Breaking the Littlejohnometer

15 August, 2011 (12:54) | All articles | By: Stuart Fraser

AT least we now know what will awake the English middle classes and force out of their clenched lips something more than a mild, disapproving tut. Never mind unemployment, poverty, racism, famine: give the Daily Mail a bit of rioting and looting and the righteous indignation breaks the Littlejohnometer. Give them lawless, badly-dressed poor people, preferably foreign, lawless, badly-dressed poor people, and the shires erupt in an ecstasy of outrage.

The same people who occasionally mutter something along the lines of “at least the French stand up for themselves” whenever a jolly Gallic farmer ignites a lorryload of sheep because the price of oil has gone up again are now beside themselves over the calamitous law-breaking that’s swept our cities.

And their rhetoric is of crime and punishment. The solution to the problem is harsher punishment for offenders. Maybe national service. Certainly the death penalty. Where are the parents? These riots are simply an expression of inherent badness by young people who haven’t been taught respect: ban their hoodies and chuck a few of them in jail and all will be well again. We blame the teachers.

The reaction has perfectly summed up the banality of debate in this country, and not many voices seem to be challenging the lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key consensus. Mark Steel, the old lefty, does, though, with this neat little argument in The Independent:

“One thing that’s probably true is that the more stable and secure your life is, the less likely you are to smash windows and set fire to an assortment of buildings. For example, it’s unlikely the managing director of an investment bank would announce to the shareholders: ‘Our strategy for increasing profits in the third quarter is to decrease investment in oil futures, and instead do in the windows of Foot Locker in Ealing and shove hundreds of trainers in a Volkswagen GTI.’ A riot is usually a sudden realisation that after years of feeling helpless and rubbish, with a growing sense you’re being blamed for everything, that if everyone goes berserk at once they can do what they want for a couple of days. The current violence has been contrasted with 1981, as if back then, there were proper, decent riots with a political purpose and a Specials song. Now it’s accepted by much of the establishment that there were genuine issues that enraged a generation. But at the time, as I remember, the news was packed with politicians yelling there could be no excuse for mindless criminality.”

This, of course, is why we haven’t seen rioting in Cornwall. Or Cheshire. Or the Chilterns. Etc. Where people have something – and no, not just the dole and a plasma screen telly, but a job, prospects, self-respect, the respect of others, education, opportunity, a decent environment – they tend not to chuck a breeze-block through the window of TK Maxx on the way home for a nice cup of tea and a sit down.

We’ve touched on the general ignorance of history before, and this situation is no different. There has never been a period in the history of this or any other country where there has not been civil unrest of some sort or another. I’ve just been reading that old Marxist Eric Hobsbawm’s history of the 19th century ‘Captain Swing’ riots in which impoverished agricultural labourers set fire to farms, fodder and machinery in protest at their condition, for example.

Those who are ignorant of history will point out that this country endured the Great Depression and the Blitz without rioting. But did they? Blackshirts and Cable Street, anybody? Food riots? Was there no looting in the blazing East End of London, then?

Of course, many improvements in the lot of the English were achieved only after outbreaks of civil disobedience, from the Magna Carta to the Poor Law, from the Tolpuddle Martyrs to the hunger marches, from the peasants’ revolt to the poll tax riots, from CND to the Iraq War protests. To deny that is to deny English history.

None of which is meant to condone what’s happened, of course. I condemn lawlessness, ignorant, wilful, destructive lawlessness, as much as the next man or woman. But while condemning it, I’m aware that history and experience teach us that condemnation and punishment on their own never have solved, and never will solve the problems that created the situation.

The criminal classes

WE staged our own riot at the pub last week, but nobody seemed very interested in joining in and One Old Fiddle and I had to settle for looting some dry roasted peanuts.

I’m a member of the criminal classes myself, of course, the sort of lowlife you wouldn’t want to associate with (unless you had criminal tendencies yourself in the matter of dry roasted nuts, obviously).

Back in those bad old days of the 80s, I was convicted of not paying my poll tax. I blame my upbringing, for last week I discovered my own Grandad had form. He was banged up for 21 days in 1929 for non-payment of a debt; Grandad Fraser was dirt poor and by then had six children as the Depression kicked in. He could have stumped up £1 9 shillings, presumably rent arrears, and avoided the nick, but obviously didn’t have a penny to scratch his scrawny backside with and was sent dahn for the duration.

Actually, he was a nice bloke. And I, descendant of a jailbird and proven lawbreaker (I’ve broken the speed limit too, you know) have been known to be kind to small children and furry animals. See? Proves it.

Comments

Comment from ROGER
Time August 15, 2011 at 4:33 pm

You are looking the wrong way.We can all wallow in the past,what about pithy comments on the future?

Comment from Numbers
Time August 16, 2011 at 10:11 am

Badly dressed, poor people! Do you know how much their designer clothes, trainers and Blackberry phones cost? ….. well, assuming they actually paid for them.

Comment from StentsRus
Time August 17, 2011 at 10:26 am

….not to mention trying to use iffy credit cards in foreign restaurants….

Comment from IAINBASSETT
Time August 21, 2011 at 2:27 pm

Here I am, sitting in the blazing sun and trying to think of something deep and meaningful to say in order to relay my current thoughts…….ah yes…..MANUEL, una cerveza por favor………..RAPIDO

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