Nah then, wot abaht this for our new image, mates? 

• 1962 
• Weisz, Victor 
• Drawing 
• Historical item 

6709239

Drawings / paintings

Nah then, wot abaht this for our new image, mates?

54.5 x 39 cm

1962

Original political cartoon in pen and ink on board for the New Statesman, 1962, shows a group of Conservative government ministers (including Butler, Douglas-Hume, Maudling, Sandys, Hailsham, Macleod) as dock workers with their foreman, the prime minister Macmillan, referring in a Cockney accent to their solidarity with ordinary working people. Back in 1947, in the process of modernising the Conservative Party, Macmillan had been involved in producing a ‘workers’ charter’ which was designed to humanise the labour system and give workers more security, and did much to pave the way for Conservative victory in the election of 1951. In 1955 the Minister of Labour David Eccles famously stated that “we are all workers now”, to which Vicky responded with a cartoon similar to this one. In May 1962 the dockers won a wage increase settlement of 8%, well above the 2.5% limit laid down by the government’s wage and income policy, designed to keep wages under control and avoid inflation. The cartoon again pokes fun at the notion that someone like Harold Macmillan, with his privileged, Eton and Oxford background, could possibly identify himself with ordinary working class people, although it should be said that Macmillan was a good deal more progressive than many of his fellow-Conservatives. Published in the New Statesman on 20 July 1962 and reproduced in Vicky, A Memorial Volume by James Cameron, 1967, p. 140. Board size 54.5 x 39 cm (21.5 x 15 inch), image size 53 x 35 cm, signed lower right, caption in black ink in lower border, and also dated 20/7/62. In very good condition.