The Obscurer

These are worrying times. Only the other day my son, barely 3 years old, told me he was going to carry a little plastic knife around with him when we went out in case he got into trouble with some bigger boys. I was truly shocked that things have come to this in 21st Century Britain. I mean, unless a giant plasticine man mugs him, that plastic thing is less than useless. So now I send him to nursery packing a good old-fashioned 5-inch flick knife. Just what are they teaching our kids these days? Plastic knife indeed!

But fear is much on people’s minds. Last week the news led on a couple of stories; our ever more dysfunctional teenagers, and the creep towards a surveillance state. ASBO’s are seen as a badge of honour, while CCTV cameras monitor our every move. Any more acronyms? Anyone? No? Just the two then.

Newsnight covered the story and treated us to a discussion featuring some experts on youth crime, and someone else called Nick Ferrari. Ferrari was described as a “broadcaster” so I have no idea what personal knowledge he brought to the party. Perhaps it is now the programme makers’ policy to invite random members of unrelated professions to debate in the interests of contrast; this weeks discussion of the US mid-terms will feature a French baker, while an article on climate change will canvas the learned opinions of an occupational therapist.

I’ve seen this Ferrari bloke before, and as ever he talked a right load of prancing pony (do you see what I did there?). It takes a real talent I feel to disengage your brain so fully and so keep a straight face while talking about “prisons being holiday camps with colour tvs” and police who will “jump on you in seconds if you eat a chocolate bar while driving” but will let the burglars be. Can someone tell me the point of Nick Ferrari? What is it for? Wikipedia inform me that he is a talk radio presenter in London, but I don’t see why that means he has to be foisted upon the majority of the population fortunate enough to lie outside the range of LBC’s transmitters.

Anyway, I digress. That Newsnight programme discussed the ever-faster descent of the nation’s youth into alcopop-fuelled, hoodie hell; and this grim opinion went unchallenged. Meanwhile the CCTV issue was raised, that we are being watched every second of our waking lives, with again no dissenting opinion on view. Needless to say we were once more shown that same CCTV footage of those same lads smashing the window of that van (as I posted on here; my Wife and I cheered when it inevitably appeared); they are the sort of ASBO flaunting youths who would no doubt be causing all our problems, were it not for the fact that the featured film is so old that both gents are currently on a SAGA mini-break. Much was made on Newsnight of the irony that that our lives are ever more monitored while our fear of crime is higher than ever.

But is it an irony, really, that problems with ASBO’s and CCTV cameras, apparently contradictory fears, are in the news at the same time? Are they not really just different examples of the same thing, of people’s irrational fears, lovingly stoked by the media and government for their own ends?

Perhaps there was a halcyon age when people left their doors unlocked and youths were little angels; that is when they weren’t scrumping (ie. stealing) apples. I don’t know. What I do reckon though is that the “yoofs” are largely no worse than in my day, which was a wee while ago. For as long as I can remember people have complained about the “youth of today”, with civilisation so far having failed to collapse as a result. Yes gangs of hooded youths on street corners can seem intimidating, but when I walk past them into the off-licence they tend to ignore me; and why shouldn’t they? I’m really not that interesting. Perhaps I would feel different if I lived in a different area, but as most of the loudest critics of today’s kids are classic middle Englanders, rather than people from “the projects”, I’m not sure how relevant that is to this discussion.

This fear of youths, of course, is one of the reasons, or excuses, for the build up of CCTV cameras, so to some extent the two issues are entwined. To return the favour, you would think that the fact that there are, apparently, hordes of youths causing mayhem every night in defiance of the surveillance society would point out that we are not yet in the age of Big Brother; but no. I think a genuine concern about creeping totalitarianism is certainly valid, but exaggerating it is just daft. It is true that technology enables databases all over the place containing all sorts of personal information about us; but I am more concerned that there could possibly be anyone out there so dull that they would actually want to pore over the details of how I have earned my Nectar points. Yes, unscrupulous people accessing your private details is a concern, but was ever thus; that problem is one of unscrupulous people. Of course there are CCTV cameras everywhere, but usually, whenever I am potentially being watched by CCTV operators I am also potentially being watched by loads of other people, be it shoppers on the High Street or curtain twitching neighbours. Again, I really don’t think I am so interesting for people to bother; my confidence is less about “having nothing to hide”, more that I can’t believe anyone can be arsed to monitor my activity that closely. I suppose it is possible in theory that all the disparate databases could be pulled together so that everything I do is being scrutinised by the state, but quite frankly that suggests a level of competency and resources that our security services haven’t shown to date.

