Mrs. Thatcher's Europe Open for Business Map by Mahood/Punch. Single Market 1988
£90
SKU
'Mrs. Thatcher's Europe Open for Business Map'
A pointed Punch cartoon map published in the immediate wake of the Conservative government’s launch of its “Europe Open for Business” campaign, unveiled with Margaret Thatcher’s keynote speech on 18 April 1988. The campaign encouraged British businesses to capitalise on the commercial opportunities presented by the planned European Single Market (1992)—an initiative which, despite her well-known Eurosceptic credentials, Thatcher genuinely supported for its economic potential. The cartoonist, however, conveys a pronounced scepticism about Britain’s ability to exploit this opportunity. British salesmen, uniformly dressed in bowler hats, are shown hawking an unflattering catalogue of “exports”: third-division football managers, politicians selling “hot air”, pest-control services, double glazing to soundproof against British football hooligans (one of the country’s more notorious exports at the time), and acquisitive corporate raiders embodied by Guinness. The map is densely packed with topical shorthand and national stereotypes. Spain is reduced to bullfights, France is portrayed through wine and labour, there is a reference to "Irish brickies", while Sicily is marked as a market for “concrete boots”, a pointed allusion to Mafia violence. A reference to Pinocchio introduces an undercurrent of British Euroscepticism and xenophobia, reflecting contemporary anxieties about trust, corruption, and risk in trading with continental Europe.
Size 29 x 20 cm | 11.0 x 8.0 inches
Date Published: April 29th 1988
Type: Vintage colour political satirical cartoon map
Author: Mahood, Kenneth
Publication: Punch Magazine
Condition: Good |
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