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Has the dominating influence of husband's/male partner's class position on his wife's/partners' political party identification declined in Britain? Contrary to predictions, previous research did not reveal a decline in male dominance. We claim a more accurate test by using a theoretical-based cohort design and more appropriate models. To investigate the relative impact of women's and their men's class position, we analyse married and partnered women in the British Election Surveys and distinguish four cohorts with a 1888–1991-birth range and model the relative impact of spouse's class positions with adjusted logistic diagonal reference models allowing the absolute association to change over time. The results show that in case the husband is self-employed, a skilled labourer/foreman or an unskilled/semiskilled labourer, there are no cohort changes in the relative association and women weight their own class position equal to that of husband's class position. However, there is a substantial cohort effect in case the husband has a salariat or lower white-collar class position. In such cases, there is a male dominance class association, but this disappeared for the most recent (i.e. 1961–1991) birth-cohort. For most classes, a sharing-model (both partners equally important) is for the youngest cohort the most appropriate description. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the roles of faction and connections between centre and periphery as structuring elements of local politics during the civil wars of the mid-seventeenth century. It explores these issues through an examination of Pembrokeshire in south-west Wales. Using a considerable amount of previously unexamined printed and manuscript material, it argues that established but largely ignored factional alignments informed a good deal of the political manoeuvring in the county during and after the first civil war, and that these connected to and were complicated by evolving associations with rival political coalitions at Westminster. The article pays close attention to the connections between figures among the Pembrokeshire gentry and MPs and power-brokers in Westminster. It argues that establishing fruitful links with the political centre was vital to the success of an Independent group in the county following the war's cessation and, conversely, the isolation and ultimate defeat of the Presbyterian party. The article throws new light on the origins of John Poyer's 1648 rebellion, which initiated the 'Second Civil War'. It rejects the established narrative which characterises Poyer's revolt as borne from apolitical self-interest, arguing instead that it was the final act in a factional struggle that was at least a decade old. The piece contends that gentry faction has largely been written out of recent civil war history, but that scholars should be more attentive to its potential for influencing (although not conditioning) political and ideological alignments in the provinces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the political career and writings of Richard Champion (1743–1791), a Bristolian Quaker and merchant who acted as a local supporter and agent of the Rockingham Whigs. It aims to recover a forgotten aspect of Lewis Namier's original ambition to understand eighteenth-century politics through the perspective of relatively ordinary people such as merchants and civil servants. However, against old Namierite assumptions, as well as much of the recent historiography on the post-1760 period in British politics which focuses on a dichotomous conflict between 'radical Whigs' and 'new Tories', this article restores the importance of the Rockingham Whigs. Importantly, it shows that a commercial Dissenter such as Champion could be fully attuned to the aristocratic and party-centred interpretation of British politics associated with the Rockinghamites and Edmund Burke, and thus encourages us to consider the idea of 'aristocratic government' in inclusive and eclectic ways. The case-study of Champion demonstrates that a close reading of political correspondence from the period can confirm, as well as destabilise, the Whig history of party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political status of the Cocos-Keeling Islands, a group of twenty-seven small atoll islands in the Indian Ocean about 1,700 miles west of Australia, remained unresolved from the time of the islands' settlement in 1827 until their effective incorporation into Australia in 1984. For a century and a half, protection shopping helped to create and sustain the islands' condition of suspended sovereignty. During the nineteenth century, the ruling family actively cultivated the protection of Dutch and British imperial agents and played one empire against the other. Imperial agents veered between intervention and restraint, and Cocos-Keeling islanders invoked protection to blunt rulers' power over them. The politics of protection continued into the twentieth century. Despite international attention to self-determination, the Cocos-Keeling Islands were not positioned for statehood, and full and effective integration into the British empire or Australia was perennially delayed. The territory's history as a place of seemingly permanent semi-autonomy illuminates a global pattern in which protection politics worked to suspend sovereignty and in some cases perpetuate social and racial inequalities, both inside political communities and across the international order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Liberal Party's 1972–4 revival under Jeremy Thorpe placed it at the heart of political debate in 1970s Britain—a period marked by inflation, strikes, and recurrent talk of political 'crisis'. This article explores the evolution