Between the Lines: Some riots you see . . . (1985)

The Between the Lines column from the December 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

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

Brave New Towns (1980)

The Briefing Column from the October 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since the New Town Acts of 1946 over a score of such towns have been designated in Britain. Its object was "to relieve congestion in the big cities and to provide pleasant and healthy conditions for people who would not have to travel elsewhere to find work". According to the Official Handbook of the Information Office, these new towns "represent a notable achievement". The handbook remarks that it was hoped to get rid of the existing slums of the big towns, although it is admitted that the high proportion of unfit houses in Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow was so high that clearance would take "longer than usual".

Among the havens of hope were Harlow, Bracknell, Basildon, Crawley, Corby, East Kilbride and Cumbernauld. Nearly a million people have been moved to the new towns in the past 30 years. Are they all living in pleasant, healthy conditions away from the polluted air and poisonous canals of the old overcrowded cities? Do they find it easier to find employment without the need to travel elsewhere? Far from it; unemployment and developing slums reveal the poverty of the planners' ideas and the actual poverty of the people who put their trust in the planners. Many people are saying that they are worse off than before they moved. Those living in Basildon and Pitsea have heard their haven described as a "rural slum"; Crawley reports hundreds more unemployed; while in Corby, thousands in the British Steel Works have lost their jobs, and a great many houses are in urgent need of repair.

What about the much-lauded Milton Keynes? According to the Corporation there is prosperity in MK.

Twenty-six thousand jobs have been created since 1967. More than half of these can be described as genuine new jobs. Most of the jobs are from overseas companies and from expansion of companies already allocated. A pool of workers wooed to the area by cheap housing is now keeping pace with business expansion which is not happening in other parts of the country. Business men here are not moaning about high interest rates or traffic jams or having to lay off their workforce. They moan about shortage of hotel space to put up their numerous clients and about the delay in opening up the new helicopter service to Heathrow.

However, the new £8 million station opens soon. New firms include a domestic wireware business from London and engineers from East Grinstead, Sussex. The manager of the local job centre says that "the recession hitting other parts of the country has barely touched us. Over the next five years there will be another 5,000 jobs here".

But these startling claims leave many observers wondering. Andrew Blowers, a sociologist of the Open University, says that: "Workers here earn up to 15 per cent lower wages than in other parts of the South-East. Rents are higher than in London and quarterly central-heating bills of around £150 a year are common." He blames the Corporation for giving the new city a prestige image and attracting firms offering low wages. Most people could not afford to furnish their homes and were at the mercy of door-to-door salesmen with HP cons and inducements. While denying this poverty, the Corporation says "MK is no way isolated from normal economic and social national pressures".

That hundreds of new city children are living in poverty became clear from recent reports in the local press. "Many families were without gas or electricity. A lot of people are on the breadline." And on top of "normal" wages, high rents and the increasing dearth of jobs, they are faced with pollutants such as sulphur-dioxide and flouride emissions from the brickworks, the dangers of asbestos exposure in the Rail Works, housing cuts and large numbers of unemployed, especially among school-leavers.

Looking through the property columns, however, gives one a different picture. There's a 300-year-old cottage at Great Linford—offers in the range of £70,000. One among scores ranging from £52,000 in Hanslope to £82,000 in Towcester. Or if you are thinking of returning to London, there's a nice penthouse in Kensington at £115,000 (99-year lease) and one near Hampstead (freehold this one) at £245,000.

As the end of the 20 century approaches these glaring contradictions expose capitalism as criminally inefficient and anti-social, fit only for the end that has overtaken all previous class-divided societies.

Charles Kincaid