Steven Fielding
Biographic Data
| ID | 1258460 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Steven Fielding |
| GIVEN NAMES | Steven |
| FAMILY NAME | Fielding |
| SIGNATURE | FIELDING S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Salford |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 65 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 19 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1992 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Looking for Starmerism
Most of those trying to assess what Keir Starmer stands for and how he plans to achieve his objectives are too impressed by an understanding of Thatcherism associated with Stuart Hall. That is one reason why they complain that Starmerism is little more than an empty space. But other less heroic ways of thinking about a leader's ‘ism’ are available and using a more multidimensional approach, this article assesses the evolution of Starmerism throug…
Socialist Television Drama, Newspaper Critics and the Battle of Ideas During the Crisis of Britain’s Post-War Settlement
Due to the difficult methodological issues it presents, political historians are wary of using television - the most important mass medium of the later twentieth century - as a means of exploring vernacular political thinking. Attempting to show how television audiences were encouraged to think politically, the article outlines a method generated through an engagement with the work of disciplines beyond history, to help political historians more …
Hell, No!’ Labour's Campaign
As Britons cast their votes, Labour pollsters told Ed Miliband to prepare to enter Downing Street as Prime Minister.It was reasonable for Miliband to believe them: all opinion surveys suggested he had a fair chance of emerging as the head of a minority administration.So, when the BBC announced its Exit Poll, Miliband was not alone in being shocked by its prediction of a Conservative government.For, if Labour's horrible performance in Scotland was…
A history of the Northern Ireland Labour Party
This is a definitive history of the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP), a unique political force that drew its support from Protestants and Catholics and became electorally viable despite deep-seated ethnic, religious and national divisions. Formed in 1924 and disbanded in 1987, it succeeded in returning several of its members to the locally based Northern Ireland parliament in 1925–29 and 1958–72, and polled some 100,000 votes in the 1964 and …
British Politics and Cinema's Historical Dramas, 1929–1938
Inspired by the debate about the influence feature films exerted over popular political attitudes during the interwar period, this article explores how one of cinema's most popular genres, the historical drama, represented British politics during the 1930s. It concentrates on eight films that depicted leading figures from Britain's modern political past, ranging from Robert Clive and Pitt the elder to Queen Victoria by way of Benjamin Disraeli. T…
New Labour, ‘Sleaze’ and Television Drama
Research Highlights and Abstract The article explores attitudes to New Labour in particular and politics in general through analysing their dramatization on TV. It indicates that such dramatizations are almost wholly negative, focusing on sleaze, spin and betrayal. The article explains the character of such dramas as being the result of the producers' desire to present politics in terms their audiences will accept. It suggests that, as a conseque…
Never a Gabriel Over Whitehall
This paper assesses how the British political parties were popularly perceived during the early decades of the twentieth century. Despite most historians' stress on the extent to which class sentiment increasingly aligned the population with either the Conservative or Labour parties, novels of the time indicate the existence of considerable levels of cynicism about politicians. If such mistrust came to a head during the early 1930s, due to the co…
David Hare's Fictional Politics
David Hare is Britain's leading political dramatist. His Gethsemane premiered in November 2008, amidst anticipation that the play would ‘crucify’ New Labour. Gethsemane is in fact one of a number of fictionalisations of New Labour produced since 1997. These works have generally held up the party under Tony Blair's leadership to unmitigated criticism. Gethsemane certainly took Blair's premiership to task. However, despite increasing popular cynici…
A Mirror for England? Cinematic Representations of Politicians and Party Politics, circa 1944–1964
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Rethinking Labour's 1964 Campaign
This article reassesses Labour's 1964 general election campaign. It questions the extent to which it marked a break with the past since, if it was underpinned by a revisionist ‘catch-all’ electoral strategy, so too had been the campaign of 1959. The article contends that, despite impressions to the contrary, the party under Harold Wilson in most respects merely ventured a bit further down the roads already established by Hugh Gaitskell. For in te…
The 'Rise of the Left' Revisited
In this article, it is argued that the Labour left's 'rise to power' in the 1970s and early 1980s, like other aspects of its politics in this period, merits fuller attention than it has recently received. Using new sources, and with more attention to the discourse of politics than has been usually applied to this period, it is argued that the popularity of the left in the constituencies stemmed from its capacity to attract and absorb existing for…
