I was only acquainted with him fairly briefly during the period following the Deptford Fire when I participated in the police monitoring group he chaired. A big loss to the UK civil rights movement. A fine man.
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Sorry to hear this news. A likable enough man with considerable knowledge. He was also a good broadcaster although I feel he was given to over and under statement. Was Scarman's report into the Brixton riots "mere tinkering"? No. He was a liberal judge whose recommendations were fairly radical at the time. Not all of them were followed up in legislation by the Government but he himself subsequently accepted that he could have gone further. We were, of course, quite some way from any strong concept of "institutional racism". When Scarman died in 2004, Howe was quickly on the television to say that the position was now worse than in 1981 and had the Brixton riots been current there would be "tanks on the street". I doubt that was true although it was in line with his Black Panther beginnings. The ostensibly raceless riots in 2011 showed the more likely response from the powers-that-be. And in the period between those points, the alternative manifesto of Soul II Soul's Jazzie B - "a happy face, a thumpin' bass, for a lovin' race" - did wonders:
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(the only two records that have ever been played through the windows of every car in the Brixton sunshine)Last edited by Lat-Literal; 02-04-17, 19:54. -
By extraordinary coincidence I cycled past where he used to live in Railton Road, this very afternoon.Comment
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Did he move to the right in later life?Comment
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