E P Thompson’s Writing by Candlelight (1980) revisited. Times letter writers on strikes (Dec 10th)
The late socialist historian E P Thompson (1924-1993) was an enthusiast for letter writing. He wrote many himself although most unfortunately are locked away in the Bodleian for the time being.
He researched the history of aspects of letter writing, along with his researcher E E Dodds, and one result was his essay The Crime of Anonymity which has considerable relevance in 2022 although it was about the first decades of the nineteenth century.
He also wrote letters to the papers and was entertained particularly by the reactionary nature of some letter writers to The Times.
He would certainly have found those in The Times (10th December) to be of interest.
The Murdoch owned Times papers have slightly different positions on the current strikes. On Saturday the paper argued that public sympathy for strikers would soon wain and Keir Starmer must decide whether he backs business or the unions (many might think he has already decided). On Sunday the Editorial argued that the economy isn’t doing that badly and why unions and strikes are bad Sunak would do well to copy Mrs Thatcher when she came to Office in 1979 and settle the disputes.
On Saturday Times letter writers had their say. Reactionary of course but the general drift rather backs the Murdoch line of Sunday rather than Saturday. E P Thompson I sense would have been interested…
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