A Deadly Day at the Races: What Radical Protest Can and Cannot Do

Summary

Podcast Summary:

Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
Episode: "A Deadly Day at the Races: What Radical Protest Can and Cannot Do"
Release Date: September 19, 2025
Host: Tim Harford (Pushkin Industries)

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Overview

This episode of "Cautionary Tales" draws parallels between two radical acts of protest a century apart: the 1913 Epsom Derby incident where suffragette Emily Wilding Davison collided with the King’s horse, and the 2022 Just Stop Oil track invasion at the British Grand Prix. Tim Harford explores why individuals choose disruptive, high-risk forms of protest, what effect such acts have on public opinion, and whether radicalism ultimately helps or hinders social causes.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: Two Radical Protests (02:14–09:23)

• Emily Wilding Davison at the 1913 Epsom Derby

  • Davison, a militant suffragette, steps onto the racetrack, is struck by the King’s horse, and sustains fatal injuries.
  • Motives behind her action remain debated: Was it planned martyrdom, or a miscalculation?

• Just Stop Oil Protesters at the 2022 British Grand Prix

  • Five protesters invade the track to draw attention to climate change, believing safety measures and their planning would prevent disaster.
  • The crowd responds with hostility; protestors are vilified.

Notable Quote
Eyewitness (regarding Silverstone 2022):
"Concede that it might have looked dangerous to someone who doesn't know about this stuff." (07:19)

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2. Emily Wilding Davison: From Scholar to Suffragette (10:01–16:14)

• Early Life & Frustration

  • Davison excels academically but faces limited options due to gender.
  • She is motivated by the global suffrage movement and Britain’s slow pace.

• Militant Suffragette Tactics

  • Quits her governess job to join the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU).
  • Engages in protests, disruptions, rock-throwing, arson, and repeated hunger strikes.

• Force Feeding & Incarceration

  • Describes the brutality of force feeding and psychological warfare in prison.

Notable Quote
Davison (in letter):
"Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God." (15:05)

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3. Debate: Do Radical Tactics Advance a Cause? (19:16–25:25)

• Public Reaction: Past and Present

  • Hostility at Silverstone mirrors negative reactions to suffragette militancy.
  • Polling suggests the public is sympathetic to causes (climate change, women’s votes)—but not to disruptive tactics.

• Academic Perspective

  • 'Radical flank effects' can be positive (make moderates look reasonable) or negative (alienate the public).
  • Recent studies show complex, often contradictory, outcomes from disruptive protest.

Notable Quote
Narrator, summarising recent academic findings:
"When someone makes a disruptive protest, it's because they think it will help a cause they passionately believe in. And it might, but not in the way they might hope." (36:38)

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4. Escalation & Martyrdom: Davison’s Final Years (26:03–31:09)

• Increasing Desperation

  • Davison’s protest methods become riskier after feeling ignored.
  • She attempts to end her life in prison, suffers injury, and becomes embattled even among militant suffragettes.

• Isolation and Disavowal by WSPU

  • The WSPU refuses to print her account of self-sacrifice, later severs ties.

• Her Final Act at Epsom

  • She is ambiguous with friends about her intentions, bringing both a return train ticket and a suffragette flag to the Derby.
  • Is ultimately struck by the King's horse, lapses into a coma, and dies four days later.

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5. Immediate and Long-Term Impact (34:15–42:51)

• Public Denunciation and Later Sanctification

  • Initial reactions are scathing; she's derided as "mad" and a "notorious militant."
  • After her death, the movement claims her as a martyr, organizing a massive funeral parade.

• Ambiguity of Intent

  • Evidence (return train ticket, later evening plans) undermines the idea she sought death outright.
  • Eyewitnesses and film footage show she leaves the safety barrier after some horses have passed, perhaps intending simply to unfurl a flag or stop the King’s horse.

• Did Radicalism Work?

  • No clear answer: Other countries won women’s suffrage through moderate means about the same time.
  • Moderates in the UK draw public distinctions: “We deplore her actions. They harm our cause by alienating many people who would consider it right to give the vote to women but wrong to endanger the lives of others..."

