The Battler Part 2: Broadcasting the Battler

Part 5 of Our Gloria Sarah Titch

In the last article, we traced John Howard’s use of the figure of the Battler, drawn together from the many threads of Liberal ideology, to win the 1996 election. What was so fascinating about this conjuncture in political history, is that the LNP’s courtship of the aspirational working class ended up bringing the major parties into a kind of cultural c…