Riots

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

a long view

[Lateralthinking1]

Ackroyd's books are excellent. However, what this article says to me is that he is choosing to sit firmly in the identity of "historian". As someone who did a joint degree in history and politics, I am certainly beginning to see the appeal of doing so. It is less pressurised for a start - at least emotionally. In short, there are individual choices here. You can either see history as ebb and flow with repetitive themes or as a timeline of change. We used to call it progress. Neither is wholly right or wrong.

I think though he is wrong about Starkey. I don't think Starkey was saying at all that the riots were caused by present day immigration. He appeared to accept that the vast majority of rioters were born here. I'm not sure that he really even blamed black more than white. Because he only got it "half right", that point was left hanging in the air or at least travelling to us all directly from American culture. As for immigration, I would like to hear a historian's learned judgement on periods in the past when levels of immigration were perceived by many to be economically unsustainable, quite irrespective of prejudice.

I may be able to find out more for him about Chaplin. My Nan knew him when they were children and told me a little. My Mum might know more. I know that they were so poor that she had to cut up her clothes and make them into boys' ones. For this, he was ridiculed by kids who were only one further notch up on the wealth scale. His mother, of course, had later been in the hospital I worked in, a mile from here, one summer. So had relatives of Michael Caine and David Bowie. Huge numbers eventually moved out from that area of London to what became this area of London. My family managed to do it while remaining classified as sane.

Blair is in the newspapers. Generally, I don't take any notice these days. However, when I do, it is with the decision to find out everything that can be dismissed as being relevant. I am open to all arguments except the ones that he puts forward.

[Serial_Apologist]

Ackroyd's books are excellent. However, what this article says to me is that he is choosing to sit firmly in the identity of "historian". As someone who did a joint degree in history and politics, I am certainly beginning to see the appeal of doing so.

It is less pressurised for a start - at least emotionally. In short, there are individual choices here. You can either see history as ebb and flow with repetitive themes or as a timeline of change. We used to call it progress. Neither is wholly right or wrong.

Would a better definition of "progress" be "life improving for the great majority", I wonder?

As for immigration, I would like to hear a historian's learned judgement on periods in the past when levels of immigration were perceived by many to be economically unsustainable, quite irrespective of prejudice.

I would have thought immigration was encouraged in periods when it was considered economically sustainable in respect of profitability (low wages ) regardless of social consequences, which can always be "controlled" by the usual means (propaganda, repression) of divide-and-rule.

Huge numbers eventually moved out from that area of London to what became this area of London. My family managed to do it while remaining classified as sane.

You mean: they became semi-detached?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i find Blair's argument persuasive, simply because it focuses on what might be attempted with some reasonable prospect of a desirable outcome .... larger wails tend to nowt or a knee jerk which has to be undone .... but then i do not share your view of him Lat ..... i think he did so well at the electoral challenge because Blair conveyed a prototypical sense of us .... and i suspect my hero Attlee would have taken a similarly pragmatic and focused view of the riots .... no matter what period of silence from Blair he might have found most welcome ....

it is deeply ironic that the proximal cause of the riots was the Met being sensitive in their handling of a protest

[Lateralthinking1]

s_a - Semi-detached yes Spot on.

I think you might be right about immigration. However, there is that peculiar way political arguments are used by people when they are more relevant historically than to the current day. "We need people to do the jobs those here won't do" is one that is still regularly trotted out. Didn't we have almost full employment in the early sixties? It belongs to that era.

There is also some sort of intellectual white British guilt thing today about decoupling the immigration and race arguments. Any comment on the former can get a knee jerk reaction about racism. This when even when the widest possible range of our citizens can be found saying that something should be done about it when occasionally permitted to be on the television.

And then the strange contradiction between issuing a formal apology for slavery and encouraging the Polish to work for five bob in a fruit field has never been addressed (oh, and sports shirts being sent to our high streets for £80 made by kids in sweat shops).

Progress being "life improving for the great majority"? Yes, probably, although improvements in health science and access got as near as anything at one point to being improvements for all in the UK. Housing sort of improved - the curve of upward movement circa 1960 was followed by another in the 1980s for better or worse. Now it is much bleaker as you might imply.