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6. Modern Parallels & Reflections (36:38–end)

• Silverstone Protest Outcome

  • Due to an unrelated first-corner crash, live TV viewers never see the track invasion; protesters' risk accomplishes little national attention and incurs judicial disapproval.

• Theory in Practice

  • Modern protesters, like suffragette radicals, may overestimate the beneficial impact of headline-grabbing stunts and underestimate backlash and risk.

• "Radical Flank" Summary

  • Sometimes, radical actions push the Overton window—making moderates look more attractive and reasonable.
  • At other times, they cause overall backlash, impeding progress.

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• On the Risks of Bombastic Protest:
  "Those drivers are the best drivers in the world, but even the best drivers crash sometimes. Why would you run onto a racetrack in front of fast moving cars?" (08:26)

• Davison’s Motivation & Resilience:
  "The idea in my mind was one big tragedy may save many others." (26:03)

• Academic Context:
  “The experiment suggests something counterintuitive. When someone makes a disruptive protest...they'll also make moderate protest groups look more reasonable, groups that make the same arguments but use less annoying tactics.” (36:38)

• Judicial Critique of Modern Protesters:
  Judge at Silverstone trial:
  "None of you were qualified enough or experienced enough properly to assess the risk. To you and others you were in my view, kidding yourselves." (39:59)

• Reflection on Davison’s Legacy:
  "We deplore her actions. They harm our cause by alienating many people who would consider it right to give the vote to women but wrong to endanger the lives of others in favour of votes for women against bringing down racehorses." (46:58)

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Important Timestamps

• 02:14 - Introduction to Emily Davison at the 1913 Derby
• 07:19 - Protesters invade Silverstone racetrack; their logic
• 10:01 - Davison’s educational and career background
• 15:05 - Davison’s credo: “Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God.”
• 19:16 - Public hostility to Just Stop Oil protests
• 21:17 - Davison’s harrowing account of force-feeding
• 26:03 - Davison contemplates sacrifice for the suffrage cause
• 36:38 - Analysis of ‘radical flank effects’ and social science experiments
• 39:59 - Judge rebukes Just Stop Oil protesters' risk assessment
• 46:58 - Moderate suffragists disavow radical tactics

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Tone & Style

Tim Harford’s narration is measured, reflective, and rooted in historical empathy. He interweaves documentary detail with personal testimony and cutting-edge academic research, avoiding easy answers and inviting the listener to appreciate complexity. The episode treats its subjects with dignity while examining the alternative interpretations, uncertainties, and ambiguities surrounding their actions.

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Takeaway

The boundary between heroism and recklessness in protest is blurred. While radical acts may sometimes catalyze progress by reframing public discourse, they can just as easily incite backlash or obscure the cause itself. Both history and psychology suggest that even passionate, courageous acts do not yield simple cause-and-effect in the pursuit of social change.

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Transcript

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[Tim Harford]

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[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

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[Tim Harford]

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[Tim Harford]

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Up in our research. We would love to see you there. Head to patreon.com cautionaryclub to find out more. That's patreon.com cautionaryclub a warning before we this Cautionary Tale discusses death by suicide. If you're suffering emotional distress or you're having suicidal thoughts, Support is available, for example, from the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline in the U.S. jockey Herbert Jones canters his horse to the start of the Epsom Derby. The year is 1913. On Derby Day, Epsom feels like the centre of the world. Hundreds of thousands of people have descended on this undulating stretch of countryside 15 miles from London. Some watch from the open topped buses that brought them here. Others line the running rails a dozen deep. The grandstands are packed. His Majesty the King looks on. And from under a black top hat, the King owns the horse that Herbert Jones is riding. He's wearing the distinctive royal silks, purple and crimson with a gold braid. Jones knows what it's like to win a derby for the King. He's won two. He also knows that he's not likely to win a third. Today, his horse Anmer is an outsider, 50 to 1. Still, the odds aren't always accurate. Outsiders win sometimes. You never know. The 15 horses line up behind the starting tape, each half a ton of twitching muscle, not always easy for their seven stone riders to control. The course is a mile and a half. It'll take about 2 1/2 minutes at roughly 35 miles an hour. Newsreel cameras are in position to capture the key moments. The start, the finish and the turn for home. The famous Tatnam Corner, where the runners will thunder downhill as they sweep to the left. The starter pulls his lever. The tape flies up. They're off. Jones urges Anma on, but it soon becomes clear that this time the odds are accurate. Anmer struggles to keep up as the leaders tear down the hill towards Tatnam Corner. Jones has dropped to third from last. Still never give up. Jones keeps pushing hard. The horse in front of him jinks to one side. And suddenly Jones sees why. A woman standing on the racetrack right in front of him. What on earth is she? As we'll hear, that is still hotly debated today. But Jones has no time to wander. His horse slams into the woman and clatters to the ground. Jones goes flying headlong towards the turf. Then his world goes dark. I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to cautionary tales in 2022. Hundreds of thousands of Formula One fans have gathered at Silverstone to watch the British Grand Prix. Tens of millions globally are watching on tv, unseen by the cameras. Five spectators climb a safety barrier. They can hear from the roar of accelerating engines that the race has just started. They can't yet see the cars. They're a few corners dist. But it shouldn't be long before they come into view. Racing at well over 100 miles an hour, the five spectators drop down the other side of the barrier onto a grass verge and run towards the tarmac of the track itself. Is this not very dangerous? Not at all. One will later tell a court, I.

