Why the Winter of Discontent wasn’t what you think

The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Podmasters

News, Society & Culture, Politics, Government

4.6 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 8 January 2023

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Comparisons to the Winter of Discontent are everywhere. But are these accurate, or even helpful? With an autumn and winter of strikes, high levels of inflation and maxed out energy prices it’s an easy reference to make, but is it lazy? Colin Hay, professor of political sciences at Sciences Po in Paris, joins Andrew Harrison to discuss. “It’s not really the story of a coordinated campaign by union leaders. It was the rank and file rejecting the advice of the union leaders and withdrawing their labour.” I’ve been asked throughout my career if THIS is a return to the Winter of Discontent. This is the first time I haven’t just blanketly said ‘no.’” “Labour has had the ghost of the Winter of Discontent dancing over its corpse in the intervening time.” “It’s quite impressive how much industrial and public sector disruption is currently in place at the moment when you consider how difficult it is to get a legal strike organised.” www.patreon.com/bunkercast Written and presented by Andrew Harrison. Producer Jet Gerbertson. Assistant producer Kasia Tomasiewicz. Lead producer Jacob Jarvis. Bunker music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Robin Leeburn. Group Editor Andrew Harrison. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production Instagram | Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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1:14.4	Rishi Sunach has created a, quote's, winter of discontent unit at the heart of
1:19.4	government to oversee the response to a wave of public sector strikes.
1:22.8	The quote marks are telling because there's no evidence that the responsible minister, Oliver Dowden,
1:27.6	or anyone around him actually said winter of discontent.
1:31.3	But they didn't have to, because the Winter of Discontent from 1978 to
1:35.3	1979 occupies a talismanic status as the alpha nightmare of British politics. It was a helter-skelter of uncontrollable industrial unrest
1:44.7	in which 4.6 million workers went on strike including rail, water, bakeries,
1:49.0	haulage, nursing, ambulances, grave digging and refuse collection.
1:53.0	It was all directed against the Labour government's anti-inflation pay policies,
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