A Deadly Day at the Races: What Radical Protest Can and Cannot Do
Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
Pushkin Industries
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 19 September 2025
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After years of campaigning for votes for women, the Suffragettes emerge at the turn of the 20th Century. Their motto, 'Deeds Not Words', heralds the start of more radical actions, including fire bombing, civil disobedience and hunger strikes. Emily Davison is a passionate rebel, but she pushes at the limits of what her allies find acceptable. History remembers Emily for her final act, but have we got everything about the story right?
WARNING: This episode discusses death by suicide. If you are suffering emotional distress or having suicidal thoughts, support is available - for example, from the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the US, or the Samaritans in the UK on 116 123
Read more about Tim's work at http://timharford.com/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an IHeart podcast. |
| 0:13.2 | If you don't feel like you're getting enough cautionary tales, I have some very good news. |
| 0:18.2 | We've just launched the Cautionary Club over on Patreon. We'll be |
| 0:22.6 | dropping an extra Cautionary Tales episode each month, a bonus interview, and a newsletter, |
| 0:28.0 | chock full of behind-the-scenes titbits, and anything else we've dug up in our research. We would |
| 0:33.4 | love to see you there. Head to patreon.com slash cautionary club to find out more. That's |
| 0:39.8 | patreon.com slash cautionary club. A warning before we start, this cautionary tale discusses |
| 0:47.9 | death by suicide. If you're suffering emotional distress or you're having suicidal thoughts, |
| 0:54.0 | support is available. |
| 0:55.7 | For example, from the 988 suicide and crisis lifeline in the US. |
| 1:04.8 | Jockey Herbert Jones canter us his horse to the start of the Epsom Derby. |
| 1:10.9 | The year is 1913. On Der start of the Epsom Derby. The year is 1913. |
| 1:13.4 | On Derby Day, Epsom feels like the centre of the world. |
| 1:18.0 | Hundreds of thousands of people have descended on this undulating stretch of countryside, 15 miles from London. |
| 1:25.5 | Some watch from the open-topped buses that brought them here. |
| 1:29.4 | Others line the running rails a dozen deep. The grandstands are packed. His Majesty the King |
| 1:37.2 | looks on from under a black top hat. The King owns the horse that Herbert Jones is riding. |
| 1:45.0 | He's wearing the distinctive royal silks, purple and crimson, with a gold braid. |
| 1:52.0 | Jones knows what it's like to win a derby for the king. He's won two. |
| 1:56.0 | He also knows that he's not likely to win a third today. |
| 2:00.0 | His horse, Anmer, is an outsider, 50 to 1. |
| 2:04.8 | Still, the odds aren't always accurate. |
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