Mass debating with barmy Bernie (1997)

The TV Review column from the February 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Usually there is much competition for the dubious privilege of which programme has plumbed the lowest depths of inanity and humbug in the period before this column goes to press. Last month there was no contest. Not even Richard and Judy or Ricki Lake came close to matching the televisual disgrace which masqueraded as informed debate under the title of The Monarchy: The Nation Decides (ITV, 7 January).

Billed as the biggest exercise in democracy ever seen on British television, this programme told us all we need to know about the nature of democracy that exists in capitalist society. Virtually every aspect of it, from the so-called "debate” format, to the paucity of the views expressed by the invited panellists through to the uncontrolled (and allegedly rigged) telephone poll, went to demonstrate that democracy in capitalism is largely sham democracy.

Nothing more than a soundbite was allowed, most of the debate was taken up with whether the Royal family are "value for money" (whatever that means) and as Roy Greenslade explained in the following day's Guardian, the audience of 3,000 had been whipped up into a near hysterical frenzy before the show so that by when the 'debate' actually started it resembled little more than a bear garden.

Large sections of the audience, invited from several cities around Britain, simply shouted, heckled and cat-called on a mass basis for the entire duration of the programme. This meant that the little debate that would have been possible was rendered useless—and clearly by the design of Carlton TV who commissioned and ran the whole thing.

In a sense it was understandable that the audience—or a least a sizeable enough part of it—should have behaved in such a way. It was probably the best chance they had of stemming the tide of verbal diarrhoea emanating from the panellists. Nonetheless, some seeped through and the stench was truly repellent

Particularly odious, as a representative of the monarchists, was author Frederick Forsyth. Though coherent in an entirely tangential manner, Forsyth’s bad-tempered performance was sufficient to bring a whole host of rather unkind epithets to even the most considerate reviewer’s mind—like 'arrogant', ‘bumptious’ and ’surly’, these being the least descriptive but at the same time those least likely to result in a libel action. Forsyth’s main defence of the royals was that they are an economic bonus for Britain. To echo this point, he shouted at his hecklers “Your jobs are at stake!," claiming that any expenditure on the Royal Family is easily outweighed (he even had some figures) by the tourist revenue they create every year. It was possible to imagine the millions of rich tea-towel makers and commemorative mug engravers across the length and breadth of the country nodding sagely in approval. The suggestion that the multinationals and big-time capitalists were the real beneficiaries of all this (if there are any at all) was not considered. The programme producers had neither the time nor inclination to let anyone string more than two sentences together and a coherent reply to this nonsense, if any had been forthcoming, would have been near impossible.

Arise, Sir Bernie

One panellist smartly retorted that Forsyth would be better off sticking to writing Fiction, something he evidently knows a bit about, but what poor old Bernie Grant is good for is anybody's guess. A knighthood perhaps, or an early peerage. Never a stranger to controversy, one might have anticipated that Grant’s presence on the panel was guaranteed to set the cat amongst the pigeons. But, no. Bernie knows which side his bread is buttered on and launched into a sycophantic eulogy of the Queen that would have put Dame Vera Lynn to shame. Elizabeth was a marvellous head of the Commonwealth, he claimed, and did an awful lot to help all the poor black people in Africa.

It was obviously beyond Bernie’s comprehension that the Queen and her like, and the system they uphold, is the reason for their poverty and misery in the first place. But never mind, she's so gracious and has such a lovely warm smile as she walks among the malnourished. Well, she can continue to smile very big smiles indeed with suckers like Bernie Grant to do her bidding for her.

Most of those who plucked up the courage to oppose the monarchy, including those who rang in, did so with the proviso that they wanted a nice, respectable Head of State—a leader to look up to. Bizarrely enough, Princess Anne was the most popular choice followed by monied clown and failed balloonist Richard Branson. As such, the legions of republicans proved themselves little better than the raving monarchists. But then again, why should we expect them to be any different? These are, after all, people who vote for the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats or the Greens and are therefore fully tuned in to what can be expected in an inherently hierarchical, class-ridden and exploitative system like capitalism.

Even if Carlton had provided for a proper debate format, it would have been to no great effect. For does anyone still expect serious arguments for social equality from such people and their elected representatives? Frankly, it is no more likely to come from them than it is from the Duke of Edinburgh. and if this dreadful programme had even one little thing to commend it, it must have been the obviousness of that. 

