Some riots you see . . .
Riots on TV are not what they used to be. In the early 1980s we used to get panicky reporters appearing live on the scene, not quite knowing whether the BBC had insured their limbs. These days no sooner does a riot start than a team of dull-witted politicians are in the studio, there to throw cliches at us like chucking nuts at monkeys The Tory says that it's all caused by criminal elements who are taking advantage of easily-led workers. Then comes the Labourite — usually Gerald Kaufman whose jackets are worn to remind us what value we're getting for our colour TV licence — who talks about how the Tories invented unemployment and while the rioters are wrong they can be sympathised with, but then again the police are doing a good job, but then again they really shouldn't shoot people if they can possibly avoid it. but then again reports have shown . . . Riots on telly are becoming more boring than The Horse of the Year Show. One good thing about the revolution: it will only happen once.
. . . and some you don’t
Remember the pictures of the Orgreave riot shown during the miners' strike? Remember how we were urged to have pity on those poor police who were doing their best to defend the peace against the violent tactics of those horrible strikers? And now, long after the strike is over, we see another view of the riot (People to People, C4. 9pm. 27 September). Clear pictures and accounts demonstrated very forcefully that what occurred at Orgreave was a police riot that the police were out of control and dished out violence to peaceful pickets in a manner which would be more typical of the Polish or South African state machine. Those with eyes to see. and minds unblocked by prejudices which tell them that the police can never be the aggressors, saw camera shots of police beating up workers who had gone to Orgreave to further their trade-union interests. Why were these pictures never shown while the strike was on? The fact is that while the camera never lies, the liars are very capable of manipulating the evidence of the camera when it so suits them.
Real lives
The banned and then censored BBC2 documentary on "political extremism" in Northern Ireland turned out to be nothing very original or surprising. Both nationalists in the programme (for let it not be forgotten that the Unionists are nationalists too) showed themselves to be buried in the politics of working-class disunity, sloganising and violence. McGuinness came across as somewhat saner than the Unionist clown whose response to the murder of some Catholics was to declare that "Christmas has come early this year". In fact, most workers are more advanced in their thinking than the sort of politically retarded mis-leaders portrayed in this film.
If only every town . . .
Have you seen that appalling advert which concludes. "If only every town could be like Milton Keynes '. Have you ever been to Milton Keynes? Has the joker who dreamed up the advert ever lived in Milton Keynes? Perhaps he should be given a chance to live in one of the uniform workers' houses in the land of his dreams. And while we're at it. why not give Jimmy Savile a free pensioners' travel pass and let him travel round the country on second-class British Rail trains instead of the Rolls which he is more accustomed to sitting in? And why not let old Barratt live in one of the poverty-homes he is so eager to advertise on TV instead of the expensive mansion near Hexham which he lives in now? Let the shoddy goods which the ad-men try to sell us be consumed by the idle parasites — they are not good enough for the wealth- producers. For workers nothing but the best is good enough — and to be sure. Milton Keynes is nothing like the best.
Showing it like it is
There is a popular view on the Left that everything shown on television is lies. Plenty of what we see on TV is lies and distortion, but much of it is both useful in providing an insight into aspects of life which most of us never experience and helpful in indicating the manifold contradictions of capitalism. Of late we have been offered several documentary series worthy of note. BBC2's series Probation (Tuesdays. 9.30pm. ended 29 October) was one of those "fly-on-the-wall" efforts in which we were allowed to look in on the ruined lives and confused existences of workers dependent on probation officers. Two points emerged from the series: firstly, that, despite the claims of the human nature brigade, there are plenty of workers in our society who are genuinely eager to help other workers to get out of their mess: secondly, it became clear that those society sees fit to punish or cure are inevitably the victims of a system in need of punishment or cure. A society which leaves thousands of workers ill-educated, unemployed, frustratedly aggressive, vulnerable to dangerous escapism and tempted by goodies beyond their reach creates more casualties than the over-burdened probation officers can hope to help satisfactorily. At best, the probation service can ameliorate the difficulties of those who attract problems like light attracts moths; at worst it serves as a rather authoritarian, patronising and sermonising outfit which seeks to normalise those capitalist normality can do without.
Infuriating though it has been. Queens': a Cambridge College (Wednesdays. 8.20pm. BBC2) provides a glimpse into an institution where students are taught that they are part of an intellectual élite. The evidence of the cameras (which could be discriminate) is that an awful lot of Cambridge geniuses are bores, morons or both. In the first programme in the series we were shown a public school twit in an interview, attempting to gain a place to "read" history. He is asked why he wants to read history and answers that it is because looking at the past will help us to understand the present Fair enough. Then he is asked to give an example of this. He mumbles vaguely that if you look at the origins of the Middle East you will understand the Arab-Israeli war. He lists as his hobby "fantasy war games" highly appropriate for a Cambridge history scholar. Asked why he wants to "come up" to Cambridge he answers that he wants to be trained for leadership. He gets in. As does the Sloane Ranger who is applying for medicine, whose parents live in the Sudan, has enjoyed "surfing on the Nile", working on a leper colony (which was absolutely amazing") and wants to work "with Third World people in North London".
In the second programme we see a crowd of these "intellectuals" joining the Christian Society and one of them (a science student) recounting how Christ appeared to him one night in his study after he had screwed up his packet of cigarettes. Nobody asked him what he had in them. In the third programme we were irritated by an offensive law student with pretensions to being an orator. He addressed the Cambridge Union (membership. £18 a year) on why public schools must exist. Apparently they produce academic excellence. Odd that: he came from one and seemed exceptionally unoriginal in his thinking.
After The War Is Over (Fridays. 9.25pm. BBC2) showed very clearly that after the suffering of the Second World War workers had big expectations. Returning from the war, the wage slaves came to something other than a land fit for heroes. The series has been very successful in showing both the utter impotence of the reformism of the patronising post-war Labour government and the shoddiness to which workers had access in those days of never having it so good. The Ministry of Information propaganda films are particularly striking in their transparent aim of bluffing the workers into continuing the war effort after the war had supposedly been won.
All three series helped to show workers more about what has been and is going on in society. They were not exercises in deception, but full-scale. uncensored pictures of capitalist reality. Proof that television can be used in the battle for working-class knowledge.
Charles and Di
Your reviewer did not watch the interview of the happy Royals on ITV (Sunday. 20 October), but is expecting at any time now a letter from the Palace calling on him to meet with Charlie for a serious discussion about how to abolish poverty and other related matters which our heir contemplates in his spare time. Let it be noted here that whatever passes between us will be in confidence. Suffice to say that I can offer him some definite advice about how to avoid becoming the ruler of a divided nation — and it doesn't involve doing yoga and keeping off red meat.
Steve Coleman
