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Post by grahammurray on Dec 7, 2020 13:32:35 GMT
Jak was the second worst cartooonist of his era. Only Cummings was worse. To be fair, it may have been before Cummings had his eyes checked.
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Post by johnloony on Dec 7, 2020 13:46:52 GMT
Peter Shore has not been forgotten. He was very famous in his time; the only people who don't know or recognise him are the people who are not old enough to have known about him in the first place. FWIW I saw Peter Shore when he spoke (for EU withdrawal) at a meeting during the Kensington & Chelsea by-election campaign in 1999. He was very passionate (almost in tears). I remember him saying the line "Are we just going to give up?"
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Post by johnloony on Dec 7, 2020 13:53:09 GMT
I am rather puzzled by the amount of confusion and uncertainty being expressed by various people about this cartoon. I think that the four people in the front row are very obviously, easily, immediately and unambiguously recognisable as Peter Shore, Tony Benn, Ian Mikardo and Enoch Powell. Maybe they are of an age. I'm 52, the only one that lasted past the 1970s was Benn, so he's the only one I have any conscious recognition of. He was a prominent MP into the Blair era. Powell is a historical bogeyman who crops up in library news footage whenever somebody wants to make a point about race relations. Shore is unknown, and Mikardo is a G&S operetta. Checking Wiki, Shaw was an MP until 1997, which makes him extrordinarily obscure; and Ian Mikardo was an MP until 1987, and I'm sure I would have noticed a name like that in the 1980s, and I'm sure people like Spitting Image would have made heavy play of it. I am 52. Shore was prominent and famous well through the 1980s and into the 1990s. So was Powell. Mikardo was well known in the 1980s as a rentaquote MP and unofficial bookie among MPs.
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Post by finsobruce on Dec 7, 2020 13:57:32 GMT
Jak was the second worst cartooonist of his era. Only Cummings was worse. To be fair, it may have been before Cummings had his eyes checked. I see what you did there.
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Post by michael2019 on Dec 7, 2020 13:58:26 GMT
I think Ian Mikardo is now fairly obscure now for most people under say about 60 even for political "obsessives" (sorry well-informed) on this forum as while doing some googling about him as I didn't know much about him I found that he was clearly an influential Labour MP but he was never a minister unlike the others. I'm barely in my 50s and I was aware of him as a significant political figure* when I became politicised in the 1980s - certainly less significant than the others in the front row of that cartoon (which was why, despite the fact I was fairly sure I recognised him, I wasn't sure it was him) *There may be a regional element possibly as he was a London MP (then) and would have featured on regional TV news etc but I should have thought he was well known nationally at the time as well um... yes I take the point and I was certainly aware of the name but I had a different image of him in my mind - without a pipe which I think from Google images he had in his slightly younger days around the time of the European Referendum but I don't remember him with it. Benn and Powell were I submit a lot better known - Benn being active politically either as an MP or leaving the Commons "to spend more time in politics" well into the 2000s and Powell continued to be talked about because of a certain speech and attitudes. Peter Shore less well known than those two but obviously on TV as a Cabinet Minister in the late 70s and then as a Labour leadership candidate and shadow minister for a while in the 80s. Without looking it up - I was thinking how many of Foot's shadow cabinet I could name and I couldn't get much beyond Healey and Hattersley (and Shore but I'd had looked up his Wikipedia biography). Obviously I would probably know of them if named. I must say even having looked it up the names don't much to me now even though I followed politics avidly in the 80s. Kinnock was in there (I wasn't quite sure whether he had been in it) and Tony Benn - I thought he had lost his seat in 1979 but obv. he didn't lose it until 1983. So as I say having looked it up about half of them I don't know of so probably Mikardo was or is now probably better known than half of Foot's shadow cabinet but I doubt whether he got that much national media coverage after the European Referendum in 1975.
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Post by yellowperil on Dec 7, 2020 14:13:30 GMT
Who the hell is the one between Churchill and Major? Is it supposed to be Gordon Brown? Or is it Teresa May? That was by process of elimination! Obviously this dates from the Cameron era , with Cameron doing the introductions, so May wouldn't have been there anyway. The "Gordon Brown" looks like a mash-up between Gordon and the other famous G.Brown, and a bit more like George than Gordon. But George was never PM. Thank the Lord.
