E P Thompson’s Writing by Candlelight (1980) revisited. Times letter writers on the nurses strike (Dec 15th)
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. It looks at the writing of anonymous letters as threats- often to the rich and powerful-and official efforts to track down and punish the writers. The parallel with social media is considerable.
Thompson 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 (15th December) to be of interest.
The Murdoch owned Times papers have slightly different positions on the current strikes. Last 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.
Times letter writers have now had their say on nurses strikes. They are at root reactionary of course but there is clear backing for the nurses against the Government. E P Thompson I sense would have been interested…
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