[Eyewitness/Testimonial Voice]

Concede that it might have looked dangerous to someone who doesn't know about this stuff.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

You see, he says they'd carefully studied previous Formula one races at Silverstone.

[Eyewitness/Testimonial Voice]

The part of the track that we went on had a much lower proportion of crashes than the other parts of the track.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

The drivers will see them in time to avoid them, or so they expect. The officials will immediately call a red flag, which tells the drivers there's a danger on track that needs to be cleared. Stop racing, slow down and drive carefully back to the pits. The live TV footage will show the protesters wearing their orange T shirts with the slogan Just Stop Oil. They'll have drawn attention to their cause of fighting climate change. At least that's the plan. Still, though, they're putting a lot of faith in other people's reaction times. Are they sure it's not dangerous? The protester shrugs.

[Eyewitness/Testimonial Voice]

Those drivers are the best drivers in.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

The world, but even the best drivers crash sometimes. Why would you run onto a racetrack in front of fast moving cars? Perhaps because you think it will help a cause you passionately believe in. And perhaps because some other people who stage disruptive protests are seen as heroes, like the woman on epsom Racecourse in 1913. Here, for example, is the blurb from a book for children about her.

[Historical Reader/Actor]

Emily was angry because women didn't have the right to vote. She and her fellow suffragettes had patiently put their argument to the government, but they were ignored. Now it was time for direct action.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

Emily Wilding Davison was born in 1872. Her father was a successful businessman, and Emily got a good education. A governess, a preparatory school in London, a year in Switzerland studying French. Then she won a place at a new college for girls. But midway through her course, her father died, and it turned out he hadn't been quite as successful a businessman as he had appeared. He left his family next to nothing. That was a shock, as Emily explained.

[Emily Wilding Davison (Reenactment Voice)]

To a friend, Mama has to pay 20 pounds a term for me. I do not know whether I can stay on after this term. Mama is very anxious to keep me at college for my exam, if it is possible.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

It was not possible. Emily had to drop out and find Work. Her tutors gave her glowing references. It is a matter of great regret to me that she is unable to finish her course. She is a most hard working student. She has immense perseverance. Perseverance indeed. Emily got a job as a governess, but studied in the evenings. With notes borrowed from her former classmates, she saved up enough to take her exam in English Language and Literature and aced it. First class honours. Not that the university would actually award her a degree, what with her being a girl still impressive. But what could a woman do in the 1890s with evidence that she would have got a first class degree if she were a man? Career options were limited. She could continue to work as a governess. Emily found it frustratingly isolating. Stuck in some big old house in the provinces with only a wealthy family's little children to talk to. She missed the buzz of city life as she wrote in poems.

[Emily Wilding Davison (Reenactment Voice)]

O London, how I feel thy magic spell now I have left thee and amid the woods sit lonely.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

There was one particular, particular buzz that Emily craved to be part of the movement for women's suffrage. The idea was in the air. Women in New Zealand got the vote in 1893. In Australia, 1902. In Finland, 1906. In Britain, suffragists had been making the case for decades through petitions and meetings and speeches. But opposition was fierce. Some of that opposition was predictable. If everyone had the vote, female voters would outnumber males. Men of England, said one poster, resent this attempted tyranny. But a surprising number of opponents were women themselves. Women of England said the manifesto of the Women's National Anti Suffrage League.

