Britain is a place of warm beer and sandwiches, lazy days on the village green watching cricket, a place of order and conformity. At least that s what John Major reckoned. But in doing so he reckoned without the stars of Rude Britannia (Channel 4,10pm, Thurs 15 October).These were some of Britain's rudest people who were counterposed to those who deplore the behaviour and openly hanker after a return to the rose-tinted past.
That Britain was ever the kind of place John Major thought it was is open to dispute — what is clearer is that whatever level standards of behaviour were in the past, there has been a serious decline since. When Major said he aimed to build a society “at ease with itself” he was stating a political intention he was never remotely going to be able to fulfil. And so it has turned out — if this programme is anything to go by Britain is a more competitive, selfish and inconsiderate society than it ever has been.
This was illustrated time after time via the filmed behaviour of those who just couldn't give a monkey’s about anybody but themselves. One or two of them were not only prepared to admit this when questioned, they were actually proud of it. One who showed no lack of remorse was the man who parked in the disabled parking spot at a supermarket when there were scores of other places free. When challenged about it by a disabled woman it turned out the gentleman in question was none other than an officer of Her Majesty's constabulary. His response was not to admit his culpability and mutter something about “being in a rush” as most probably would, but to insist that he had not violated any road traffic laws!
Happy days are here again
Then there was the guy in Accrington who went about his business with total disregard for everyone else, whether he was driving his car or just walking around the shopping precinct. His most revealing response to questions about his attitude was to comment that “I am too fast for Accrington”. In truth, here was a poor sap, convinced that he was among the movers and shakers of society, a child of Thatcher and son of Satan, who thought that the most effective way to exercise his muscle was to barge past old ladies in the high street and knock them over. Needless to say, the reality behind the image was revealing — a man in a poorly paid job with little self esteem who wanted to make himself appear bigger than he was. When asked by the interviewer “if you are too fast for Accrington, then why don’t you just leave?” he had no cocksure reply to utter, in fact no answer of any kind at all. To give an answer would have been to reveal that he did not live life to the Max. This was a man who, in reality, lived life in the bus lane.
While it would be wrong to assume that the kind of anti-social behaviour exhibited by individuals in this programme is already widespread as such, it is undoubtedly in the process of becoming so. That this should be the case is not surprising. John Major was doomed to failure in his attempt to halt the slide because he failed to recognise that, first and foremost, it is the market system itself which promotes such types of behaviour and engenders such anti-social attitudes. There is no compelling evidence to suggest that humans are born to be rude, aggressive and anti-social. On the contrary, it is human sociability which is the primary reason why our species has been the most successful on the planet—humans, unlike other animals, are generally able to plan and organise our affairs in a conscious manner, ensuring long-term stability. But the economic, social and political structures created by humans in various circumstances influence human behaviour in turn, and if social systems develop in a manner which promote competition and individualism (as say, a result of natural or artificial scarcity in relation to wants) then humans will adapt their behaviour and attitudes accordingly.
Any society — like the market system — which is based on division, competition and rampant individualism, and then sustained by the creation of generation gaps and the spread of atomised, isolated thinking and behaviour, is going to produce the sort of anti-social attitudes illustrated in Rude Britannia. So it is the ultimate irony for all the Colonel Blimps of this world that the system they admire so much — capitalism — is what has done so much to undermine many of the values they hold dear, values which arose in a different sort society to that which now exists.
But why should a rational thinker want to turn the clock back? The future could be far brighter than any rose-tinted view of the past could allow if the working class grasped the importance of collective action and the necessity of solidarity and class organisation. For the only way to overturn the “every man for himself” culture eating away at the heart of society is in the forging of a united struggle — a united struggle against the system which is currently pitting worker against worker in one of the shabbiest episodes it has yet conjured up in its extremely shabby history.
Dave Perrin
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