Oh What A Time... - #70 Elections (Part 1)

Episode Date: October 6, 2024

This week we’re heading to the ballot box to discuss elections! The importance of eating racoon meat in Arkansas, how democracy worked in Britain before 1872 and how political party colours have evolved over the last century or so. And this week we’re also talking about: showers. Is anyone out there a power-shower fan? And is there a water source in the world with a lower pressure than the average nan’s house? If so, fire up your emailer: [e-mail] If you fancy a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before, why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER? In exchange for your £4.99 per month to support the show, you'll get: - two bonus episodes every month! - ad-free listening - episodes a week ahead of everyone else - And first dibs on any live show tickets Subscriptions are available via AnotherSlice, Apple and Spotify. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.com You can also follow us on:  X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepod And Instagram at @ohwhatatimepod Aaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice? Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk). Chris, Elis and Tom x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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slash special. What does possible sound like for your business? It's more cash on hand to grow with up to 55 interest-free days. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash Business Platinum. Hello and welcome to Oh What A Time, the history podcast that tries to decide if the world passed more to the point was worse in the pre-power shower age. I just had a nice power shower start of the day. And as I was sat there, I was thinking people in medieval Britain and before, and after that, just didn't get to wash all the muck off, did they?

And that must have been awful. It stresses me out. wash all the muck off did they? And that must have been awful. It stresses me out. So, true is that if you are an adult, but in your say, 30s or 40s, your shower will be better than your mum and dad's shower. Mums and dads have crap showers. Can I add into that? Nans. Nans showers are shit. They are the bottom of the totem pole. Shit showers. Absolutely rubbish.

I would like to submit the worst type of Nans shower, which is the already rubbish Nans shower with terrible water pressure, but then add to that a shower head where a lot of little holes got blocked up, which means water comes out at really weird angles, like eight different, completely disparate angles. Some angles are nowhere near you, just going off at 45 degrees. Spraying over you. Spraying over you slowly. So it actually makes, it's quite unpleasant thinking about that sort of thing. Yeah. And then halfway through the show, you think, have I got time to run and have a bath? Because this is, I think the most

stressful way of getting ready would be for an important work event that's early but at your nan's house. See, you have to be clean, but you're relying on your grandmother's rubbish shower. And this is why, Ellis, you never see nans particularly high up in business either, because they're not, they're never fresh and ready for high-pound work. This is why a nan will never run Apple. Yeah, exactly. On power showers, I've got nothing but bad...

I've never had a good power shower experience. Is a power shower not that little plastic box you get in a shower and then you turn it on and it starts up the shower and you hear it fire up and the water goes from Arctic to nuclear hot. Yes. They never quite work. Yeah, absolutely. It's really hard to get the water.

It's either hot enough for a cup of tea, like a fresh cup of tea or Baltic. Yeah, that's definitely right. That's the problem we've got with our shower and it's like a millimeter of difference between the two. Have you ever had a rain, you know, call them rainwater showers? You've had a rainwater. Love them. That is the best. What's that? So that is the huge overhead shower. How would you describe it? Aperture. It's like a massive circle, normally brass. Oh yes. And it just dropped. It looks like a lovely hotel when you're away on a romantic weekend. It's that sort of hotel shower.

But do you not find it's too much? Like the thing about a shower is you need a bit of respite to dip out and maybe wash your hair or so. You know, you need to be able to step away. The rainwater, you can't see what's going on. It's too intense a shower experience. That is the polar opposite of a NAND shower. With those showers, and we have talked about this before, I like to sit on the floor and then I will duck my head into the water and out of the water again. That's a way of sort of, so I get to control how wet I'm getting, what parts are getting wetting. Wetted rather. So the water will fall on the knees and chest and then I will duck my head in and out of

the water as I see appropriate. If I saw you doing that I would assume you were having a breakdown. If I saw you do that I'd ask you to leave the bathroom, Chris. I'd say, what the hell are you doing? This is clearly private side. That's actually checking on you. Can you imagine if there was conscription. World War Three started tomorrow, we were in the army and we were all in a shower block,