But if it is the media and government that are stoking the fear, to some extent that is because they are feart themselves. Fear has got us here, because fear sells. The likes of the Mail and the Express are petrified of being outflanked by each other in lamenting the way Britain is going to the dogs, and so each runs more exaggerated and outlandish stories pointing out where they think it is all going wrong. And government, when not merely attacking civil liberties for their own sake, often responds out of fear of being seen to be doing nothing. Many will decry actions that smack of the intrusive state and breaches of confidentiality; but come the next rise in recorded street crime, or the next terrorist outrage, or the next tragic death of a child who has slipped through the social services net, how many of those same people will complain of the lack of legal sanctions, or the poor quality of the intelligence services, or how the various authorities haven’t adequately shared their masses of separate information?

Can I suggest we calm down a little and get things in perspective? Or am I being complacent and naïve? Probably I am. I may change my mind about the nation’s youth if in the next minute a brick smashes through the window and whistles past my ear. I know that some youths do cause serious problems for people and make their lives hell; but I also feel that much is exaggerated and that the fear of youths is far greater than the reality. With regards the surveillance state, I don’t think we should just trust government to get it right, I still oppose ID cards and I don’t think the police should be given carte blanche to flick through our medical records like they are a copy of Hello! magazine, we should demand safeguards that any information that is stored is only ever used for specific and justifiable reasons. We should concentrate on the real dangers, to prevent information itself being misused, not on hyperbolic nonsense about our lives being on hard drives and of cameras constantly tracking us.

So let’s not be too scared of those hooded youths outside Spar; they’re probably more interested in copping off than with mugging you. Who cares if you are on CCTV all the time? The chances are that no one’s bothering to watch.

Let’s all chill out a bit.

I think “light-blogging” is the appropriate phrase to describe the past month on this website, for all sorts of reasons, both obvious and less so; but I have been briefly spurred into action by listening to Melanie Phillips on Radio 4’s PM programme yesterday.

The reason for her appearance (yeah, like you didn’t know) was to weigh into the argument on Jack Straw’s behalf concerning his aversion to Muslim women wearing the veil, in particular when speaking at his constituency surgery. Our Mel was quite clear on the fact that while she respects peoples’ religious freedoms and the right to wear the appropriate garb, wearing the veil is quite different. What is especially different about wearing a veil as opposed to say a turban, or a yarmulke? Is it because it is a significant barrier to communication and a sign of separateness, or is it simply because it is a symbol of the Muslim faith?

Melanie claimed it was the former of course, but I have my doubts. To me, as I listened to her performance, she clearly and effectively communicated her Islamophobia; I could imagine her pinched, twisted, and contorted features as she was repeatedly forced to spit out the word “Muslim” during the interview, as if she had just taken salt and lemon and was about to down a tequila. Funnily enough, the fact that this all occurred on radio – where I couldn’t bear witness to Melanie’s actual facial expressions – didn’t hamper the blatant message she was transmitting to me; thus undermining the whole bogus basis of her argument.

God I’m getting sick of this. The other day it was PC Basha being relieved of his duties outside the Israeli embassy, and now it is this Jack Straw business. Remove the Islamic element from the stories and all you have on the one hand is that “a member of staff asks to be excused duty on compassionate grounds, and his line manager, while not being obliged to accede, kindly does”, and on the other “an MP states a silly but perfectly legitimate personal preference with regards speaking to his constituents”. Sadly though, for both these stories, the Islamic element is present, which allows stupid people on both sides to dive into the trenches and strafe no man’s land. Can we not just leave them to it?

So I’m escaping. Thanks to my parents we are off on holiday to Spain to get away from it all. Yes, a fortnight of no-British-news-please will do very nicely thank you very much. Do they have to put up with this crap down in Andalusia do you think? Or should that be Al-Andalus?

Oh, you just take your pick, according to your bigotry. I shall return in just two of your Earth “weeks”.

When I heard that Tony Blair had attacked the “justice gap”, I gave a foolish half cheer. I assumed he was attacking the phrase “justice gap”, a pointless PR mouthing that means precisely nothing, and so has inevitably been leapt upon by various institutions who proudly (and in all likelihood erroneously) boast that they are “narrowing the justice gap”. And it is always being narrowed, never cut (that is red tape) or reduced (you must be thinking of bureaucracy, or cholesterol). Just a feeling, but I bet the people who actually are helping to fight crime wouldn’t use a phrase like “justice gap” in a million years.

Of course I was wrong to get my hopes up. A phrase like “justice gap” is right up New Labour’s back alley; it was probably dreamt up by their head office and “cascaded” out to the various police force headquarters for them to use in their publicity campaigns and job adverts (but probably not used by the officer detaining a knife wielding offender on a Friday night). No, for Blair the phrase is something he truly believes in it, and my god will he use it! When he attacks the justice gap he attacks the perceived failure of the criminal justice system to match the tabloid rantings concerns of the “law abiding majority”; er, despite him having been in office for 9 years. Whether attacking the phrase or what he sees as the reality, Blair appears to be attacking himself.