of Liberal policy, strategy, and support between 1970 and 1979, and argues that Thorpe and his colleagues were agents as well as beneficiaries of electoral dealignment. As long-standing critics of class politics, Liberals were well placed to exploit voters' frustrations with Edward Heath and Harold Wilson and to articulate demands for a more collaborative and participatory style of government. Thorpe's populist critique of the two-party system was backed up by a distinctive plan for economic and political renewal, in which social, industrial, and constitutional reforms would give governments the legitimacy to make incomes policies work. These ideas resonated strongly in the two 1974 general elections, but the Liberals' new-found support was relatively shallow, and Thorpe's appeal was waning even before the Norman Scott affair forced his 1976 resignation. The 1970s Liberal revival nevertheless laid important political foundations which the SDP/Liberal Alliance would build on after 1981, as it sought to articulate a centrist alternative to Thatcherism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metropolitan governance studies have traditionally focused on factors such as effectiveness and efficiency in the provision of public goods and services. Yet, we have recently seen the resurgence of debates around metropolitan democratic governance at the same time as the consolidation of new structures of metropolitan government have occurred in several European countries. In spite of that, there is still an important knowledge gap about metropolitan models of government and metropolitan electoral systems. Through the comparative analysis of metropolitan governments in the United Kingdom, France and Germany we identify four main models: metropolitan presidentialism, localist metropolitan parliamentarism, consolidated metropolitan parliamentarism, and full metropolitan government. Moreover, the comparative analysis shows not only the influence of the respective local institutional contexts in the metropolitan government and electoral systems, but also how these reforms are opportunities to introduce innovative institutional designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The memoirs of the parliamentarian lawyer and MP Bulstrode Whitelocke are invaluable as a primary source for historians wishing to understand the political history of the 1640s and 1650s. Yet, despite broad recognition of the contentious nature of this material, surprisingly little has been done to establish the accuracy of Whitelocke's account or to probe the motives behind the writing of his post-Restoration reflections. By focusing on Whitelocke's recollections of two famous encounters with Oliver Cromwell in 1651 and 1652, this article demonstrates that there is much in the detail of those accounts that fails to convince in the light of what is known of events and the author's activities from evidence beyond his memoirs. Rather, it seems that the accounts of these meetings were fabricated in order to obfuscate Whitelocke's activities during the Interregnum period and to propagate a series of narratives that served the author's purposes as he sought political rehabilitation after the Restoration of 1660. By failing to recognise the memory games at play in Whitelocke's work, historians have unwittingly embedded many of those same narratives in their accounts of the period, not least concerning the durability of the regime established in 1649 and Cromwell's kingly ambitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence suggests that as public opinion towards immigration becomes more negative, so the descriptive representation of ethnic minority groups is increasingly restricted. Recently, some initial research into the causal mechanism hinted that this effect is driven by patterns of candidacy. This suggests that political parties are creating an 'ethnic penalty' of their own in the selection stage. This paper investigates the relationship between patterns of candidacy, party strategy, and public opinion in Great Britain from 1997 to 2019, and proposes that 'punitive parties' are strongly responsible for shaping the representational outcomes of minority groups. I find support for earlier suggestions that parties are increasingly likely to place ethnic minority candidates away from 'winnable' contests as anti-immigrant hostility rises. These findings are important for our conceptions of ethnic penalties, of party behaviour in selection processes, and for the study and cause of improving political representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do institutions adapt and reform themselves in response to new challenges? This article considers the role of ideas and posits that the concept of 'dilemma' – clashes of beliefs played out through power relations and practices – offers a complementary tool to understand institutional change. It draws on the 2014 appointment of a new Clerk to the UK House of Commons – in which conflicting beliefs about the House of Commons administration opened a dilemma for key parliamentary actors – as a token case study to highlight the value of the concepts of beliefs, practices and dilemmas. It further broadens out these findings to consider the value of a wider interpretive approach for understanding how institutions may adapt and change. In doing so, it makes (1) a theoretical contribution by exploring the role of ideas in causing institutional change and (2) an empirical contribution through its analysis of parliamentary administration, an understudied area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are three broad sets of qualities that citizens might expect politicians to display: competence, integrity and authenticity. To be authentic, a politician must be judged to be in touch with the lives and