just before going over the top. And that's how Tom was washing himself. I'd be like, yeah, he's really scared about tomorrow. So am I. It's just manifesting itself in a different way. I present this question, Ellis. If you know you're going over the top the next day, are you bothering having a shower? Oh yeah. Is that because you want to leave a nice corpse? I'd be in the shower. They're like, where's Ellis gone? I'd be there for 40 hours. You can hear the whistle outside, still applying radox. Good luck, gentlemen. Where's Ellis gone? He's having a shower.

It made me think about the one day time machine actually and the fact that even if they did invent a time machine, which meant we could go back for a long period of history, I could only really go for a day because I could go back, come back and have a decent shower. The idea of going back to Mesopotamia for a fortnight and not be able to watch the full day stresses me out. I'll see you for 24 hours and then I will return and I will get clean again. So the one day time machine suits me perfectly.

That is my point. Yes, yes. I think I agree actually. It's like I would love to go back to the first Glastonbury or to Woodstock, but only for the Saturday because, you know, the showers are bad enough now. Pop in, see Hendrix, stand at the back, leave. Well actually, Chris, Hendrix died one day before the first Glastonbury, so you couldn't see Hendrix. Yeah, he did Woodstock though, didn't he? But he went on Very Lakes over and over Rands,

so I think his set started at something ridiculous, like sort of seven in the morning. Oh really? So, you could have your shower in the present day. You could have only been out for a couple of hours and then whip back. That's lovely. Watch Hendrix back in the time machine. So welcome to the show. I am Tom Crane.

I'm Ellis James. And I'm Chris Skoll. And each week on the show we'll be looking at a new historical subject. And today we're going to be discussing elections. Yes. Change in political colours, what politicians ate on the campaign trail and how elections worked before 1872. But before we do that, shall we do a little bit of correspondence?

Shall we kick off the show in the usual style? Does that sound good? Oh yes please. Right. This email really made me laugh. It's very short, it's very efficient. It's from Dr. Christelle Haydn. A doctor, a proper doctor. This is the sort of listener we get on this show you see. They know their stuff and they should be listened to. Guys, clay tablets. They wrote in the clay when it was still wet. That's all it says. Love the pod, Cristal. Now, to remind you, quite recently we were talking about the earliest forms of writing. That's humiliating.

And how they were writing in Mesopotamia in clay tablets. And we talked for a long time about how hard it would be to scratch into the clay and the effort at doing that. And of course, our good friend here, the doctor, has quite rightly pointed out that the clay was wet. So they wrote it in when it was wet. So it really wasn't that scratchy. It was probably just quite easy. That's made me feel really, really stupid. I'm really, really, really embarrassed. Well Ellis, this might help.

It was Chris's section where he was talking about it. We were simply popping in with our little thoughts. We were continuing the riff. We were, but it was his initial riff. It was Hendrix. He was the one tuning up the guitar at Woodstock. We were just the bassist and the drummer. We're never sure I pointed that out. That's bad. That discredits us.

But this is the good thing about this history podcast. We're learning on air. We're learning on air, guys. The listener learns with us and sometimes knows more than us. We shouldn't have to learn that sort of thing. Obviously it would be wet. Obviously. He's got his head in his hands. We all know how clay works. For example, if you ever watch the Great Pottery Throwdown, I don't know if you have, you should. It's a great programme. They're always doing a little bit of detailing on the pots when it's wet. I didn't because I assumed they were doing it dry and I thought it would take too long.

You thought you couldn't bear to hear all that scratching? Will Barron Yeah. Will Barron Yeah. Well, thank you Dr. Chris Delhiden. You've pointed out the obvious and we should have noticed the obvious. Will Barron Oh, Dr. Chris. Will Barron Any parting comments on that Chris, as the person who presented that information and failed to notice it?

