Painting Fakes

The coal mining industry has a special place in working class history and culture.  The hardships and dangers of the miner's life feature in the literature of social reform, with DH Lawrence's Sons and Lovers a nd Emile Zola's Germinal  both featuring the hardships of the miners life and in Zola's case, the devastating, life and death struggles to unionise and negotiate a fair wage. It has an even richer tradition in folk song.  Here's one of my favourites, 'Coal Not Dole', written in 1984 at the height of the British miners' strike by Kay Sutcliffe, who was married to one of the strikers.  It's sung here by veteran English folk singer Norma Waterson. It stands so proud, the wheel so still, A ghostlike figure on the hill. It seems so strange, there is no sound, Now there are no men underground. What will become of this pit yard Where men once trampled, faces hard? Tired and weary, their shift done, Never having seen the sun. Will it...

So I finally have time and brain space to blog again, and I've been thinking: what do Brexit, Pauline Hanson and Donald Trump have in common? To my mind, there are at least three similarities. The first is that each of them represents a response to perceived threats to the wellbeing of their nations from people who are labelled "terrorists". These terrorists are pictured as an existential threat and mainstream political forces are portrayed as being too weak to respond to these threats. Hence, a certain proportion of our population turns to someone who will be "strong" and act decisively.  In Britain, a majority turned against their more moderate leaders and voted for a movement led by the right-wing UKIP and the far-right elements of the Conservative Party.  In the US, establishment Republican figures are rejected in favour of an outsider who promises to fix their broken nation.  Here in Australia Pauline Hanson remains a marginal figure but after 18 y...