The tragicomedy of New Labour: anti-social behaviour
Let us briefly imagine that there has been a spate of bank robberies in the local area recently, and that they all have a common feature: the thieves have all used balaclavas to conceal their identities. If the police and local authorities responded by banning the sale of balaclavas in the region, what would the reaction be? The owners of the banks, I suspect, would be outraged at the ludicrous ineffectiveness of the measures proposed, and would very likely demand more effective measures to help identify the thieves. Ordinary people might share the outrage, but also be overcome with disbelief at a measure that so clearly misses the point, and fails to address the root of the problem totally, merely singling out one minor symptom. In a sane world, those who can do no better than propose the most ludicrously ineffective measures to combat criminal behaviour would quickly find themselves voted out of office.
It's also worth thinking through what the thieves might conclude from this. Very likely, the proposal would considerably diminish their fear of the authorities, emboldening them to conduct ever more audacious raids, safe in the knowledge that the police and authorities have no more effective means of deterring them than restricting certain items of clothing. There can be little doubt that even the least inventive theives would quickly find alternative means of concealing their identities (a hat and scarf would work well enough).
It would certainly be a worrying development indeed for those concerned about the state of society and for the rule of law.
Today, the rather upmarket Bluewater shopping centre in Kent banned youths wearing "hoodies" - ie jumpers with attatched hoods, a most practical piece of clothing in my view, that combines the best elements of the jumper and the coat - from entering, presumably for much the same reason as local authorities sought the right to use "ASBOs" to prevent some youths from being allowed to wear them in November. Later, Tony Blair was asked by a journalist about the move at his monthly press conference, replying "I think that's fine and I agree with it," The Guardian reports, adding that "the deputy prime minister, John Prescott, also voiced support for the complex's decision." This evening, BBC television's news analysis programme Newsnight (about as highbrow as BBC TV gets) will run a segment on it. "We all know the problem," presenter Gavin Esler writes in today's presenter-preview email "but what is the solution?"
I would disagree strongly with Esler here. It would appear that we do not "all know the problem," by any means. If the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister do "know the problem" then they are clearly deliberately pretending not to. On the basis of the pronouncements we have heard today, the assumption of the two leading politicians in this country is that the problem is jumpers. Let us be quite clear about it. The problem is most unambiguously not jumpers!
These men, in short, are acting in the manner of the authorities who would ban balaclavas to prevent bank robbery. They ought to be treated with utter disdain by the general public. But it is how the "anti-social" youths themselves will recieve the message that really concerns me.
They will, I would imagine, respond to the ban by concluding that the forces of authority are imposing ludicrous arbitrary restrictions on their freedoms. This is certain to further undermine their respect for authority which is plainly unable to legitimise itself, leading naturally to further social disorder, more "anti-social behaviour."
There are a great many root causes of "anti-social behaviour" in this country. The very fact that an extremely wide and diverse range of behaviour is lumped together in to one "issue" ought to be explored first of all. Blair gave a reasonable summary today: "street corner and shopping centre thugs, yobbish behaviour sometimes from children as young as 10 or 11 whose parents should be looking after them, Friday and Saturday night binge-drinking which makes our town centres no-go areas for respectable citizens, of the low-level graffiti, vandalism and disorder that is the work of a very small minority that makes the law-abiding majority afraid and angry."
Plainly, this is not one "issue." Children riding around council estates on bicycles swearing at people are most definitely not the perpetrators of "binge drinking" in town centres who Blair refers to. Quite simply, 9 and 10 year olds - even if a few consume alcohol - do not go to pubs, and are not the ones fist-fighting at closing-time. Again, graffiti and vandalism is likely the work of another set of people altogether. It is surely no accident that these various issues are confused together. The intention, plainly, is to obscure the root causes of all of this behaviour, in order to suggest that simple solutions will be effective.
The truth is, there are no simple solutions, because if there were, the political capital available from exercising their implentation would have been scrambled for by everyone.