I think there are also crucial points in the area of "from the cradle to the grave" - the idea of huge numbers living for 30 years past 70 is all very well until you think that their lives could be abysmal financially. And the related point about "expectations" - do we jump too readily to conclusions about affordability in the long term? - but I have trodden this ground umpteen times before so won't bore people with it again!

calum - We share a hero in Attlee. Shame about his grandchildren. Part of me - an uncomfortable part - might wish to understand what you say about Blair. However, I feel that there are some crucial differences between A and B - common sense, a tendency to choose good friends, an absence of ego, a measured approach to novelty, and an aversion to unnecessary risk-taking. Shirley Williams seems nearer the mark.

[Anna]

This is maybe rather off-topic to current discussion so apologies.

Lord Byron in 1812 gave a speech to The House of Lords in support of The Luddites, ok, the background to the Luddite Riots is completely different but his speech rings very true, in particular the first para I quote about financial corruption in high places. And in the last para substitute any supermarket for 'fields' and 'care workers' for houses if you wish.

“Can you then wonder, that in times like these, when bankruptcy, convicted fraud, and imputed felony, are found in a station not far beneath that of your Lordships, the lowest, though once most useful portion of the people, should forget their duty in their distresses, and become only less guilty than one of their representatives ?

But even a mob may be better reduced to reason by a mixture of conciliation and firmness, than by additional irritation and redoubled penalties. Are we aware of our obligations to a mob ! It is the mob that labour in your fields, and serve in your houses …………..and can also defy you, when neglect and calamity have driven them to despair. You may call the people a mob, but do not forget that a mob too often speaks the sentiments of the people.”

[Lateralthinking1]

Anna - That is fantastic. Lord Byron was right! Just one thing. Can we remove "additional irritation" and replace it with "additional corruption"? Thanks. - Lat.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

yes well but large numbers of our mob do no labour at all ...

[Lateralthinking1]

Yes and Lord Liverpool was PM from 1812 to 1827. Fifteen years of Cameron........God forbid ......will the last one to leave the country hand over the last real lightbulb now!

[vinteuil]

“Can you then wonder, that in times like these, when bankruptcy, convicted fraud, and imputed felony, are found in a station not far beneath that of your Lordships, the lowest, though once most useful portion of the people, should forget their duty in their distresses, and become only less guilty than one of their representatives ?

But even a mob may be better reduced to reason by a mixture of conciliation and firmness, than by additional irritation and redoubled penalties. Are we aware of our obligations to a mob ! It is the mob that labour in your fields, and serve in your houses …………..and can also defy you, when neglect and calamity have driven them to despair. You may call the people a mob, but do not forget that a mob too often speaks the sentiments of the people.”

Anna - that is such a good quote! Thank you.

[mangerton]

Anna - that is such a good quote! Thank you.

I'm not a great "me too-er", but Anna - absolutely spot-on.

[Serial_Apologist]

People will not forget this amazing lady from the Hackney riot

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/871799-hackney-riots-local-womens-fearless-speech-to-looters-goes-viral

On tonight's London news on BBC1 she was introduced as a one-time blues singer, today in studio making a single about the troubles. Great powerful middle-range voice. I think we should look out for it.

S-A

[Lateralthinking1]

Yes, I like her. If she is also a songwriter, there's plenty of new subject matter unfortunately!

Maybe she could get a gig with DJ Bionic Rhona. It might have been Am who posted this originally. Not sure. Anyway, she's my favourite - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82vrdUWrvJA.

[Anna]

I've just seen on BBC news a link to Directgov where you can nominate what/where you want the offenders to carry out their community service

https://forms.direct.gov.uk/forms/form/266/en/nominate_a_community_payback_project

which seems a very good idea
(glad the Byron speech was appreciated, his speech on Catholic Emancipation is also well worth reading!)

[eighthobstruction]

I do not know if anyone wants to follow this Select Committee Ref the RIOTS

http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_commons/newsid_9581000/9581475.stm