AND ANOTHER THING
Setting the hobbledehoys and urchins the worst possible example
PAUL JOHNSON
f Britain is becoming a violent and in many ways uncivilised country, who is to blame? Most of the actual violence comes from young people, and it goes without say- ing that youngsters who practise violence, especially against the old and vulnerable, should be severely dealt with. The primary responsibility rests with judges and magis- trates, who should not hesitate to hand out exemplary sentences. It is vital, for instance, that they should single out gangs of young women and teenage girls — the kind who terrified the actress Elizabeth Hurley last week — for condign punish- ment before this latest development of feminism becomes fashionable.
But it is unfair that young people them- selves should carry all the responsibility. What really shocks me, and what should arouse public indignation, is the systematic bad example they are set by those in posi- tions of responsibility. The two most potent influences on the young are television and sport, and in both violence is practised and even rewarded. It may be that referees, club managers and the FA authorities now take a harsher view of violent behaviour on the soccer pitch, but for a long time they permitted star players to get away with it. Even today the obvious solution, to ban violent players for Life, is evaded. The ten- nis regulators were still more craven in refusing to discipline gifted but unsports- manlike stars like John McEnroe, whose shouting, swearing and racket-throwing brought a new dimension of menacing behaviour into what had once been a game for ladies and gentlemen. Umpires who took a stern line were not backed up and, in some cases, were taken off top tennis judging. Rules against furious behaviour are still laxly enforced, as if the very fact that leading players make millions puts them above the law — a point which is cer- tainly not lost on the young.
In television all the much-publicised 'crack-downs' on violence have had no effect at all. Channel 4 and BBC2, which set the pace in British television, still min- gle sex and violence to keep up the ratings and, in the case of the ITV porn channel, the profits. Mary Whitehouse, who argued from the start of her campaign that televi- sion violence and pornography were direct- ly responsible for increases in such crimes as rape, has been wholly vindicated. But the television moguls still jeer at her and are allowed by the feeble regulatory authorities to set the worst possible example to chil- dren. I don't know who are more con- temptible, the slavering money-grubbers of ITV or the self-righteous Kultur-Tsars of the BBC. My own Enemy-of-Society award goes to the cigar-chomping Michael Grade, who not only dishes out the sex 'n' violence lavishly on his channel but also spits in the face of Mother Teresa, one of the few peo- ple alive who actually teaches the young the virtues of tenderness, pity and charity. I wonder which circle of the Inferno Dante would have reserved for this truly dreadful man of our times.
Violence springs naturally from social tolerance of general yobbish behaviour, and this too is encouraged by those in authority. I recently took part in a televi- sion show called , Don't Forget Your Soapbox, described as 'the closing pro- gramme in Look Who's Talking: Channel 4's season of programmes for and about Children and Young People'. The idea was that a mass of schoolchildren should argue with people like me — fair enough. But I was outraged when, during an interval in the recording, a Channel 4 cheerleader hectored the kids about their lack of rude- ness. I must say, I hadn't noticed it; they seemed to me some of the most unmanner- ly youngsters I had ever come across. But the cheerleader was not satisfied: 'You're being too polite,' he told them repeatedly. I protested vehemently about this as soon as the recording was resumed. Needless to say, my words were cut from the transmit- ted version.
No use the political classes censuring this encouragement of loutishness by the world of entertainment and sport — they are scarcely better themselves. The deputy chairman of the Tory party sends a memo to the Prime Minister suggesting he encourage some of the worst-behaved Con- servative backbenchers — he actually used the word 'yobs' — to gang up on Tony Blair, a politician notable for his courtesY. You might have thought John Major, who made a point of condemning yobbishness at the last party conference, would have sacked his subordinate on the spot. On the contrary: he seems to have liked the memo, and no criticism at all was expressed until It was leaked and published. The memo has done the Government a great deal of harni, but the man responsible for it remains in his job. Here again, the point is not lost on teenagers. The Left is just as bad — worse in some ways. Violence has always, appealed to left- wing intellectuals, who like to egg on the young to engage in punch-up politics. Though too squeamish, or cowardly, to par- ticipate themselves. There was a striking example last week in the Guardian (or the Forger, as I now call it), which published an article called 'The Hard Left'. The subtitle speaks for itself: 'White working-class foot- ball supporters have always been targeted by the racist right. But now an anti-fasms1 group is attracting support on the terraces — and it's ready to fight fire with fire. David Elmer meets the men and women prepared to put the boot in for the Left cause.'
Surely there must be people on the Fort er old enough to know that it was preciselY the willingness of the inter-war communists to engage in violence on the streets which helped Hitler and his thugs to power. There was nothing in Elmer's article which specifically endorsed such violence. But nothing which condemned it either. The impression it left on me — and presumablY on students who read it — was that vio- Ience, in 'the Left cause', was a legitimate form of political activity, as well as an excit- ing one. Three horrific photos were print' ed, taken from a video made by Anti-Fas-. cist Action, the organisation described 01 the article. The caption read: 'Street fight' ers attack a skinhead they identified as a British National Front boot boy in CarnabY Street.' The 'boot boy' appeared to be bleeding and unconscious on the paverne0t. What sort of a country are we living ulf when the old humanitarian newspaper 0, C.F. Scott gives a boost to this kind 01 savagery?
Previous page
