a mild,
‘moderate’ RP accent, especially among those who speak with marked regional
accents. People claim to prefer the sound of it, and associate it with intelligence,
ambition, occupational status and even good looks! Next to RP, the English are
said to prefer the accent of an educated Scot over the accent of an educated
Welshman or Irishman. Within Scotland, the educated Scottish accent is pre-
ferred over RP, while within England the accents of Yorkshire and Newcastle are
highly rated, as are accents from rural areas such as Somerset and Devon. Among
the least liked are those associated with large inner cities, especially those of Bir-
mingham, Liverpool and London.
Preferences over accents are reflected in how businesses and other organisa-
tions speak to their public in advertisements. For example, Glasgow has some
of the most distinctive voices in Britain, and in the 1990s many companies
located their call-centres there because they thought that the softer version of
the accent is one of the most friendly and trustworthy in the country. On the
38 Language in culture
other hand, advertisers on national radio and television stations rarely choose
local accents to promote their products, and generally prefer a mild RP accent.
In contrast, if the goods have strong traditional or regional associations, such
as beer or bread, they are sometimes promoted with accents that identify the
product with the locality, for example Warburton’s bread (Bolton, Lancashire),
or Foster’s beer (Australia).
Today, a more moderate RP accent is still widely used as a model for teach-
ing English to foreign students, but it is still only spoken by around 3 per cent
of the population (approximately half the percentage of Britons who attend
public school). This sometimes causes confusion for overseas visitors, who may
have studied English for many years, yet still have difficulty understanding many
British native speakers.

Taboo words and political correctness

Despite the mass acceptance of regional accents, in the 1950s the use of swear-
words was still considered taboo not only in the mass media, but also in literary
works. This changed in 1960, after Penguin Books published the D.H. Lawrence
novel of 1928, Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Previously, the novel had not been openly
available, mainly because the frequent use of the words ‘fuck’ and ‘cunt’. But
social attitudes were becoming more liberal, and a number of legal reforms had
reflected this, including the Obscene Publications Act of 1959. This permitted
the publication of previously prohibited works, as long as they could be shown
to have literary merit. A legal challenge was made to Penguin Books, and the
author E.M. Forster and the academics Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams
gave evidence defending publication of Lady Chatterley. Finally, a verdict of ‘not
guilty’ was delivered, ensuring that literary works containing swear-words could
be openly published without fear of prosecution. However, the offending words
remained absent even from the OED until 1972.
Swear-words remained absent in the public media of television and radio until
1965, when, amid public outrage and anger, the theatre critic and author Ken-
neth Tynan uttered the word ‘fuck’ in a live television interview. In response, one
Tory MP said he should be hanged. The next decades saw a gradual relaxation of
broadcasting standards, and the public gradually became more accepting of the
use of expletives, whether late at night on TV, or in the cinema. In the film Four
Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Hugh Grant utters the word ‘fuck’ ten times in
the first three minutes, and appears to make it a characteristic of English charm.
In the award-winning BBC4 political satire The Thick of It (2005) the protago-
nist Malcolm Tucker, in his role as director of communications, is seen swearing
heroically throughout the show. By 2012 the Guardian newspaper was printing
the word ‘fuck’ several hundred times each year, while several other tabloid press
still timidly printed the word as ‘f***’, supposedly to preserve the delicate sensi-
bilities of its readers.
Today, it is not unusual to hear occasional profanities in dramatic works shown
on television after 9 p.m., and there are no limitations on language in literary
 Language in culture 39
works or cinema films intended for adults only, while even films for under-18s
may contain some swearing if the context and type are considered appropriate.
In contrast to more liberal attitudes shown towards the use of swear-words in
literary works and the mass media, concern about politically correct language
has increased. This is broadly defined as using words (or behaviour) that will
not offend any particular groups who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated
against, particularly due to differences of race, gender, beliefs, age, sexual orien-
tation or physical disability. Since the late twentieth century the importance of
political correctness in the UK has grown, largely in response to society becom-
ing more plural, multicultural and inclusive. Today, it is observed in most areas
of public life, and is supported by anti-discrimination and equal opportunities
legislation.
With regard to political correctness and gender, linguistic aspects involve attempts
to make language more neutral. Thus, as women have fought to obtain equality
with men in employment, many job titles and advertisements have changed. So,
for example, chairman has become ‘chair person’ or ‘chair’, headmaster has become
‘head’ and fireman has become ‘fire-fighter’. It has also become illegal to advertise a
job specifically for a man or woman, except in a very small number of cases.
In a similar way, making distinctions in language that may marginalise or insult
different racial groups has also become illegal, particularly in the media and other
public and professional communications. Use of the word ‘nigger’ is considered
extremely offensive, and in recent years the public use of such words has led to
disciplinary action against those caught using it. In 2014 a BBC employee was
dismissed for playing a version of the song ‘The Sun Has Got His Hat On’ from
1932. The song contained the word ‘nigger’ since at the time the song was written,
its usage was considered acceptable on the radio. Even so, the BBC considered
it unacceptable for radio broadcast, and although many newspapers reported the
story they declined to print the word, using the expression ‘n-word’ instead.
Similar attitudes exist when referring to people with disabilities; for example,
the use of words such as ‘cripple’ have become taboo, while the more moderate-
sounding ‘handicapped’ or ‘disabled’ are no longer considered appropriate to
describe a person (although public signage may refer to ‘disabled parking’, for
example). Instead, those who cannot see or hear, may be described as ‘vision
impaired’ or ‘hearing impaired’, while ‘dumb’ – meaning people who cannot
speak – is also taboo, and is replaced by ‘without speech’.
Most people in Britain respect political correctness. It is embedded in the law,
and restricts those who may discriminate against, insult and marginalise others.
However, some consider it has become too extreme, and argue that a person
being described in official documents as ‘vertically challenged’ instead of ‘short’
is plain silly. They claim ‘normal’ free speech is being restricted, and sometimes
offer non-existent examples or ‘urban myths’ in their defence, such as the (fic-
titious) local authority that renamed its blackboards as ‘chalkboards’ to avoid
offending black people, or a city council that banned Christmas to avoid offend-
ing Jews, Muslims and Sikhs. A third position is taken up by those who argue
that the most extreme examples of racism, sexism and homophobia can be found
40 Language in culture
among the communities of ethnic minorities. They point out that challenging
minorities over their intolerant or politically incorrect beliefs or behaviour is
necessary, and is not the same as oppressing them. Thus, the situation is clearly
an intricate one, and even though political correctness receives support in law,
there are many complexities to its expression.

Authority in English
Given the amount of variety in English at a local, national and international
level, it may appear strange that there has never been an academy or legisla-
tive body to exercise control over the language. During the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, proposals for an academy regularly came from leading
poets and authors such as Pope, Swift, Dryden and Defoe. However, they were
gradually abandoned when substantial, authoritative dictionaries began to
appear, such as Dr Samuel Johnson’s. Unlike earlier works Johnson’s dictionary
included many everyday words and used literary quotations to illustrate cur-
rent usage and word meaning. This technique is still used in the compilation
of dictionaries today; for example, the OED records how language is actually
used, and the meanings words hold for people. This is known as a descriptive
approach to recording pronunciation and word meaning, and contrasts with a
prescriptive approach, which gives ultimate, fixed meanings to words, describ-
ing how they should be used, rather than how they really are used when people
communicate.
The foundations of the English language include around 1500 words that a
foreign learner needs to communicate at an intermediate level, compared with
estimates of approximately 20,000 active words and 40,000 passive ones for an
educated native speaker, even though Fabio Capello, the Italian ex-manager of
the England football team, famously claimed that he could manage on just 100.
However, the full version of today’s OED consists of around 750,000 words, cov-
ering the period from Anglo-Saxon times to the present day.
Once a word has entered the dictionary, it stays there as part of the history of
the language. Until the mid-1970s mainly English and American-English words
were recorded, but today many different forms are recognised, such as Australian,
Indian, South African, and even slang words and internet English. For example,
in 2004 the OED recorded a number of Hindi words entering general use, includ-
ing many new ones related to food, such as ‘balti’ and ‘masala’, as well as more
vulgar forms such as ‘chuddies’ (underpants), which is claimed to have entered
usage from the TV comedy series The Kumars at No. 42 and Goodness Gracious
Me. However, this process of adoption and assimilation is not new, and illustrates
how Asian speech is currently influencing British English, just as the speech of
the Vikings, Normans and Irish did in the past.
To celebrate the creativity of English speakers when confronted by social,
political or technological change, the OED announces a ‘word of the year’.
Words need to have become prominent or notable in the year in question, and
are selected from around 150 million on the web each month, with software
 Language in culture 41
which can also track changes in geography, register and frequency of use. Recent
winners include ‘chav’ (2004), ‘credit crunch’ (2008) and ‘selfie’ (2013).
The OED also includes words commonly used in professional fields such as
sport, advertising and marketing. Since the 1980s Britain has become increasingly
business-oriented and many organisations in the public and private sector have
introduced American-style management practices. This includes a special kind of
vocabulary used in fields such as advertising, marketing and management in order to
ape their supposed professionalism. ‘Management-speak’ is one such example, and
typically involves unusual elaborations of what is being said in the form of ‘buzz-
words’ or neologisms, sometimes to conceal the real meaning. Thus, expressions
such as ‘awaydays’, ‘dotted-line management’ and the ‘deliverance’ of ‘performance
management training’ are now common. Problems become ‘challenges’, patients
and passengers become ‘customers’, and ‘360 degree thinking’ becomes normal
‘going forward’. In the UK, studies show that many employees would prefer needless
jargon to be removed, and even that it could be damaging for business, indicating
that some management practices characteristic of American organisational culture
may not be appropriate for many British working environments. Such jargon has
also proved an entertaining source of television satire, in series such as The Office
(on daily office routines at a paper manufacturers), Twenty-Twelve (on the organisa-
tion of the Olympic Games) and W1A (on managerial culture at the BBC).
Although spellings and word meanings are covered by the OED, it is not
always clear or obvious what constitutes good and bad grammar. Arguments in
the media about split infinitives and grammatical structures are common, while
the use of the grocer’s apostrophe – so-called for its frequent appearance in fruit
and vegetable shops advertising ‘apple’s’, ‘pear’s’, ‘green’s’, and so on – along with
the issue of whether or not it is correct to end a sentence with a preposition, has
exercised the public’s imagination since poet John Dryden first mentioned it in
the seventeenth century. Despite its superficial aridity there is clearly a fondness
for punctuation among the British public, which was demonstrated by the unex-
pected success of Lynn Truss’s bestselling Eats, Shoots & Leaves, an entertaining
account of the ‘zero tolerance approach to punctuation’ in 2003.
Just as the RP accent generally produces a positive attitude in listeners, the
same appears to be true of those writing with formally correct English. One study
into online dating examined 500,000 first contacts, and concluded that ‘net-
speak’, consisting of bad grammar and non-standard spelling such as ‘ur’, ‘r’, ‘u’,
‘ya’, ‘cant’, ‘luv’ and ‘wat’ are all damaging when used in communications with
potential online partners. On the other hand, correct use of apostrophes and
grammar made the author more appealing. It appears that one way of ‘filtering’
applicants is observing how they use language, and formally correct use of gram-
mar is attractive. The study concluded that the use of formally correct grammar
indicates that knowledge has been acquired and care taken, which makes them
potentially more desirable to a partner.
Nevertheless, rules of English grammar can sometimes be unclear and ambigu-
ous, and while some argue for the clarity and elegance of formal, standard English,
others argue that it is often dictated by a series of archaic rules, which have little
42 Language in culture

Figure 2.2 Eats, Shoots & Leaves: the last word in punctuation – and an unexpected bestseller
in 2003.
© David Christopher

connection with how people really communicate when they use clear, idiom-
atic ways. Formality also ignores Americanisms, and the widespread use of social
media, which requires more memorable, pithy writing. Instead, they argue that
the key to both speaking and writing successfully is to use forms that are suitable
for their purpose, whether an academic essay, a legal text, an advert or a poem.
 Language in culture 43
Linguistic diversity: the Celtic connection
It is often imagined that Britain is a linguistically homogeneous country, but
there are several other indigenous languages that have been present in Britain
for over 2,000 years. Most are varieties of Gaelic, the language of the Gaels,
a Celtic tribe who came from the continent of Europe. Gaelic is a separate
language from English, which it predates by several hundred years. Most
accounts begin around the fourth century BC , when the Gaels settled in
Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, and later in southern England and parts
of Wales.
Some 800 years later, around the fifth century AD, invading Anglo-Saxon
tribes from northern Europe forced British Celts to flee west and north to the
safety of the hills and mountains of Cornwall, Devon, Wales, Scotland, and to
the Brittany region of France. The geographic isolation of groups of Gaelic speak-
ers led to linguistic and cultural differences, as Welsh, Irish and Scottish-Gaelic
all developed independently. Others varieties existed too: Cornish was spoken
in the counties of Cornwall and Devon, and Manx in the Isle of Man. Cornish
largely disappeared in the early nineteenth century and Manx during the late
1940s, but in recent years there has been a revival of interest in minority lan-
guages, and today there are educational opportunities to learn them, as well as
cultural events which aim to practise, promote and celebrate their heritage in the
areas where they were once spoken.

Welsh
For almost 1,000 years until the Act of Union with England in 1536, Welsh was
the only language spoken in Wales. But from then until the mid-twentieth cen-
tury, it became marginalised as English became the language of government, edu-
cation and trade. Welsh was only spoken at home and in church and the number
of speakers slowly declined. But not everyone was willing to adopt English ways,
and in 1865 a party of 165 men and women emigrated to Patagonia in Argentina,
where Patagonian Welsh is still spoken by their descendants.
In the twentieth century use of Welsh continued to decline until the 1960s,
when a growing sense of political nationalism and Welsh identity led to demands
to revive the language. The British government assisted with the establishing
of BBC Wales in 1964, the first regional service in Britain. Local newspapers in
Welsh appeared in the 1970s, and official support for the Welsh language was
firmly established with the Welsh Language Act (1993), which stipulated that
Welsh and English should be considered as equal languages in public affairs and
the administration of justice. Welsh is now studied in all Welsh schools, and
several offer a Welsh-medium education.
Efforts to revive the language have been successful, and in 2011, of a popula-
tion of around 2.9 million, almost 600,000 were Welsh speakers. The language
is widely used for official purposes, for example in most place names, road signs,
job advertisements and public-information documents. Its literature is among
44 Language in culture
the oldest in Europe, and is celebrated each year during a national festival of
music, literature and drama known as the Royal National Eisteddfod, an event
which originated in the twelfth century. It is held each year during the first
week of August, and alternates between North and South Wales. A separate
international festival of music and folk dancing known as the International
Music Eisteddfod attracts people from all over the world to recite poetry, sing
and dance in the Welsh town of Llangollen. Numerous radio stations and the
television channel S4C (Sianel Pedwar Cymru – Channel 4 Wales) broadcast in
Welsh, and today the country is comparatively well served by a Welsh-language
mass media.

Irish
Irish is a Celtic language, and is also known as Irish Gaelic, or Erse. It was widely
spoken in a united, independent Ireland until the country became part of the
United Kingdom with the Act of Union of 1801. Then, its use in urban areas
began a rapid decline as English came to dominate Irish affairs. Following
the death and emigration of millions of Irish speakers from rural areas during the
catastrophic famine of 1845–8, there were even fewer speakers. But towards the
end of the nineteenth century a Republican movement for independence from
Britain emerged, whose supporters adopted Irish as a distinctive symbol of their
culture and identity. In 1921 the south of Ireland gained partial independence,

Figure 2.3 Language can be an emotive subject. In 2014 members of the Welsh Language
Society protested in Aberystwyth, Wales, demanding better promotion of Welsh.
© Keith Morris News/Alamy
 Language in culture 45
and its new government began to organise a revival of Irish. Today, Irish is the
first official language of the Irish Republic, and of some 3.5 million inhabitants,
over one million speak both Irish and English. It is now taught in schools as a
second language, and there is a small Irish media.
While Irish has become mainstream and readily accepted in the Republic, in
Northern Ireland use of the language remains strongly politicised and closely
linked with nationalist politics. Until 1972 the British government excluded
it from radio and television broadcasts, but since then there have been official
efforts to encourage its use. In 1981 an Irish daily newspaper La (meaning ‘Day’)
was founded, and in 2004 the British government set up a fund to support Irish-
language film and television production in Northern Ireland. In 2006 the British
government gave an undertaking to encourage the language in education, place
names, media and cultural activities, and today there are bilingual schools in
Belfast, while the BBC and independent stations broadcast television and radio
programmes in Irish.
However, as Irish still has no official status, it is difficult to obtain reliable data
on the number of speakers. But the 2011 Census found that over 10 per cent
of the Northern Irish population (184,898) had some knowledge of Irish, with
large numbers around Slaghtneill in southern Londonderry, and in the Gaeltacht
Quarter (An Cheathru Ghaeltachta) of Belfast. There are also Irish-speaking
primary schools, secondary schools and crèches, as well as Belfast’s Raido Failte,
Northern Ireland’s only full-time Irish-language station.

Scottish Gaelic and Scots

Scottish Gaelic has a similar turbulent history, beginning around the fifth cen-
tury AD when tribes of Gaels from Ireland and the north of England arrived in
the Highlands and Western Isles of Scotland. But over the years the number of
speakers declined, as many left their isolated farms and villages in pursuit of more
prosperous lives in the expanding cities. More tragically, others were forced to
leave, as landowners cleared their tenants off their lands to make way for sheep
farming in what were known as ‘the clearances’, one of the darkest chapters in
the history of the British Isles. This gradual depopulation of the countryside has
left Scottish-Gaelic speakers in steady decline from 250,000 in 1891, to fewer
than 58,000 in 2011 (around 1 per cent of the Scottish population), with fewer
than 200 monoglot speakers.
Until very recently Scottish Gaelic was neglected, and seen as a language spo-
ken only by the rural poor, but today it is taught in schools, broadcast on tele-
vision and radio, and receives financial support from the British government.
There are many festivals, or Feisean, celebrating Gaelic music, dance and drama,
the oldest and largest being the curiously named Royal National Mod, an annual
event held in October in different locations each year. However, the literary cor-
pus remains small, and is most noted for its eighteenth-century poetry, a tradi-
tion which Sorley Maclean and other writers continued into the mid-twentieth
century.
46 Language in culture
In contrast to the Highlands where Scottish Gaelic is spoken, the Lowlands
is home to the Scots or ‘Lallans’ (‘lowlands’) language, which is closely related
to a dialect of Old English. Although Scots became associated with the rural
poor, prestigious literary figures of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries such
as Robert Burns, Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson frequently wrote in
Scots. In their view it was the authentic voice of the oppressed poor, and deserved
to be heard. Robert Burns remains one of Scotland’s best-known literary and his-
torical figures. His birthday is celebrated each year on Burns Night (25 January),
which typically features readings of his poetry and a haggis supper. His ‘Auld Lang
Syne’, a song written in Scots about nostalgic reunion, is sung by British people
around the world at midnight on 31 December. It has become one of the most
traditional of British anthems, even though it is written in words which, to most
English speakers, resemble a foreign language.
In the twentieth century the best-known exponent of Scots poetry was Hugh
MacDiarmid, a passionate Scot who founded the Scottish Nationalist Party
(SNP), while Tom Leonard is one of the leading playwrights who continue to
write in various forms of Scots and promote the language today. In 2004 the
new Scottish Parliament elected its first national poet or ‘Scots Makar’, who
represents and promotes Scots poetry, a post currently held by poet and dramatist
Liz Lochhead. But in spite of attempts to aid and assist the language, its position
remains precarious. Some critics argue it is a dialect of English, while others claim
it is an artificial form that is only exploited for literary purposes. And, because it
is not recognised as an official language, it is not recorded in national censuses.
Therefore, data about the number of speakers is unreliable and few funds are
available for its support.