[Historical Reader/Actor]

We appeal to your common sense. Women are debarred by nature and circumstances from the political knowledge of men.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

Hundreds of women signed an appeal against.

[Historical Reader/Actor]

Female suffrage, which warned the whole nation.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

Would suffer if women got the vote.

[Historical Reader/Actor]

Due to their natural quickness of temper.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

It was men's work to debate weighty matters of finance or war.

[Historical Reader/Actor]

Women had other opportunities for public usefulness, such as the care of the sick and the education of children. That was their true dignity and special mission.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

It sounds ridiculous now, but the patient arguments of the suffragists didn't seem to be working. The heavyweight politician David Lloyd George, for example, said he favoured votes for women, but when he got into power, did nothing. Some women decided it was time for direct action. They formed a new organisation, the wspu, the Women's Social and Political Union. Their slogan deeds, not words. They disrupted meetings and chained themselves to railings in Downing street, where the Prime Minister lived. Newspapers coined the term for these radical suffragists, the suffragettes. It was meant as an insult, a dismissive diminutive. They adopted it with pride. Emily quit her job as a governess, moved to London and got employed as an officer at the wspu. She disrupted a speech by David Lloyd George.

[Emily Wilding Davison (Reenactment Voice)]

I was busy haranguing the crowd when the police came up and arrested me.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

Emily was put in prison, a dark cell, alone. She sang hymns defiantly and scrawled on the wall her personal credo.

[Emily Wilding Davison (Reenactment Voice)]

Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

She also refused to eat, a tactic the suffragettes had discovered for getting out of jail early. They figured the government would let them go rather than risk a death from starvation. Emily described her prison experience in a letter.

[Emily Wilding Davison (Reenactment Voice)]

I fasted 124 hours and was then released. I lost one and a half stone and much flesh. I felt very weak at first, but I'm pulling up rapidly now.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

She signed off.

[Emily Wilding Davison (Reenactment Voice)]

Your loving and rebellious friend, Emily.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

No sooner had she got her strength back than Emily was rebelling again, throwing rocks at the windows of David Lloyd George's. This time in prison, she discovered the government had a new approach to hunger strikes. A doctor came into her cell and.

[Eyewitness/Testimonial Voice]

Said, I'm going to feed you by force.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

Cautionary tales will be back after the break.

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[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

At Silverstone, spectators notice the five Just Stop Oil protesters scaling the safety barrier and running towards the track. Phone footage captures how the crowd react. Wankers. Yells one voice. Dickheads adds another. Run em over. Perhaps it's not surprising that a motorsport crowd is hostile to a message about stopping oil. But Just Stop Oil protesters made themselves unpopular with other people, too. They blocked roads, tied themselves to goal posts during a soccer match, and threw soup over Vincent van Gogh's sunflowers. In opinion polls, 82% of Brits say climate change is an important issue. Yet fully 68% said their opinion of Just Stop Oil was unfavourable. Which makes you wonder, are disruptive protests helping the cause or hindering? Academics have some jargon for this question. Are radical flank effects positive OR negative? In 2024, the Journal of Global Environmental Psychology published an article, the Radical Curse or Blessing of a Social Movement. Decades of literature, say the authors, provide mixed results. In some cases, disruptive protest seems to have helped a cause. In others, it seems to have backfired. The researchers weren't about to leave it at that, so they began to dig deeper.

[Eyewitness/Testimonial Voice]

I'm going to feed you by force.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

A doctor said to Emily Davison. Emily described what followed.

[Emily Wilding Davison (Reenactment Voice)]

While they held me flat, the doctor, with a steel gag, prized open my mouth to its widest extent. Then a wardress poured liquid down my throat. What it was, I cannot say, but it was foul to the last degree. As I would not swallow the stuff and jerked it out with my tongue. The doctor pinched my nose and somehow gripped my tongue with the gag. The torture was barbaric.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

It got worse. Rubber tubes rammed down the throat or even up the nostrils to pour the liquid in. Emily smashed the windows in her cell to protest. They moved her to another cell which had two beds. The door opened inwards, she observed. As soon as it was closed, quick.

