The Riots - Are We Missing Something?

It's hard to believe that a week ago today, we thought Britain was descending into anarchy. The Sun newspaper, last Tuesday, was actually entertaining the idea of using live rounds on rioters. Now, in the aftermath, our political leaders are at loggerheads about how to prevent it happening again. Everyone knows about this, but those who don't, can see the competing arguments of Cameron and Miliband HERE.
Actually, I think this discussion to be a worthwhile idea, and don't want to sound negative about it. From the far political Right to Left, a plethora of explanations and remedies are being explored and touted.
What concerns me is the fact that one very important aspect is being ignored or forgotten. The underlying economic situation, which "everyone knows about", is being left out of the equation. The inescapable truth is that there are simply not enough jobs for young people, and particularly the young people from whom the ranks of the rioters are drawn.
In sociological terms, most of the rioters (not all) come from what we used to call "the unskilled working class". That's when there was work for them, I mean. In 1966, 50% of the UK workforce worked in manufacturing industry; today, the percentage is only 14%. When Mrs Thatcher, with her monetarist fiscal "reforms", practically destroyed British industry in the 1980s, tens of thousands of people found themselves on the scrap heap in Mrs Thatcher's Brave New Britain. The unskilled sector, the people who had done the routine jobs in the factories, were particularly hard hit. Lacking the skills, education (and, let's face it,the will) to adapt to the new service economy, they, and the areas they lived in, stagnated. A new expression was coined - instead of the unskilled working class, the talk was of "the underclass" (an expression revived last week). Many of the youth of this class, as we know, drifted into gangs who blighted their local neighbourhoods in various ways.
I get the impression that our political leaders were happy to live with the problem - provided the gangs stayed out of sight on their "turfs". What no-one expected was for these gangs to bury their differences and go on the rampage, as they did last week. Suddenly - ooops! - we have a major problem to deal with.
The solutions being mooted at the moment, as far as I understand them, are of the "sticking-plaster" or punitive kind: parenting classes; sports training; citizenship education; ending benefit payments - even evictions.
The problem I have with these measures is that they simply will not work if these youths are not placed in well-paid, worthy jobs. What is the point of doing an 8 week course in citizenship (or anything else) if you just end up back on the dole? This idea was tried in the 80s (Who remembers YOPs?)It failed then, and will fail again. I wish I could say that I have the answer, but I haven't. The only idea that occurs to me is to increase the benefits payments to these youths massively - but that would be politically unacceptable.

The Riots - the Ulcer Bursts

SHOP FRONT, EALING BROADWAY. 9/8/11

I took this photo yesterday, while passing down Ealing Broadway. All the shops that I saw to have suffered damage were retailers of consumer "disposables" - like mobile phone stores, shoe shops or fashion retailers, like the one here.








The choice of premises attacked was interesting;_ they were all retailers of fashion accessories, such as mobile phones, trainers, or clothes, such as the store in the photo. All of which sets the present riots apart from those of previous years. Previous riots in Britain have been political in intent (Lewisham, 1977), or over a recognisable grievance (public sector cuts) or a combination of both (The Poll Tax Riots of the 90s).

These riots, I think, are exactly what so many commentators have said already: a massive outburst of criminal activity. I have no intention of reproducing what has been written already - there is an abundance of that, but I would like to express a personal view. My opinion is that these horrendous events are the bursting of an ulcer that has ben building up in our inner cities for some time. A number of national newspapers have been chronicling the rise of gang culture and general anti-social behaviour in Britain for years. The media has highlighted numerous "spasms" of that ulcer, such as senseless murders, violence, drug taking and binge drinking. There has been much condemnation of "Broken Britain" (David Cameron's phrase), but precious little serious analysis of the problem, still less a national strategy to deal with it. And no-one predicted what has happened - the fact that these gangs might resolve their "turf" differences and act together, with devastating consequences.

Already, the blame game has begun ("liberal society"), as well as sensationalist, simplistic (or should it be "simple-minded"?) solutions ("put them in the Army"), coming from the Right, in their posturing, unimaginative way.. The Left, in their posturing, unimaginative way, are starting to regard the riots as some kind of latter-day "Peasants' Revolt", and linking it to cuts in public spending. Both need to wake up to the fact that we now have a national emergency on our hands that needs immediate pragmatic attention.

Instead of employing carrots OR sticks to deal with the problem, I would advocate the use of BOTH. If, as so many right-wing thinkers say, these rioters are a bunch of twisted, psychotic criminals, then we need to find what has made them that way and - very important - how to cure this psychosis and prevent it spreading to younger, potential rioters. The Left needs to recognise that criminal behaviour is just that, and needs to dealt with severely. There is no political motive at work here. As noted, the looting has been of luxury consumables, not necessities. Ordinary people have been attacked, robbed and made homeless by these rioters - hardly an expression of class consciousness. Wherever these rioters have met determined opposition, such as that shown (I think magnificently) by the Turkish/Kurdish community in the East End of London, they have been dispersed and defeated. That wouldn't happen if the rioters were the vanguard of the revolution, as my friends, the Anarchists, seem to think.

In conclusion, I would say that if we think we are having problems now - wait until these rioters have their own children, and see what problems we have then.

The Three "Rs" and the Rising Stars of Education

As I have observed before, education in this country is a political football which politicians rediscover and set out to reform periodically, usually at strategic intervals (eg, when facing falling opinion polls), or to enhance their own reputations. Today, the BBC reported the pronouncements of the latest in a long line of such politicians:
"Schools Minister Nick Gibb welcomed the rise in results, especially in writing but he said a third of children were still struggling in the three Rs."
He said: "There has been a decline in the proportion of children - both boys and girls - who can read and write beyond the expected level. And the results of our weakest readers and writers also remain a real concern."
The "results" he is talking about are, of course, SATs results. These have been subject (no pun intended) to withering criticism for years by the leaders of the teacher unions and various educationalists. I totally endorse this view, having seen, at grass roots level, the effect that SATs pressure can have on some parents and children. I know that some 11 year olds are pressurised by ambitious parents into long hours of SATs revision - sometimes for periods of time that would do credit to undergraduates facing their Finals. I have seen young children in tears because they have not got the results they (and their parents) wanted. It has been known even for some children to be threatened with violence, should they not get high grades in their SATs. These tests, in a nutshell, should be abolished completely. They prove nothing of any value; they encourage "teaching to the test", not education; after SATS, year 6 children are as keen on coming to school as GCSE and "A" level students are after their exams (i.e. not at all) - except that the older pupils go on "study leave". Nor are SATs of much value to secondary schools, who implement their own ability tests in Year 7, making SATs results irrelevant.
Mr Gibb (or should it be "Glib"?) seizes upon the fact that many children cannot read and write as well as he would seem to expect. It may be true, but there is nothing new about this. If we look back to 1945 and beyond, we see that there has ALWAYS been a problem with general literacy, and Mr Glib deserves no credit for discovering something well known already. The real reason for this problem lies not in teaching methods, but in attitudes of wide sections of the population towards education - in particular, the hostile attitude of many in the white working class - the lowest attaining educational grouping. In my opinion, those negative attitudes need to be tackled root and branch, rather than making a few cosmetic changes in order to score political points over rival parties.