Non-indigenous languages
Although Britain is a predominantly Anglo-Saxon country, ethnic diversity is
a major characteristic of many large towns and cities. Britain’s global expan-
sion over the past 500 years has resulted in a steady flow of immigration, which
increased substantially in the twentieth century. Since the 1930s Jews, Russians
and Italians have settled in Britain following persecution, war and poverty in
Europe. Later, during the 1940s and 1950s the government invited Common-
wealth citizens to fill job vacancies in the major towns and cities, and several
periods of immigration followed. The new immigrants arrived mainly from West
Africa, the Caribbean, India, Pakistan and Hong Kong, settling in areas where
work was plentiful and housing cheap, for example in the central parts of London,
Leicester, Slough, Birmingham and Bradford, as well as in the major ports of Bris-
tol, Cardiff and Liverpool.
With people of Asian descent being the most numerous minorities of British
cities, the most widely spoken foreign languages are those of the Asian subconti-
nent, such as Urdu from Pakistan, and Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi and Gujarati from
India. They are well protected by an educational policy which provides tuition
 Language in culture 47
in the native language, and an established mass media of newspapers, radio and
television programmes.
However, many Asians have a complex relationship with English, where abil-
ity often varies according to age: for example, in 2011 the inner London borough
of Tower Hamlets was 37 per cent Bangladeshi, but less than two-thirds of these
spoke English. The most proficient speakers of English are children, the majority
of whom grow up speaking both English and the community language. In con-
trast, the community elders often have a poor command of the English language.
In recent times many workers from European countries have also migrated to
the UK in search of work and a better standard of living. After the 2004 enlarge-
ment of the European Union, many Poles settled and found work in the UK, and
in 2011 there were over half a million, making them the third largest foreign-
born community in Britain after Irish and Indian-born people. Polish has become
the second most spoken language in the UK, with approximately the same num-
ber of speakers as Welsh. Unlike many migrants from the sub-continent and
Caribbean, Poles often settled in quiet rural areas and provincial towns of East
Anglia and the East Midlands, working in light industry and agriculture. Despite
their numbers, the cultural impact has been small, with the possible exception of
Polish delicatessens which have become an increasingly common sight on many
British high streets.
3 Cyberculture

Introduction
Britain has become one of the most digitally connected societies in the world,
and for many people of all ages smartphones, mobile devices and computers
with internet access have become essential accessories of everyday life. Today,
almost 90 per cent of the population have access to the internet, and the aver-
age user spends an average of 43 hours per month online, or 1 in 12 waking
minutes. The amount of time spent online and the use of computers not just for
communication, but for education, business and entertainment, has facilitated
the development of a culture, often referred to as cyberculture. The conse-
quences have been profound – in less than a decade it has come to influence
how we think, read, write, live, work, play, shop, consume, socialise, gamble
and much more.
In the arts, spectacular changes have taken place, as digital media has facili-
tated a shift in production away from the specialists and towards the amateurs
and casual enthusiasts. Consequently, the cultural industries have been remade,
and almost anyone can be a photographer, broadcaster, film-maker, publisher,
singer, citizen journalist or critic. On the one hand, production costs have fallen,
and the variety of available material increased. But on the other, there is an
increasing amount of competition, and this, together with the downloading –
often for free – of music, films, books and other media, has led to falling prof-
its. Major investors in traditional media such as television, film and music have
become less willing to invest, and there is now more caution about what gets
made, played and shown.
Online retailing has become a significant area of growth. The British are now
the biggest online shoppers in the world, with six out of every ten adults regularly
buying products such as books, music, films, food and flights on their gadgets. The
trend towards home shopping is mirrored by the growth in home entertainment,
and attendances at cinemas, theatres and concerts have declined. In contrast,
demand for video games has significantly increased and some of the best-known
and most successful in the world are made in Britain, such as Grand Theft Auto
and Tomb Raider. Games are now on a par with film, television and animation in
terms of sales, revenue, popularity and cultural influence. Most newspapers carry
 Cyberculture 49
reviews of new releases and versions, and there is an established awards ceremony
each year, hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television (BAFTA).
As online domestic services and entertainments have grown, socialising in pubs
and clubs has fallen, and the number of dating websites has increased. Currently,
there are over 1400 sites and online dating is the most common way to meet a new
partner. At the same time, Facebook has become the most popular social medium
in Britain, providing an easy accessible way to find old friends, keep in touch and
form new relationships. The popularity of social media has also led to the creation
of a number of communications awards, such as best use of Twitter, YouTube and
Facebook, Best Business Blog, Best Low Budget Campaign, and so on.
But, as the internet has expanded, creativity flourished and individual oppor-
tunities grown, the powers of the Orwellian Big Brother have also increased. The
British government and private, commercial organisations can readily gather and
monitor personal communications; consequently there is growing concern about
the loss of privacy and civil liberties. Citizens are increasingly anxious about the
ways different organisations can watch, photograph, monitor and obtain private
information and ‘metadata’ about them, effectively tracking their lives from the
cradle to the grave.

How did we get here?

For anyone born after 1990 it can be difficult to imagine how much the panorama
of communications has changed in Britain. In the early 1980s computers were still
large, expensive, highly specialised business machines, which were rarely seen out-
side large organisations. Phones were still simple gadgets that needed a landline,
and only around 65 per cent of homes had one. They took several weeks to install
and were expensive to use. The idea of mobile phones and video technology were
still the preserve of science fiction, and telecoms were tightly regulated by the Post
Office. The expression ‘are you on the phone?’ meaning ‘do you have a phone at
home?’ was still common, and many people relied on public call boxes, patiently
queuing outside the small red kiosk, keenly clutching a handful of coins to ‘feed’
the machine inside. The alternative was to write a letter, usually by hand, put the
paper in an envelope, seal it, moisten the stamp with the tongue and walk to the
post box, in a ritual unchanged since the advent of the penny post in 1840.
Despite its proximity to the present, the procedure can now seem antiquated
and remote for many young Britons, such has been the speed of change. This is
largely due to major advances in communications and their importance for busi-
ness, particularly since the early 1980s. It was at that time, as part of the Conser-
vative government’s privatisation programme, that telecoms were deregulated. In
turn, many new companies emerged, offering a wider range of cheaper, quicker
telecom services.
Despite the invention of the World Wide Web in 1989 by British scientist Tim
Berners-Lee, it was not until the early 2000s that its influence began to be felt in
Britain with the arrival of broadband, which offered faster communications and
more reliable downloading of music, television shows, films and other files. After
50 Cyberculture
several years of rapid expansion, in 2013 there were some 21.7 million residen-
tial broadband connections in Britain, with 75 per cent of adults having access,
either at home or from their mobile devices.
Gadgets such as smartphones and other mobile devices have proliferated in the
UK and today many people seem to live their lives through them, which have
become a kind of umbilical cord with the rest of society. In trains, pubs and many
other public places, people stare into small devices, oblivious to the world around
them. But the versatility of devices has allowed them to do much more than
make calls, write texts and keep up appearances. Phones have simultaneously
become a mailbox, a business aid, a tool for media production, distribution and
consumption, a fashion accessory, and a statement of modernity and aspiration
for conspicuous display on tables and desks.
As a consequence of frequent use, attention spans also appear to have short-
ened, and many users are unable to read or listen to a text for more than a short
period without feeling the need to produce one. And while taking and making
calls was previously confined to an office or dedicated space in the home, such as a
hallway, today it is common for calls to be made and texts checked and sent while
simultaneously talking with others. This can be to their irritation and annoyance,
as no rules of etiquette appear have emerged over how to use the phone politely.
The novelty and dynamism of social media means that trends in usage are con-
stantly evolving. The more affluent social groups spend more time online than
the less affluent, and emailing, banking, researching goods and services, social
networking and gazing at images of the unattainable in an ‘escape attempt’ from
the routine world of work are among the main usages. Among ethnic minorities,
there is an even higher level of households with internet access and/or a smart-
phone, compared with the UK population as a whole, as well as higher levels of
downloading music, uploading photographs and developing social networking
profiles, particularly among Indian and Pakistani communities, as a globalised
world strives to keep in touch.
Smartphones are ubiquitous in the UK, and almost 60 per cent of British adults
own one, with 63 per cent of users accessing social networks on their phones. As
the cost of broadband has fallen, usage has increased, in some cases to an almost
pathological level of consumption. In 2011, a study of users in the UK found that
81 per cent have their phones switched on at all times, 51 per cent of adults and
65 per cent of teenagers admitted using their phones when with friends or family,
and 23 per cent of adults and 34 per cent of teenagers admitted to using them at
meal times. Waking at night to check emails and even log on, as well as checking
mail on waking, affects between a fifth and a third of users. Many also report watch-
ing two or more screens at the same time. Perhaps unsurprisingly, addiction to the
internet and especially social media has become a recognised medical condition.

Social media
The presence of social media and the low cost and extensive availability of the
internet has led to significant changes in how the British communicate. In 2012,
 Cyberculture 51
of a total population of 63.7 million, around 33 million adults accessed the inter-
net every day, with almost half (48 per cent) using social networking sites such as
Facebook and Twitter. This makes the UK the second most prolific users of social
media in Europe after the Netherlands.
Of all British adult internet users in 2014, some 50 per cent have a Facebook
account, 26 per cent have a Twitter account, 19 per cent are on GooglePlus,
18 per cent on LinkedIn, 13 per cent on Instagram, followed by 8 per cent on
Flickr and 6 per cent on Pinterest. Use of social media is most common among
the 18–24-year-olds, with 91 per cent of internet users in this group owning a
Facebook account. The least engaged are the over-65-year-olds, with 18 per cent
of users owning a social media account. Approximately equal numbers of men
and women contacting social media sites, although more men have accounts
with LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter, and more women hold Facebook and Pin-
terest accounts.
Today, almost all organisations, individuals and companies understand the
need to represent themselves on social media. Many communicate directly with
the public by blogs, and use multiple sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest
and YouTube. In politics, the parties regularly ‘listen’ to conversations on media
such as Twitter, and the government attempts to respond quickly to media news
and action occurring in real time. British businesses also understand key social
media themes of self-promotion, competition, brand equity, sustainability and
social responsibility, and, from small pubs and restaurants to large transnational
corporations, almost all have a presence on Facebook.
Facebook has become the most important and popular social medium in the
UK. It is particularly important for making contact with younger consumers. In
2013 there were some 2.5 million 13–17-year-old users, with almost 26 per cent
of UK Facebook users in this age bracket, the largest concentration of users of
any social media platform. The opportunity to publicly demonstrate style, status,
taste and consumption influences many to sign up, and research has found that
most organisations and individuals try to present themselves online in the way
they think society expects, so profiles tend to be expressed in a conformist way,
emphasising personal happiness, material success, leisure and physical attraction.
Its ‘like’ function also offers an insight into British popular preferences, which
also tend to be conservatively expressed. In February 2014, two of the top three
most ‘liked’ British products are Cadbury brands of chocolate, EastEnders is the
most popular television soap opera page with three million likes and Mr Bean has
the fastest growing Facebook page. Rihanna is the platform’s most liked celebrity,
and Manchester United the UK’s most liked sports page.
Although statistics about Facebook ‘likes’ and preferences can appear useful
for business marketing, the opposite may be true. Just under half the UK online
population who use social media state that they do not like seeing adverts that
are based on their profile and their ‘likes’ and so on, on sites such as Facebook.
Additionally, just under half (44 per cent) of the British online population say
they would not be more positive about a product simply because their friends
have followed it and/or liked it, and 43 per cent said they would be unlikely to
52 Cyberculture
talk about a brand on a social media site even if they heard something positive
about it.
After Facebook, the second most popular social media site is Twitter, with
around 15 million UK users, the fourth largest number of Twitter users in the
world after the USA, Brazil and Japan. However, not all users are active, and
around 40 per cent prefer to absorb content, that is follow rather than tweet. One
of its main functions is that it enables people and organisations to have direct
contact with the public, effectively ‘broadcasting’ to them and keeping them up
to date with their thoughts on current issues, new product launches and so on. As
with other social media, Twitter can also offer insights into consumption patterns
of young Britons. The singer Adele currently has the most followed account in
the UK with almost 20 million followers worldwide, while the footballer Wayne
Rooney is the most followed sportsman with 7.5 million followers. The most
popular brand is Rockstar Games who make the video game Grand Theft Auto,
with around 2.2 million followers. In contrast, the British monarchy has around
650,000 followers and the British prime minister has around half a million.
The most popular site for networking is LinkedIn, which had over 10 million
UK users in 2013. It was once seen as a place for aspirational young professionals
to deposit their CVs in the hope of getting a lucrative job offer, but today more
people are using it for business knowledge and keeping in touch, since it now
offers an alumni search and has a lower minimum age limit of 13.

Mumsnet
Of the most popular Twitter sites, the ‘Twitter 100’, over 75 per cent are
created and run by men. It is sometimes argued that the male sites encour-
age competitive behaviour, aggression and showing off, which discourages
women from participation. But in response to the perceived need for a site
dedicated to mothers and parents, Mumsnet was started in 2000 by Justine
Roberts, a former sports journalist. It aims to provide advice and information
on parenting and products, and has since become one of the most influen-
tial sites in the UK with a membership of around 4.5 million. Most members
are aged 25–45 and many are expatriates seeking information from British
sources, and around 75 per cent are educated to degree level or equivalent.
Its membership is highly active, and the site gets some 60 million hits per
month, with around 30,000 posts a day to forums within the site. Mumsnet
also has a Bloggers’ Network with 3,500 registered bloggers and a network
of 200 local sites run in partnership with local editors.
There is a strong sense of solidarity among Mumsnet members, which
has helped the organisation to campaign successfully in many fields. One
notable campaign involved an advert that used the slogan ‘Career women
make bad mothers’. But after Mumsnet members complained and lobbied
the advertising agency and their clients, the slogan was changed to ‘Sexist
ads are bad for business’. Later in 2010, the campaign ‘Let Girls Be Girls’
demanded that newsagents removed or covered ‘lads’ mags’ – magazines
with images of topless young women on the cover – which could easily
 Cyberculture 53
be seen by children. In turn, many major retailers responded by ensuring
the magazines were not on public view. Other campaigns have included the
advocacy of better care for women who miscarry during pregnancy, and a
Respite Care campaign that calls on local authorities to provide adequate
short breaks for families with disabled children. In 2013 the site also launched
a campaign to prevent sales representatives gaining access to women in
hospital maternity wards.
Their organisation and activity has also attracted the attention of politi-
cians seeking to influence women and gain their support at election time.
The 2010 election was nicknamed the ‘Mumsnet election’ as many politicians
believed they could influence a significant number of women by communi-
cating through Mumsnet online forums. In consequence, the site became
a target for political advertising and live webchats with party leaders, in an
attempt to influence a significant percentage of the electorate.
Despite their positive image and campaigning, Mumsnet has sometimes
attracted criticism. In March 2012 the pressure group Fathers 4 Justice
launched a campaign against the kind of comments and language used in
some forums, alleging that it was anti-male, and that if used in this way
against other races and sexualities, it would be considered unacceptable or
illegal. This included a naked protest at Marks & Spencer (which advertises
on Mumsnet), in which protesters took off their clothes to draw attention to
their cause. But in spite of occasional criticism, the site remains one of the
most active, informative and popular in the UK, capable of generating news,
comment and political action.

Trends in social media

Social media plays a significant role in people’s online activity, and Facebook is
the most popular site. But, although it continues to expand globally, in the UK
it is experiencing a decline with 1.5 million fewer active users in 2013 than in
the previous year. Those switching to other sites express concerns about digital
legacy as the main reason. Digital legacy refers to the way in which content, such
as photos and comments, have been posted online and may come back to trouble
and embarrass the user later in life. The main beneficiaries have been sites such
as Snapchat, which allow users to set a time limit for the availability of each post;
once the limit has expired, content is deleted from the app’s servers. Teenagers
are the core audience, and 70 per cent are female.
Facebook is also popular among parents, and this appears to be another reason for
younger users to leave. It appears that while parents used to worry about the possible
consequences of teenagers using social media, teenagers are now concerned about
their parents becoming active users. This results in children often switching sites,
as Facebook is no longer seen as ‘cool’. One study showed that mum sending son or
daughter a ‘friend’ request was the key moment that influenced them to leave.
Additionally, another recent study showed that around two in five of UK users
are becoming bored with traditional social media, with users switching away from
54 Cyberculture
sites that only connect people, such as Facebook and Friends Reunited, to those
that have a specific purpose, for example sports, consumer, technical and medi-
cal forums and political campaigns. Among the most popular are Mumsnet.com,
and moneysavingexpert.com (a consumer financial advice site), which now has
as many active users as Twitter in the UK. Similarly, sites that originally offered
only limited functions, such as information about music, cars or football teams,
are now offering social media functions too, such as the music site Spotify, whose
UK users currently spend around 14 hours per week accessing its services.
One of the areas most affected by the arrival of social media has been politics
and political communications. In the 2010 election, close attention was paid by
researchers to how election campaigners, commentators and voters would respond
to new digital campaigns set up by the parties. These involved studies of Twitter,
Facebook, crowdsourced advertisements, sentiment tracking (of expressed ‘likes’
in Facebook) and internet polling. It was found that 18–24-year-olds were the
most active social media users in terms of election discussion, with 25 per cent
posting election related comments on Facebook and Twitter, and of those 81 per
cent felt ‘engaged’ in the election. The election witnessed 600 candidates on
Twitter, together with several hundred journalists, party workers and ‘spin doc-
tors’, and it was at this time that Twitter became an essential source of real-time
information, enabling journalists to be in constant contact with political repre-
sentatives. In 2010, 198 members of the new Parliament and five members of
the cabinet were active on Twitter, a figure which is constantly rising and which
illustrates just how important digital communications have become to politics.
Just as political choices are influenced by social media, so are choices about
what to listen to, buy or download. The influence of professional critics is dimin-
ishing, as online reviews written by ‘citizen critics’, for example the Rotten
Tomatoes forum for film, have come to influence public perception of cultural
products. Similarly, recommendations ‘tweeted’ by celebrities who have millions
of followers on Twitter can be enough to ensure the financial health of a produc-
tion, and have become more important than a positive review by a professional
critic in a low-circulation quality newspaper. Review sites for many other goods
and services, from garages and dentists to local restaurants and pubs, are also
increasingly popular, and enable readers to make more informed choices. How-
ever, critics argue that not all reviews are genuine, and sometimes there is ‘foul
play’ as positive ones can be posted by the manufacturer or service provider, and
negative ones by their competitors.
The allure of internet shopping and obtaining goods more cheaply has proved
attractive to many British households, and some 13.5 per cent of all purchases
were made over the internet in 2010, which is projected to rise to 23 per cent by
2016. The increased amount of time Britons spend in the home has led to retail-
ers offering a home delivery service for all manner of goods and services. This
includes groceries from the large retailers such as Tesco and Waitrose, many of
whom offer a home delivery service. The impact has been widely felt, and shops
in many high streets around Britain have been forced to close due to the pressure
of competition online.
 Cyberculture 55

Figure 3.1 Anxiety about the effects of mass media, particularly on women and children,
is not new. This cartoon appeared in the satirical magazine Punch in 1906,
soon after the development of radio communications. Text under the cartoon
reads: ‘IV.–Development of Wireless Telegraphy. Scene in Hyde Park. (These
two figures are not communicating with one another. The lady is receiving an
amatory message, and the gentleman some racing results.)’
© The Art Archive/Alamy

Perhaps unsurprisingly, with people spending less time outside the home,
the UK online dating market is an area of rapid expansion. In Britain there is
a long history of meeting partners through the media. One of the first adver-
tisements appeared in 1695, and was placed in the publication A Collection of
Letters for Improvement of Husbandry and Trade by a ‘gentleman of about 30 years
of age’ seeking a ‘good young gentlewoman with at least £3000’. It is unknown
whether the request was successful, but today, of an estimated 5,000 dating
services in Europe, almost 1,500 are UK based. In 2012 the online dating
market grew by approximately 6 per cent, and is now worth £170 million, and
today approximately one in four relationships begin online. Over nine million
people have used online dating sites, and a full spectrum of services is avail-
able, from exclusive membership sites with personal agents to assist clients
seeking company, friendship and marriage in Britain or around the world, to
smartphone apps such as Grindr, which connect gay men looking for casual
encounters in the local area.
56 Cyberculture
Adult entertainment
The British adult entertainment industry continues to experience phenomenal
growth. Pornographic ‘tube’ sites (where viewers can upload content and watch
films free) have multiplied, as have ‘live’ streaming services. In 2012 the Adult
Industry Trade Association (AITA) estimated there were at least 5000 individu-
als working on adult webcams in the UK, who charge for performances, chat
and other professional services. Escorts can also legally advertise their services
online. This is said to make sex workers safer, since street prostitution is illegal
and dangerous in Britain, and running a brothel is prohibited. The shift online of
adult entertainment and services has also led to falling sales of adult DVDs and
men’s magazines as a direct line is created between producer and consumer, and
the ‘middleman’ is effectively eliminated.
The abundance and availability of online pornography and its possible effects
on young adults has been frequently debated. Although some argue that the
internet is important in providing education, choice and free speech, others argue
that it is having a negative impact on the relationships of young people. A 2012
study suggested that many children get information about sex not primarily from
school teachers or biology books, but the internet. It also points out that boys pri-
marily use material for arousal, while girls use it more for education. Research in
the UK has also shown that more than a third of 16–24-year-olds admitted por-
nography had caused problems in their relationships, primarily because exposure
to depersonalised and sometimes violent sexual encounters can distort what ‘nor-
mal’ sexual behaviour should involve, and what should be expected. However,
others argue that such studies are flawed, and that such personal problems among
young adults are not unusual, particularly in cases where there has been little or
no communication between parents and children about appropriate behaviour in
relationships.
The law requires websites to keep pornographic images out of reach of under-
18s, while the regulator of online pornography in the UK (the Authority for TV
on Demand – ATVOD) has the power to close UK-based sites if they do not
put up barriers to hard-core content. Currently, most sites comply and very few
are banned, but it is powerless to regulate those based overseas. However, the
Internet Watch Foundation has introduced a content-blocking system known as
Cleanfeed with some success, to prevent access to child pornography sites. But
technology advances quickly, and the current availability of ‘darknets’ (which
require special software to access them) and deep websites (which are password
protected and not accessed by search engines) remain problematic areas, both to
regulate and to block.