Chris Delhiden Well, when I said it, I was like, I wonder why they picked clay? And I thought, well, clay is quite a malleable material. But I was thinking of it hard. Of course, it's far more malleable when it's wet. We can't let Chris Skull take the blame for this. Fire arrows at me. I'm amazed that none of us thought, did they not do it when it was wet? This is big. This is bad. Occasionally I just really stagger myself for my lack of common sense. Will Barron Absolutely. The description here says,

Most writing from ancient Mesopotamia was on clay tablets. Damp clay was formed into a flat tablet. The writer then used a stylus made from a stick or reed to impress the symbols on the clay, and then the tablet was left in the air to harden. The obvious way to write in clay. Thank you very much for sending us that email. Now, shall we crack into the world of elections? Mainly because I want to find out what Ted Heath ate when he drove through a service station at 2am post conference. Ah, good stuff. All right. Well, look, fantastic emails. If you've got anything else you spotted that we've got wrong, hey, you know what to do. Send it in and here's how you can get in touch.

All right, you horrible lot. Here's how you can stay in touch with the show. You can email us at hello at ohwatertime.com and you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at Earl What a Time pod. Now clear off. Later in the show I'm going to be talking about the changing colours of the political parties here in Britain. I'll be talking about what politicians are made to eat when they're on the campaign trail. And I'm going to tell you right now about UK elections before the year of our Lord,

1872. I knew nothing about this and it has absolutely blown my mind. It is insane. The first thing, like the thing that sets all of this up is before 1872, there was no secret ballot when you went to vote in the general election. Did you know this, Crane? Crazy.

No, sorry, before 1872, there was no secret ballot whatsoever. Before 1872, everyone would know how you voted thanks to a document called the poll book, which has been around for 200 years. It first existed in manuscript form and then became published documents. And poll books would say which candidate you voted for. It would give your home address, your name obviously, but it would also include references to things like what your religion was, how much money you had. It's like the form book.

Yeah, a form book with way more detail. Wow. It's like the recent post but for elections. It'd also say occasionally how you'd voted in previous elections. The impact of this was massive because people would know, like candidates for parliament would know if you were a swing voter. But also your boss or your landlord would know which way you voted. And that was important because they might put pressure on you to change your mind. Because they themselves might be getting bribed by the candidate to do so.

So you're sorry, your landlord will come round, knock on the door and you go, oh is there something wrong with the boiler? And he goes, no, it's not that. Yeah, and you say, are you here to install a power show? And he goes, no, not for about another 120 minutes. You're going to have to stick with the NAMM shower. I'm here to talk about your worldview. Your voting record. Yeah, exactly. To briefly, I think I can already say the impact of that would be that it would encourage me not to vote. I mean, aside from the pressure-

You're going to change your mind. Aside from the pressure from others, I just, the idea of it being visible. Well, let me, there's more impact on this. I think you will end up voting. Let's see about the others. The other thing to say is if you worked in a factory, much like your landlord knocking on your door, the factory boss would come around, which way are you voting? Which way are you voting? You enjoy the job? Do you want a little bonus maybe at the end of the week? Which way are you going to vote? What is the political equivalent of, I hope football is the winner?

I just hope everyone has a nice time. Yeah, I hope politics is the winner actually. I hope good politics is the winner. So before the Ballot Act of 1872 made it secret and really changed the dynamics of elections, before that moment you had institutional buying of votes. So it was common for candidates to bribe voters directly with money, gifts, lavish entertainment. Constituencies were often expected candidates to provide these kind of incentives.

