The Great Tramways Conspiracy: The covert campaign that killed off the British tram

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