The web and the law

The rise of social media and an open cyber-world, in which much can be seen
and little is forbidden, sometimes leads users to believe it is a free speech zone,
a digital free-for-all, where users can say and show whatever they wish, without
 Cyberculture 57
fear of legal sanctions or punishment. Consequently, ‘trolling’ or the making of
provocative comments, insults and even threats in online forums is common. For
some internet users, they are harmless, humorous and mischievous, but for many
others their aggression and personal nature make them a form of hate speech.
So, in recent years laws have been introduced to control abuse of social media
sites such as Facebook, Twitter and others. These sites are now subject to the
same laws as the British mainstream media. For example, when threats are made
against individuals, or photos and films have been posted online without the
agreement of those featured in them, there is a strong possibility of harassment
charges against the poster. It is also illegal to discuss criminal cases that are in
progress in the UK, and anyone who makes comments that could influence a trial
may be prosecuted for contempt and imprisoned.
In recent times there have been heavy punishments for those caught breaking
the law. In 2010, a man was fined £1,000 for tweeting a ‘joke’ about blowing up
an airport in Sheffield. In 2012, a young man was sentenced to 56 days in prison
for racist tweets about footballer Fabrice Muamba. In 2014 a 31-year-old man was
sentenced to 18 weeks in prison for retweeting and sending indecent, obscene or
menacing messages to Stella Creasy, a British politician, and Caroline Criado-
Perez, a feminist activist, after the two women successfully campaigned to put the
image of Jane Austen on new British banknotes.
Other high-profile cases have involved the breaking of injunctions. These are
legal measures, preventing, for example, the reporting of a story or the naming of
individuals online or in print media. This is usually because it is not considered
to be a matter of public interest. But, in recent times it has been impossible to
enforce this law. For example, in 2011 the television presenter Jeremy Clarkson
used an injunction to prevent the British media from reporting a story that his
ex-wife had had an affair with him after he had married another woman. However,
the names of those involved began to appear on Twitter and other sites. As it was
clearly impossible to arrest the thousands of people discussing the matter, Clark-
son removed the injunction amid high levels of public interest and amusement.
Twitter was also blamed for its role in the riots of 2011; following the police
shooting of Mark Duggan, it was said to have aided rioters in co-ordinating their
movements, as well as inciting others to join in. But, an LSE–Guardian study
‘Reading the Riots’ of some 2.6 million tweets, which included allegations of
tanks assembling at the Bank of England, the London Eye on fire and a tiger on
the loose from London Zoo (all untrue), found that most were by those trying to
find out news, or updating others on their safe arrival home, as well as requests for
assistance to clean up the city after the riots. They were not, in the main, created
by or for those intent on criminal activity.
Therefore, it appears that if small numbers of individuals commit criminal
acts online, they will be prosecuted, even though legal action is often difficult,
complex and expensive. But if hundreds or even thousands tweet or say online
what should not be said, it seems nothing can be done. Research also shows that
despite comments by politicians and some newspapers to the contrary, anxiety
about Twitter’s role in promoting public disturbances is unfounded.
58 Cyberculture
Online surveillance
The freedom of the internet has, on the one hand, promoted openness of thought
and free speech, but at the same time there is growing public concern in the UK
about the ways in which communications are being monitored and data mined.
Until the 1990s, available data was simply limited to who phoned, when and
for how long, with all the information appearing in the telephone bill. Today,
however, the situation is very different, with the government, police and pri-
vate organisations commonly monitoring online social contacts, web searches
and social media postings (such as tweets or messages), while mobile phone data
is routinely gathered. Sometimes this is to obtain profiles of individuals for com-
mercial purposes, and sometimes it is said to be for national security, protection
from terrorism and so on.
Private organisations in particular are often interested in information gathered
from an iPhone, Gmail or Facebook account. They then proceed to ‘mine’, that
is create banks of information about users, which are analysed to find out about
individual tastes, preferences, habits and so on. The accuracy of such profiling
was confirmed in a recent study by neuroscientists from Cambridge University in
which it was shown that a range of Facebookers’ characteristics such as the age,
gender, sexuality, ethnicity, political and religious views could all be accurately
assessed from the ‘likes’ expressed in their Facebook accounts. The findings also
correctly predicted a range of psychological traits, such as personality type, IQ
and degree of personal happiness, as well as whether someone is likely to drink
alcohol, smoke and take illegal drugs.
On the one hand, it is argued that tracking users and data-mining enables
companies to serve customers better but, on the other hand, critics argue that
such research is intrusive and could signify an end to privacy. Privacy is known to
be necessary for mental health, and for the exploration of personal issues such as
sexuality, politics, conscience and so on, and its removal is a violation of human
dignity and rights. Despite these concerns, and even though retention of email
and telephone contact data is already required, in 2014 the coalition government
was considering the Communications and Data Bill. This would require internet
service providers and mobile phone companies to keep records for 12 months of
each user’s internet activity (but not content), including social media, emails,
voice calls, internet gaming and messages. However, opposition from the public
is strong, the main objection being a lack of trust in the government to securely
hold and manage data which was obtained using a ‘snooper’s charter’.

Video games
In recent years the popularity of video games has grown substantially, and more
are now sold in the UK than anywhere else in Europe. Production of games is also
notable, and the UK has 48 of the world’s top development studios which employ
a total of some 40,000 people working in areas such as design, development,
publishing, VFX (visual effects), online and mobile content. Many major games
 Cyberculture 59
and their film, book and comic franchises are developed in the Britain, including
Grand Theft Auto, Tomb Raider and Burnout. The work is highly profitable, and
in 2012 generated revenue of £3.1 billion, approximately equal to the amount
earned by UK film.
Gaming has now become a mainstream activity, with an estimated 33.6m play-
ers (over 80 per cent of the population). In contrast to the media stereotype of a
teenage male alone in his bedroom, research shows games are played by people of
all ages and social backgrounds, at home, online and on mobile phones. The more
affluent and less affluent play equally, as do men and women, with the average
British gamer playing for around 12 hours per week on games that take around a
month to complete. Almost half of all UK households contain at least one games
console such as a Wii, Playstation or Xbox, and games cover a range of styles and
genres, including violent hard-core games, casual games, social games and mas-
sively multiplayer online games (MMOG).

Gaming: a brief history

The history of gaming can be traced back to 1947 in the USA, when a patent
request was made for an invention described as a ‘cathode ray tube amuse-
ment device’. But video gaming was not common in Britain until the 1970s,
when Pong was created by Atari, a simple tennis game that could be played
on a domestic television. Shortly afterwards in 1978, British pubs and clubs
began to offer Space Invaders, a novelty game that involved firing upwards to
resist an invading alien army. Players and spectators were mesmerised by the
action, and gaming quickly became commonplace with its own televised tour-
naments. However, the machines were expensive, and usually found only in
public places such as pubs, cafes and amusement arcades rather than the domes-
tic environment.
Gamers were mostly male, but this began to change with the arrival of Pac-
Man in 1980. Pac-Man was a mild-mannered figure, specifically aimed at female
gamers, which reflected the innocence and inclusivity of games of the period.
The gentility continued with the ZX Spectrum, Britain’s contribution to video
games in 1982, a home computer made by Sinclair Research Ltd. Like many early
games it was comparatively primitive and low-tech, with lo-fi sound and poor
quality colour. But it was affordable, and as it used the programming language
BASIC, owners could be creative and write their own games. Two early popu-
lar examples were Manic Miner (1983) written by 17-year-old Matthew Smith,
which featured a hyperactive miner busily hacking coal before his oxygen supply
runs out, and Hover Bovver (Jeff Minter, 1983), in which a middle-aged man has
to mow the lawn using a neighbour’s mower, avoiding obstacles like flower beds,
the dog and an angry neighbour.
The charm and simplicity of early games made them popular with children and
adults, but large corporations in the USA and Japan were beginning to realise the
full commercial potential of gaming, and developed technology that produced
more realistic images as well as first-person action (in which the gamer assumes
60 Cyberculture
the role of the protagonist, interacting with the environment and shaping the
narrative). At the same time, attitudes towards video content were becoming
more permissive following the widespread availability of adult movies on VHS
for home consumption. The result was an explosive fusion between technology
and adult content, and it quickly became possible to transport the gamer into a
digital Armageddon of sex and violence.
The vivid, high-quality images and the violent, bloody scenarios depicted
in imported games such as Mortal Kombat (1992), Night Trap (1992) and Doom
(1993) were far removed from the innocent, childish, cartoon violence of earlier
times, and public concern about the potential effects of games on young people
increased. Negative associations began to attach themselves to games in general,
and in 1994 a new system of classification with age-specific ratings for parental
guidance was introduced in the USA. Paradoxically, government classification
indicated there was official concern over their possible negative effects, but sales
continued to rise and the variety of games expand.
Flying, driving and guitar-playing simulators, business strategy games, puzzles,
interactive role-playing games and environmental exploration games are among
the most popular in Britain today. They are played by gamers of all ages, genders
and social backgrounds. But the kind of game that has continued to attract most
attention in the UK and damage the reputation of games and gamers is the vio-
lent adventure game.

Grand Theft Auto

Grand Theft Auto o (GTA) is one of the most successful and influential games
in the history of video entertainment, and has sold more than 150 million
units since it first appeared in 1997. It was originally made in Dundee,
Scotland, where it was created for DMA Design by game developers David
Jones and Mike Dailly.
The GTA series is set in fictional cities that are modelled on American
ones, Liberty City (New York), Vice City (Miami) and San Andreas (southern
California), and was originally conceived as a game in which a player role-
plays a policeman attempting to keep law and order in the city. However,
the creators felt that it would be more exciting and enjoyable for gamers to
play the role of criminals, so the game was redesigned and the working title
changed from Race ’n’ Chase e to Grand Theft Auto.
o
The gamer role-plays a ‘baddie’ who aims to progress from street hustler
to master criminal by any means necessary. In the recent versions, most of
the action is set in bleak, dark urban environments, a realistically presented,
post-recession world of drugs, prostitutes and random violence. In the poor
parts of the city homeless people shuffle alongside yuppies, gangs prowl the
streets, and police sirens and searchlights penetrate the night. In contrast
are the more salubrious areas, where palatial mansions line up next to luxu-
rious hotels, with (gamer-playable) golf and tennis, (gamer-drivable) shiny
sports cars and (gamer-flyable) aircraft are hired for fun.
 Cyberculture 61

Figure 3.2 The lurid colours and content of the GTA cover designs recall fairground
and pinball art of the 1960s.
© Gavin Rodgers/Alamy

Settings are finely observed and detailed, and each one contains a wide
range of options for the player. But, although it is possible to fly, drive, race,
crash, play sports, have sex and even kill, the game does not require this, as
formats are non-linear, that is they are created by the gamers themselves.
So, participants can choose more leisurely options, such as calmly swim-
ming, shopping or driving slowly to enjoy the scenery.
A distinctive characteristic of GTA is its satire of American popular culture,
which gives the game a distinctly British feel. In GTA: San Andreas there is a
Facebook spoof called ‘Lifeinvader’ and parodies of TV talent shows. Along
the highways are billboards for plastic surgery, enemas and gun stores. On
62 Cyberculture
the car radio, the far-right network ‘Weazel News’ with the slogan ‘Confirm-
ing Your Prejudices’ broadcasts its biliousness to corrupt police, slimy politi-
cians, washed-up celebrities, career criminals, liars, cheats and sociopaths.
In a clear challenge to the American dream, the unspoken message is that
free, unrestricted capitalism is the handmaiden of violent crime.
GTA has received much praise for its humour, creativity and attention to
detail as well as the way in which it questions raw aspiration and the pur-
suit of the American dream. In 2006 it was voted one of Britain’s top ten
designs along with Concorde, the London Underground map, red telephone
boxes, cats-eyes, the Mini car, the Routemaster bus, the Spitfire plane, the
video-game cover Tomb Raider and the World Wide Web. However, in many
countries the series has attracted controversy, in particular for its violence,
its lack of values and its shallow, bitter, money-obsessed characters. It has
also been attacked for its marginalising and stereotyping of women, who are
cast in minor, superficial roles, such as prostitutes, strippers, neurotic wives
or eccentric feminists. Public concern about games’ adult nature, violent
themes and the lack of positive role models has also led to a ban on certain
editions of the game in some countries. But despite criticism, the latest ver-
sion of the game known as GTA-V became the best-selling video game ever
in the first 24 hours of sale, earning £495.5 million for its makers Rockstar.

Controversy and classification

Since the 1990s there have been numerous highly publicised incidents in Britain,
where acts of violence have been attributed to video-game playing. Many have
resulted in sensational newspaper headlines, articles, parliamentary speeches and
debates which have attempted to make connections between violence and video
games. The public image of games has been shaped by the content of the most
violent ones, and anything new has frequently been seen as a potential threat, in
particular that they are likely to make young people become violent.
A survey in 2013 found that 61 per cent of UK residents thought that playing
video games can be a cause of real world violence and aggression. However, of all
those surveyed, the older a person was, the more likely they were to believe this,
even though he or she was less likely to play games themselves. In contrast, the
younger ones who were more likely to play games thought a relationship was less
likely. In general, the amount of public concern over the danger posed by violent
games has diminished. This may be because many gamers are now in their 30s
and 40s, and after playing video games without experiencing any harmful effects
when they were teenagers, are now less likely to believe that games are poten-
tially harmful.
Public anxiety over video games replicates the reaction that occurred when
other types of new media first became widely available to British working-class
youth. This includes the arrival of the cheap, sensational fiction (the ‘penny
dreadfuls’) in the nineteenth century, and later with comics, rock and roll music,
and even commercial television (ITV) in the 1950s. The middle and upper classes
 Cyberculture 63
became concerned that the kind of images and messages in the new media were
unsuitable for the less educated classes, and would promote idleness, violence and
promiscuity, even though a relationship was never proved.
Moreover, it is often argued that anxiety and protest over something as trivial
as a video game can be a symptom of deeper, more complex social malaise that
cannot be easily identified or expressed. In this situation, the game becomes a
scapegoat, a focus for public anger and a way for people to let off steam when
feeling anxious, pressurised or threatened. For example, it has been argued that
anxiety over video games may be because parents do not spend enough time with
their children. But, as parents do not want to blame themselves for pursuing a
career or working excessively, their anxiety is focused outwards onto game con-
tent, and its allegedly addictive nature.
The lack of women in video games is also criticised, particularly by women
gamers who allege that in contrast to the realism of the violence, women are
cast in unrealistic, shallow and patronising roles. It is alleged they are under-
appreciated, and feature merely as sex objects who are there for men’s enter-
tainment. On the other hand, it is said that such portrayals are due to a lack of
women writers or game creators, and this is because relatively few women wish to
enter such a male-dominated industry.
One game that has successfully gone against the grain is Tomb Raider (1996),
which features the female protagonist Lara Croft. The game was originally cre-
ated in Derby, by game developer Core Design. Games involving the treasure-
hunting British archaeologist have become a successful franchise, which has led
to the creation of adventure games, comic books, novels and theme-park rides. In
2001 the story was made into a film, featuring Angelina Jolie as Lara.
Unlike many macho adventure games with a rugged, muscular all-conquering
hero, the protagonist is presented as a beautiful, intelligent and sporty young girl.
The game manuals describe her as born in Wimbledon, daughter of Lord Croft,
whose aristocratic upbringing was cut short in a plane crash in the Himalayas,
which spurred Lara to seek more adventures in prehistoric ruins around the world.
For many feminists she presents a contradictory role: on the one hand, she is
cast as emancipated, empowered and aspirational, a role model for many young,
independent girls; but, on the other, she is given sex appeal, revealing dress sense
and an unrealistic body shape, in a way which is said to make her the embodi-
ment of male fantasies. At the same time, all these characteristics have made her
something of a cult figure among male and female gamers, as well as the most
recognisable female character in the history of video games. With over 35 million
editions of Tomb Raider sold, and 35 per cent of sales to women, it has become
one of the best-selling games of all time.
Despite periodic outbreaks of public concern about the possible harmful effects
of video games in Parliament and the press, it was not until 2012 that a system
of classification was introduced in Britain. Today, games are rated according to
their content, and the Video Standards Council (VSC) applies the Pan European
Games Information (PEGI) age-rating system to all video games sold on physical
(i.e. not downloadable) media. Games are recommended for ages 3, 7, 12, 16 and
Figure 3.3 Lara Croft ready for action.
© southeast asia/Alamy
 Cyberculture 65
18, according to depictions of frightening material, violence, alcohol consump-
tion and so on, a system that has gone some way to calming public concern.
Games featuring strong pornographic content continue to be classified by the
British Board of Film Classification, which categorises them as R18, and retailers
selling titles with ratings of 12, 16 or 18 to children under those age limits can
be prosecuted. But, due to the size of the UK market, designers generally create
games that conform to regulatory standards, so it has rarely been necessary to
consider a ban on any particular game.
The appeal of gaming is thus broad and strong, and illustrates how leisure
habits together with many other aspects of social and personal behaviour have
changed as a consequence of digitisation of everyday life.
4 Newspapers, magazines and
journalism

66 - 68

Newspapers

Introduction
There is a wide choice of daily press in Britain, with approximately 130 daily
and 1,800 weekly newspapers. Despite their variety, they can be basically
divided into two categories: the quality press and the popular press. The for-
mer have a reputation for greater focus on economic, political and cultural
coverage, and include the Guardian, the Independent, the Daily Telegraph, The
Times and the Financial Times. The Daily Telegraph is the highest-selling qual-
ity newspaper, with a daily circulation of around 420,000 in 2014. However,
the total sales of quality press only account for around 15 per cent of all news-
papers sold.
In contrast, the popular press has a reputation for sensational, lighter news
stories, with more pictures and comment about well-known people from show-
business and sports. These include the mid-market papers of the Daily Mail and
Daily Express, and the popular daily press of the Sun, Daily Mirror and the Daily
Star. The Sun is the biggest-selling newspaper in Britain, and in 2014 it had a
circulation of over two million, approximately a quarter of the tabloid market.
A number of papers also print a Sunday edition, which is distinct in character
to the weekday editions, and often carries a colour supplement with items of
consumer and leisure interest. There are also around 900 free daily and weekly
newspapers, which are financed by advertising. The largest is Metro, which began
on the London Underground transport system in 1999. It now has 13 editions
nationwide, and is said to have a combined readership of 1.7 million.
One of the most distinctive characteristics of the press is its language. The
quality press generally includes longer articles, written with complex sentences
and more formal vocabulary, while the popular press present the news in shorter
articles, with more colloquial vocabulary and more inventive wordplay. The
language used is often witty and imaginative, with alliterations, puns, amusing
misspellings, and references to literature and history. This serves to capture the
reader’s eye, raise a smile and stimulate the imagination, but for foreign readers it
can sometimes render simple, popular stories unintelligible.
 Newspapers, magazines and journalism 67
Humour and political satire has a long history in Britain and almost all news-
papers carry cartoons that make fun of the issues of the day, from the images
drawn by Hogarth and Gillray in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to
those of Steve Bell, Heath and many others of the present time.
Until the 1980s most of the national newspapers were based in London’s
Fleet Street in the heart of the city, but now many are based in modern prem-
ises in the outskirts. The London base means they are often accused of hav-
ing a strong bias towards London politics, economics and culture. In 2014 the
London Evening Standard had the highest circulation among local and regional
papers with a circulation of around 600,000 per edition (although the paper is
now free).
There are approximately 1,300 local or regional newspapers serving other parts
of Britain. In Scotland, the Daily Record has the highest circulation of the Scot-
tish newspapers, but the Herald is the leading quality daily newspaper. In Wales,
the Western Mail has the highest circulation. Welsh-language papers and bilin-
gual press are also available. In Northern Ireland, papers from the British main-
land as well as the Irish Republic are widely sold.
Almost all daily newspapers also have a website with a different, online version
of the paper. Most are free, although an increasing number have a paywall, which
means readers must pay a fee to have full access to articles and links on the site.
However, breakfast over a newspaper is a ritual in millions of kitchens, and many
people have them delivered to the house, rather than buy them in newsagents or
browse them online. In the past, this intimacy has helped to create a special bond
between the British and their press, but it is an increasingly fragile relationship,
as in recent years sales have fallen dramatically.
The press owners target their newspapers not so much at a particular age group,
region or ethnic majority, but at a particular social class and political affiliation,
and for this reason they say as much about the people who read them as the world
they report. Thus, the political leanings of different newspapers have ensured
that, for many readers, their newspaper has become a badge of social and political
identity.
By tradition, the British press is free of political control. No newspaper is
owned by the government, and the press is able to openly criticise any political
party and its policies. However, the press has never been impartial. There is no
legal requirement for impartiality, unlike with the television news and BBC radio
news which are more strictly regulated. Consequently, newspaper editorials and
opinion columns often feature lively, combative and outspoken political views.
These are most clearly stated at election time, and reflect the interests of their
owners.
Britain is one of the few countries that allows foreign ownership of major
media enterprises, and since 1945 there has been substantial involvement by
non-British owners. Robert Maxwell, who owned the Daily Mirror between 1984
and 1991, was born Jan Ludwig Hoch, a Czech. Until 2004 the Canadian busi-
nessman Conrad Black held various media interests in the USA, as well as the
Daily Telegraph, the mouthpiece of the Tory Party. Rupert Murdoch (originally an
68 Newspapers, magazines and journalism
Table 4.1 British daily newspapers, their circulations and owners.