Essentially before 1872, votes were commodities that could be bought and it was kind of expected. And you had this term called treating, where the candidates were expected to treat the electorate by buying people like Ukraine in your factory in the mid 1860s, food, drink, entertainment, huge extravagant events designed to win favour with the voters, but were incredibly costly to the candidates themselves. Can I say, I know it's a controversial opinion, I don't completely

believe this, but 10% of me thinks bring that back. That would be quite nice. If once every election you know that the local political parties are going to wine and dine there, you've got to put aside four or five nights in the run-up to the election to be taken out for a nice meal, so they're going to buy you a new outfit. I could tolerate that every so often. You're thinking to yourself, do you know what? I've never actually been to Carluccio's. I wonder which political party are going to take me to Carluccio's. I'd love to go to Carluccio's because I often stand outside and I know it's on the menu because the menu's outside, but

I've never actually been in. Going to see Gladiator 2 at the IMAX with Rishi Sunak. Yay. I've never actually seen a. Going to see Gladiator 2 at the IMAX with Rishi Sunak. Yay. I've never actually seen a film at the IMAX. Loving this. I'm not voting for you Rishi, but I love it. I appreciate the evening out and the popcorn. I've never actually done an escape room.

I can't wait to do an escape room with a local Liberal Democrat candidate. You and Linz Truss on Nemesis. The loop, the loop. She's trying to give you her policies. And if you want a photo for your key ring, you can have one. That's fine. There's budget for that. I've never actually been in a jacuzzi.

Going to that photo booth at the end and we're looking at the photo, which shows the moment I told her I'm not going to that photo booth at the end and we're looking at the photo which shows the moment I told her I'm not going to be voting. So we're midway through a 360 inverted loop the loop and she looks she looks sad. Oh dear. Bring it back Chris genuinely. Another thing I didn't know about which is that a lot of parliament many parliamentary boroughs had really small electorates sometimes Sometimes it was only a few dozen voters. It's kind of like, uh, what was it like the FIFA executive committee, you know, and maybe back when the Olympics was more corrupt, you used to have like 12 people decided when you got that small amount of people, they were just, you

could bribe them and secure your seat. Probably at a much cheaper rate than if you were, if you were trying to become MP for a borough that had much more people. So you had what became known as rotten boroughs, boroughs that were controlled by wealthy landowners and candidates in those areas had to spend large amount of money to secure the support of these key individuals, either by directly bribing voters or paying off patrons who controlled the boroughs. So you were just basically buying off a small group of people and that would get you elected to a rotten borough. Will Barron Well, I knew about rotten boroughs. I didn't

realise they were often that small. I didn't realise it was just, wow, that's incredible. That's just so- Will Barron There's a fantastic Blackadder episode where they do a sort of election night special from a rotten borough. It's just really, really funny. And the end result of this is that it's really expensive to run in an election. And so yeah, public ballots, rampant bribery, they became really expensive. A single election in Oxford, a really infamous election in 1754, was thought to cost the candidates £27,000. That's the equivalent today of about £5 million. And there are some estimates that say it could have been up to eight million pounds.

And that was because there was a bit of competition between the different candidates. And there was one, Lady Susanna Keck was a British political manager. She got involved in the 1754 general election of Oxfordshire and she sided with the Whigs and there was a huge spend off to kind of become elected. And then she said, this election will kill me. And she died six weeks later. Wow. Wow. Candidates individually were probably throughout the country, it was likely they were spending between 3000 and 4,000 pounds, which is the equivalent today of 300,000 pounds. And those costs actually

rose over the course of the 19th century. To give you an idea of some of the gifts you're expected to spend your money on, free beer at the Ale House, again, I think. Yes. Okay. The 1700s and early 1800s version of me, you're getting my vote for that, right? Intimidation gangs. Okay. You're like spending your money on just gangs to go around, who are you going to vote for? Yeah, hard lads. Sort of press gang around, who are you going to vote for? Yeah, hard lads.

So press gang style, they just come around to your house and try and make you vote one way. Wow. Okay. Yep. Brass bands? That's more fun. It's also, it's more current.

I can imagine an MP using a brass band somehow, certainly in constituencies where there's traditions of colliery bands etc. That said though, I can see the beer and the violent press gangs affecting the way I vote. Seeing that a political party has a brass band might not be the thing that swings it for me. Oh yeah, yeah. I don't love a trumpet enough to vote to Horace. Someone grabs me by the scruff of the neck and pushes me up against the wall.