[Emily Wilding Davison (Reenactment Voice)]

As thought, I put the beds down quietly, lengthwise, one touching the other.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

There was still a gap of a foot to the wall, which she filled with an upturned stool.

[Emily Wilding Davison (Reenactment Voice)]

The wedge was not absolutely firm, so I jammed in my two slippers and a hairbrush.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

She sat on the spot where the two beds met to weigh them down.

[Emily Wilding Davison (Reenactment Voice)]

My blockade was complete.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

The wardens discovered they couldn't open the door. They could break the door down, heavy, iron frame and all, but they'd rather not. As the prison governor later explained, the breaking of a cell door is a serious and expensive matter. So they tried another tactic.

[Emily Wilding Davison (Reenactment Voice)]

A ladder appeared at the window. I looked round and saw the nozzle of a hose pipe. They got the water trained full on me. I had to hold on like grim death. The power of the water seemed terrific and it was as cold as ice.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

Still, Emily didn't budge. They'd have to break the door down after all.

[Emily Wilding Davison (Reenactment Voice)]

It was clear to me that if the door fell, it would kill me on the spot. Strange to say, I had no fear. The door gave. I watched it, fascinated, as it lurched. However, hands seized it. A mail warder rushed in and seized me, saying, you ought to be horsewhipped for this.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

Emily got out of prison to find that the hose pipe incident had been widely reported. Even raised in Parliament, she got sympathy. Whatever you thought of women's suffrage, this wasn't on. She sued the prison and won, though the judge awarded only nominal damages, saying that Emily had already got something she wanted a good story to write about in the WSPU's newspaper. Emily set about getting herself sent back to prison with a new tactic. Setting fire to mailboxes.

[Emily Wilding Davison (Reenactment Voice)]

I walk down Fleet Street. I calmly stopped the big open mouthed receptacle for London letters. I took out of my pocket a packet of grease proof paper tied with cotton. Inside was some linen well soaked in kerosene. To this I calmly applied a match. I let the packet now well alight go down the receptacle. I then walked on and turned into the first cafe I came to to get lunch.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

Back in prison, another hunger strike and more force feeding as the tube Passed.

[Emily Wilding Davison (Reenactment Voice)]

Down behind the throat. A feeling of suffocation and sickness followed. I naturally commenced to cough, choke and wretch. I was glad to be sick, which often happened, and the rejected fluid went into the doctor's hands to his disgust and my satisfaction.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

Was all this really enough, though, getting sent to prison for throwing rocks, setting fire to mailboxes, even planting bombs, as some militant suffragettes had started to do? And then stoically enduring the barbarity of tubes shoved down the throat? Or would it take a more grand and shocking gesture to get politicians to take women seriously? Did the suffragette cause need a martyr? Emily began to wonder.

[Emily Wilding Davison (Reenactment Voice)]

The idea in my mind was one big tragedy may save many others.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

It wouldn't be easy for Emily to martyr herself in prison. There were nets to stop prisoners from jumping to their deaths.

[Emily Wilding Davison (Reenactment Voice)]

I realized that my best means of carrying out my purpose was the iron staircase. I walked upstairs and threw myself from the top.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

She had tried to miss the netting and land on the staircase.

[Emily Wilding Davison (Reenactment Voice)]

If I had been successful, I should undoubtedly have been killed, as it was a clear drop of 30 to 40ft. But I caught on the edge of the netting.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

There was still a 10 foot drop from the edge of the netting to the iron staircase. It might be enough.

[Emily Wilding Davison (Reenactment Voice)]

I realized that there was only one chance left to hurl myself for the greatest force I could could summon from the netting onto the staircase. I threw myself forward on my head. When I recovered consciousness, voices were buzzing around me. Someone said, fetch the doctor. They lifted me as gently as possible, but the agony was int.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

This was all getting too intense for the leaders of the wspu. Deeds, not words, they'd said. But disrupting politicians speeches was one thing. Planting bombs and setting fire to mail was quite another. They refused to publish Emily's account of her martyrdom bid in their newspaper and they ended her employment as a WSPU officer. Emily was becoming an embarrassment. At the railway station in Aberdeen, Scotland, in late 1912, a Baptist minister had just waved off his wife on a train when he was approached by a woman.