Newspaper Daily circulation (June 2014) Owner

Sun 2,033,606 News UK
Daily Mirror 958,674 Trinity Mirror
Daily Star 466,935 Richard Desmond
Daily Record 213,896 Trinity Mirror
Daily Mail 1,673,579 Daily Mail and General Trust
Daily Express 479,704 Richard Desmond
Daily Telegraph 514,592 David and Frederick Barclay
The Times 393,530 News UK
Financial Times 220,532 Financial Times Group
Guardian 185,313 Guardian Media Group
Independent 63,505 Independent News and Media
The i 286,356 Alexander Lebedev, Evgeny Lebedev
Source: Audit Bureau of Circulation, June 2014

Australian and now a naturalised American) currently holds substantial media

interests, including the Sun, The Times and the Sunday Times, as well as Sky TV,
and other American media companies.
Since 1945 the British press has changed greatly. The number of newspapers
has declined, sales have fallen, and the content and nature of journalism has
become more populist. There are also fewer owners, and a greater concentration
of power in fewer hands. Many papers have been faced with closure, in a process
that has accelerated with the arrival of digital communications and significant
changes in how news and entertainment is produced and consumed. A number of
recent scandals and high-profile court cases have also lowered public confidence
in press standards, particularly those of the popular, tabloid newspapers. Conse-
quently, the press is currently living through some of the most difficult times in
its history, and its future seems far from certain.

Pioneers
Until the eighteenth century news was commonly spread by a ‘town crier’ who
would walk through towns and villages making public announcements. Most peo-
ple could not read, but his familiar cry of ‘Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!’ (from old French,
meaning ‘Listen!’) drew attention to major news of wars, crimes, tax increases
and so on. Production costs, transport difficulties and general illiteracy prevented
large-scale publication, distribution and sale of newspapers, but gradually they
began to appear for a small, educated, wealthy readership.
The first English newspaper – the Daily Courant – was published in
1702, although newspapers of today were established much later. The Times
(1785), the Observer (1791) and the Sunday Times (1822) are among the old-
est that are still in print. Later, literacy standards improved and there was
 Newspapers, magazines and journalism 69
a new, expanding lower middle class of literate clerical workers. They had lit-
tle interest in the papers written for an educated, wealthy elite, but there was
demand for simple, interesting stories in print. In response, a popular national
press began to grow, with papers such as the News of the World (1843) and the
People (1881).

Figure 4.1 Many people still buy their press at a newsagent’s or have it delivered to the
home, despite the availability of most papers online.
© David Christopher
70 Newspapers, magazines and journalism
Throughout the twentieth century, an expanding industry attracted a new
class of business people or ‘press barons’ who saw the possibilities for profits and
self-advancement, as well as the chance to influence the political and economic
affairs of the time. The Irishman Alfred Harmsworth (who later became Lord
Northcliffe) was the first British press entrepreneur. He wanted to produce a
newspaper like those being published in the USA, and in 1896 founded the Daily
Mail , and later bought the Observer, The Times and the Sunday Times.
But in the early decades of the twentieth century the public had few opportu-
nities to gain and exchange information about what was happening in the world.
There was still no radio or television, standards of education were generally poor,
and the majority of students left school with little more than a basic ability to
read and write. Consequently, those with control of information could easily
influence people and politics, and a reputation was established among the most
popular British press for supporting Conservative, right-wing interests, and for
hostility towards the redistribution of wealth, social reform and equal rights for
women.
However, one of the few papers that has traditionally supported the Labour
Party is the Daily Mirror. When it was founded by Harmsworth in 1903 it was
initially aimed at a new readership of literate women, but sales fell until the paper
became a picture paper that was sympathetic to the Labour Party, and soon it
became one of the most popular publications in Britain. It remained so until the
mid-1980s, when a change of politics under its new owner, Robert Maxwell, led
to falling sales, high levels of debt, theft from Mirror employees, and finally the
mysterious and dramatic death of its owner, who drowned at night off his yacht
in the Canary Islands.
Britain’s growing multicultural communities are also well served by the press.
Publishing in English, some of the best known include the Chinese newspaper
Sing Tao, the Arabic paper Al-Arab and the Jewish Chronicle, a long-established
paper founded in 1841. The Asian Times is an English-language weekly for the
Asian community, while Afro-Caribbean publications include The Voice and the
Caribbean Times. Several other papers are published in Britain and appear in lan-
guages of the communities they serve, including Bangla, Korean, Latvian, Polish,
Portuguese, Urdu and Russian.
Some papers emerged in response to what was seen as unfair representation of
their communities in the British press. For example, during the early 1980s much
attention was given in the papers to an association between race and crime, and
racist reports in the mainstream popular papers, which alleged that black people
caused trouble, and took white people’s homes and jobs. In response, black com-
munities wanted a newspaper that would represent their interests more fairly,
and in 1982 The Voice was launched, a weekly paper that aims to project positive
images about and for the black community to a younger readership aged mainly
between 15 and 34. It has also gained a strong reputation as a populist newspaper
which campaigns to correct miscarriages of justice involving black people. In the
mid to late 1990s the paper had a circulation of around 55,000 but in recent years
sales figures have fallen, and some papers like New Nation have had to close. This
 Newspapers, magazines and journalism 71
71 - 72 may be because African and Caribbean Britons are becoming more assimilated
and mainstream. But others argue that these ethnic communities like to listen to
different music, watch different theatre, eat different food and even suffer from
different medical complaints, and for those reasons there will always be demand
for a separate press.

Press influence
Political views held by newspaper owners on current topics can usually be found
in press editorials, as well as in the selection and coverage of news stories, and it is
often discussed to what extent these influence readers. One allegation is that the
press sometimes sensationalise and exaggerate certain types of behaviour, giving
the impression that it is new, dangerous and more common than it really is, in
order to attract attention and sell newspapers. For example, in recent years these
have included video ‘nasties’, asylum seekers and binge drinking. In such cases,
dramatic headlines, stories and pictures are published, together with accounts of
behaviour that enrage or frighten readers. But these are often based on stereo-
types, and an unthinking prejudice against the alleged behaviour, rather than
facts. Nevertheless, debates about the topic follow in the mass media and some-
times in Parliament. Members of the public become worried and begin to prepare
for a confrontation, and demand tough action from the police and politicians to
avert the threat. However, in many cases a close examination often shows reports
to be exaggerated or untrue, and photos to be staged or posed, in episodes known
as ‘moral panics’.
During the past 50 years there have been panics over various youth subcultures
such as Teds, mods, rockers and ‘New Age’ travellers, as well as inner-city black
youths, video games and new drugs. Lurid stories appeared in the press, and those
with no direct experience of them became angry and worried. They demanded
political action, and created a situation that the political right could exploit, by
promising tough measures, ‘a crackdown’ and ‘zero tolerance’ against what was
essentially a minor or trivial threat, compared with more serious issues such as the
consequences of unemployment, the erosion of welfare benefits or the unavail-
ability of affordable housing.
In terms of newspapers’ influence on voting, the political preferences of the
press can be seen most clearly at election time, when readers are urged to support
one or other of the major parties. Most papers are hostile to the Labour Party,
and more sympathetic to the Tory Party. But at the three elections of 1997, 2001
and 2005 most press supported Labour — despite the critical stance of the own-
ers of the newspapers. This is because the press barons are shrewd and pragmatic
individuals who, in troubled times of falling sales, fully understand the need to
‘back the probable winner’ and be popular, in order to sell papers and remain
solvent. In 2010, most supported the Tory Party, although the result was a ‘hung’
Parliament and a coalition government between the Conservatives and Liberal
Democrats. This suggests that in elections since 1997, people vote according to
the advice given in their newspapers. But an alternative view – often held by
72 Newspapers, magazines and journalism
those who work in the media – is that the main reason people buy a newspaper is
simply because they like its tone, its pictures and the sports coverage.
However, with the growth and spread of digital communications, citizens have
become increasingly active in collecting, reporting and disseminating news. This
has led to an increasing number of news sources, and a decline in the influence of
newspapers. For example, if there is a major story in the news about a public dem-
onstration, readers can find online reports written by campaigning organisations
on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs and so on where news is reported more
quickly and directly than in a newspaper – whether hard copy or online – as, for
example, with the ‘Occupy London’ movement in Britain in 2011/12, when news
spread much faster over social media than through traditional channels.
The government and their departments understand the power of the new media
well, in addition to more traditional kinds such as newspapers. They have created
a large number of press officers to effectively ‘spin’ or present news in a favourable
manner and, where appropriate, counter what is being said in social media or by the
press. Many other public and private organisations do the same, in order to protect
their public image and quickly counter any negative news with releases of informa-
tion on new and traditional media from their own public relations departments.
Nevertheless, the newspapers still retain a power to influence the news agen-
das of other media. What the papers say is still of some significance to other news
media, because people pay to read it. It indicates people’s concerns and interests.
Consequently, press headlines are routinely mentioned in television news bul-
letins, and these in turn affect television news agendas.
This suggests that British newspapers, their editors, reporters and columnists,
still have some influence over public debate, particularly over what is debated
and in what way. However, the papers appear to have less influence over people’s
political opinions, which can be shaped through a variety of different media and
information sources.

The press under pressure

Newspapers have become important ‘players’ in British politics. They are some-
times referred to as the ‘Fourth Estate’, after the three principal institutions of
Church, Crown and Parliament. But since the early 1970s the sales of British
daily and Sunday newspapers have been falling. Between 1997 and 2007, total
sales fell by 25 per cent. The decline is now around 5 per cent year on year in the
national press, and around 7 per cent year on year for the regional press.
Commentators suggest this is for a number of reasons. First, an increase in the
number of daily papers, especially free ones and free online versions, has created
more competition. Almost all newspapers now have a website, but it has been dif-
ficult to monetise these, as people are generally unwilling to pay for online con-
tent. Although some income is derived from internet advertising on the papers’
websites, this is considerably less than from print advertising, which contributes
around half of a newspaper’s income (the other half generated through sales).
And, although there are no distribution costs associated with online news, there
 Newspapers, magazines and journalism 73
is more competition from other newspapers around Britain and the world, as well
as other news sites such as AOL and Yahoo.
Second, television has had a substantial impact, and with the gradual deregu-
lation of broadcasting since the 1990s, a multitude of different news, sport and
entertainment channels has appeared that broadcast 24/7, and their news bul-
letins are sometimes seen as more convenient and reliable than newspapers pre-
pared the day before.
Third, the British are buying fewer newspapers because the press have been
slow to respond to changes in British politics and society. In the past, newspapers
have forged their identities around the traditional political divisions of left and
right, and the traditional three-class system of upper, middle and working class.
But British politics has changed, and so has the society that produced it. Manu-
facturing and heavy industry have largely disappeared, as has a heavily unionised,
collectivist, blue-collar society. Immigration and multicultural communities,
often with different attitudes and values, have also contributed to the growth of
a more complex and diverse society. As a result of these demographic changes,
newspapers have needed to reshape their identities in order to successfully and
consistently appeal to particular demographics within a more fragmented popula-
tion, something that most have been unable to do.
Instead, many newspapers have attempted to address this problem by becom-
ing more populist. Even the ‘quality’ press now feature more light, popular news,
‘celebrity’ stories and scandals about people in sport, television and music, and
popular culture in general, together with attempts to seduce readers with dis-
counts and free gifts, cheap air tickets and restaurant meals, free CDs and price
cuts. This provokes the criticism that the press have become more like a form of
entertainment, rather than a source of news and education.
The press has also tried to deal with increasing financial pressures by search-
ing for stories that expose scandal and sleaze. Since the 1960s British society
has become much more open, less deferential and hierarchical, and today the
public demands to know ‘the facts’ about the behaviour of those in positions of
influence and authority. On some occasions, this has involved the controversial
use of ‘honey traps’ to tempt victims into committing illegal behaviour, which is
typically then photographed and exposed. On other occasions, there has been no
need, for example in the 1990s when many members of the Conservative govern-
ment including Jeffrey Archer, Jonathan Aitken, David Mellor, Neil Hamilton
and others were forced to resign following newspaper investigations into their
financial and personal affairs.
More recently in 2009 the Daily Telegraph broke a major news story over par-
liamentary expenses. It revealed that many MPs were misusing their permitted
allowances and expenses, and also tried to stop an investigation into their affairs.
This led to public anger and a loss of confidence in Parliament, particularly at a
time of economic crisis. As a result, many MPs resigned, were sacked, de-selected
or retired. Some apologised and repaid their expenses, while several members or
former members of the House of Commons, and members of the House of Lords,
were imprisoned.
74 Newspapers, magazines and journalism
Today, not only are politicians and the wider royal family pursued and pho-
tographed by undercover reporters and paparazzi, but also a new ‘aristocracy’
of celebrities from television, film, pop and sport. A range of newspapers and
magazines report their every move as if it were a matter of public interest. This
has led to many cases of false accusations being made about individuals, who
have sued the press to gain redress. However, litigation has usually been long,
very expensive and involved further publicity, so most individuals felt it was not
worthwhile.
But in recent years competition to find sensational stories that would sell
newspapers became intense and extreme. In 2011, journalists themselves became
the story, when it was alleged that journalists from Rupert Murdoch’s company
News International were involved in hacking people’s phones (listening to
others’ voicemails), to gain information that could then be used to sell news-
papers. The allegations were proven and led to the closure of the 168-year-old
News of the World by its owners News International, and a trial said to have cost
around £100 million. The scandal involved not only reporters, but also impli-
cated Rebekah Brooks, former editor of the Sun, the NotW and a close friend of
Prime Minister David Cameron, as well as Andy Coulson, Cameron’s official
spokesman, who had previously been editor of NotW. Scores of journalists were
arrested, and some imprisoned, including Andy Coulson. The police themselves
were also implicated, with allegations of payments made to officers in return for
confidential information. Victims of phone-hacking were said to number over
4000, and included politicians, celebrities, police, solicitors and ordinary citizens,
including a murdered schoolgirl, Milly Dowler.
For many years public confidence in journalism has been falling. It is said
that falling sales have led to more intense competition and in turn this has led
to more subjective, inaccurate reporting, less in-depth analysis and, ultimately,
illegal behaviour. To address the matter, in 2006 the Media Standards Trust
was set up. It organises debates, funds research into areas of concern and co-
sponsors the Orwell Prize for journalism. In 2011 it set up the ‘Hacked Off’
campaign, which demanded a public inquiry into phone hacking. Prominent
members included actor Hugh Grant, authors J.K. Rowling and John Pilger, for-
mer Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, and many other victims. While the
public generally supported their interventions and objectives, some said it was a
pressure group of the wealthy and powerful celebrities who wanted state control
of the media.
In 2011 the government intervened and ordered a general inquiry – the Leve-
son Inquiry – into the culture, practices and ethics of the press, and into unlawful
practice at News International and other news organisations. Recommendations
were also made for a new, independent body to replace the Press Complaints
Commission which would be recognised by the state through new laws. Further
measures have also been promised once all the investigations have taken place,
but it remains to be seen how successful these will be. Many feel its recommenda-
tions will be fought by the press, despite calls for an independent and effective
regulator by parliament and the public.
 Newspapers, magazines and journalism 75
Whatever the final outcome, public confidence in the popular press, especially
in the ‘red tops’ (the popular press with their red banners), has been badly dam-
aged. In 2014, a study of 2,100 UK adults revealed 68 per cent said they did not
trust the popular press ‘to do what is right’. However, despite declining circula-
tions, they still enjoy relatively high sales figures compared with the quality press.
This suggests that most people do not buy them expecting responsible, truthful
journalism, but instead seek entertainment from the tone of the paper, the sport
and the pictures.

The Sun
The Sun is the UK’s best-selling newspaper, with an average Monday–
Saturday circulation of more than two million a day and a claimed total
readership of around 5.5 million. Other daily editions of the paper appear
in Ireland and Scotland, which are similar in content and character to the
English version, but with more emphasis on home nations’ news and sport.
It has become famous for its funny, sharp headlines, its wordplay, for cap-
turing the mood of its readers, influencing their views and often forcing the
government to listen. Its supporters say it is the common voice of the coun-
try, but its critics argue that it has nasty politics and an aggressive populism,
which in the past has often been mischievous and malevolent.
The paper began in 1964, when the left-wing Daily Herald was re-launched
as the Sun. In 1969 it was bought by Australian-American billionaire Rupert
Murdoch, who still owns the paper. Murdoch wanted to expand the appeal
of the Sun to a wider audience, and began to attract readers by focusing
on sex and sport. A picture of a topless model was published every day on
page 3, and the paper began to include coverage of all major sports events.
Its new formula proved popular, and by 1978 its circulation had increased to
four million copies per day.
Until 1979 the Sun had supported the trade unions and the Labour Party,
but it switched its political allegiance to the Conservatives led by Margaret
Thatcher before the election of that year. The Tories won, and brought the
start of 18 years of Tory rule. The Sun became Thatcherite propaganda. Sto-
ries were carefully chosen, oversimplified and presented as ‘black and white’
in a way that avoided complexity or careful analysis, while a popular diet of
celebrity and sport amused its readers. Meanwhile, the newspaper dam-
aged the Labour Party with humour and often inaccurate reporting.
In 1982, during Britain’s war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands
(Malvinas), the paper enthusiastically ran competitions for the best anti-
Argentinian jokes. It also sponsored a missile, encouraged a boycott of
Argentinian corned beef and published crass, insensitive headlines such as
‘Gotcha’ when 1,200 Argentines were killed as the warship Belgrano was
sunk. But despite criticism for becoming aggressive, prejudiced and jingois-
tic, it became the most popular newspaper of its time.
After the defeat of Argentina the Sun began to attack those Thatcher called
‘the enemy within’. Gay rights, women’s rights and Labour Party attempts
to promote a fairer, more equal and tolerant society were all criticised and
76 Newspapers, magazines and journalism
ridiculed as the politics of the ‘loony left’. But despite sometimes violent
police action in industrial disputes with print workers, miners and others, the
authorities were rarely criticised.
In 1989 the new satellite television service Sky Television began broad-
casting, launched by Rupert Murdoch’s company News International, and
the Sun contained frequent ‘plugs’ for its news and sports programmes, as
well as adverts for the dish needed to receive them. Meanwhile, Tory minister
Norman Tebbit praised the paper’s topless ‘page 3’ girl, telling readers she
was really the working man’s Venus de Milo, to much public amusement.
During the time of its highest circulation (1981–94) the editor was Kelvin
MacKenzie, who introduced a mixture of gossip, celebrity, television, sport
and reality TV. But its popularity has not always been constant, for example
in its reporting of how 96 Liverpool fans had died at a football match at Hill-
sborough in Sheffield in 1989. The paper implied the fans were to blame, in
reports that offended the people of Liverpool, who had not liked its Thatch-
erite politics and anti-trade unionism. In protest on Merseyside, copies were
publicly burnt and newsagents refused to sell it. The newspaper was sub-
sequently shown to be wrong by the Hillsborough Independent Panel, an
independent inquiry in 2012, which led to a public apology from MacKenzie
and others involved at the time.
In the 1990s sales of the Sun fell, as the Tory government became more
and more unpopular. Eventually, in 1997, the paper realised that it could not
tell people to vote for the party likely to lose the election, and so advised its
readers to vote for Labour. It was a pragmatic gesture, which showed the
paper’s need for sales and popularity. However, in 1998 a headline ques-
tioned ‘Are We Being Run by a Gay Mafia?’, following revelations about gay
members of the New Labour cabinet.
Since then, in response to changes in social attitudes and a less politically
polarised society, the Sun has gradually become much less aggressive than
in the 1980s. There has been a gradual shift towards attacking government
policies rather than personalities. However, it still claims to defend values
that are said to be ‘British’ but are often those of the newspaper and its
owner.
Immigration and the issue of relations with Europe have always been dif-
ficult for the newspaper. A campaign against asylum seekers in 2003 was
carried out under sensational, populist headlines such as ‘Our Heritage is
Crumbling’, ‘Migrant Horde in Hospital Rampage’, ‘Richest Town in Britain
Swamped by Illegals’ and ‘Swan Bake’, which falsely suggested asylum seek-
ers were slaughtering and eating swans. In a similar vein, a flavour of the
Sun’s attitude towards Europe could be seen in its ‘Guide to the EU Constitu-
tion’ published on 22 April 2004 (p. 13), which states ‘Our army will have to fol-
low EU orders’, ‘We will be ordered what to say at the UN: the new EU foreign
minister will speak for Britain at the Security Council’. It continues to be xeno-
phobic towards EU leaders, sometimes calling them Krauts, Frogs and Hun.
Its regular feature of a topless model on page 3 continues to cause contro-
versy. It has endured since 1970, despite periodic criticism that it is degrad-
ing to women. Even in the more permissive society of 2012, the ‘No More
Page 3’ campaign argued the pictures ‘condition readers to view women as
sex objects’, and that it ‘normalises horrible sexist banter’. The campaign
77 - 83
Newspapers, magazines and journalism 77
to ban the topless model is supported by a number of charities and trade
unions, including Unison and the National Union of Teachers. In 2013 the
Irish edition of the Sun n stopped publishing topless photos, because of what
the editor called ‘cultural differences’ between Britain and Ireland.
Its politics are pragmatic, and not ideological. Despite consistently criticis-
ing the government, it supported them in the elections of 2001 and again in
2005, in order to ‘back the winner’. But, in 2009 the paper switched its sup-
port to the Tories, who went on to form a coalition government.
The phone-hacking allegations of 2011 marked a watershed for the
paper. The same year the Sun n’s sister paper the News of the World d was
closed by its owner, News International, and in 2012 the Sun on Sunday
took its place. But the Sun n has been badly damaged by revelations of phone
hacking and illegal payments for information, and many personnel formerly
connected with the paper have been arrested, are awaiting trial or have
been imprisoned.
Today, as with many other popular newspapers, ‘showbiz’ stories, drama,
sex, money and sports stories still take up most of the paper, which mir-
ror the content, style and tone of Sky TV. But in spite of its crude, brash
populism, its circulation (like that of many newspapers) continues to decline.
Nevertheless, politicians of all the main parties still see it as a potentially
important ally in a general election. Meanwhile, critics observe that although
the newspaper has produced some witty tabloid journalism, good light
entertainment and wide sports coverage, it has also produced stories that
are unreliable, exaggerated and untrue, as numerous court cases and the
Leveson Inquiry have demonstrated.

