Winter of discontent: the media continuously misses Shakespeare's original meaning of the phrase

By Harvey Wiltshire, Teaching Fellow in Early Modern Literature, Shakespeare, and Inclusive Pedagogy, Royal Holloway University of London

From 1978 to 79, public sector workers in the UK engaged in nationally coordinated strike action. The news was full of stories of limited services at hospitals because domestic cleaners were striking and streets were strewn with rubbish because of striking binmen.

It was deemed such chaos by then editor of The Sun newspaper, Larry Lamb, that he dubbed it the “winter of discontent”. Lamb borrowed this line, which has become common in political coverage, from the opening of William Shakespeare’s Richard…

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