There are ways of addressing these issues, but it is vital to the interests of power that some are suppressed. To give the most obvious example, the people more likely to engage in the kind of behaviour Blair identified are poor youths, living on council estates, with few prospects for the future or for employment and nothing constructive with which to occupy themselves. Those who have jobs likely engage in stultifying, repetitive (in short, boring), disempowering work for which they are compensated with barely enough to live on. Of course, addressing these circumstances, which give rise to "anti-social behaviour" of different varieties, is most certainly not on the New Labour agenda. There is an unspoken, but explicit commitment to continuing the Thatcherite policy of ensuring that in real terms, the rich become richer while the poor become poorer.
So, because one does not win popularity contests (aka elections) by proclaiming "there are no easy answers" and because the range of actions the government is prepared to take to address the issue does not extend to its root causes, New Labour are left doing their best to confuse a variety of issues by conflating them, and diverting attention away from the failure to address them adequately by diverting attention towards ludicrous policies that are associated with the issues concerned only at the margins, such as banning jumpers.
The fact that the media comment on all of this in sober and serious voices should alert us all to the fact that it is not doing what the media ought to do in a democratic society (informing people of the important issues) but performing the service of propganda (confusing the issues, or diverting attention toward irrelevancies). On the surface, all of this appears to be triviality. A moment's thought reveals problems of the gravest nature for those who care about democracy, justice and accountability.
It's also worth thinking through what the thieves might conclude from this. Very likely, the proposal would considerably diminish their fear of the authorities, emboldening them to conduct ever more audacious raids, safe in the knowledge that the police and authorities have no more effective means of deterring them than restricting certain items of clothing. There can be little doubt that even the least inventive theives would quickly find alternative means of concealing their identities (a hat and scarf would work well enough).
It would certainly be a worrying development indeed for those concerned about the state of society and for the rule of law.
Today, the rather upmarket Bluewater shopping centre in Kent banned youths wearing "hoodies" - ie jumpers with attatched hoods, a most practical piece of clothing in my view, that combines the best elements of the jumper and the coat - from entering, presumably for much the same reason as local authorities sought the right to use "ASBOs" to prevent some youths from being allowed to wear them in November. Later, Tony Blair was asked by a journalist about the move at his monthly press conference, replying "I think that's fine and I agree with it," The Guardian reports, adding that "the deputy prime minister, John Prescott, also voiced support for the complex's decision." This evening, BBC television's news analysis programme Newsnight (about as highbrow as BBC TV gets) will run a segment on it. "We all know the problem," presenter Gavin Esler writes in today's presenter-preview email "but what is the solution?"
I would disagree strongly with Esler here. It would appear that we do not "all know the problem," by any means. If the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister do "know the problem" then they are clearly deliberately pretending not to. On the basis of the pronouncements we have heard today, the assumption of the two leading politicians in this country is that the problem is jumpers. Let us be quite clear about it. The problem is most unambiguously not jumpers!
These men, in short, are acting in the manner of the authorities who would ban balaclavas to prevent bank robbery. They ought to be treated with utter disdain by the general public. But it is how the "anti-social" youths themselves will recieve the message that really concerns me.
They will, I would imagine, respond to the ban by concluding that the forces of authority are imposing ludicrous arbitrary restrictions on their freedoms. This is certain to further undermine their respect for authority which is plainly unable to legitimise itself, leading naturally to further social disorder, more "anti-social behaviour."
There are a great many root causes of "anti-social behaviour" in this country. The very fact that an extremely wide and diverse range of behaviour is lumped together in to one "issue" ought to be explored first of all. Blair gave a reasonable summary today: "street corner and shopping centre thugs, yobbish behaviour sometimes from children as young as 10 or 11 whose parents should be looking after them, Friday and Saturday night binge-drinking which makes our town centres no-go areas for respectable citizens, of the low-level graffiti, vandalism and disorder that is the work of a very small minority that makes the law-abiding majority afraid and angry."
Plainly, this is not one "issue." Children riding around council estates on bicycles swearing at people are most definitely not the perpetrators of "binge drinking" in town centres who Blair refers to. Quite simply, 9 and 10 year olds - even if a few consume alcohol - do not go to pubs, and are not the ones fist-fighting at closing-time. Again, graffiti and vandalism is likely the work of another set of people altogether. It is surely no accident that these various issues are confused together. The intention, plainly, is to obscure the root causes of all of this behaviour, in order to suggest that simple solutions will be effective.