Magazines

Introduction
There is an enormous market in Britain for light reading. Magazines for leisure
and entertainment fill this gap, and a glance at the shelves of any newsagent
reveals a huge variety of magazines directed at people’s interests, wants, needs
and fantasies. But, the business of magazine publishing is very much subject to
fashion and change. New titles are constantly appearing, particularly in the field
of magazines for women where there are about 80 different journals.
Many women’s magazines, such as Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire , are produced
to offer advice on contemporary issues such as money, sex and contraception, as
well as more general subjects such as fashion, travel and the law. Others, such
as Hello! and OK! feature photographs and gossip about the ‘new aristocracy’ of
television, pop and sports stars, shown for example going to a party, getting mar-
ried or cooking Sunday lunch.
However, the top-selling magazines are general publications carrying details
of forthcoming television and radio programmes on terrestrial and satellite sta-
tions. TV Choice and the imaginatively named What’s On TV regularly sell over
78 Newspapers, magazines and journalism
a million copies each, and reflect the importance, popularity and centrality of
television in everyday life. The long-established Radio Times (1923–) is in third
place. The fourth best-selling is Take a Break, a puzzle magazine with ‘true life
stories’, and weekly UK sales of around 730,000 in 2014.
For many years women’s magazines, men’s hobby magazines and children’s
titles were the principal market categories, but a more recent arrival is men’s
‘lifestyle’ or general interest magazines, such as FHM, Loaded, Maxim and Zoo.
Popularly known as ‘lad mags’, the number of titles has expanded greatly since
the 1990s, and they carry a mixture of general interest features, humour and
numerous pictures of bikini-clad girls for a male readership aged mainly under 35.
The sales figures of magazines are important to advertisers, and are published
every six months by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Advertisers also want to
know what kind of readers buy a particular magazine, and the National Read-
ership Survey analyses readers’ social class, age, sex, as well as the magazine’s
similarity to other titles. Marketing agencies then use the information to decide
where to advertise their products.

Women’s magazines
Women’s magazines are the second most popular category in terms of sales. They
have a long history, and reflect social change and the position of women in soci-
ety. As with newspapers, the early magazines were directed towards the wealthy
and educated, as this was the only class that could afford them and read well. Since
then, many have come and gone, leaving Tatler (1709) and The Lady (1885) as
two of Britain’s oldest.
During the mid-nineteenth century demand grew for printed matter of all
kinds, and there was an expansion in the number of women’s titles. Despite calls
in Parliament for more equality for women, most press ignored feminist politics
and demands for universal suffrage, believing it would put readers off. Queen
Victoria agreed with the view, and gave permission for her title to be used for
the magazine Queen in 1861, a publication aimed at satisfying the genteel con-
cerns of upper-class young women, which lasted until 1970 when it merged with
Harper’s Bazaar and became Harpers & Queen.
In the early twentieth century new types of popular press appeared when more
women began to work outside the home. Literacy rates had also improved, and
magazines began to appear for younger readers, such as Peg’s Paper (1919). In
contrast, the more established, traditional magazines of The Lady, Queen and
Vogue continued to feature stories and articles by the best-known literary authors
of the day, such as Aldous Huxley, Evelyn Waugh, Wyndham Lewis and Somerset
Maugham. These were mixed in with news about the movements of aristocrats
and illustrations of international fashion, written for women who had no need to
go to work or be involved in politics.
During the years of the Second World War magazines aimed to boost the morale
of women, who were suffering on the ‘home front’. They encouraged women to
be determined, with features on how to survive a bombing, the splitting up of
 Newspapers, magazines and journalism 79
families, the evacuation of children and life after bereavement. In 1941 Ideal
Home magazine even ran a feature on rebuilding a bombed home. But the auster-
ity of the war and post-war years gradually gave way to a feeling of optimism, most
notably reflected in new magazines such as Vanity Fair. Launched in 1949 and
describing itself as ‘for the younger, smarter woman’, it contained cheaper youth-
ful fashion ideas, which could even be copied. This was a new development, as
fashion had previously followed the ‘canon’ of ‘haute couture’ as dictated by the
major fashion houses, and the idea of creating a fashionable new look at home
indicated a trend away from elitism towards a greater populism in fashion.
The 1950s witnessed a number of social and cultural developments affecting
the style and content of women’s magazines. Better public health and informa-
tion campaigns conducted through the National Health Service were beginning
to make women more health conscious. Obesity rather than malnutrition was
identified as a problem, prompting features on slimming, weight-watching and
health in general. Women were also becoming more politicised, gaining more
freedom and equality, and the first female peers were taking their seats in the
House of Lords. Moreover, the economy was booming, and rationing was a dis-
tant memory. More women were now going to university and earning a living,
and commercial television, which had begun in 1955, was popular with view-
ers and advertisers, helping to create a new generation of aspirational female
consumers. In 1955 She was launched, with less emphasis on fashion and more on
entertainment, with a variety of topics of interest to the 1950s’ woman, namely,
films, photography, camping and caravanning, reflecting the increasing freedom
that women had to pursue their own interests at home and elsewhere.
Magazines were changing to reflect social changes. The Sunday Times Magazine
was launched to accompany the newspaper in 1964. Innovative and stylish, it
carried strong photo-journalism and features on varied aspects of contemporary
life, as well as aspirational adverts for high-quality consumer products, jewel-
lery, drinks and cars, a combination intended for suburban, educated middle-
class women. Nova (1965) had a similar style, with pictures of contemporary
stars by leading photographers such as Terry Donovan and Helmut Newton. It
also became more daring; one famous cover advertised ‘how to undress in front of
your husband’, and a feature inside explained how ‘inside every woman is a strip-
per longing to get out’. In contrast, ‘elite’ magazines such as Queen still retained
more traditional elements, such as debutantes’ balls, and pictures of royal guests
at horse events. The difference between the two was said to be that ‘Queen read-
ers drive out of town at weekends, while Nova readers drive in’, in an attempt to
illustrate a growing cultural divide between the traditional and modern young
woman.
By the mid-1960s not only women in their 20s and 30s were looking for a new
style of magazine, but adolescents too. Teenagers had more freedom and money
to spend, and a new popular culture was beginning to appeal to their tastes and
preferences, reflected in weeklies such as Honey (1960–86), Jackie (1963–93) and
Fab (1964–80). Jackie was named after the wife of the American president John F.
Kennedy, who was seen as a fashionable role model by many young girls. Aimed
80 Newspapers, magazines and journalism
at 10–15-year-olds, it was typical of many magazines of the era. On the cover of
the first edition was the pop star Cliff Richard and free inside was a ‘twin heart’
ring. Content included colour pictures of the Beatles, picture love stories and a
page of readers’ problems answered by an ‘agony aunt’. The formula was highly
successful attracting over one million young readers by 1970. It changed little in
30 years, and its influence on the attitudes and behaviour of young girls has been
the subject of much analysis by cultural historians and other academics keen to
analyse the attitudes and values reflected and encouraged in its pages.
Women’s liberation was a predominant theme of the 1970s and many magazines
for women aged 18 and over were launched to promote its agenda. The first one
to do so in a mainstream, commercial way was Cosmopolitan, first imported from
the USA in 1972. The magazine was not new, having begun almost a century ear-
lier in 1886. But during the late 1960s under the progressive young editor Helen
Gurley Brown it promoted independence, self-improvement and self-confidence
in a bright, colourful, glossy magazine which showed how young women could get
the best for themselves, their careers and their sex lives. The magazine enjoyed
enormous commercial success, and set the standard for others to follow.
In contrast, new non-commercial ‘underground’ magazines such as Shrew and
Spare Rib (1972–93) gave coverage and support to a different kind of women’s
liberation. Unlike most other magazines for women, Spare Rib was not glossy,
not commercial, but radically feminist. There were no adverts or features on fra-
grances, fashion or cosmetics, only small adverts for folk festivals, political ral-
lies, lesbian events and shoes made by collectives. Its contributors sometimes
argued that the mainstream advertisers in Cosmopolitan and other magazines
made women feel insecure about themselves in order to make profits, which was
socially unacceptable and morally wrong.
Cosmopolitan’s radical style was influential, and more specialised publications
with different agendas appeared, which were aimed at women in Britain’s various
ethnic communities. Sheba (1979–80) appeared briefly for Arab women domi-
ciled in the UK. Black Beauty and Hair (1987–) continues to report on exactly
what its name suggests. But there have been few successful specialist magazines
for ethnic groups, and circulations remain small, which in turn makes it difficult
to attract advertising. This is because some women feel they want to integrate
into mainstream society by reading mainstream magazines. Moreover, the women
of some immigrant groups have only limited possibilities for learning the English
language, and are thus unable to access publications in English.
Although half the female population never reads a magazine, women remain
significant consumers of general leisure material. Some of the popular titles of the
1960s and 1970s were produced in response to feminism, but today many titles
reflect independence, potential to consume and potential to aspire. Women now
buy houses, cars, investments and travel packages, and this is reflected in the
content of many women’s magazines. There has also been a general trend towards
greater coverage of these topics in newspapers, and many now provide glossy
colour supplements with a range of adverts, features and content unconnected
with the news of the day, which are written with female consumers in mind.
 Newspapers, magazines and journalism 81
Aspirational living seemed to overtake consumerism in the 1980s, and while
many new consumer magazines took off in that decade, the biggest new publishing
phenomenon was the arrival of glossy magazines dedicated to celebrities and their
lifestyles. Until then, the ‘elite’ women’s titles, such as Tatler and Harper’s had
traditionally carried news of the social lives of British royals, but in 1988 Hello!
arrived from Spain, a brash new arriviste, filled with gossipy photo-journalism of
the ‘new aristocracy’ of television, film and pop stars, footballers and models. It
was published by a Spanish family company which saw the potential of a ver-
sion of ¡Hola! for British consumers. The result was one of the most successful
magazines of the past half-century, with many similar publications appearing soon
afterwards in what has become the most profitable sector of the British market.
In 1994 Hello! was the only celebrity magazine available in Britain, but ten
years later there were six others. More recent arrivals, such as Heat (1999–) and
Closer (2005–), have specialised in less flattering photographs of their subjects,
for example revealing fake tans, body hair and signs of cosmetic surgery. They
have created a new, realistic, less admiring and less deferential relationship
between readers and the rich and famous, setting a trend which has spread to
other magazines.
The progressive women’s weeklies such as Cosmopolitan (1972–) and Marie
Claire (1988–) still retain a mixture of features and tips on fashion, beauty, travel
and consumer features, as well as an emphasis on relationships and sexual matters.
However, recent years have seen a change in the style of the ‘problem pages’ of
many modern publications. Until the late 1990s readers would write and ask a res-
ident ‘agony aunt’ to solve their problems. But now, other readers often contribute
their own, differing solutions, which are published alongside the original problem,
and allow the reader to select which course of action would be most appropriate. It
also indicates a change in the role of the magazine, from one of an ‘authority’ who
holds the high moral ground and talks down to the readers, to one which facili-
tates democratic debate among them, and a range of solutions to be put forward.
Despite a long cultural history, women’s magazines are subject to similar pres-
sures to those of newspapers. Sales of most magazines are falling around 5 per
cent year on year. The economic recession has undoubtedly had an impact, but
other reasons may include readers becoming less interested in articles about diets,
shoes and traditional English weddings, which are still common features of many
publications. Society has become more diverse and multicultural, and so have
women’s interests. Consequently, the internet is increasingly used to find a more
personalised range of topics and features regarding, for example, relationships,
work and the body, as well as communities with whom women cannot just read
about, but communicate with on Twitter, Mumsnet and other channels, all of
which can make the role of magazines feel increasingly dated and redundant.

Men’s magazines
For many years ‘adult’ or ‘men’s’ magazines were synonymous with pornography.
The less sexually explicit ‘soft-core’ type were sold in newsagents, and could
82 Newspapers, magazines and journalism
usually be found on the ‘top shelf’ (hence their nickname), while more explicit
‘hard-core’ magazines were sold in specially licensed shops. Other magazines
bought mainly by men dealt with specific interests, such as sport, cars, music or
computers. They were mostly aspirational, consumer magazines with relatively
low sales. But in the mid-1990s a new type of magazine for men aged 18–35
began, with publications such as Loaded, Maxim, FHM and GQ.
The magazine Loaded started the trend in 1994 with a mixture of glossy colour
features on all the topics traditionally popular with young men, such as beer, clothes,
cars, pictures of provocative, bikini-clad girls and casual sexism. There were regular
articles on gadgets, sport, aggression and war, discussions of old footballers and box-
ers, and features on, for example, touring with the band Oasis, or a day at work with
Grimsby trawlermen. Previously, men’s magazines had talked down to their readers,
but Loaded spoke to men using the same informal language as the readers themselves,
and carried the tagline ‘for men who should know better’. Articles were witty, ironic
and apolitical, written with spirit, authenticity and attitude. The magazine even had
a men’s problem page, a piece of satire complete with an ‘agony uncle’. A typical
piece ran as follows: a man writes to the magazine complaining that his girlfriend
annoys him by wearing short skirts. The agony uncle replies: ‘Tell her she looks fat.’
The success of ‘lads’ mags’ perplexed cultural commentators. Some said the new
magazines had a sense of escapism and fun, freedom and independence, which
celebrated being young and male in the mid-1990s, when the country was begin-
ning to regain cultural confidence after years of recession and Tory government.

Figure 4.2 Men’s magazines – a new phenomenon in British publishing which for some
commentators indicates masculinity in crisis.
© Ian Francis/Alamy
 Newspapers, magazines and journalism 83
Others said that young men felt insecure after years of political correctness, the
deadening seriousness of the 1980s debates on gender, and that the weakening
role of fathers and other male authority figures also contributed to men’s inse-
curity. In other words, some men felt anxious about threats to their identity as
feminism entered the mainstream, but they found a refuge and reassurance in the
content and style of lads’ mags, which offered an entertaining template of ‘how
to be a man’.
In contrast to the cheeky escapism of lads’ mags, Men’s Health is a more con-
ventional male fitness publication and is currently the most popular men’s maga-
zine in Britain, with monthly sales of over 200,000. It was launched in 1994,
and features articles on muscularity, fitness, health, relationships, weight loss and
fashion. A bare-chested muscular male model adorns the cover, imitating the
original American version, which has sometimes attracted criticism for promot-
ing the pursuit of unattainable physiques. It has sometimes been mistaken as light
entertainment for gay men, though this is something it strongly refutes.
Despite some stories of current success, the sales of most men’s magazines are
falling, on average 5–6 per cent year on year. Apart from the impact of the eco-
nomic recession of 2008–14, there are a number of reasons which account for
their diminishing appeal. The internet has clearly had an effect; soft pornography
can now be readily accessed online at no charge, and this clearly affects people’s
willingness to pay for it in magazines of any kind. Additionally, an expanding
number of satellite and cable TV and radio stations means that many channels
offering content such as sport, war and crime, which typically appeal to men, can
now be watched at home or online. On the radio, channels such as Talksport
and Radio Five Live also present sports programmes that are created primarily
for male audiences. Thus, the kind of features that men would have previously
paid to read in magazines can now be readily accessed at home, in shows that are
bright, engaging, mainly male-oriented and more convenient.

Alternative publications
Changing attitudes towards gender roles and sexuality have led to the creation
of other kinds of magazines for LGBT readers. The Gay Times (1984–) is a gen-
eral interest publication for gay men, with celebrity interviews, news, features,
music, film, style and travel, as well as features on a wide range of topics, from
anti-gay laws in countries overseas, to interviews with gay politicians. It has a
circulation of approximately 68,000 per issue. The company that produces Gay
Times – Millivres Prowler Group – also produces Diva, a magazine for lesbians
which started in 1994. It includes many articles dedicated to lesbian and bisexual
matters, and interviews with prominent gay men and women, and has a circula-
tion of approximately 35,000.
The changes that Britain has experienced since the 1950s regarding more open
attitudes towards sexuality and female liberation began at a time when attitudes
to authorities of all kinds were changing. One of the most visible signs of this was
a boom in political satire, in which a journalistic high point was the creation of
84 Newspapers, magazines and journalism
Private Eye, a humorous and irreverent magazine dedicated to the mockery and
caricature of people and events in politics, business and the media. However, it
also features serious, investigative reports into the same areas, exposing events
which the mainstream press are often reluctant to report. The magazine is read-
ily identified by its covers, which traditionally show a picture of someone in the
news with a comic speech ‘bubble’ attached. It is currently Britain’s best-selling
current affairs magazine, with a circulation of around 222,880 in August 2013.
Private Eye is printed on cheap, dull, recycled-looking paper, and with a variety
of fonts, which make it look like a home-made magazine. However, DIY publica-
tions did not become common in Britain until the 1970s, when young enthu-
siasts and members of a growing counter-culture began home-producing their
own journals and ‘fanzines’. These were printed or written by hand in sheds and
bedrooms, and then photocopied before being shared and distributed by hand.
Fanzines first appeared in response to the mainstream’s sensational, exagger-
ated reporting of the punk phenomenon. Fans felt it was being misrepresented,
and that commercial motives prevented accurate reporting by the press. Instead,
they aimed to cover topics and write about the music in a way that was more
authentic. New publications were created, which were written in the language
of fans. Sniffin’ Glue was among the first, produced by Mark Perry, and ran for
12 issues. It was rarely sold in newsagents, but could be bought directly from the
people who wrote it and was then passed on among enthusiasts, which created
the sense of a closed, secretive community.
Later in the 1980s and 1990s football ’zines appeared in response to what fans
saw as the game’s domination by money and celebrity. They carried lively, humor-
ous articles written by and for supporters, who were passionate and involved with
the game, rather than passive consumers of it. Some of the most notable have
evolved to become more mainstream publications such as the informative, irrev-
erent When Saturday Comes (WSC). Today, a wide range of fanzines cover music,
sport and sometimes cinema, and are found mainly online. Most are witty, apolit-
ical and written with an infectious enthusiasm as an antidote to the increasingly
commercial nature of commentary, journalism and public relations surrounding
many aspects of popular culture.
As with many magazines, the appearance of British fanzines marked a par-
ticular cultural moment, in this case when fans used direct action to take back
from the hands of the corporations what they felt was rightfully theirs. They
were a kind of enthusiasts’ website in analogue times, where those of a like mind
could communicate and share the passion, attitudes and language of those deeply
involved at the roots of the scene to preserve its spirit, values and community.
5 Literature

Introduction
Since 1945 British society has changed greatly. Social and cultural barriers have
been steadily eroded due to globalisation, migration, gender and racial equal-
ity, rights for minorities and higher levels of education. An important conse-
quence of this social ferment has been that identity, sexuality, morality, attitudes,
values and behaviour have gradually become more individual, personal and
self-constructed, while the influence of more traditional forces such as parents,
family, society, government, nation and the Church has greatly diminished or
disappeared altogether.
In literature, the new freedom of the self to express who one is, rather than
who one should be, has led to a vigorous expansion of themes. Gender, ethnic
and sexual identities have found expression in feminist, migrant and lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender (LGBT) writing, often developed from an outsider’s
point of view. Techniques of storytelling have also become more diverse, as some
writers looked to the past and took inspiration from earlier traditions, while oth-
ers combined different narrative styles such as fact, fiction, the past and present
in the same story, in a magic realist style.
Children’s literature has also attracted growing public and critical interest. The
phenomenal popularity of the Harry Potter series has illustrated how, despite the
distractions of online entertainments, children can become involved with books
they love. At the same time there has been an increasing number of adaptations
for stage and screen, and amid a fast-changing world of media and society, greater
debate and concern about what children should read and watch.