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Post by Andrew_S on Dec 7, 2020 14:17:29 GMT
I think Ian Mikardo is now fairly obscure now for most people under say about 60 even for political "obsessives" (sorry well-informed) on this forum as while doing some googling about him as I didn't know much about him I found that he was clearly an influential Labour MP but he was never a minister unlike the others. People here might want to know that David Butler's book on the 1975 European Referendum has been scanned in online and his available at www.eureferendum.com/documents/1975referendum1.pdf which I found via thefrogsalittlehot.blogspot.com/2015/08/1975-referendum-book-scanned.html after doing a Google Image search on the cartoon (the book reproduces it) I know he was the unofficial House of Commons bookmaker.
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Post by manchesterman on Dec 7, 2020 14:26:25 GMT
Some of those charicatures are good but some (brown, callaghan) are pretty bad. I worked some out once I realised it was a cartoon featuring all the post-war PMs
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Post by michael2019 on Dec 7, 2020 14:35:39 GMT
Who the hell is the one between Churchill and Major? Is it supposed to be Gordon Brown? Or is it Teresa May? That was by process of elimination! Obviously this dates from the Cameron era , with Cameron doing the introductions, so May wouldn't have been there anyway. The "Gordon Brown" looks like a mash-up between Gordon and the other famous G.Brown, and a bit more like George than Gordon. But George was never PM. Thank the Lord. He was First Secretary of State though for a couple of years - so.... we might have had him for a while. And he ran Wilson quite close in the 1963 Labour leadership election. I do like the following story from his Wikipedia biography: During his time, and subsequently, a story circulated that Brown had embarrassed himself while drunk at an official reception in South America, an anecdote The Times attributed to Lord Chalfont in early 2020. Brown was said to have lumbered over to a tall, elegant vision in red, and requested the honour of the next dance, to be told, "I will not dance with you for three reasons. The first is that you are drunk. The second is that the band is not playing a waltz, but the Peruvian national anthem. The final reason is that I am the Cardinal Archbishop of Lima." Unfortunately Wikipedia also notes: Brown did not visit South America during his term.
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Post by michael2019 on Dec 7, 2020 14:38:24 GMT
Who the hell is the one between Churchill and Major? Is it supposed to be Gordon Brown? Or is it Teresa May? That was by process of elimination! Obviously this dates from the Cameron era , with Cameron doing the introductions, so May wouldn't have been there anyway. Yes but have we ever seen Gordon Brown and Theresa May together - how do we know that May is not Brown in drag?
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Post by carlton43 on Dec 7, 2020 15:36:06 GMT
Oh Mike, thank you for that about the surname change. I had always wondered why he had such an odd name. What a good story. My fact of the week and the month, and possibly of the year? Considering that most people pronounce Mikado wrong, it's an understandable mistake. Shouldn't that have been 'wrongly'? Detached adverb to 'pronounce'. And the pronounciation of the light opera is as intended by the originators, and according to English conventional usage and that would be 'Mik-Ar-Doh'. Yet he had the spelling before him so it seems from the theatre bill-boards in large print?
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,636
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Post by john07 on Dec 7, 2020 16:30:52 GMT
Maybe they are of an age. I'm 52, the only one that lasted past the 1970s was Benn, so he's the only one I have any conscious recognition of. He was a prominent MP into the Blair era. Powell is a historical bogeyman who crops up in library news footage whenever somebody wants to make a point about race relations. Shore is unknown, and Mikardo is a G&S operetta. Checking Wiki, Shaw was an MP until 1997, which makes him extrordinarily obscure; and Ian Mikardo was an MP until 1987, and I'm sure I would have noticed a name like that in the 1980s, and I'm sure people like Spitting Image would have made heavy play of it. I am 52. Shore was prominent and famous well through the 1980s and into the 1990s. So was Powell. Mikardo was well known in the 1980s as a rentaquote MP and unofficial bookie among MPs. Mikardo was a very prominent figure in his day despite remaining a backbencher throughout his time in Parliament. He is attributed to inventing what became the standard system for canvassing, checking off voters and chasing up those who had not voted from his time in Reading. It was argued that this helped him win a rock solid Tory seat in 1945. Although that was not uncommon then! The system was usally known as the Reading or the Mikardo. I saw him speak at Manchester University. He was invited by the Jewish Students Society and attracted a huge attendance, 90% of who were hostile to him. He dealt with this with consumate ease. Peter Shore was far from obscure. He was a very serious contender to replace James Callaghan as Labour Party Leader in 1980. Michael Foot was persuaded to stand, against his better judgement, and that cost Shore the centre-left votes he needed to make it through to challenge Denis Healey in the final ballot. Much of the pressure on Foot came from the Bennites who saw Foot as a stop-gap leader until Benn returned to Parliament.