[Eyewitness/Testimonial Voice]

I thought she was an ordinary passenger.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

He later recalled giving testimony to a court.

[Eyewitness/Testimonial Voice]

But without any explanation, she cried, you traitor.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

You traitor.

[Eyewitness/Testimonial Voice]

There came quite a rain of blows.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

And she attacked him with a dog whip. The police detained the woman, but she wasn't finished yet, the minister recalled.

[Eyewitness/Testimonial Voice]

To my astonishment, she landed me a very clever quick blow on the left jaw with her clenched fist.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

The woman turned out to be Emily Davison. Why had Emily attacked a Scottish Baptist minister with a dog whip? The Aberdeen Daily journal explained the Reverend Gentleman bears a distinct, if not altogether a striking facial resemblance to Mr. David Lloyd George. Lloyd George was still in government and still disappointing the suffragettes by failing to act on their cause. He'd been expected in Aberdeen that day. His lookalike had chosen a bad time to see off his wife. Emily was jailed again. She had just turned 40. The stints in prison were starting to take their toll, along with the unemployment after she had been sacked by the.

[Emily Wilding Davison (Reenactment Voice)]

WSPU this last four days hunger strike in Aberdeen found out my weakness. I have had some rheumatism in my neck and back where I fell on that iron staircase. At present I have no settled work. I wish I could hear of some.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

Emily applied for jobs and tried to get her writing published. She wrote about sacrifice comparing militant protesters to Jesus Christ.

[Emily Wilding Davison (Reenactment Voice)]

The surrender of life itself is the supreme consummation of sacrifice. To lay down life for friends that is glorious, selfless, inspiring for generations yet unborn. That is the last consummate sin. Sacrifice of the militant.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

On the first Tuesday of June 1913, Emily went to the opening day of the WSPU's Summer Fate, a social occasion with flower decorations and stalls serving strawberries and cream. I'm going to the derby tomorrow, she told a friend. The friend was surprised Emily wasn't a regular race goer. Why are you going to the derby? Ah, said Emily. Look in the evening papers and you.

[Tim Harford]

Will see.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

Cautionary tales will be back in a moment.

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[Tim Harford]

I explore often feature smart people making decisions with incomplete information, something we all face daily. The difference is having tools that help you think more thoroughly about what you might be missing. Claude excels at this kind of collaborative exploration. Its new learning mode lets you see exactly how it works through problems so you can see how it found the answer. You may have been stuck on the considerations, the alternative perspectives, and the potential blind spots. Whether you're analyzing historical trends, exploring policy implications, or working through a business challenge, Claude helps you dig deeper into the complexity rather than settling for the first explanation that seems reasonable. It's built for people who enjoy the process of figuring things out. The best insights come from thorough exploration. See why the world's best problem solvers choose Claude as their thinking partner and try Claude for free at Claude AI.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

Cautionarytales I'm Glenn Washington, the host of.

[Glyn Washington]

KQED's Snap Judgment podcast. And at Snap, we don't just tell stories, we live them. Every week a different journey, like on a plane with Rihanna. A racetrack in Tijuana, a year inside an Oakland homeless encampment. Real people, real voices with original music and cinematic sound. Snap Judgment from KQED New episodes every Thursday. Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