The truth is, there are no simple solutions, because if there were, the political capital available from exercising their implentation would have been scrambled for by everyone.
There are ways of addressing these issues, but it is vital to the interests of power that some are suppressed. To give the most obvious example, the people more likely to engage in the kind of behaviour Blair identified are poor youths, living on council estates, with few prospects for the future or for employment and nothing constructive with which to occupy themselves. Those who have jobs likely engage in stultifying, repetitive (in short, boring), disempowering work for which they are compensated with barely enough to live on. Of course, addressing these circumstances, which give rise to "anti-social behaviour" of different varieties, is most certainly not on the New Labour agenda. There is an unspoken, but explicit commitment to continuing the Thatcherite policy of ensuring that in real terms, the rich become richer while the poor become poorer.
So, because one does not win popularity contests (aka elections) by proclaiming "there are no easy answers" and because the range of actions the government is prepared to take to address the issue does not extend to its root causes, New Labour are left doing their best to confuse a variety of issues by conflating them, and diverting attention away from the failure to address them adequately by diverting attention towards ludicrous policies that are associated with the issues concerned only at the margins, such as banning jumpers.
The fact that the media comment on all of this in sober and serious voices should alert us all to the fact that it is not doing what the media ought to do in a democratic society (informing people of the important issues) but performing the service of propganda (confusing the issues, or diverting attention toward irrelevancies). On the surface, all of this appears to be triviality. A moment's thought reveals problems of the gravest nature for those who care about democracy, justice and accountability.
posted by UK plc at 7:23 PM
4 Comments:
ryc: Thanks! I actually got the banner from you, lol. :-D
Yeah, they "cancelled the news" here in the states too. Hey, thanks for mentioning that article about the infamous "Downing Street Memo." We have to keep talking about this memo and telling our friends to talk about it. Emailing our politicians and news folk.
This actually goes to the heart of "New" Labour's lack of ideology. One of the main ideological positions Thatcher took, which a Labour administration could reasonably have been expected to battle to reverse is the disollution of society. When Thatcher said: "There is no such thing as society. There are only individual men and women and their families," she was not just observing the state of the nation. She was outlining her ideological aim viz. to individualise individual relationships with the (small) state; and to align self-interest with individual hard work (and not with "community" or "society" for which she read "Unions.")
This aspect of thatcherism appears to have been startlingly effective. It really does appear as if there is a new dynamic in sections of the underclass, which is materialistic to the specific exclusion of group identity. The chav does not just aspire to be richer, he creates his own luxury. The chav may seem to be part of a faddish gang, but is in fact engaging in a very pure Thatcherite materialism. Similar phenomena are not restricted to the (urban) underclass, but this is the most poignant reference point with regard to hoodies. There can be little doubt that excessive individualism makes street gangs stronger: nor is that a paradox.
Labour clearly have no ideology to fall back on, and as a result have no "community" answers. To accept Bluewater's ban of the hoodie is a classsic piece of New Labour spin. Faced with a problem whose solution requires deep ideological thought, "New" Labour elide the symptom with the pathogen, produce a soundbite about "being active in tackling the issue", and think about how to move the agenda on.
Like Thatcher or loathe her, she had a unified social vision which provided coherence to the policies of her long term of governance. The longer "New" Labours unmoored ship is allowed to float aimlessly, interfering in society whimsically, without a vision of how to make society more coherent, the worse things will get.
James, I must disagree with this analysis on the most basic level.
To analyse all of this in a rather simple version of the Chomskyan approach, it seems as though the policies of the governments of Thatcher, Major and Blair all aimed at the same thing: the isolation of the individual in society. All of these governments have pursued policies that have encouraged this process. The advantages should not require exposition; isolation means no community organisation. Not only are the "anarchists" defeated (these are pretty unimportant anyway) but those who seek to analyse societal problems and issues (war, nuclear wepaons/power, corporate control/power etc. etc.) are stifled.
It seems to me that the aims and effects of "New" Labour policy have far more in common with Thatcherism than you propose, as do of course the policy outcomes (polarisation of incomes, ever-increasing levels of poverty, with increasing concentration of wealth etc etc. - see all manner press reports on this matter, new evidence every week.)
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