Activists against “Affluence”
From its very foundation, most observers considered the ideas that motivated the British Labour Party to have been essentially empirical. As early as 1929 the German social democrat Egon Wertheimer famously remarked that, unlike his own party, Labour was “completely unencumbered by philosophy, theory and general views of life.” Over sixty years later, this opinion was endorsed by an academic survey of European social democracy that concluded that…
Brotherhood and the brothers
This article attempts to explain the variegated response of British Labour Party members to post‐war ‘coloured’ Commonwealth immigration. Most accounts consider that, by the early 1960s, Labour had abandoned its ‘principled’ support for unrestricted entry for electoral reasons, something which betrayed an inherent ‘racism’. This view has some merit, but it oversimplifies a matter which exposed a deep‐set uncertainty about Labour's ultimate purpos…
The Labour Party
Interpreting defeat, 1951-9 the Gaitskellite challenge, 1959-63 the natural party of government, 1963-70 the difficult decade - the seventies civil war, 1979-83 permanent opposition, 1983-92 New Labour, 1992-5
The British Labour Party and 'ethnic entryism
Concern has been expressed by some members of the British Labour Party about certain instances of increased membership by people of Asian origin. They imagine them to represent a form of 'ethnic entryism', designed to unduly influence the selection of parliamentary candidates. This allegation has elicited the response that such claims are another example of Labour Party racism. In this article, tensions arising from such localised increases in La…
The Second World War and Popular Radicalism
Of course everybody talks about ‘f—Churchill’ or ‘that bastard Churchillrsquo; when war grievances are being aired. Sometimes one will hear a good word for Cripps these days; but I vividly remember a big Pioneer Corps guy from the North aged about 30 bellow at the end of a discussion ‘F—’em all, I say ‐ F— all politics! 1
Workers' Worlds
Labourism in the 1940s
Journal Article Labourism in the 1940s Get access STEVEN FIELDING STEVEN FIELDING University of Salford Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Twentieth Century British History, Volume 3, Issue 2, 1992, Pages 138–153, https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/3.2.138 Published: 01 January 1992
What did ‘the people’ want
Labour's victory at the general election of 1945, the first in which the party won an absolute majority in the house of commons, had fundamental implications for Britain's post-war history. Despite this, historians have failed to examine the popular political temper which made Labour's term of office possible. Instead, they have largely assumed that the Second World War radicalized the public, turning an unprecedented number into enthusiastic Lab…
What did ‘the people’ want
Labour's victory at the general election of 1945, the first in which the party won an absolute majority in the house of commons, had fundamental implications for Britain's post-war history. Despite this, historians have failed to examine the popular political temper which made Labour's term of office possible. Instead, they have largely assumed that the Second World War radicalized the public, turning an unprecedented number into enthusiastic Lab…
Activists against “Affluence”
From its very foundation, most observers considered the ideas that motivated the British Labour Party to have been essentially empirical. As early as 1929 the German social democrat Egon Wertheimer famously remarked that, unlike his own party, Labour was “completely unencumbered by philosophy, theory and general views of life.” Over sixty years later, this opinion was endorsed by an academic survey of European social democracy that concluded that…
Looking for Starmerism
Most of those trying to assess what Keir Starmer stands for and how he plans to achieve his objectives are too impressed by an understanding of Thatcherism associated with Stuart Hall. That is one reason why they complain that Starmerism is little more than an empty space. But other less heroic ways of thinking about a leader's ‘ism’ are available and using a more multidimensional approach, this article assesses the evolution of Starmerism throug…
A Mirror for England? Cinematic Representations of Politicians and Party Politics, circa 1944–1964
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
The British Labour Party and 'ethnic entryism
Concern has been expressed by some members of the British Labour Party about certain instances of increased membership by people of Asian origin. They imagine them to represent a form of 'ethnic entryism', designed to unduly influence the selection of parliamentary candidates. This allegation has elicited the response that such claims are another example of Labour Party racism. In this article, tensions arising from such localised increases in La…
Rethinking Labour's 1964 Campaign
This article reassesses Labour's 1964 general election campaign. It questions the extent to which it marked a break with the past since, if it was underpinned by a revisionist ‘catch-all’ electoral strategy, so too had been the campaign of 1959. The article contends that, despite impressions to the contrary, the party under Harold Wilson in most respects merely ventured a bit further down the roads already established by Hugh Gaitskell. For in te…
The Second World War and Popular Radicalism