I'll be like, yeah, it's fine. I'll vote for you. We're 120 years away from the power shower anyway. Have you ever been in close proximity to a brass band? Yes. It's so loud. It's really loud. Yeah, it's so loud.

Yeah, so loud. They put those stoppers in the end of the trumpet sometimes. Is that supposed to muffled a bit? Is that the idea? You know, sometimes you see something shoved down the end of it. What is that? Mason- I love that you're going to guess this after Clay Tabletgate. Will- No, no, no. But like a trumpet, if you're within 30 feet of a trumpet, it's quite unpleasant. Mason- If you're trying to enjoy your free beer in the ale house, and they come in with a brass band, you're licking it. You're like, is there a beer garden?

I've got a genuine question. Could someone blow a trumpet loud enough to blow your hat off? If you were stood in front of a trumpet and they played a note really loudly, would it blow your hat off? It's waves. I think a trumpeter could blow your hat off. You're the only person I can imagine that happening to. And it would be on a date and also your trousers would fall down.

And the hat would go into a river. And the hat would go into a river and there'd be a wet penny, circular patch of piss in your pants. And you'd be sat in Carluccio's with Luzdras watching laughing. As you looked through the window crying they'd chink their champagne glasses. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stopped me to my risotto and I go, that window, Crane, they chink their champagne glasses. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stop me to my risotto and I go, that's Tom Crane. And I hear Ellis say, I get to have pudding as well, thankfully.

What's Sorbet? Some of the other things you'd have to pay for. You might pay for agents to come help you, but you'd also pay for non-resident electors to travel into the constituency to vote. And obviously travel is expensive. Wow. It's hard to get around in the 1700s and 1800s. You're basically spending money on anything that might help you get an electoral victory. But here's the interesting thing, right?

Contested elections where there is actually competitive and you've got two people vying for your vote was quite rare. But when they did happen, it would be incredibly expensive because you'd get into a situation where it was a spend off. Rich guy versus rich guy, who's going to spend the most to win over your candidates? So there are a few examples and I mentioned one that's a second ago in 1754 in Oxfordshire, but there are other examples where two candidates were just going for it and throwing money into an election.

Abington in Oxfordshire was represented in parliament between 1818 and 1832 by John Maberley, a self-made businessman. He won elections through gifts of coal to the poor, a one-guinea treat, the issue of tokens for free meals to every voter. But in terms of this head-to-head idea, Northumberland in 1826, probably one of the most notorious constituency elections, four candidates spent £250,000 between them to win the county's two seats. So that's 1826, 250,000. That's the equivalent of £21 million in today's money, which is more than the £16.5 million the Conservatives spent to win the UK-wide election in 2019. That is mind-blowing. £3,000 a day in 1826 for 14 days of the campaign each. And so bitter was the contest that two of the candidates even fought a duel on the sands

of Bambra and neither party was fortunately injured. Bloody hell. Also imagine if that was still part of the political discourse that when it came to the elections regularly, if it was a hotly contested seat, there would be a duel between two of the cannabis. Also you win your duel, you win the election, and then you're like, right, let's get on with my constituency work. Let's discuss this bloody bypass. Do you know who would be absolutely a shoe--in for a win if they still dueled today?

Count Binface. He is wearing protective armour. Oh yeah, good point. He is just ready. If that was still something they were doing today, he would be laughing and he would be our Prime Minister if it came down to duels. He's just here at the wrong time. Yeah, imagine being in Northumberland as a voter in 1826. The amount of feasting you would be doing. You'd feel this, you know like when you've had a really heavy Christmas. That's how you'd feel after the election of 1826. Yeah.

You'd actually can't eat any more of that. The election's not for another week. I'd also think as I was watching them duel, if they were going to do this anyway to decide who won, why did they spend all that money? Couldn't they have just cut to the duel? It feels like there's a lot of free expenditure. Yes, as an enormous cost saving exercise. Exactly. Cut out all of the wining and dining, just have the duel and decide it now and save yourself £21 million or whatever it is.