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European Lefty
Labour
Can be bribed with salted liquorice
Posts: 5,666
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Post by European Lefty on Dec 7, 2020 17:13:02 GMT
Considering that most people pronounce Mikado wrong, it's an understandable mistake. Shouldn't that have been 'wrongly'? Detached adverb to 'pronounce'. And the pronounciation of the light opera is as intended by the originators, and according to English conventional usage and that would be 'Mik-Ar-Doh'. Yet he had the spelling before him so it seems from the theatre bill-boards in large print? If we're going to be pedantic about pronunciation, let's at least use the IPA /mɪkɑːdəʊ/
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Post by swanarcadian on Dec 7, 2020 17:22:25 GMT
The only time I've seen TV footage of Ian Mikardo was in his brief interview with the BBC in their 1983 GE programme. Something to do with the Labour campaign not being understood and trivialised, an obsession with opinion polls, and tailors and yardsticks. I didn't see it live, I hasten to add.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,636
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Post by john07 on Dec 7, 2020 20:01:51 GMT
Who the hell is the one between Churchill and Major? Is it supposed to be Gordon Brown? Or is it Teresa May? That was by process of elimination! Obviously this dates from the Cameron era , with Cameron doing the introductions, so May wouldn't have been there anyway. The "Gordon Brown" looks like a mash-up between Gordon and the other famous G.Brown, and a bit more like George than Gordon. But George was never PM. Thank the Lord. George Brown was ok when he was sober. On reflection, maybe you are right!
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Post by carlton43 on Dec 7, 2020 22:46:12 GMT
Shouldn't that have been 'wrongly'? Detached adverb to 'pronounce'. And the pronounciation of the light opera is as intended by the originators, and according to English conventional usage and that would be 'Mik-Ar-Doh'. Yet he had the spelling before him so it seems from the theatre bill-boards in large print? If we're going to be pedantic about pronunciation, let's at least use the IPA /mɪkɑːdəʊ/ Why on earth use a method and system that is understood by fewer than 10% of those likely to be interested?
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 13,722
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Post by J.G.Harston on Dec 7, 2020 23:09:32 GMT
Shouldn't that have been 'wrongly'? Detached adverb to 'pronounce'. And the pronounciation of the light opera is as intended by the originators, and according to English conventional usage and that would be 'Mik-Ar-Doh'. Yet he had the spelling before him so it seems from the theatre bill-boards in large print? If we're going to be pedantic about pronunciation, let's at least use the IPA /mɪkɑːdəʊ/ This is all coming back to "what's the capital of Italy called when you're speaking English?"
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Post by greenchristian on Dec 7, 2020 23:32:43 GMT
If we're going to be pedantic about pronunciation, let's at least use the IPA /mɪkɑːdəʊ/ Why on earth use a method and system that is understood by fewer than 10% of those likely to be interested? Because it's the only widely-used method and system for denoting pronunciation that's clear and unambiguous?
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Post by carlton43 on Dec 7, 2020 23:37:26 GMT
Why on earth use a method and system that is understood by fewer than 10% of those likely to be interested? Because it's the only widely-used method and system for denoting pronunciation that's clear and unambiguous? Bollocks! It is neither clear nor unambiguous to anybody except a very small elite who have studied some subject of which it forms a constituent part. It is moronic to suggest its use outside of academic circles.
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Post by greenchristian on Dec 7, 2020 23:39:27 GMT
Because it's the only widely-used method and system for denoting pronunciation that's clear and unambiguous? Bollocks! It is neither clear nor unambiguous to anybody except a very small elite who have studied some subject of which it forms a constituent part. It is moronic to suggest its use outside of academic circles. Your argument that the system isn't clear and unambiguous is that the system isn't widely known?
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