Of course everybody talks about ‘f—Churchill’ or ‘that bastard Churchillrsquo; when war grievances are being aired. Sometimes one will hear a good word for Cripps these days; but I vividly remember a big Pioneer Corps guy from the North aged about 30 bellow at the end of a discussion ‘F—’em all, I say ‐ F— all politics! 1
The 'Rise of the Left' Revisited
In this article, it is argued that the Labour left's 'rise to power' in the 1970s and early 1980s, like other aspects of its politics in this period, merits fuller attention than it has recently received. Using new sources, and with more attention to the discourse of politics than has been usually applied to this period, it is argued that the popularity of the left in the constituencies stemmed from its capacity to attract and absorb existing for…
Labourism in the 1940s
Journal Article Labourism in the 1940s Get access STEVEN FIELDING STEVEN FIELDING University of Salford Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Twentieth Century British History, Volume 3, Issue 2, 1992, Pages 138–153, https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/3.2.138 Published: 01 January 1992
Hell, No!’ Labour's Campaign
As Britons cast their votes, Labour pollsters told Ed Miliband to prepare to enter Downing Street as Prime Minister.It was reasonable for Miliband to believe them: all opinion surveys suggested he had a fair chance of emerging as the head of a minority administration.So, when the BBC announced its Exit Poll, Miliband was not alone in being shocked by its prediction of a Conservative government.For, if Labour's horrible performance in Scotland was…
Brotherhood and the brothers
This article attempts to explain the variegated response of British Labour Party members to post‐war ‘coloured’ Commonwealth immigration. Most accounts consider that, by the early 1960s, Labour had abandoned its ‘principled’ support for unrestricted entry for electoral reasons, something which betrayed an inherent ‘racism’. This view has some merit, but it oversimplifies a matter which exposed a deep‐set uncertainty about Labour's ultimate purpos…
New Labour, ‘Sleaze’ and Television Drama
Research Highlights and Abstract The article explores attitudes to New Labour in particular and politics in general through analysing their dramatization on TV. It indicates that such dramatizations are almost wholly negative, focusing on sleaze, spin and betrayal. The article explains the character of such dramas as being the result of the producers' desire to present politics in terms their audiences will accept. It suggests that, as a conseque…
David Hare's Fictional Politics
David Hare is Britain's leading political dramatist. His Gethsemane premiered in November 2008, amidst anticipation that the play would ‘crucify’ New Labour. Gethsemane is in fact one of a number of fictionalisations of New Labour produced since 1997. These works have generally held up the party under Tony Blair's leadership to unmitigated criticism. Gethsemane certainly took Blair's premiership to task. However, despite increasing popular cynici…
Labourism in the 1940s
Journal Article Labourism in the 1940s Get access STEVEN FIELDING STEVEN FIELDING University of Salford Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Twentieth Century British History, Volume 3, Issue 2, 1992, Pages 138–153, https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/3.2.138 Published: 01 January 1992
What did ‘the people’ want
Labour's victory at the general election of 1945, the first in which the party won an absolute majority in the house of commons, had fundamental implications for Britain's post-war history. Despite this, historians have failed to examine the popular political temper which made Labour's term of office possible. Instead, they have largely assumed that the Second World War radicalized the public, turning an unprecedented number into enthusiastic Lab…
The Second World War and Popular Radicalism
Of course everybody talks about ‘f—Churchill’ or ‘that bastard Churchillrsquo; when war grievances are being aired. Sometimes one will hear a good word for Cripps these days; but I vividly remember a big Pioneer Corps guy from the North aged about 30 bellow at the end of a discussion ‘F—’em all, I say ‐ F— all politics! 1
Workers' Worlds
Brotherhood and the brothers
This article attempts to explain the variegated response of British Labour Party members to post‐war ‘coloured’ Commonwealth immigration. Most accounts consider that, by the early 1960s, Labour had abandoned its ‘principled’ support for unrestricted entry for electoral reasons, something which betrayed an inherent ‘racism’. This view has some merit, but it oversimplifies a matter which exposed a deep‐set uncertainty about Labour's ultimate purpos…
The Labour Party
Interpreting defeat, 1951-9 the Gaitskellite challenge, 1959-63 the natural party of government, 1963-70 the difficult decade - the seventies civil war, 1979-83 permanent opposition, 1983-92 New Labour, 1992-5
The British Labour Party and 'ethnic entryism
Concern has been expressed by some members of the British Labour Party about certain instances of increased membership by people of Asian origin. They imagine them to represent a form of 'ethnic entryism', designed to unduly influence the selection of parliamentary candidates. This allegation has elicited the response that such claims are another example of Labour Party racism. In this article, tensions arising from such localised increases in La…
Activists against “Affluence”