Dave Perrin

Baby David Speaks (2012)

The Greasy Pole Column from the March 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Among the more memorable examples of urban unrest dredged up by the analysts after last August's riots was Tottenham, that place in North London with the Seven Sisters Road and White Hart Lane, Jimmy Greaves and, less happily, the tragedies of Baby P and Victoria Climbie. And the Broadwater Farm Estate where in 1985 there was a riot on a scale to ensure its place in the record books.  The riot was notable, too, for the killing of P C Blakelock, an event which led to Winston Silcott being sent to prison for life only to be released in 1991 when his conviction was found to be based on fabricated evidence.

Bernie Grant

It took a long time for Tottenham to adjust to the memories of those events and to the fragile tension which followed. This was not helped when the Leader of Haringey Council, Bernie Grant, shrugged off the killing of the policeman in the memorable description that “...what (the police) got was a bloody good hiding”. It says enough about those times that Grant went on to be elected when the Parliamentary seat at Tottenham became vacant in 1987 and later stood for the leadership of the Labour Party. He died of a heart attack in 2000; his wife was on the candidates’ short list but the party, perhaps hoping for a less combustible representative, preferred one David Lammy who, when he was elected in June 2000, may have warmed many a Tottenham heart by becoming the Baby of the House – not expected to turn out to be like one of those gurgling, screeching, defecating infants who keep you awake at night.

Thatcher vs Beveridge

And so it has turned out as Lammy, with his scholarships and Masters Degree and being called to the bar, is one of what some electors are comforted to call “middle class”. And perhaps to foster this he was quickly assumed to be well suited to a smooth, unhindered rise up the Greasy Pole with a succession of ministerial posts eventually reaching the heights of Minister of State and Privy Councillor. All this came to an abrupt end with the 2010 election. As the Labour Party subsequently struggled to unravel the chaos of Gordon Brown's leadership, Lammy's contribution to their leadership election did not seem to be entirely free of confusion.  He nominated Diane Abbott while declaring his support for Ed Miliband, then refused Miliband's obliging offer of a place in the Shadow Cabinet on the grounds that he wished to be free to speak on a wide range of issues. Labour members may have seen this as something of a continuous process when he bewildered them by writing that he saw common ground between two people who they had always regarded as at opposite ends of the political spectrum: “ . . . to knit society back together again . . . means a working class with a stake in capitalism and a middle class with faith once again in the welfare state. It requires fulfilling the goals expressed by both Mrs. Thatcher and Beveridge, not one or the other” (Out of the Ashes – Britain After the Riots).

Smacking Children

There was more to come on the same theme. At a meeting in September 2011 of the “think tank” Policy Exchange he warned, “We can't have another generation that are routinely unemployed for longer than a year. We have to guarantee these people work otherwise we will pay the price dearly”. But in January he was advising a markedly different explanation for the riots, declaring that they were due to “. . . an explosion of hedonism and nihilism,” rather than government cuts or unemployment. He expanded on this analysis by linking the riotous behaviour to legal restraints on parents smacking children: “Many of my constituents came up to me after the riots and blamed the Labour Government, saying, 'You guys stopped us being able to smack our children”. He then displayed more confusion by outlining the problems of all those frustrated unsmacking parents who “. . . raise children on the 15th floor of a tower block with knives, gangs and the dangers of violent crime outside the window”, contrasting them with those he can classify as “middle class” who can afford to place their children in private schools where they are taught “discipline” and have tennis lessons.

Branding

Contradicting Lammy's ravings, there is a mass of established evidence that anti-social behaviour is deep-rooted in poverty and alienation, aggravated by the police assertion as the guardians of property society and its system of class privilege. A study by the London School of Economics and the Guardian – one of many – which interviewed 270 of the rioters last December said that 86 percent of those interviewed gave poverty as the main cause; 85 per cent said the police were “important”; and 79 percent said unemployment. There is no record of anyone mentioning restraints on parental smacking of children. If, as Lammy blusters, “hedonism” and “nihilism” were contributory factors, that is likely to be, as an observer of a typical Saturday afternoon in any shopping centre will notice, the effects of the “branding” of goods which is designed to be a powerful aid in a profitable sales method. The problems displayed in the riots and beyond are severe and toxic. The events at Broadwater Farm took place 26 years ago. Has nothing been learned since then, as the politicians promised?  Has nothing of any consequence changed? As long as the matter is left to the likes of David Lammy, that is all there is to look forward to.

Ivan