outlooks of ordinary people and previous research has suggested that this expectation has grown more prevalent in recent times. In this article, we use survey evidence from Britain – from citizens, parliamentarians and journalists – to explore which groups are prone to judge politicians by which criteria. While all groups give the highest absolute importance to integrity traits, we establish that distrusting citizens are significantly more likely to prioritise authenticity. For political elites and journalists, we find indications that authenticity is less valued than among citizens: politicians place more relative importance on integrity traits while journalists value competence most. We reflect on these findings and how they help us understand the growing crisis afflicting British politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can political parties, social movements and governments influence market outcomes and shape the functioning of a capitalist economy? Is it possible for social democratic parties, and the labour movement in general, to promote a significant redistribution of income in favour of labour? According to proponents of the structural dependence thesis, the answer to both questions is negative, because the structural dependence of labour upon capital severely constrains feasible income distributions. This article provides a long-run analysis of the UK, which casts doubts on the structural dependence thesis. There is some evidence of a short-run profit-squeeze mechanism, but income shares are much more variable in the long-run than the structural dependence argument suggests, and the power resources available to social classes are among the key determinants of distributive outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When can diplomatic communication facilitate military cooperation? I analyze a formal model in which states may form coalitions for war but are uncertain about a partner's willingness to fight. I demonstrate that incentives to lie are greatest when potential coalition partners agree on how to settle a dispute. Additionally, the audience of communication matters. Communication among military partners is only credible when it occurs in private, out of view of a shared enemy. Taken together, the results indicate that preference heterogeneity and secrecy are necessary for credible communication among military partners. In an extension, I show that the availability of side payments exacerbates the difficulty of communication. The theoretical results provide a framework to understand observed variation in the success of precrisis diplomacy among potential coalition members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for a more sustained consideration of how fandom – as both a set of practices and topic of political conversation – underpins a broader "celebritization" of politics and public life. It analyses, via a Twitter-based qualitative content analysis, the ways in which fandom is expressed and spoken about in relation to three contrasting politicians from the UK, namely Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and Jeremy Corbyn. While the precise dynamics of fandom vary depending on the politician in question, our analysis identifies a more general tendency whereby overtly fannish discourses and practices co-exist with expressions of unease or hostility toward the figure of "the fan." This in turn reflects longstanding cultural representations of the figure of the fan as improper and excessive, particularly in the context of democratic politics. These contradictory responses to fandom in politics are crucial to understanding the ambivalent character of the celebritization of politics more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the communication of populism by politicians in the U.S., Great Britain and the Netherlands using the Twitter web service and the effects of populist communication on party preferences. Topics discussed include the key role of the construction of a divide between ordinary people and corrupt elites in populism, factors that affect the effectiveness of social identity framing, namely attributing perceptions of in-group deviation to a credible scapegoat, and lack of effect of political distrust and cynicism on populist messages on vote intentions.

How might we understand neoliberalism and its history differently if we trace its emergence and operation in a particular place? As the first airport in the world to be privatized in 1986 Heathrow is a paradigmatic neoliberal space. And yet for decades before it was sold the airport's services — catering, cleaning, retail and security — had been steadily deregulated and outsourced in ways that force us to reconsider neoliberalism as discrete from, or emerging from a rupture with, welfare capitalism. The precarious and cheap outsourced forms of labour at Heathrow were performed by Commonwealth citizens of colour, often women, who had paradoxically arrived in Britain through an increasingly hostile immigration regime at the airport. The racialized forms of neoliberal capitalism at the airport depended upon and reproduced a post-imperial social formation that was no less marked by postcolonial crises and a new biopolitics of immigration control designed to restrict their diasporas in the metropole. Seen from Heathrow, neoliberalism is less about the global flow of ideas and capital than the local social formations and labour regimes engendered by changing forms of accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes a typical day for a Member of the British Parliament (MP) between about 1697 and 1834. It examines the political culture of the period, the concept of MPs viewing themselves of men of political business, and the urban geography of London, England, during the 18th century.