From its very foundation, most observers considered the ideas that motivated the British Labour Party to have been essentially empirical. As early as 1929 the German social democrat Egon Wertheimer famously remarked that, unlike his own party, Labour was “completely unencumbered by philosophy, theory and general views of life.” Over sixty years later, this opinion was endorsed by an academic survey of European social democracy that concluded that…
Rethinking Labour's 1964 Campaign
This article reassesses Labour's 1964 general election campaign. It questions the extent to which it marked a break with the past since, if it was underpinned by a revisionist ‘catch-all’ electoral strategy, so too had been the campaign of 1959. The article contends that, despite impressions to the contrary, the party under Harold Wilson in most respects merely ventured a bit further down the roads already established by Hugh Gaitskell. For in te…
The 'Rise of the Left' Revisited
In this article, it is argued that the Labour left's 'rise to power' in the 1970s and early 1980s, like other aspects of its politics in this period, merits fuller attention than it has recently received. Using new sources, and with more attention to the discourse of politics than has been usually applied to this period, it is argued that the popularity of the left in the constituencies stemmed from its capacity to attract and absorb existing for…
A Mirror for England? Cinematic Representations of Politicians and Party Politics, circa 1944–1964
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Never a Gabriel Over Whitehall
This paper assesses how the British political parties were popularly perceived during the early decades of the twentieth century. Despite most historians' stress on the extent to which class sentiment increasingly aligned the population with either the Conservative or Labour parties, novels of the time indicate the existence of considerable levels of cynicism about politicians. If such mistrust came to a head during the early 1930s, due to the co…
David Hare's Fictional Politics
David Hare is Britain's leading political dramatist. His Gethsemane premiered in November 2008, amidst anticipation that the play would ‘crucify’ New Labour. Gethsemane is in fact one of a number of fictionalisations of New Labour produced since 1997. These works have generally held up the party under Tony Blair's leadership to unmitigated criticism. Gethsemane certainly took Blair's premiership to task. However, despite increasing popular cynici…
New Labour, ‘Sleaze’ and Television Drama
Research Highlights and Abstract The article explores attitudes to New Labour in particular and politics in general through analysing their dramatization on TV. It indicates that such dramatizations are almost wholly negative, focusing on sleaze, spin and betrayal. The article explains the character of such dramas as being the result of the producers' desire to present politics in terms their audiences will accept. It suggests that, as a conseque…
A history of the Northern Ireland Labour Party
This is a definitive history of the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP), a unique political force that drew its support from Protestants and Catholics and became electorally viable despite deep-seated ethnic, religious and national divisions. Formed in 1924 and disbanded in 1987, it succeeded in returning several of its members to the locally based Northern Ireland parliament in 1925–29 and 1958–72, and polled some 100,000 votes in the 1964 and …
British Politics and Cinema's Historical Dramas, 1929–1938
Inspired by the debate about the influence feature films exerted over popular political attitudes during the interwar period, this article explores how one of cinema's most popular genres, the historical drama, represented British politics during the 1930s. It concentrates on eight films that depicted leading figures from Britain's modern political past, ranging from Robert Clive and Pitt the elder to Queen Victoria by way of Benjamin Disraeli. T…
Hell, No!’ Labour's Campaign
As Britons cast their votes, Labour pollsters told Ed Miliband to prepare to enter Downing Street as Prime Minister.It was reasonable for Miliband to believe them: all opinion surveys suggested he had a fair chance of emerging as the head of a minority administration.So, when the BBC announced its Exit Poll, Miliband was not alone in being shocked by its prediction of a Conservative government.For, if Labour's horrible performance in Scotland was…
Socialist Television Drama, Newspaper Critics and the Battle of Ideas During the Crisis of Britain’s Post-War Settlement
Due to the difficult methodological issues it presents, political historians are wary of using television - the most important mass medium of the later twentieth century - as a means of exploring vernacular political thinking. Attempting to show how television audiences were encouraged to think politically, the article outlines a method generated through an engagement with the work of disciplines beyond history, to help political historians more …
Looking for Starmerism
Most of those trying to assess what Keir Starmer stands for and how he plans to achieve his objectives are too impressed by an understanding of Thatcherism associated with Stuart Hall. That is one reason why they complain that Starmerism is little more than an empty space. But other less heroic ways of thinking about a leader's ‘ism’ are available and using a more multidimensional approach, this article assesses the evolution of Starmerism throug…
Sociology (18 works) · Political science (17 works) · Politics (15 works) · Law (14 works) · Political and Economic history of UK and US (14 works) · Law (12 works) · Media studies (9 works) · Political economy (9 works) · History (8 works) · History (8 works)