Enter the outsider: youth and immigrants

In the late 1940s following the horrific losses of six years of war, the public looked
not for brave new ideas and styles, but for comfort and reassurance in literature.
However, by 1955 the old values and certainties that religion and nation had
traditionally provided were being questioned, and a new generation of critical
young novelists, playwrights and artists was emerging.
Writers such as Colin Wilson, John Wain, Stan Barstow, Alan Sillitoe, Keith
Waterhouse, Kingsley Amis and others were mostly aged under 30, and like
86 Literature
many of the British public at the time they shared an impatience with tradition,
authority and the ruling class. Their works reflected their anger and frustrations
in novels such as John Wain’s Hurry on Down (1953), Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim
(1954), John Braine’s Room at the Top (1957) and Alan Sillitoe’s Saturday Night
and Sunday Morning (1958). The protagonists of these novels were ‘outsiders’;
they did not identify with modern society. Like the authors themselves, they were
impatient, dissatisfied and critical of conventional morality and behaviour. They
felt resentful and powerless, and sometimes were violent. Many stories are set in
working-class areas of depressed cities in the industrial north, and contain sexu-
ally explicit scenes. Dialogue is often in regional dialect, giving a strong sense of
the characters’ identity and social background.
In Britain in the mid-1950s it was considered provocative and subversive
to write on themes of frustrated ambition, sexuality and class conflict. Revela-
tions of uncomfortable truths about an unequal society expressed through real-
istic portrayals of everyday life were seen as dangerous and threatening to the
British establishment, which feared it could lead to political change, and even
communism. Moreover, the creation of uneducated, undisciplined heroes was a
departure from literary convention, and angered many critics. But it meant that
dissent, honesty and openness were introduced into literature, theatre, and later
into television and film by a group of writers who became known as the ‘angry
young men’.
The new currents of social realism in novels of the 1950s also extended to
poetry. In 1956 Robert Conquest edited New Lines, in what proved to be a debut
for its progressive contributors became who known as ‘the Movement’ and were
united by a dislike of what they saw as the pretensions and elitism of modern writ-
ing. Like many of their contemporaries in music and theatre, poets were identi-
fied by their popular image of beards, pipe-smoking, beer drinking, sandals and a
love of jazz, an appearance derived from the ‘Beat Generation’ which had taken
hold in America.
But other areas of literature remained more conventional. Philip Larkin wrote
more conservatively, ignoring stylistic experimentation to produce clear, eco-
nomical observations about daily life in Britain. He went on to produce three
major collections: The Less Deceived (1955), The Whitsun Weddings (1964) and
High Windows (1974), which established his reputation as a major poet. In the
satirical Whitsun Weddings, Larkin describes a train journey from Hull to London
and comments on a sad England of false merriment, cheap fashions and joyless
weddings, in a style that could belong to the new millennium. His subject matter
was a revelation, and created new territory for English poetry. Larkin was also a
fan of jazz music and in All What Jazz? (1970) he presented a collection of his
critical reviews collected from the Daily Telegraph, in which he attacked the free-
dom and experimentation of modern styles of jazz, compared with the traditional,
pre-1945 forms.
Both modern and traditional forms of jazz have always had a strong following
in Britain, though this was still quite a small, middle-class pastime in the mid-
1950s when a steady flow of Afro-Caribbean immigrants began to arrive from
 Literature 87
the West Indies. Britain offered an exciting new world of freedom and adventure
to those arriving from overseas, which is captured in Samuel Selvon’s comic
masterpiece The Lonely Londoners (1956), a series of narratives about West Indi-
ans in London. Another early portrait of immigrants’ experiences is drawn by
Colin MacInnes in the nostalgic City of Spades (1957). MacInnes grew up in
Australia, but in Absolute Beginners (1959) and Mr Love and Justice (1960) he
depicts from the point of view of an outsider, a newly emergent English youth
culture of coffee bars, clubs and dance halls, teenage fashions and conflict with
authority. MacInnes’s three novels form the London Trilogy and together with
his fascinating collection of essays England, Half-English (1961) were the first
works to recognise the emergence of pop culture, and a ‘scene’ which was more
appealing, exciting and immediate than jazz to a young generation of working-
class youth, and how it offered a sense of identity, freedom and belonging.
The critical enthusiasm reserved for the new young authors almost led to Wil-
liam Golding’s first novel passing unnoticed. Lord of the Flies (1954) is about
a group of boys on a deserted island who, free from convention and restraint,
unsuccessfully try to govern themselves before anarchy and violence break out.
The story initially attracted little interest and few copies were sold. But as Cold
War tensions grew, its dystopian vision of man’s descent into brutal savagery in
the absence of democratic political structures was sometimes interpreted as offer-
ing ideological support for the democratic ‘free’ countries of the West. Its popu-
larity grew steadily, and the novel was twice made into a film, in 1963 and 1990.
It was also widely adopted on many English Literature courses, which helped to
reinforce a particular conception of British national identity.
Many of Golding’s subsequent works dealt with the struggle between good
and evil, such as Rites of Passage (1980), a tragicomic sea adventure set in the
eighteenth century, which won him the Booker Prize. In his lifetime he became
recognised as one of the finest British authors since the war, being awarded the
Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983 and a knighthood in 1988.

Literature of the 1960s and 1970s: experiments,

fun and freedom
By 1962 the resentment and frustration felt by the younger generation during the
1950s had begun to find expression across the arts in literature, film and televi-
sion. In literature, many of the authors of that period went on to receive critical
recognition as major writers, but became less radical as they did so, such as King-
sley Amis. Their themes were diverse but questions of freedom, equality and class
consciousness tended to predominate.
Issues of personal morality in challenging and liberated times are central
themes to many works of Anthony Burgess. His experiences as an English teacher
in Malaya and Brunei provided inspiration for his early writing in the 1950s,
such as The Malayan Trilogy (later reissued as The Long Day Wanes). However, it
was A Clockwork Orange (1962) that brought him fame. It is set in England of
the future, a dystopia where an aggressive gang of young delinquents rob, rape,
88 Literature
torture and murder. The gang speak Nadsat, a private teenage slang, an ‘inhu-
man’ language invented by the author (but based on Russian) to emphasise the
gang’s collective identity and their distance from conventional society. Eventu-
ally, their leader Alex is captured and treated, but he begins to produce mechani-
cal, robotic responses to the things that make him human: sex, violence and the
arts. The story’s main theme is morality and how to deal with transgressions of
it, in a tale which satirises both totalitarian and liberal humanist approaches. In
1971 the story was made into a highly successful film by Stanley Kubrick. In the
first lines of the book Alex narrates to set the scene:

There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and
Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make
up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. A flip dark chill winter bas-
tard though dry. The Korova milkbar was a milk-plus, milk plus mesto, and
you may, O my brothers, have forgotten what these mestos were like, things
changing so skorry these days, and everybody very quick to forget, newspa-
pers not being read much neither.
(Burgess, 1962: 1)

Burgess’s prolific ouput also included his four ‘Enderby’ comic novels (1963–
84), which describe the humorous adventures of a middle-aged university lec-
turer and poet. Higher education expanded greatly in the 1960s and 1970s, and
its liberal, permissive atmosphere and lecturers’ own petty problems, rivalries and
jealousies inspired the writing of satirical ‘campus’ novels. This theme served
to establish the careers of several modern authors, among them Malcolm Brad-
bury and David Lodge. In contrast to Iris Murdoch’s frequent setting within the
ancient walls of Oxford University, their stories take place in the new, ‘plate-
glass’ universities of the 1960s, which were built to accommodate growing num-
ber of students in many cities around Britain.
Bradbury was a distinguished academic, and is remembered for founding
Britain’s first course in creative writing at the University of East Anglia, where
between 1970 and 1995 he was Professor of American Studies. His best-known
works include Stepping Westward (1965), a humorous comparison between Amer-
ican and British university life, and The History Man (1975).
Lodge is a former professor of English literature who is also well known for his
extensive output of literary criticism. One of his most successful campus novels is
Changing Places (1975), a comical story about an academic exchange between the
universities of ‘Euphoria State’ in America and ‘Rummidge’ based on Lodge’s own
seat of learning at Birmingham University in the English Midlands. It marked
the first of a trilogy on campus life, and was followed by Small Worlds (1984),
a humorous tale of intrigue at an academic conference, and Nice Work (1988),
another comical tale of a collision between town and gown, industry and aca-
demia. Lodge’s stories are also imaginative, playful and offer strong satirical com-
ment; for example, his earlier How Far Can You Go? (1980) examines the impact
of a secular, permissive society on the personal relationships of British Catholics.
 Literature 89
Like Lodge, Iris Murdoch was also a university lecturer, and her novels fre-
quently combine philosophical questions with detailed observations of academic
intrigue and middle-class life in Oxford. Her novels are often concerned with
human freedom, and question how goodness can triumph over evil. The first of
her many works was the comedy Under the Net (1954), while one of her finest –
The Bell (1958) – looks at a declining religious community. The humour and
surprises in stories such as A Fairly Honourable Defeat (1970) and An Accidental
Man (1971) were also popular with critics and the public. All her novels are
noted for their intense descriptions of her characters, who are often possessed by
erotic fantasies. These are mixed with unexpected and bizarre incidents which
sometimes involve cats, dogs, mice and spiders to create comic effect. During a
prolific career she won numerous awards, including the prestigious Booker Prize
for The Sea, the Sea (1978).
The work of John Fowles has enabled him to become one of the few British
authors who has written serious, experimental fiction while remaining on the
bestseller list. Heroines feature prominently in his works, who often combine fem-
ininity with mental strength to conquer their circumstances. He made his debut
with an exciting psychological thriller The Collector (1963), about a butterfly col-
lector who kidnaps an attractive young art student. Although the male character
is physically stronger, Fowles shows that the girl is the more powerful of the two.
Later, The Magus (1966, revised 1977) involves a young teacher of English in what
seems the ideal post on a remote Greek island, whose sense of perception becomes
distorted following an unusual sexual encounter. His best-known work The French
Lieutenant’s Woman (1969) is told in a highly original way, with the author show-
ing a self-awareness of how he uses language and imagination to shape the reader’s
reality. The book was made into a successful film in 1981.
The permissive youth culture of the early 1970s could be found not only on
the university campus, but in the tough, mean streets of Britain’s industrial con-
urbations. These are the setting for Richard Allen’s Boot-Boy (1970), Suedehead
(1971), Glam (1973) and others, sensationalised, mass-produced stories based on
the imagined lifestyles of teenage gangs. Set in bleak, decaying, rubbish-strewn
urban towns of the 1970s, they depict closed, mean, brutal worlds of youth with
no future, and include many detailed descriptions of vandalism, violence and sex.
Critics complained that they encouraged imitative, ‘copycat’ behaviour. Nev-
ertheless, the simply written fantasies remain raw, energetic, adrenaline-fuelled
adventures, which were absorbed by many teenagers of the period, and have been
rediscovered in recent years as popular artefacts of 1970s youth culture.
The work of the Mersey Poets from Liverpool was also popular with a younger,
non-literary audience. The success of the Beatles and other Liverpool groups
helped to generate interest in the local popular culture, and during the mid-
1960s poets such as Roger McGough, Adrian Henri and Brian Patten pioneered a
new style of light, satirical verse. Unlike many poets, they were funny, irreverent
and streetwise. They wore fashionable clothes, mixed with pop stars and wrote
pop poetry: poetry with a performance, pop without the music. A flavour of their
work is captured in the anthology The Mersey Sound (1967).
90 Literature
Feminism and fiction: new perspectives
By the mid-1960s the impact of feminism was being widely felt in politics, law,
social and family life. Traditional attitudes towards women’s sexuality, marriage,
work and many other aspects of their lives began to change, and there was a
new recognition of women’s role in society. Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch
(1970) gave popular literary expression to feminist theory. Its provocative and
outspoken text offered a clear, un-theoretical manifesto that was accessible to
everyone. Its impact was enormous, and soon afterwards a significant new body
of women’s literature emerged. This contained powerful descriptions of women’s
experience, and feminist writing quickly became an influential new genre.
Literature had been a male-dominated field, but new feminist publishing houses
opened to energetically encourage women’s writing. Virago, the Women’s Press
and Pandora contracted new feminist authors and began promoting others, such
as Stevie Smith, Storm Jameson, Rebecca West, Rose Macaulay, Barbara Pym
and Jean Rhys, whose work had passed largely unnoticed earlier in the twentieth
century. There were also important changes in the universities. Departments of
Women’s Studies were established and departments of literature began to study
themes and imagery in women’s writing.
The position of women in society, social injustice and the search for equality
with men were some of the dominant themes in the early novels of many new
authors. Earlier in the 1960s many female writers still did not openly identify
with the new intellectual and political currents of feminism, although some were
sympathetic to its messages in their work. One such author is Muriel Spark, who
was born into a Scottish family of Jewish descent, and later converted to Catholi-
cism. Her short, stylish funny stories emphasise the roles of the female characters,
her best-known work being The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), a story set in
her native Edinburgh of the 1930s. It features a charismatic teacher who is proud,
cultured and romantic, inspiring and transforming a group of young girls who
begin to follow her example.
In contrast, social injustice and the need for equality with men came to domi-
nate the novels of many later authors. Fay Weldon’s robustly feminist novels
deal with female resentment, anger and revenge in a way that is detached and
often ironic. Down Among the Women (1971) draws attention to the repetitive
nature of most women’s lives, spent cooking, cleaning and looking after children.
Told in a colloquial present tense, the narrative produces a realistic, documentary
effect, as if the action is actually taking place.
More conventional themes of inequality and oppression are found in the
highly praised novels of Margaret Drabble. These often have female protago-
nists whose education, careers and family relationships are described in detail,
and often reflect those of the author. In The Millstone (1965) the heroine has
to fight against various distractions to gain her independence. Then she has an
unplanned baby daughter which both helps and limits her development. The tril-
ogy The Radiant Way (1987), A Natural Curiosity (1989) and The Gates of Ivory
(1991), in which three women look back on their younger selves, also provides a
 Literature 91
clear account of a difficult, confrontational and politically polarised country. The
Ice Age (1977) is considered by many critics to be her finest work. It deals not
only with women’s liberation, but also social inequality, house prices, terrorism
and the faltering welfare state in mid-1970s (concerns which, 40 years later, have
not gone away). In the following extract Mike Morgan, a comedian with a ‘rat-
clown face’, comments on the way 1970s Britain seemed to be wilfully destroying
itself:

The English are guilty, they are self-denigrating, they are masochists, they
love to be kicked, he said, because of their deeply ingrained, inalienable, dis-
gusting certainty of superiority. They are island xenophobes, and they love
to be kicked because they know it does not hurt. They are rich bitches who
like to be degraded.
(Drabble, 1977: 214)

While many early feminist writers focused on themes of social strife and
inequality, others were more concerned with women’s domestic lives and their
relationships with men. The fiction of Edna O’Brien portrays women as having
a frustrating choice between either loneliness or slavery to men and the family.
This is apparent in her early trilogy The Country Girls (1960–3), in which sexual
desires conflict with the heroine’s Catholic upbringing. This uncertainty again
finds expression in Casualties of Peace (1966), a story told with wit and pace. The
eroticism of her stories brought to the novel a frank exposure of women’s sexual
needs and amplified the spectrum of women’s writing.
Several highly regarded authors such as Penelope Lively and Anita Brookner
write about women’s issues in a simple, direct way. Before she became a respected
author of feminist novels, Penelope Lively wrote children’s fiction, for example
A House Inside Out (1987). Her adult novels began with The Road to Lichfield
(1977) and in 1987 she won the Booker Prize for Moon Tiger. Anita Brookner’s
style of writing is elegant and sometimes funny. She began her career as an art his-
torian, but later wrote stories that often feature a lonely, intellectual woman who
lives unhappily, such as A Friend from England (1987) and Fraud (1992). Instead
of rebelling against society, her characters accept their situation and cannot be
described as feminists. But in Hotel du Lac (1984) the heroine makes the brave
decision not to get married on her wedding day. It won the Booker Prize in 1984
and was also made into a successful television series.

Doris Lessing
Doris Lessing (1919–2013) is among the most highly respected of contem-
porary British writers, the author of prolific and varied works. As well as
many novels she has also written short stories, poetry and travel writing.
At the beginning of her career, her left-wing politics and sense of realism
identified her with the social realists of the 1950s. But she later adopted a
92 Literature
more imaginative style, characterised by fantasy, interior monologues and
multiple realities.
Lessing grew up in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and moved to England in
1937. The country of her childhood is the setting for her early stories and
novels, which include the five-volume Children of Violence e (1952–69). The
story begins in Rhodesia, where the first volume, Martha Questt, tells the
story of women’s ‘absence’ from history. The setting later moves to England
and forward to the year 2000. The novels aim to present the arguments of
feminists who witnessed the bigotry and apartheid of South African politics
of the 1960s. But the author also expresses her cynicism about communism,
doubting it could provide a more just or equal society.
The Golden Notebook k (1962) is a work of politics and psychology. The
heroine, Anna Freeman Wulf, suffers a crisis in her personal life and eventu-
ally has a nervous breakdown. But after recovering she takes an American
lover and becomes involved in socialist politics. Her feelings as a liberated
woman, private individual and author are explored in different sections of the
novel, which is seen by many critics as one of the most significant contribu-
tions to the literature of women’s emancipation in the twentieth century.
Lessing’s interest in experimental storytelling extends into her work as a
writer of science fiction. Canopus in Argos: Archives s (1979–83) is an alle-
gorical story which tells how fantastic beasts on distant planets affect life on
earth. It is both subtle and feminist, but its argument is not that women are
superior to men. Instead, hers is the more contemporary view that traditional
feminine qualities such as caring, sharing, gentleness and compassion are
suppressed or ignored by society, and that many current problems could be
solved if these qualities were given greater expression. In the mid-1980s
Lessing returned to realistic narrative, publishing several more novels,
poetry, travel writing and the first volume of her autobiography Under My
Skinn (1994).

Other visions: new directions in women’s writing

Although some authors such as Maureen Duffy, Penelope Fitzgerald, Penelope
Mortimer and Rose Tremain continued to write about women in a more conven-
tional, linear manner, several others began to explore new, experimental styles
of language and storytelling. They believed that, in a society dominated by men,
women had to free themselves from traditional, established practices in thought,
language and literary style. In this way, they could find a more natural, authentic
voice.
The writing of Jean Rhys and Eva Figes is characterised by the frequent use of
split narrative, in which the story is sometimes told in the first person and some-
times in the third. This creates the sense of a divided self and of fantasy. Rhys
wrote her early novels during the 1920s, but was ‘rediscovered’ during the 1960s.
Her novel The Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) was published when she was aged 72. It
is set in the 1830s and is a highly imaginative, tragic story about Rochester’s mad
wife, a character from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847).
 Literature 93
The technique of ‘reworking’ a traditional story has become a distinctive char-
acteristic of many novels. It involves the changing of numerous details to create
an imaginative and accessible tale with contemporary relevance. Some examples
include Fay Weldon’s The Cloning of Joanna May (1989), a reworking of Mary
Shelley’s classic tale Frankenstein (1818), and Emma Tennant’s Tess (1993), in
which she took as her subjects the female characters of classic novelist Thomas
Hardy (1840–1928). In 2013 Jane Austen’s six novels were each reworked by dif-
ferent authors, with the intention making them more accessible to contemporary
audiences, for example Sense and Sensibility is placed firmly in the twenty-first
century and even features the use of social media. The classics still captivate and
many are adapted by film-makers and television producers to make one of the
best-loved genres of British cinema.
The novels and short stories of A.S. Byatt demonstrate her interests in both
imaginative experimental literature and historical fact, especially her later works,
which became more fictional and fantastic; for example Possession (1990) is part
fairy tale, part journal, part academic essay, part verse, which together tell the
story of an imaginary poet of the nineteenth century. It was awarded the Booker
Prize in 1990. In contrast, a more vigorous attack on accepted notions of reality
is found in the works of Angela Carter, an energetic mixture of fairy tales, eroti-
cism and transsexuality, in which characters regularly change role and sex. This
is a characteristic of magic realism, a technique closely associated with South
American writers such as Gabriel García Márquez, whose stories mix extravagant
fantasy and fable with everyday events.
Since the late 1970s, women’s writing has continued to be distinctive, influ-
ential and increasingly diverse. Different experimental styles have been widely
developed in the works of Zoë Fairbairns, Marina Warner, Sara Maitland and
others. This indicates that modern women’s writing is frequently both feminist
and feminine: women expect material equality in law, employment and in rela-
tions with men; but as well as being equal in terms of rights, they want to be able
to express difference through more liberated and natural forms of expression, the
use of different narrative forms and a wider variety of techniques.