In Macclesfield, and it wasn't just feasting, like because of the corruption all kinds of things were happening, in Macclesfield one voter was kidnapped as he was milking his cow and so was prevented from casting a ballot for the opposition. And so bad was corruption in Macclesfield that it was temporarily disenfranchised in 1885 in an attempt to stamp it out. Wow. I wonder if he was going lips to teeth with the traditional hand motion. So you've probably worked out that because it was so expensive, he had parliamentary

candidates that were almost exclusively wealthy landowners or from aristocratic backgrounds. And there was a kind of social expectation that only those with substantial personal wealth were suited for political office. But there was attempts throughout the 1800s, starting in 1854 really, to clamp down on this kind of electoral corruption. You had the Corrupt Practices Act of 1854, which followed widespread public outcry over the excessive costs and corruption associated with elections and

the bribery, the treating, the intimidation. So in 1854, they tried to define what corrupt practices were. They introduced fines and penalties, but it didn't really do enough. And then in 1872, that's when they introduced the secret ballot, which really did change the dynamics of election because with the secrecy of voting guaranteed, you had less bribery, intimidation and targeted treating became less effective. And then finally in 1883, the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act of 1883

put clear spending limits in place so that people on the campaign trail, candidates and their agents could only spend a certain amount and they had to keep detailed records of how much they were spending. They had to be transparent about it. They further clarified corrupt practices. They really criminalised the illegal practices such as unauthorised campaign workers or publishing false statements, penalties for corruption and really enhanced enforcement mechanisms, which made it really difficult for these candidates to engage in corrupt practices and enabled investigation of those acts. Interesting. During the 1987 general election, my primary school had a mock election and even that was

a secret vote. I imagine quite a lot of Labour voters though, wasn't it? I mean in mid Wales. Yeah, but you know, also far more kidnapping than you would imagine. We had a, you've just triggered a memory that we had a mock election in primary school and it went, you know, they had to stop it because the kids, like they were running around the playground, there was two different parties like screaming at each other. It was, went a bit feral. It kind of went a pre-1872. They were singing. So I think one party was called

Perfect and they were singing, it's got to be perfect, but shouting at the other kids like it was a terrorist football child. That's so funny. The Perfect Party. That's got a good name for a political party. The teachers called it off. Did they? Yeah. Wow. It was on the verge of turning really nasty. So basically what happened in your classroom, Chris, inadvertently replicated what it's like to live under a dictatorship. So the kids attempted some semblance of democracy by having their different parties. The ruling power, the dictator, the teacher didn't like what it was seeing, didn't like

this democratic power and what that would mean in the classroom. And just called the whole thing off. Just called it off. Democracy doesn't work. And said, I'm still in power. Exactly. Hey, teachers, leave them kids alone. I find that quite sad.

And it's a pattern that's been replicated around the world time and time again. Absolutely fascinating. There's a parting comment on this. We spend the whole time going, I can't believe it's that corrupt. That's amazing. But then, you know, there's just so much corruption in politics still today, globally. It's insane. So it's amazing, but it's also depressing that it continues in different, more complicated ways now. Going back to something you said, Crane, that 10% of quite like, thinking you might like it, but just imagine when the winner general election rears its head and you get the local candidate knocking on your door and you have to kind of entertain the conversation about how much better if they're just giving you stuff.

Like here's a bit of, here's a pie, here's a bit of beer, here's an invite. Here's an invite to a lavish event we're throwing down the road. Great! Sold. Okay, that's the end of part one. Part two of elections will be out tomorrow, but you can get both parts right now, plus bonus episodes, plus ad free listening, plus loads of good stuff by becoming an Oh What a Time full-timer to subscribe

Just go to OhWhatATime.com for all your options, but otherwise we'll see you tomorrow. Bye So I'm sorry..