The Great Tramways Conspiracy

Hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets of London to witness the royal opening of the London County Council's first electric trams in 1903. The people loved their trams. But trams had powerful enemies. In the 1920s the tram-haters became increasingly vociferous. Articles and letters in the press condemned trams as old-fashioned and called for them to be scrapped. Over the past seven years, Mick Hamer has scoured the archives to uncover evidence of a campaign that was meant to be forever hidden. The Great Tramways Robbery reveals the untold story of a strategy to smear trams as obsolete and drive them off the roads. The campaign employed a propaganda technique now known as astroturfing, which gives the impression of a grassroots movement while promoting vested interests. Commonly found on social media today, a century ago, hired hacks bombarded the letters columns of newspapers to get the message across. Bankrolling this campaign were the oil companies - and lurking even deeper in the shadows were the security services, which used their propaganda expertise to provide the campaign organisers with handy hints. The incessant labelling of trams as obsolete became common currency and the mud stuck. In 1931 the Royal Commission on Transport, which was dominated by tram-hating motorists, called for trams to be scrapped. There was no pushback. The tram industry was riven by internal dissent, and the motor industry assiduously courted the malcontents. In the face of this onslaught the tram industry capitulated and the country's tramways closed. AUTHOR: Mick Hamer has been a freelance journalist for more than 40 years, writing mostly for Fleet Street papers and newsstand magazines. For most of this time he was New Scientist's transport consultant. In 2001 he was shortlisted in the Syngenta science writing awards. His last book, A Most Deliberate Swindle, was named popular transport book of the year in 2018 by the Railway and Canal Historical Society. Transport has been the focus of much of his journalism. He covered the public inquiries into the King's Cross Fire, the Clapham train crash and the Zeebrugge ferry disaster for several national media organisations, including ITN and the Evening Standard. Before taking up journalism he was Friends of the Earth's first transport campaigner. In 1977 he became the first director of Transport 2000, and he later had a spell at the Transport Research Group at University College, London. He lives in Brighton and Hove and has another life moonlighting as a jazz pianist. 20 colour, 60 b/w illustrations