The crowd at Tatnam Corner are wondering what just happened. Anma skids along the turf, then gets shakily to his feet. Herbert Jones is out cold as the other 14 runners race onto the finish. Spectators rush forward to help. Someone grabs hold of Anma's reins. An ambulance arrives, and the crew take Jones off on a stretcher. Then there's the woman Anma hit, also unconscious on the grass. A policeman calls out, does anyone know this woman? No one does, but someone says, I have a car. I can take her to hospital. Another says, I'm a nurse. I'll go with you. Herbert Jones, at length, wakes up confused about why he's on a stretcher and what happened. In the race, someone starts to explain a woman. Ah, yes, he says. My horse hit her. I remember falling towards the ground. I must have had a bang. At the hospital, Emily remains unconscious. She's been identified now from a name tag found in her jacket. Also in her jacket, a suffragette flag, neatly folded. The King and Queen are informed. A most regrettable and scandalous proceeding, the king writes in his diary. Poor Jones writes the Queen, knocked about by that horrid woman. As Emily anticipated. She's all over the newspapers. They call her mad, wild, demented, a notorious militant, says the Daily Mail, the hottest of all suffragette hot bloods deep in the hearts of every onlooker, reports the Daily Telegraph, was a feeling of fierce resentment with the miserable woman. Letters addressed to Emily start to arrive at Epsom Hospital. You should thank your God, says one anonymous missive, that he has spared you the sin of murder. Another says simply, you idiot. In their article the Radical Curse or Blessing of a Social Movement, researchers describe an experiment. They told their subjects about a fictional protest on an environmental issue and asked if they supported the protesters. Some subjects got a description of protesters using only moderate tactics, such as organising petitions. Some got a description of only radical tactics, such as vandalising property. More people supported moderate than radical protest. Other subjects got a description of two contrasting protest a main moderate group and a smaller radical one, the radical flank. The contrast made people less likely to support the radical protesters, but more likely to support the moderates. So the experiment has found two effects. One that reduced support for the cause overall, another that increased it. No wonder the literature is mixed on whether disruptive protests help or hinder. It's hard to know when one effect outweighs the other. But the experiment suggests something counterintuitive. When someone makes a disruptive protest, it's because they think it will help a cause they passionately believe in. And it might, but not in the way they might hope. Instead of being seen as heroes, they'll be hated. But they'll also make moderate protest groups look more reasonable, groups that make the same arguments but use less annoying tactics. As the crowd at Silverstone shout abuse at the Just Stop oil protesters elsewhere on the track, the race begins. Even the best drivers crash sometimes, and this time they crash before they even reach the first corner. One car clips another and clatters into a third, which flips upside down, skims off the track and and smashes into a tyre wall. A massive accident. Debris is everywhere. They'll have to stop the race to clear the track. The race officials call a red flag. By the time the drivers get to the protesters part of the track, they've already stopped racing and slowed right down. They don't need to react quickly to avoid. They just steer around them. The TV coverage isn't showing the cars driving slowly back towards the pits. It's showing repeats of that spectacular first corner crash. Nobody watching at home has any idea that the protest has happened. This never was dangerous, the protesters later insist to a court. The drivers would have stopped in time anyway. The judge is not impressed.

[Eyewitness/Testimonial Voice]

None of you were qualified enough or experienced enough properly to assess the risk. To you and others you were in my view, kidding yourselves.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

Another letter arrives at Emily Davison's bedside. I cannot believe that you could have done such a. Such a dreadful act, it says. I can only hope and pray that God will mercifully restore you to life and health. With all my love, from your sorrowful mother. Emily never gets to read the letter. After four days in a coma, she dies. After Emily had thrown herself onto the prison's iron staircase, the WSPU refused to publish her account in their newspaper. They ostracised her, embarrassed by how extreme she'd become now that she'd actually died. Well, perhaps she'd been right, that a martyr might be useful. The same newspaper's front page page depicted Emily as an angel under the words in honor and in loving, reverent memory of Emily Wilding Davison, she died for women. They arranged for Emily's coffin to parade through London and appealed for mourners to wear white and carry lilies or black with a bunch of purple irises. Thousands of women followed the coffin, singing hymns. Onward, Christian soldiers. Fight the good fight with all your might. This marvellous woman said the funeral program offered up her love life as a petition to the King. A fellow suffragette explained. Ms. Davison went out with the express purpose of stopping the King's horse to challenge the very head of this country. That's the story about Emily that's come down to this day. As in the blurb of the book.

[Historical Reader/Actor]

For Children, she and her fellow suffragettes had patiently put their argument to the government, but they were ignored. At the Derby racecourse, as the King's horse came pounding towards her, Emily was prepared to make the biggest sacrifice of all.