But is there a justice gap anyway? We are continually told that crime levels are falling and have been for some time. Despite tabloid headlines screaming about soft judges there is some evidence that when told the full circumstances of a crime the general public would often be more lenient than many judges in fact are.

When discussing the justice gap let us consider yesterday’s BBC Ten O’clock News which covered the story. It has long been noticed that the producers of such programmes can’t just tell us the facts; when talking about crime they must show us some filmed footage of crime so the feeble minded among us know what they are talking about. So yes, we saw those library pictures, again, of those two young lads, again, smashing that window on that panel van and running off with that crate, again.

For me this is very encouraging. It must be 15 years ago when I first saw that same footage; the lads featured could even be grandparents by now. If the BBC has so little evidence of crime on film that they have to rely on a blurred and grainy image from yesteryear, then perhaps the justice gap isn’t as wide as some people fear.

While watching the news I also noticed this story concerning the foster couple who have been found guilty of sexual offences. The website has handled the story better, but the Ten O’clock News story and headline stressed that it was a gay foster couple who had been imprisoned. Now, looking through the story, I cannot see how the sexuality of the offenders is relevant, other than to perhaps confirm some people’s prejudices. Indeed the judge stressed that “this is not about homosexuality, it is about abuse of trust”, so what does the fact that the offenders are gay have to do with anything?

But I will be off now, as I am beginning to sound too much like Biased BBC (albeit Biased BBC tend not to bother about homophobic bias, too busy are they looking for a pro-Islamist or anti-Semitic slant to things; so perhaps I sound more like Biased BBC’s evil(?) twin).

Sod the budget; before Radio 4 began their coverage this afternoon they featured a short half-hour programme entitled The Secret Migration, about English people who have moved to Scotland, and I caught the tail end of it. It was quite interesting, as many of Radio 4’s idiosyncratic documentaries often are.

They interviewed Scots, about what they thought of the new arrivals, and the English, about how they had been received as immigrants and about their feelings towards their new homeland. The English people I heard were uniformly positive; the Scots sounded not so sure.

One Scot, though, (I could find out who he was if I “listened again”, but I’m not going to) said that the real test was who the newcomers supported when it came to sport. Sure, you could move to Scotland, fall in love with Scotland, fall in with all the local customs, but unless you supported Scotland against England in a football match then you weren’t welcome in Caledonia. I don’t think he was being entirely serious, but it’s an interesting point, one that recalls Norman Tebbit’s (in)famous “cricket test”.

If that argument is part of a well-oiled machine in some people’s minds then perhaps I can consider myself a spanner in the works; for where do I fit into this? It should be easy. I was born in England, I have lived all my life in England, I support England in football against any opposition, and I consider myself to be thoroughly English.

But my mother hails from Perthshire, I was delighted when Scotland beat England in the rugby the other day, and I feel attuned to and at times aggrieved by what I perceive as the pro-English bias in much of the media. I may support England in football, but the only national team’s football strip I’ve ever bought is Scotland’s (that gorgeous tartan one from a good few years back).

I think it comes down to this; my head insists I am English, but it hasn’t cleared it yet with my heart. So in football, a sport I follow week in week out, it is easy to support England because I think I know what I’m talking about and most of the Scotland team are alien to me. In rugby, however, a sport I happen upon each winter for the 6 Nations and every four years for the World Cup, and whose rules seem impenetrable and arcane, I come with no preconceptions, no knowledge, and I can’t help but feel my heart tug towards the boys in navy blue. The same happens in most other sports. Perhaps it is partly that gut feeling for the underdog, which Scotland often are, that sways my allegiance their way, and I was particularly anti-English in 1990 when their rugby team was captained by Will Carling, smugness personified. The Scottish grand slam in the 5 Nations that year was particularly sweet as it followed weeks of English propaganda about the “inevitable” clean sweep for Carling’s lads.

So where does that leaves me? I am English. Part of me must feel as if I’m Scottish, but I’m not. To all intents and purposes I’m English; yet what sort of Englishman will often cheer England’s defeats in sporting contests, and can be irritated when he sees what can too often seem to be an English trait of arrogance fused with an innate sense of superiority? But I’m not Scottish, and I certainly have no wish to be a plastic Jock; you won’t find me in McShea’s Scottish Bar, downing pints of heavy whilst donning a McEwan’s hat on St Andrews Day.

Thankfully, official forms make it quite clear what my nationality is. I hold a British passport, so that must mean that I am British, plain and simple. Sure, it’s a cop out, but that will do for me. And anyway, I’m not really bothered one way or the other; this is just yet another contrived excuse for a blog post.

PostScript: If Sam Allardyce becomes the next England “head coach”, don’t be surprised if I start supporting Scotland in football as well.