LGBT: writing for the noughties

During the 1960s and 1970s, social change and greater freedom of sexual expres-
sion led to improved public understanding of different kinds of sexuality, and
wider acceptance of different kinds of relationships. In literature, authors dealing
with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender themes gradually grew in confidence,
and by the ‘noughties’ their work was becoming less marginalised and more main-
stream. However, for some critics this category of writing presents a problem.
They argue that if LGBT stories are intended for everyone, they should not be
categorised as such, because a story about a relationship between a man and a
woman would not be categorised as a heterosexual novel. Nevertheless, a number
of prizes have been introduced specifically for LGBT writing, for example the
Polari Prize and Green Carnation Prize.
94 Literature
Some of the current, best-known exponents of gay fiction include Alan Holling-
hurst and Adam Mars-Jones. Hollinghurst’s The Swimming Pool Library (1988) was
widely praised by critics and in 2004 The Line of Beauty won the Man Booker Prize.
The Stranger’s Child (2011) was also highly praised. Mars-Jones’s hero John Cromer
features in both Pilcrow (2009) and Cedilla (2012), and is gay and disabled, yet still
manages to escape his Buckinghamshire home in the 1970s and combine travel to
India with study at Cambridge University, in two highly acclaimed novels.
In recent years the LGBT genre has expanded to include more popular styles
of writing, for example work by James Lear, who has had considerable success
with his novels The Back Passage (2006) and Man’s World (2010), the latter being
shortlisted for a Green Carnation Award for LGBT fiction in 2010.
Authors writing from a lesbian perspective include Stella Duffy, Ali Smith,
Sarah Waters and Val McDermid. But probably the best known is Jeannette Win-
terson. After being adopted at an early age by a strict Pentecostal family and hav-
ing a closed, repressive upbringing, as a teenager she identified herself as lesbian.
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985) is semi-autobiographical and portrays the
conflict between the religion of her formative years, and her own lesbian sexual-
ity, in a novel that won the Whitbread Prize and was made into an acclaimed
BBC TV series. Winterson’s imaginative fiction is often described as magic real-
ism, in which her sentimental, intense style is frequently used to explore lesbian
sexuality. In 2006 she was awarded an OBE for services to literature, and has
twice won the American Lambda Literary Award for LGBT writing, once in 2013
for Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? (2012), an entertaining memoir,
and once for Written on the Body (1992), a love story about an anonymous nar-
rator whose female lover is dying from leukaemia. In the following intimate dia-
logue, the narrator addresses her lover:

‘Explore me,’ you said and I collected my ropes, flasks and maps,
expecting to be back home soon. I dropped into the mass of you and
I cannot find the way out. Sometimes I think I’m free, coughed up like
Jonah from the whale, but then I turn a corner and recognise myself
again. Myself in your skin, myself lodged in your bones, myself floating
in the cavities that decorate every surgeon’s wall. That is how I know
you. You are what I know.
(Winterson, 1992: 120)

Migrant voices: the Empire writes back

Since the 1950s Britain has steadily become more multicultural, as migrants from
former colonies, such as India and the West Indies, came to live and work in the
major industrial cities. At the same time, former colonies were able to experience
political independence, often for the first time, as Britain gradually withdrew
from her overseas territories. The novelty of independence, the culture shock
of migration from a religious, patriarchal society into a secular, individualist one
and the experience of growing up in a country different to the one their parents
 Literature 95
knew all provided authors with new creative impulses and invigorated English
literature with exciting and original points of view.
V.S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, Kazuo Ishiguro, Caryl Phillips
and Timothy Mo are some of the authors whose stories deal with experiences
of displacement, loss and rediscovery following cultural upheaval. Their themes
have been compared to some women’s writing of the 1970s and 1980s, when the
feminist movement and equality in law brought similar life-changing experiences
for many British women. Both influences have become powerful creative forces
in the English literature of the past 30 years, as authors asked questions about
how people adapt to changed political and cultural circumstances, and the new
realities they bring.
V.S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad, but studied at Oxford University and
later worked for the BBC. His first three novels, The Mystic Masseur (1957),
Miguel Street (1959) and A House for Mr Biswas (1961), were satires of Trinida-
dian society. However, his later work became more explicitly political, exam-
ining the social dislocation caused by the ‘death’ of empire, most notably In a
Free State (1971). The Enigma of Arrival (1987) is more autobiographical, and
looks back on his experiences of arrival in several different countries, including
his visit to Wiltshire, England, where he now lives. In the 1990s and 2000s he
also became well known for his non-fiction, including books about India, Africa,
South America, Islamic societies and several about his native Caribbean, which
allege the constant failure of colonial and post-colonial societies. Widely read
and admired, Naipaul was knighted in 1989 and received the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 2001.
Other examples of writing on British society from an outsider’s point of view
include Caryl Phillips’s The Final Passage (1985), a tale about the Caribbean com-
munity in London during the 1950s and the kind of life which Leila, a young
woman, finds when she arrives. Suburban London is also the setting for David
Dabydeen’s The Intended (1991), which depicts a young man from Guyana trying
to make sense of his different heritage as he grows up, while Amit Chauderi’s
Afternoon Raag (1993), set in Oxford, is about the sense of dislocation experi-
enced by a young Indian who has come to study in the ancient seat of learning.
Kazuo Ishiguro arrived in Britain from Japan at an early age, and later studied
creative writing under Malcolm Bradbury at the University of East Anglia. His
Japanese parentage and attachments to the country feature in many of his works,
for example An Artist of the Floating World (1986), which explores Japanese atti-
tudes towards the Second World War through the eyes of an ageing artist. But
Ishiguro’s most successful novel is set in Britain. The Remains of the Day (1989)
is set in an English country house of the mid-twentieth century, and uses precise
and detailed observation of an elderly butler to present a portrait of British life
and society. His fine observations of class distinctions and social behaviour won
the Booker Prize and the book was later made into a successful film.
Like Ishiguro, Timothy Mo brings to his work a unique vision which is derived
from his experience of growing up in Hong Kong and England. In Monkey King
(1980) and Insular Possession (1986) the author observes the ancient and modern
96 Literature
traditions of his native Hong Kong, while Sour Sweet (1982) describes the closed,
distant character of the Chinese community in the London district of Soho. The
Far East is also the setting for Redundancy of Courage (1991), which describes how
the island of East Timor was abandoned by the Portuguese colonial power, leav-
ing it in chaos and anarchy.
Similar themes of displacement are found in the bestselling new work by Mon-
ica Ali, Zadie Smith and Hari Kunzru. In Monica Ali’s Brick Lane (2002) a native
Bangladeshi bride arrives in London’s East End and finds her horizons changing
rapidly in a moving, honest account of life as a Muslim woman in an unhappy
marriage. A successful film was made of the book in 2007.

Salman Rushdie
Highly praised novels, a knighthood and a fatwa that forced him to become
a recluse in fear of his life have made Rushdie one of the most celebrated
and controversial authors of contemporary English literature. He was born
into a Muslim family in Bombay, India in 1947, and migrated to Britain in the
1960s. His homeland provides the setting for Midnight’s Children (1981),
the title of which refers to a new generation of Indians born at midnight on
15 August 1947, when India became an independent republic. The story is
a mixture of fantasy and magic, and narrates the key events in the story of
modern India through the life of Saleem Sinai, who works in a pickle factory.
The story is widely acclaimed as original, clever and observant, winning the
Booker Prize in 1981, and in 1993 being named the best novel during the
first 25 years of Booker awards. However, its real significance lies in the way
it shone a critical light on the new, divided post-imperial identities that inde-
pendence from Britain created, and the sense of dislocation and rediscovery
that it produced: a new perspective that became influential and widespread
in migrant writing.
Later works include Shame (1983), a story set in Pakistan, and The Jag-
uar Smile (1987), a travel book about life in Nicaragua under the Sandini-
stas. But it was The Satanic Verses (1988) for which the author became
renowned. The verses of the title are verses from the Koran, the Muslim
holy book. Set in Arabia, India and Britain, the verses are central to a com-
plex, imaginative story about the act of storytelling. Central to the text is a
discussion of the ways in which migrants can and should change in order
to adapt to their new environment. For those with strong religious convic-
tions, this raises important questions, as Rushdie describes in the following
passage:

A man who sets out to make himself up is taking on the Creator’s role,
according to one way of seeing things; he’s unnatural, a blasphemer,
an abomination of abominations. From another angle, you could
see pathos in him, heroism in his struggle, in his willingness to take
risks: not all mutants survive. Or, consider him sociopolitically: most
 Literature 97
migrants learn, and can become disguises. Our own false descriptions
to counter the falsehoods invented about us, concealing for reasons of
security our secret selves.
(Rushdie, 1988: 49)

The book was widely praised, but some Muslims found in it a blasphemous
abuse of their religion, and Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran demanded that the
author be killed. An Italian translator of the book was subsequently attacked,
the publisher in Norway was shot and a Japanese translator murdered. In
Britain, Muslims publicly burned the book, and many bookshops withdrew it
from sale. But around the world thousands of authors pledged their support
for Rushdie, who could make only very rare public appearances.
Since the late 1980s he has continued to produce a variety of books which
have included the children’s stories Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990),
collected essays in Imaginary Homelands (1991) and a volume of short sto-
ries East, West (1994). In September 1998, on the tenth anniversary of the
publication of Satanic Verses, the death threat was finally withdrawn by the
Iranian government.
His most interesting and successful work of recent years has been The
Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999). Set in the world of rock ’n’ roll in the 1970s,
it follows two Indian pop stars from Bombay to London and on to New York.
Rushdie subsequently worked with the rock band U2, touring with them and
working with the singer Bono to write a song named after the novel.
Rushdie was awarded a knighthood in 2007, and in 2012 his autobiogra-
phy Joseph Anton: A Memoir was published. He claims he now identifies with
atheism, even though he was born a Muslim, and his examination of new cul-
tural realities and how they change people’s way of seeing and interpreting
the world are noted as one of his main contributions to literature. This new
perspective helped create post-colonial studies, one of the most important
areas of literary study in Britain today.

Hanif Kureishi
Some of the liveliest and most colourful accounts of growing up in a multi-
cultural society and are found in the work of Hanif Kureishi (b. 1954). These
frequently draw on his own childhood experiences in the suburbs of south
London. He is known for his satires on major themes of race, family, gay sex
and the complexities of integration.
The son of a Pakistani father and English mother, Kureishi grew up in
Bromley, near London, and left for the capital to write at the Royal Court The-
atre when he was in his late teens. His early work was concerned with seri-
ous studies of race relations, but his writing became more provocative and
adventurous with My Beautiful Laundrette, a rebellious comical screenplay
about immigration and interracial gay sex, at a time when homosexuality was
rarely seen in the arts. However, as it was written by Kureishi, it had authority
and could not be called racist.
Later came an even funnier and more shocking work; the highly praised
The Buddha of Suburbia (1990) is part-autobiographical, and tells the
98 Literature
humorous story a young boy born into a Pakistani family and growing up in
Britain, wondering how he can successfully integrate his dual heritage into
his London life. On page 1 of the book he introduces himself, and immedi-
ately makes the reader aware of his bi-cultural identity, and indicates the
importance it has for him.

My name is Karim Amir, and I am an Englishman born and bred, almost.

I am often considered to be a funny kind of Englishman, a new breed
as it were, having emerged from two old histories. But I don’t care –
Englishman I am (though not proud of it), from the South London sub-
urbs and going somewhere. Perhaps it is the odd mixture of continents
and blood, of here and there, of belonging and not, that makes me
restless and easily bored. Or perhaps it was being brought up in the
suburbs that did it. Anyway, why search the inner room when it’s enough
to say that I was looking for trouble, any kind of movement, action and
sexual interest I could find, because things were so gloomy, so slow and
heavy, in our family . . .
(Kureishi, 1990: 3)

Kureishi became known for his humorous exposures of racist attitudes in

the British, and the sometimes confused, hypocritical attitudes of Pakistanis.
‘My Son the Fanatic’ is a short story written in 1994, a time when identity pol-
itics were becoming prominent in Britain. Great collective causes and ideolo-
gies had been forgotten, and identity was increasingly a personal construct
that was progressively made for oneself, rather than something that was
automatically given. The story features a decent hard-working family man
who comes from Pakistan to work in Britain. He has very liberal attitudes,
but his son feels he will never belong in England, and thinks he should ‘take’
an identity as a strict Muslim, rather than try to integrate with his country-
men who do not pray and are not observant. It deals with an issue affecting
many Muslims: what to do if your parents don’t pray and aren’t observant. In
the play, the son puts pressure on his father to be more religious, often with
humorous consequences. For Kureishi, religion is part of culture, but other
parts of culture ask what the rules are and how it is possible to argue one
point of view over another.
His later novel The Black Albumm (1995) is a thriller set in London in 1989
and tells a story of drugs, religion and sexual passion. As well as writing
novels, Kureishi has also written screenplays and television dramas, which
include the critically praised film My Beautiful Laundrette e (1985), and his
witty, insightful and accessible work has made him a leading cultural com-
mentator of his generation.

Doubt and uncertainty (1980–)

Feminist and migrant writing became prominent in the 1980s and 1990s and
continued to dominate literary genres into the twenty-first century, but many
critics despaired. They complained about the absence of any clear sense of British
 Literature 99
or English identity in authors’ works, and the lack of political voices dealing
with class, inequality, and the conventional politics of socialism and liberalism.
They were also frustrated by the increasingly commercial nature of literature and
the apparent inability of the public to distinguish serious works from sensational
novels or ‘pulp’ fiction.
The gloomy economic and social trends of the early 1980s and again in the
early 1990s also made many authors pessimistic about the future. Cold War,
Northern Irish terrorism, unemployment, the rise of greed and selfishness under
Thatcherism, as well as privatisation, reductions in state spending and a gradual
dismantling of the welfare state all contributed to public anxiety and a sense of
abandonment by the government. But the sense of being adrift in the world was
itself a source of inspiration for some writers, who created chilling stories about
being out of place in society, often with a brutal power.
Ian McEwan has achieved both popular and critical success for his novels
and short stories. His earlier work, such as The Cement Garden (1978) and The
Comfort of Strangers (1981), is characterised by a sense of unease or discomfort,
and sometimes a wish to shock, using precise, elegant prose to write about
dark, sinister themes such as incest and infanticide. But more recent novels
are broader, often beginning with calm, realistic descriptions of everyday life
which are suddenly disrupted, such as in Enduring Love (1997) and Atonement
(2001).
The pattern of sudden disruption is continued in Saturday (2005) and tells the
story of a day in the life of a successful brain surgeon, Henry Perowne. His wife
is a top media lawyer, his teenage daughter a published poet and his son a blues
guitarist, which together make his life almost complete until the Saturday of the
title. This is 15 February 2003, the day of the great march in central London
against the forthcoming war in Iraq. Perowne is a perfectionist and all seems well
in his life. In the following extract the main character is alone with his thoughts,
driving around the streets of central London in his luxurious Mercedes S500,
while reflecting on the threat of Islamic terrorism:

Shamelessly, he always enjoys the city from inside his car, where the air is fil-
tered and hi-fi music confers pathos on the humblest details. . . . He is head-
ing a couple of blocks south in order to loop eastwards across the Tottenham
Court Road. Cleveland Street used to be known for garment sweatshops and
prostitutes, now it has Greek, Turkish and Italian restaurants – the local sort
that never get mentioned in the guides. . . . There’s a man who repairs old
computers, a cobbler’s, and further down a wig emporium, much visited by
transvestites. This is a fair embodiment of an inner city by-way – diverse, self
confident, obscure. And it’s at this point that he remembers the source of his
vague sense of shame and embarrassment: his readiness to be persuaded that
the world has changed beyond recall, that harmless streets like this and the
tolerant life they embody can be destroyed by the new enemy – well organ-
ised, tentacular, full of hatred and focused zeal.
(McEwan, 2006: 76)
100 Literature
Events in Saturday take a sudden turn for the worse when Perowne has a traf-
fic accident with a car driven by three men who have just emerged from a lap-
dancing club, and the protagonist’s secure world of contentment and plenty
seems vulnerable and threatened.
McEwan’s protagonists are often dislikable, monochrome men of science, such
as Perowne, or Michael Beard in Solar (2010), a novel about climate change.
But his most recent work Sweet Tooth (2012) features a female protagonist, a
struggling mathematics student, and is set amid the social strife and Cold War
tensions of the 1970s. It is often self-referential, containing dramatic reconstruc-
tions of the author’s experiences of the time; Martin Amis makes an appearance,
as do other friends and colleagues from earlier in his career, in a novel that has
cemented his reputation for imaginative and original storytelling.

Martin Amis
Many novels of the 1980s were imaginative and escapist, but often in a dark,
sinister way. Throughout the ‘age of greed’, fantastic, grotesque scenarios
involving themes of corruption of innocence and ‘paradise lost’ were com-
mon. One of the most representative novelists of this trend is Martin Amis
(b. 1949). The son of Kingsley Amis, he is a satirical, witty author, and sharp
social commentary on England and Englishness is a characteristic of all his
work.
Amis became successful at a young age. As a child he occasionally
worked as an actor, most notably in the film A High Wind in Jamaica a (1965,
Alexander Mackendrick), about children and pirates in the Caribbean. He
subsequently studied at Oxford University where he graduated with dis-
tinction, and soon afterwards released his debut novel The Rachel Papers
(1973) a part-autobiographical work, dealing with a bright, but selfish young
man’s adventures in the year before going to university. His depiction of
the decay, deprivation and sexuality in declining 1970s London brought him
the Somerset Maugham Award in 1974, which his father had earlier won in
1955. By the time he was 30 he had written two more novels, Dead Babies
(1975) and Successs (1979), both while holding editorial posts at the The
Times Literary Supplementt and the New Statesman. n
His contemporary social satires Money y (1984), London Fields s (1989) and
The Information n (1995) capture the spirit of the times with heavy irony. They
are sometimes referred to as the ‘London Trilogy’, and portray the ‘state of
the nation’, in this case a sleazy, decaying country. Money y is about the movie
world, in which a corpulent British film producer, John Self, is working with
Lorne Guyland, an ageing Hollywood star, said to be based on the actor Kirk
Douglas. At one point, a well-known author called Martin Amis meets Self in
a west London pub, a postmodern scene created for comic effect.
Amis writes of a class system based on money and privilege, in which the
spirit is starved and disaster is imminent. For him, the prosperity enjoyed by
some during the 1980s appeared to extinguish all moral obligation to others,
as people became more selfish, envious and greedy. His London Fieldss is a
murder story set in west London’s pubs and streets, starring a semi-literate
 Literature 101

Figure 5.1 Martin Amis taking part in an interview.

© Jeff Morgan 15/Alamy

con-man who is obsessed with darts, sex and television, while The Informa-
tion is based around professional envy and mid-life crises. Einstein’s Mon-
sters (1986) is a collection of short stories about nuclear war, while Time’s
Arrow (1991) narrates the story of the Second World War and describes its
102 Literature
effects on the present. Its imaginative technique tells the story in reverse,
beginning in the present time and regressing.
His latest work, Lionel Asbo: State of England, d again examines the condi-
tion of England, celebrity culture and the effects of new money. It features
a violent, lottery-winning anti-hero, and his girlfriend, the ambitious glamour
model ‘Threnody’ (the inverted commas form part of her name), said to be
based on the model known as Jordan. It is set in Diston, London (based on
Dalston), and in this extract the local area is described – an inner-city shell
that could be anywhere in the UK.

In Diston everything hated everything else. And everything else in

return hated everything back. Everything soft hated everything hard,
and vice versa. Cold fought heat, heat fought cold, everything honked
and yelled and swore at everything, and all was weightless and all
hated weight.
Amis (2012: 165)

Amis’s life has provided him with as much publicity as his fiction, in particular
his relationships, earnings, his controversial views on Islam, old age and
attitudes towards Britain. Yet, he is regarded as one of the most talented
English writers of his generation, received the James Tait Black Memorial
Prize for his memoir Experience, and has been listed for the Booker Prize
twice to date.

Dark themes, including the effects of abortion and murder during adolescence
on the writer as a grown man, are found in Graham Swift’s Waterland (1983),
which has been critically praised as one of the decade’s finest novels. Set in the
Fenlands of Cambridgeshire, Swift’s theme is that people often live in the shadow
of a suspect past, a corrupted history.
In contrast, Julian Barnes’s light, confident style has often been used to
illuminate aspects of French and English culture. His Metroland (1980), Flau-
bert’s Parrot (1984) and Cross Channel (1996) are concerned with English
encounters with and perspectives on France, while England, England (1998) is
a humorous tale set in the near future, when the nation’s major tourist attrac-
tions of Big Ben, Stonehenge, Buckingham Palace and Hadrian’s Wall are
reconstructed on the Isle of Wight to ease the travel itinerary of American
and Japanese tourists.
The continuing tensions in Northern Ireland between the violent demands
for independence and the maintenance of union with Britain provided the basis
for several novels of the 1980s and 1990s by Bernard MacLaverty, Alan Judd
and others. There is also a strong tradition of verse, maintained by poets such as
Tom Paulin, Paul Durcan, Paul Muldoon and Derek Mahon, whose works have
examined the problems and pressures of life in the Northern Counties in the late
twentieth century.
 Literature 103
In Scotland too, the 1990s were characterised by a bleak social realism in
several prominent works, most notably in the novels of James Kelman, which
deal with hard realities on the streets of Glasgow. But unlike many other
Scottish authors, Kelman rejects standard English prose and writes mainly in
the local dialect, which he peppers with numerous expletives to create more
authentic dialogue. His style has made him controversial with critics, and
often difficult to evaluate. But his novel How Late it Was, How Late (1994)
won the Booker Prize. Complex expressions of identity are common charac-
teristics of several novels by Scottish novelists, for example Alasdair Gray’s
distinctive Lanark (1981), which makes humorous comparisons between the
Scottish and the English. It describes the author as a young Glaswegian, but
the story is told in a dual style, indicating the presence of a split personality
or identity.
Like Glasgow, the city of Edinburgh also has high levels of social problems,
drug addiction and AIDS, which are frankly revealed in Irvine Welsh’s Trainspot-
ting (1993) and The Acid House (1994). These are dark tales of violence, and
deprivation, but are lifted by the author’s lively, witty style. Filth (1998), Glue
(2001) and Porno (2002) followed, with explorations of working-class Scottish
identity and how it has found expression since the 1960s. Violent sectarianism,
violent football rivalries, Republicanism, repressed homosexuality, class divisions
and emigration are some of the themes explored in his books, which are revisited
in Skagboys (2012), a prequel to Trainspotting.
Edinburgh is also the setting for many works by Iain Banks. The Bridge (1986)
mixes hallucination, fantasy and reality in a tale set around the Forth Road
Bridge near Edinburgh. His novels and science-fiction stories (the latter written
by his ‘alter ego’ of Iain M. Banks) made him one of the most critically and pub-
licly admired authors of the 1980s and 1990s, from the sexuality and violence
of The Wasp Factory (1984) to the dual narrative and mysticism of Inversions
(1998). His final work The Quarry was posthumously published in 2013, and
is partly autobiographical, featuring an autistic youth whose father is dying of
cancer.
The search for a clear sense of identity and belonging was the theme of Nick
Hornby’s Fever Pitch (1992), one of the most critically praised books of the
early 1990s. Set in the 1970s, this is the autobiographical story of a young man
brought up in suburbia, whose complex emotions are expressed in his passion-
ate, almost religious obsession with Arsenal Football Club. He is in his mid-
30s when he begins to analyse these emotions. The book became a bestseller,
and one of the most talked-about novels of its time. In the following extract,
Hornby recalls his experience of growing up in a dull Home Counties suburb,
and his feelings of dislocation and being ‘out of place’, not unlike those of many
immigrants. And, just as with many immigrants to new countries, he changed
the way he spoke, in this case to show his identification with another com-
munity – that of the Arsenal supporters on the terraces of their north London
stadium.
104 Literature
ISLINGTON1 BOY
The white south of England middle-class Englishman and woman is the most
rootless creature on earth . . . Yorkshiremen, Lancastrians, Scots, the Irish,
blacks, the rich, the poor, even Americans and Australians have something
they can sit in pubs and bars and weep about, songs to sing, things they can
grab for and squeeze hard when they feel like it, but we have nothing, or
at least nothing we want. . . . Hence the phenomenon of mock-belonging,
whereby pasts and backgrounds are manufactured and massaged to provide
some kind of acceptable cultural identity. . . . In the mid-seventies young,
intelligent, and otherwise self-aware white young men and women in Lon-
don began to adopt a Jamaican patois. . . . How we all wished we came from
the Chicago Projects, or the Kingston Ghettos, or the mean streets of north
London or Glasgow! All those aitch-dropping, vowel-mangling punk rockers
with a public school education! All those Hampshire girls with grandparents
in Liverpool or Brum! All those Pogues2 fans from Hertfordshire singing Irish
rebel songs! . . .
Ever since I have been old enough to understand what it means to be
suburban I have wanted to come from somewhere else, preferably north Lon-
don. I have already dropped as many aitches as I can . . . and I use plural verb
forms with singular subjects whenever possible. This was a process which
started shortly after my first visits to Highbury,3 continued throughout my
suburban grammar school career, and escalated alarmingly when I arrived
at university. My sister, on the other hand, who also has problems with her
suburban roots, went the other way when she went to college, and suddenly
started to speak like the Duchess of Devonshire.4
Post-war . . . none of the available cultures seemed to belong to us, and
we had to pinch one quick. And what is suburban post-war middle-class
English culture anyway? Jeffrey Archer and Evita, Flanders and Swann5 and
the Goons, Adrian Mole and Merchant–Ivory .  .  . and John Cleese’s silly
walk?6 It’s no wonder we all wanted to be Muddy Waters or Charlie George.7
(Hornby, 1993: 47–9)