The United States and the United Kingdom share a common legal history and a number of fundamental constitutional values. Some of these fundamental values may occasionally come into conflict. For example, in 2019, both the United States and the United Kingdom experienced considerable legal and political upheaval as debates over the scope of executive power and the accountability of the executive branch came to the fore. In the United States, these debates culminated in the impeachment of President Donald Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. In the United Kingdom, the furor focused on Prime Minister Boris Johnson's approach to Brexit and his attempt to prorogue Parliament. The impeachment drama and the Brexit saga were so severe that each was frequently referred to as a "constitutional crisis" in the popular press and public discourse. These parallel constitutional crises and the litigation they generated afford a valuable opportunity to analyze each country's commitment to democratic accountability of the executive from a comparative perspective. The results of such an analysis may well pose a challenge to commonly held assumptions about American exceptionalism in matters of liberty and democracy. Indeed, throughout the impeachment crisis, it was frequently asserted that "Presidents are not kings"-seemingly suggesting that it is obvious that the executive department is subject to greater legal constraint under a presidential system like the United States than under a constitutional monarchy like the United Kingdom. But a deeper examination of U.S. and U.K. constitutional law paints a different picture. Through an analysis of the constitutional crises of impeachment and Brexit, this Article argues that executive authority is in fact significantly more accountable to democratic control under the British model of government than under its American counterpart. While the American experience reveals that extreme claims of executive power have largely gone unchallenged and unchecked by the other branches of government, the British sequence of events testifies to an enduring constitutional commitment to popular and parliamentary sovereignty. The Article concludes by arguing that a key lesson to be drawn from these constitutional crises is that the British system may actually do more to honor the commitment to "a government of laws and not of men" that has long been said to be central to the American constitutional order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2010 the UK government has undertaken extensive spending cuts which have manifested in significant reductions in welfare, local authority and justice system spending. The cuts have been linked with rising poverty, food bank use and serious health issues. Such extreme cuts are likely to affect how citizens view and interact with government. This paper argues that the theories of civic voluntarism, grievance and policy feedback in combination explain why austerity has provoked relatively little political participation in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the role of results forecasts and exit polls in BBC general election night broadcasts from 1955 to 2017. Despite the substantial role played by academics in results programmes, in devising forecasts and analysing results as they emerge, academic literature on election night broadcasts is scant. This article charts the development of election night forecasting over time and its implications for the structure and content of election night broadcasts. It draws on a unique new data set of verbatim transcripts of the first hour of every BBC election night broadcast from 1955–2017 to quantify the attention paid to forecasts and exit polls and assess how they frame discussion of the likely outcome and its potential political consequences. The article concludes that the function of election night broadcasts as 'the first draft of psephology' merits closer attention for both the political narratives and the academic research agendas they generate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across advanced economies, affordable housing shortages are pushing low-income voters out of cities. Left governments frequently exacerbate these shortages by eliminating public housing. Why does the Left pursue policies that displace its voters? We argue that the Left's long-term rebalancing towards the middle class and away from an increasingly stigmatized "underclass" has significantly attenuated the trade-offs inherent in reducing affordable housing. Focusing on the UK, we demonstrate that by alienating low-income voters politically and reshuffling them across districts, housing crises have significant costs for Labour. Yet, drawing on interviews, we show that displacement is nonetheless compatible with electoral interests: the displaced make room for richer voters whom politicians believe will also support Labour. A quantitative analysis of Greater London's 32 local authorities and 624 wards further documents trends in line with coalitional rebalancing. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that electoral foundations are key to understanding housing crises and gentrification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In more than half of the democratic countries in the world, candidates face legal constraints on how much money they can spend on their electoral campaigns, yet we know little about the consequences of these restrictions. I study how spending limits affect UK House of Commons elections. I contribute new data on the more than 70,000 candidates who ran for a parliamentary seat from 1885 to 2019, and I document how much money each candidate spent, how they allocated their resources across different spending categories, and the spending limit they faced. To identify the effect on elections, I exploit variation in spending caps induced by reforms of the spending-limit formula that affected some but not all constituencies. The results indicate that when the level of permitted spending is increased, the cost of electoral campaigns increases, which is primarily driven by expenses related to advertisement and mainly to the disadvantage of Labour candidates; the pool of candidates shrinks and elections become less competitive; and the financial and electoral advantages enjoyed by incumbents are amplified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores political and tax-related issues concerning the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the May 2020 killing of African American man George Floyd in Minnesota, and 17th century English merchant Edward Colston. Topics discussed include the taxation provisions of the Coronavirus Act 2020 passed by the British Parliament, the public protests against racism following the death of Floyd, and the toppling of the statue of Colston as part of the protests in England.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced governments around the world to become innovative in how they carry out their functions. In particular, they need to respond speedily to developments as the scientific evidence evolves. Rules for regulating conduct accordingly need to constantly evolve. The 'golden met-wand' of law is not particularly well-tuned to assist in such regulation other than at a level of generality. It is unsurprising accordingly that governments have had to 'supplement' legal provisions with soft law. There is nothing novel about this, but it does raise important questions about the nature of domestic soft law, what role it should play and whether the UK government's use of it during the period of the pandemic has been appropriate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores how the plan of the British government to abolish jury trials during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic may affect the administration of criminal justice in Great Britain. Topics discussed include the condition of the British criminal justice system prior to the pandemic, the recorded decline in criminal legal aid expenditure, and the commitment expressed by Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) to reform and modernization.

Thinking back, it could be argued that Britain was preparing to leave the European Union almost as soon as it joined in 1973. Within two years, opposition to membership led Prime Minister Harold Wilson to call a referendum. The public voted overwhelmingly to stay. But the honeymoon was short-lived. For Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Brexit was all about getting sovereignty back. The United Kingdom would take back control of its money, borders, laws and waters. But as the detail of the recent treaty is examined, his claims may turn out to be as vacuous as Chamberlain's 'peace in our time' proclamations. Cracks are already appearing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes business power in the context of noisy politics by comparing business involvement in two British referendum campaigns: one about membership in the European Communities in 1975, and the Brexit referendum about European Union membership in 2016. By exploring these two contexts, the article seeks to identify the conditions under which business elites can and cannot be effective in a context of noisy politics. Three key factors are identified as determinants of business influence during periods of noisy politics: the incentives to get directly involved in noisy politics; the legitimacy of business involvement; and, finally, the capacity to act in a cohesive way. The article shows that these factors have changed substantially over the last four decades because of wider changes in the nature of capitalism, and their impact on business power in the United Kingdom and more generally is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conti's Parliament the Mirror of the Nation is an excellent, thorough exploration and explication of nineteenth-century debates over electoral reform as members of Britain's intellectual elite wrestled with the issue of how to create a system that would ensure that all opinions were advanced in the country's Parliament without an expansion of the franchise, meaning that the House of Commons was overwhelmed by the working class. A superb contribution to intellectual history, however, it makes little contact with the 'real world' of politics, where the short-term interests of the dominant political parties led to pragmatic rather than idealistic resolution to that issue. That resolution, negotiated by leading politicians from the two main parties, led to an electoral reform in 1885 based on single-member, territorially based constituencies that, with modifications only, remains in place today, generating general election results that are both disproportional and biased as a consequence of the system's geographical construction [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at the impact of the COVID-19 crisis in the United Kingdom. COVID-19 is a health issue but one that would have significant economic and constitutional implications for the UK. Moreover, the asymmetric responses across the UK put pressure on the very fabric of the country, as the four nations – Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland – pursued differing policies in response to COVID-19 and within England certain regions perceived themselves to have been treated unfairly. All of these issues reinforced and magnified the implications of the issue that had overshadowed British politics for years: Brexit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigations conducted in Paris on the summer of 1825 into the