[Narrator (Cautionary Tales)]

But is the story right? We get some things right about Emily Davison. She had incredible courage, repeatedly getting herself imprisoned, knowing she'd face the horror of being force fed. And she was right, of course, about the cause of votes for women. But are we right to assume that her courage helped her cause? The mixed literature on radical flank effects suggests that it's hard to be certain. Here's something else we might get wrong about Emily. Did she really intend to sacrifice herself? I mentioned that in Emily's jacket, police found a neatly folded suffragette flag. They also found a return train ticket to London and an entrance pass for that evening at the summer fete. Emily had promised to visit her sister to help with her newborn niece. None of this suggests she expected to die at Epsom. What was Emily trying to achieve? As her biographer, Lucy Fisher writes, that question still sparks markedly divisive debate today. She hadn't explained her plans to anyone. The newsreel footage shows that she ducks under the running rail and onto the course when half the runners have already passed. Two horses narrowly avoid her. Then Anma knocks her down. Eyewitnesses thought that from her viewpoint on the inside of the bend, she couldn't have seen well enough to target one specific horse. Others who've studied the newsreel footage disagree. Just before Anmer hits her, she reaches up a hand. Was she trying to grab his reins? If so, her risk assessment was as questionable as that of just stop oil. She should have known how hard it would be to stop half a ton of horse at 35 miles an hour. Perhaps she, just like the Silverstone protesters, was kidding herself. The horse racing author Michael Tanner posits another theory. Maybe Emily intended to run onto the course before the runners got there and unfurl her flag for the newsreel cameras. Maybe not. Being a regular race goer, she underestimated how quickly the horses would arrive and flash past. She ducked under the the rails. The leaders had gone by already. What next? She had only a moment to decide. It took 15 years after Emily's death for all British women to get the vote. In the children's book version of Emily's sacrifice, that needed direct action after patient arguments were ignored. In truth, we can't know if the militant suffragettes sped up the advent of women's suffrage or delayed it, although we do know that women in other countries got the vote at roughly the same time through those patient arguments alone. Moderate groups in Britain, too, persisted with their patient arguments. The London Society for Women's Suffrage, for example, explained why they weren't attending Emily's funeral. We deplore her actions. They harm our cause by alienating many people who would consider it right to give the vote to women but wrong to endanger the lives of others in favour of votes for women against bringing down racehorses. A balanced, reasonable, moderate position. Sometimes radicals help by making moderates look good. This episode relied on Lucy Fisher's biography, Emily Wilding Davison, the Martyr Suffragette and the Suffragette Derby by Michael Tanner. For a full list of our sources, see the show [e-mail] Cautionary Tales is written by me, Tim Harford with Andrew Wright, Alice Fiennes and Ryan Dilley. It's produced by Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust. The sound design and original music are the work of Pascal Wise. Additional sound design is by Carlos San Juan at Brain Audio. Ben Nadaff Haffrey edited the scripts. The show features the voice talents of Genevieve Gaunt, Melanie Guttridge, Stella Harford, Oliver Hembrough, Sarah Jopp, Masea Munro, Jamal Westman and Rufus Wright. The show also wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Greta Cohn, Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brodie, Christina Sullivan, Kira Posey and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at Wardour Studios in London. I Noria Barr and Lucy Rowe do you want to support the stories we tell on Cautionary Tales? If so, you can join my new cautionary [e-mail] cautionaryclub for exclusive bonus episodes, newsletters, ad free listening and other exciting perks. Alternatively, you can join Pushkin plus on our Apple show page for continued benefits from our show and others across the Pushkin Network.

[Tim Harford]

The stories we've heard today remind us that interesting problems deserve careful thinking. Whether it's understanding historical patterns or navigating modern challenges, the reward is in the exploration itself. Claude is AI designed for exactly this kind of deep analysis. Whether you're exploring historical patterns, analyzing systemic risks, or working through decision trees, Claude goes beyond easy answers. Try CLAUDE for free at Claude AI cautionarytales and see why the world's best problem solvers choose Claude as their thinking partner.

[Glyn Washington]

I'm Gwen Washington, the host of Snap Judgment from kqed. Every week we don't just tell stories, we drop you inside them. Real people, real voices, real moments that split a life in two. What do you believe? What do you risk? What do you want? Snap Judgment New episodes every Thursday, wherever you get your podcast.

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[Chiquis]

This is an iheart Pod.