His subsequent novels High Fidelity (1994) and About a Boy (1997) are also
part-autobiographical, and provide realistic, amusing explorations of suburban
youth culture in the 1970s and 1980s. They also highlight his search for a sense
of belonging, and raise questions as to what extent white British men and women
share the migrant condition, in the sense of feeling adrift and rootless in modern
society in a time of pessimism and uncertainty.
Will Self has become well known for his London-based novels, which are often
satirical and grotesque in equal measure. His works often include references to
drugs and mental illness, and appearances by the psychiatrist Zack Busner are a
regular feature, for example in Umbrella (2012) and Shark (2014). Self’s charac-
teristically intense style with unconventional lexis and adventurous word play
is sometimes described as high modernism, but it is lightened by dry wit and
 Literature 105

Figure 5.2 Creating a distinctive book cover has become a fine art.
© David Christopher

playfulness which carry the reader along through carefully constructed plots. His
journalism is broad, but deep and accessible, and his eloquent contributions to
media discussions are typically frank and entertaining. His amusing collection
of restaurant reviews The Unbearable Lightness of Being A Prawn Cracker was less
concerned with fine dining, aspirational eating and perfection on a plate than
with fast food and ready meals eaten everywhere by everyone, and was released
in 2012.
In contrast to the darker themes prevailing throughout the 1990s in many
areas of literature, Hilary Mantel has received consistent critical acclaim for her
novels on a wide range of topics, which are elegantly written and witty. Wolf Hall
(2009), a fictionalised biography of Thomas Cromwell, won the Man Booker
Prize in 2009, and its sequel Bring Up the Bodies did the same in 2012.

Popular genres
As levels of crime increased sharply in the 1980s and 1990s, so did interest in
crime and detective stories. The tradition originated in the nineteenth century,
and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created his famous sleuth Sherlock Holmes in the
1880s. But during the twentieth century the genre has been largely maintained
by women authors, such as Agatha Christie with her detective heroes Hercule
106 Literature
Poirot and Miss Marple. Stories are typically set in a remote country house and
involve an affluent, middle-class group in a type of intellectual puzzle popularly
known as a ‘whodunit’.
The traditional detective story projected a morality that everyone could agree
with and created a psychological tension through suggestion and subtlety. In the
1990s some of the most widely appreciated authors included P.D. James (with her
sleuths Adam Dalgleish and Delia Gray), Ruth Rendell (Inspector Wexford),
Colin Dexter (Inspector Morse), Richard Hill (Dalziel and Pascoe), Caroline
Graham (Inspector Barnaby) and Ian Rankin (Inspector Rebus).
Ruth Rendell has been writing detective fiction since 1965. Some of her sto-
ries are conventional ‘police procedurals’ in which there is a puzzle to be solved,
while others emphasise the shocking and disturbing aspects of violent crime.
Her detective novel Thirteen Steps Down (2005) is one of the latter. Its protago-
nist is a disturbed and lonely young man – Cellini – a semi-educated mechanic
who repairs exercise machines, drinks heavily and stalks celebrities. He becomes
obsessed by the true story of the mass murderer John Christie, who killed six
women at his home in Rillington Place, in London’s North Kensington in the
early 1950s. Some years later, a film was made of the murders and starred Richard
Attenborough in the lead role. In this extract, the author describes how the film
triggered Cellini’s psychotic behaviour:

It was seeing the film that started him off. He was still living at home then and
he watched it on his mother’s old black and white television. Never much for
reading, he had found the book of the film on a stall outside a junk shop. It
came as a surprise when he looked at the photographs and saw that John Regi-
nald Halliday Christie looked not like Attenborough, but far more like himself,
and it was from that time that he began referring to him in his mind as Reggie
rather than Christie. After all, what had he done that was so terrible? Rid the
world of a bunch of useless women, hookers, street hookers most of them.
(Rendell, 2005: 21–2)

An unexpected development in recent years is the increasing popularity of Scan-

dinavian crime fiction. ‘Scandinavian noir’ or ‘Nordic noir’ is a genre of police
procedural stories. Typically set on rain-swept streets or in the forbidding land-
scapes of Sweden or Norway and often in semi-darkness, their chilly misery has
become popular with British audiences, and several works have been made into
films and TV series. The values of moderation, restraint and their simple, yet
distinctive style have been unexpectedly successful and appealed to readers in
a time of hardship and recession. Jo Nesbo, Karin Fossum, Anne Holt, Thomas
Enger and the late Stieg Larsson are among the most noted authors. Larsson’s Girl
with the Dragon Tattoo offers a subtle critique of misogyny, business practice and
Nazism in Swedish society, and was published in English in 2008 to great acclaim,
winning many awards and subsequently being made into film and graphic novel
versions. In 2010 Larsson was the first author to sell over one million copies of
his work on Amazon’s e-book reader Kindle.
 Literature 107
While crime fiction and detective novels have increased in popularity, the
numbers of spy ‘thrillers’, a genre closely related to the detective novel, have
declined. They were especially popular during the years of the Cold War, when
Graham Greene, John Le Carré, Len Deighton and Ian Fleming were among the
most respected and influential authors. In the 1970s they provided some criti-
cal commentary on the condition of British institutions, such as their secrecy,
inefficiency and resistance to change. But as the Cold War disappeared, interest
in the spy novel and the films they inspired, diminished, leaving their works as
monuments to an era.
Declining interest in spy stories has contrasted with a growth in the popular-
ity of science-fiction novels. The freedom of ‘sci-fi’ to create time, place and
plot exposes some of the limitations of the more conventional novels and has
provided authors such as J.G. Ballard, Brian Aldiss and Michael Moorcock with
limitless possibilities for creative writing. But the landscapes of the next century
and beyond were often represented as sad, bad, uneasy places, with an absence of
community or values, as dark speculation about life in space began to mirror that
of life in England in the early 1990s.
Biography is another genre to have grown in popularity. Many public figures
have written about themselves or employed a ‘ghost writer’ to assist them. This
may be due to the growing appetite for personal details, trivia and information
about different lifestyles, especially with the increasing interest in ‘celebrity cul-
ture’. Paradoxically, books about famous people often sell more than books by
them, perhaps because the former are more critical and revealing.
But together with crime and thrillers, the genre that still has the largest wom-
en’s readership is escapist, romantic writing. Traditional romances and historical
dramas with their carefully observed speech, manners, seriousness and dress style
are consistently appreciated by British readers, and authors such as Jilly Cooper
and the late Catherine Cookson are endlessly popular.
Other popular categories include cooking (especially the Jamie Oliver series),
astrology, self-help, health and alternative medicine, areas in which the contri-
bution of women authors is consistently greater than that of men. Books dealing
with S&M erotica are also major online sellers.

Publishing and publicity

The publishing and retailing of classic and modern works have become major
industries, and in 2011 some 150,000 new and revised titles were published,
with around 6,000 new works of fiction, of which an increasing number are
available on the internet. However, only around one in ten turns out to
be commercially successful. There are numerous awards for new books and
authors, such as the Costa Book Awards, the Baileys Women’s Prize (awarded
to female authors) and the Carnegie Medal, which is awarded each year to
the best children’s book written in English and published in the UK. But the
most prestigious for English fiction by a British or Commonwealth author is
the Booker Prize, which has been offered annually since 1969. It is judged by
108 Literature
a panel of publishers, novelists and critics, and ensures wide publicity for the
winning author.
While some authors and the public enjoy the fanfare around competitions,
others do not, and resent attempts to make a serious art form competitive. Nev-
ertheless, the marketing and publicising of new books have become a fine art,
while literary festivals such as the Hay Festival at Hay-on-Wye, a small country
town that has more bookshops per head of population than anywhere else in
Britain, have become major events. There is much comment in the media about
new works, as well as gossip about the size of writers’ advances. All these promote
public interest in an author’s work, as do their websites. Many writers now have
their own pages online, as well as Twitter accounts, blogs and so on where readers
can make contact, view extracts of their work and keep up to date.
There are also many literary societies and book clubs dedicated to the dis-
cussion of authors’ works. Information on recently published books and literary
trends can easily be found online, in a variety of specialised journals, and in
newspapers, all of which can be found in Britain’s public libraries. But for those
more interested in creativity than reading or criticism, several centres offer spe-
cialised courses, such as the University of East Anglia in Norwich, where the cre-
ative writing course was founded by Malcolm Bradbury, and where contemporary
authors such as Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro have studied.

Poetry
Ted Hughes is considered by many critics to be the finest poet of the post-war gen-
eration. His work is frequently concerned with the birds, beasts, insects and fish
of his native countryside, which provide the inspiration for many of his poems.
His early collection The Hawk in the Rain (1957) announced the arrival of a major
British poet. After this he wrote volumes of poetry for children, verse plays for
radio and several works of criticism. In 1984 he succeeded Sir John Betjeman as
Poet Laureate, and his collection Rain Charm for the Duchy (1992) contains verse
written during his time in the post, but some of his finest work appeared later in
his career, such as Birthday Letters (1995) in which he described his troubled mar-
riage to the American poet Sylvia Plath, who committed suicide in 1963.
Though the role dates back to the Middle Ages, the title of Poet Laureate was
first created in the seventeenth century, as an ‘official’ poet to the royal household.
The holder of the title was obliged to write verse for important state occasions,
which could then be recited and remembered by the citizenry as a memory of the
occasion. At a time when most people were unable to read or write, rhyming verse
was much easier to remember and could be easily repeated and passed on. The
position was traditionally held for life, although after Andrew Motion stood down
in 2009, a tenure was reduced to ten years. The post is appointed by the monarch,
on the recommendation of the prime minster, and is currently held by Carol Ann
Duffy, the first Scot, woman and openly gay writer to be Poet Laureate.
Seamus Heaney is one of the most outstanding poets of recent years. Born in
Northern Ireland, his work focuses on love, nature and memory of place, but he
also writes about the civil war or ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland which raked his
 Literature 109
homeland from the late 1960s to the late 1990s, for example in Whatever You Say,
Say Nothing (1975). His translation of Beowulf (2000) is also considered a work of
genius. Throughout his career his poems have consistently received high acclaim,
and in 1995 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Another highly respected poet is Andrew Motion, who was appointed Poet Lau-
reate in 1999. Rather than focusing on traditional, sentimental themes of love,
nature and longing, he chose to address contemporary issues and current affairs,
such as homelessness, bullying and America’s 9/11. As a practical resource for poetry
lovers and researchers, Motion founded the Poetry Archive, an online resource
which features poems and audio resources of poets reading their own works.
The poetry archive gave an important boost to literacy resources in the UK,
as in recent years poetry has been neglected and there currently exists a general
feeling that traditional forms of verse have little to say about modern themes.
Consequently, poets have found it increasingly difficult to have their work pub-
lished and many publishing houses have been forced to close their poetry sec-
tions, or reluctantly have maintained them simply for reasons of prestige. But
despite the difficulties, poetry has continued to evolve with popular new styles.
Vibrant and youthful, ‘performance poetry’ is verse which is written to be per-
formed aloud, often by elaborately dressed performers who dramatically deliver
their poems about topical urban themes such as sex, drugs and fame, to an appre-
ciative, youthful, non-literary audience.
Poetry as performance was pioneered by the Mersey Poets in the 1960s, such
as Roger McGough and Adrian Henry, and later by Manchester-born ‘punk’
poet John Cooper-Clarke in the 1970s and John Hegley in the 1980s at a time
of stand-up comedy and the love of entertaining an audience with quick, witty
observations and word-play about current issues. During the 1980s performances
became more political, and black musical styles became incorporated, ‘dub’ being
a prime example. Linton Kwesi Johnson has written several volumes of dub
poetry. He was born in Jamaica, but came to Britain in 1963. His poems are set in
urban areas, and are often dark and violent. Inglan is a Bitch (1980) is one of his
best-known collections. He has also made records of his poetry, including Bass
Culture (1980) and Making History (1984).
A leading exponent is the British Rastafarian poet, playwright and author Ben-
jamin Zephaniah, whose ‘rap’ is performed in sharp, urgent volleys of politically
charged verse. When punks and Rastafarians were protesting about high unem-
ployment, homelessness and the National Front in the early 1980s, his poems
could be heard at demonstrations, outside police stations and even on the dance
floor. Collections include Pen Rhythm (1980), The Dread Affair (1985), Inna Liv-
erpool (1988) and Propa Propaganda (1996). In 1998 he was a shortlisted candi-
date for the prestigious post of Poet Laureate, following the death of Ted Hughes,
and in the new century remains one of the few poets widely recognised by young,
black non-specialists, as well as by the literary ‘establishment’. However, Zepha-
niah is a republican and rejected the award of OBE, which he was offered in 2003.
A more recent development is ‘slam’, which is a mixture of poetry and rap
created by Afro-Americans and adopted by young British Afro-Caribbeans and
others. Slam poetry is delivered vigorously, with attitude and energy, by slammers
Figure 5.3 Poet, playwright and author Benjamin Zephaniah receives an honorary doctorate.
© Edward Moss/Alamy
 Literature 111
who stand alone or work in pairs or groups to deliver their message on topics as
varied as racial pride, female self-respect, friendship, crime and body image. The
main difference from rap is that it is competitive, with judges being drawn from
the audience. British performance poetry continues to thrive at a grassroots level
in pubs, theatres, and the larger festivals such as Edinburgh and Glastonbury.
But attitudes towards the new verse have varied. While younger readers found it
accessible and enjoyable, many older critics claimed it was shallow, populist and
had little substance. However, the work has inspired many young people to cre-
ativity, and brought about a new appreciation for the written and spoken word.

Children’s literature
Literature for children originated in the fifteenth century in Britain. Many
early works carried a moral or religious message, which it was thought would
educate, instruct and entertain juvenile readers. The expansion of literacy in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was accompanied by a growth
in publishing, and the appearance of titles that are today recognised as classics,
such as Thomas Hughes’s Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857), Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland (1865), Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book (1894) and J.M.
Barrie’s Peter Pan (1911).
These classics still sell well, while Enid Blyton’s children’s stories, which first
appeared in the 1940s, continue to be among the bestselling books today. They
feature groups of friends such as the Famous Five, the Secret Seven, and the fic-
tional gnome Noddy. Despite some criticism that her stories were bland, snobbish
and sometimes racist, Blyton became the highest-selling English-language author
of the twentieth century. In her career she authored nearly 700 books, and in
2005, 35 years after her death, she still sold around seven million books per year,
making a total of over 400 million worldwide.
In the post-war period there was a greater concern with removing social preju-
dice from children’s books. Realistic stories expressed egalitarian values and com-
munity solidarity. But in the 1960s this began to give way to more imaginative and
escapist fiction, for example the magic and legend of Alan Garner’s Owl Service
(1967). In the 1980s and 1990s prolific authors such as Roald Dahl and Philip
Pullman produced many prize-winning stories for children and young adults that
were enthusiastically received by the general public, and were often adapted for
television series. In 1995 Pullman was awarded the Carnegie Medal for the trilogy
His Dark Materials (1995–2000), despite accusations they promoted atheism, an
approach that his readers have found progressive and refreshing. In 2005 he won
the prestigious Astred Lindgren Award for his contribution to children’s literature.
In recent years public concerns over what children should be taught, together
with the phenomenal international success of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter stories,
have made children’s books one of the most high-profile areas of literature. Since
1999 there has also been a Children’s Laureate, appointed by a panel to a writer
or illustrator of children’s books. The post is currently held by Malorie Blackman,
and is renewed every two years.
112 Literature
Today, the range of stories available to children has been influenced by a desire
to encourage positive social attitudes towards people of different backgrounds
and circumstances, for example the social realism of Jacqueline Wilson’s The Bed
and Breakfast Star (1995), which tells the story of a child without a proper home,
and The Story of Tracy Beaker (1991), about a girl who is in foster care, has been
made into a successful and long-running television series.
The ethnic diversity of Britain is also reflected in stories in which black chil-
dren are central, for instance stories by Malorie Blackman, Jamela Gavin and
Benjamin Zephaniah. The broad range of writing for an intelligent and thought-
ful modern audience has increased demand for children’s literature, which is
written to make learning fun, promote social awareness, and reflect a diverse
and multicultural society. The fact that seven children’s writers were in the list
of the ten most borrowed authors from UK libraries in 2011 is testimony to their
enduring popularity.

J.K. Rowling
J.K. Rowling’s (b. 1965) Harry Potter books are known and loved around the
world. They have also become immensely profitable, becoming some of the
best-selling books in history, and the basis of a series of films that have also
become some of the highest grossing films in history. Around half a billion
Potter books have been sold worldwide.
Her story is remarkable. After studying for a degree in French, she worked
as a researcher for Amnesty International, and later as an English teacher in
Porto, Portugal. In 1990 she conceived the idea for Harry Potter. After rejec-
tions from 12 publishers, her first book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s
Stone e was published by Bloomsbury in 1997. It introduces Harry, a bespec-
tacled schoolboy who has lost his parents and lives in a cupboard under the
stairs of his aunt and uncle’s house. Fear of loss and separation are com-
mon themes in the stories, which feature witches, potions, a mysterious owl
and lessons in magic at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
The first book was followed by six sequels, the final one being Harry Potter
and the Deathly Hallowss in 2007.
Today, the books are published in over 200 countries and in 65 languages,
an achievement as fantastic as the adventures of her hero. Since starting out
as an English teacher, she has become the best-selling author in the UK,
with total sales in excess of £238 million and an OBE for her success.
Success has endured; the last four Harry Potter books have set con-
secutive records as the fastest-selling books in history, the final one selling
11 million copies on the first day of its UK release. As a global brand, it is
now worth an estimated £21 billion. The films have been similarly success-
ful, and are shot in Britain with an all-British cast, something which Rowling
had insisted on to Warner Brothers.
Although Rowling is said to be shy and reclusive, in 2012 there was more
publicity as she released her first non-children’s book, The Casual Vacancy.y In
a departure from the magic of Harry Potter, it assumes the twenty-first-century
preoccupations with the dark themes of rape, racism, drugs, pornography,
 Literature 113
child abuse and suicide. This was followed by The Cuckoo’s Calling
g (2013), a
crime novel published under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith, which sub-
sequently became a bestseller. In 2014 another detective story was released,
The Silkworm,
m featuring the hero of her previous work, Cormoran Strike.

Figure 5.4 A child attempts ‘Potteresque’ magic on the legendary Platform 9¾, a popular
tourist spot at King’s Cross Station in London.
© Nargis Christopher
114 Literature
Notes
1 A suburb of north London, close to the Arsenal stadium.
2 A London-Irish band.
3 Then the home of Arsenal Football Club.
4 An aristocrat renowned for her distinctive RP accent.
5 A genteel music-hall comedy duo popular in the mid-1950s.
6 A comedy sketch from the satirical show Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
7 A talented, flamboyant Arsenal footballer of the 1970s.