project of some Spanish expatriates in London to provoke an uprising in the Philippines uncovered the foundation of an English company to trade with the islands. The company’s directors, several of whom were members of parliament and bonded to the English government, believed that the Philippines were independent already. Correspondence from the Philippine Islands Mining Trading & Agricultural Association suggests that only if the Philippines were a sovereign state would the new authorities be granted a debenture loan of up to a million pounds in exchange for trading privileges. However, the loan was offered to the commander in chief of a territory still under Spanish rule, which was perceived as an incitement to secession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Politicians across parties repeatedly agreed that their visions of social improvement rested as much on the promotion of character virtues as on the efficacy of economic systems. Character posed recurring political dilemmas. Ideological dispute over character, as to whether it is formed best through individual exertion or collective support, lies at the heart of the division of politics between right and left. Further, the limits to the people's character were seen as a constraint upon social progress. Yet, contrary to much historiography, this is not a story of decline from a supposed Victorian heyday of 'moral politics'. British politics proved notably adaptive in forging updated, optimistic visions, in which the forces of modernity which might have seemed to threaten the moral calibre of the body politic, or of society, whether democracy, state expansion, or, later, 'individualism', were recast instead as supportive foundations for the people's moral growth. If the century has seen a steadily 'quieter', less loudly moralizing, more nurturing approach to the encouragement of character, this reflected a growth in the sophistication of the method of advancing character, not a decline in either the political importance accorded to it, or the people's possession of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The aim of the present article is to address Tocqueville's hypothesis that voluntary associations and volunteering are breeding grounds for democratic virtues and skills and thus enhance political participation. Methods: Data from the British Household Panel Survey data set spanning the years 1991–2008 are analyzed using multivariate panel data regression techniques to assess the effect of voluntary association membership/activities on political participation in the United Kingdom. Results: It is found that organizational activity (more than mere membership) positively impacts political participation, but these effects are smaller than usually found and depend on types of associations and degree of activity. Sensitivity analyses support the finding that the political interest more strongly predicts political party support than associational activities. Further support for causal interpretations is scant. Conclusion: Some evidence for Tocqueville's hypothesis can be found for the United kingdom during the sample horizon, but the effect is sensitive to model specification and issues of reverse causation remain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the political and ethical implications of performance representing the ongoing realities of migration in contemporary Britain. Using Good Chance Theatre's The Jungle (2018) as its point of departure, the article problematizes the use of dramaturgies of proximity to confect simplistic notions of empathy as tantamount to political change. In a Brechtian vein, the article argues for modes of distanciation to foster critical engagement among audiences at the site of contemporary performance on migration. Focusing upon the production's West End transfer, its use of immersive strategies and its use of a comedic model to address ongoing issues in migration, this article finds that such strategies are not as politically transgressive as marketing and critical reception often contend them to be, with the onus of responsibility placed solely upon the individual spectator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Libraries and Policy essay explores the interrelationships between the public library goals of supporting democracy and remaining an apolitical institution and the expectations for dem onstration of value and economic contribution at a time in which public discourse emphasizes austerity from public institutions. Libraries' positions on democracy and neutrality are explored within the context of the tension between asserting value and demonstrating it, as well as the impacts of these positions on the ability to advocate for library value in political and policy making processes. Building upon these analyses, we examine different ways that libraries can use research to advocate and demonstrate their value by framing the terms of value and aus terity in language that acknowledges the tangible and intangible contributions of public libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The poll tax was a key episode in British politics. The widespread opposition campaign has been described as an important expression of Scottish political and national opposition to Thatcherism. The historiographical focus on Glasgow has been influential in this interpretation. By broadening the focus to other Scottish geographies, this article challenges this portrayal and highlights the lived experience of poverty that underpinned resistance and gave political discourses their power. By reframing the argument through the lens of poverty it develops an alternative understanding of the causes of the tax, inverting the narrative that suggests political discourses drove resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]