Some Thoughts on the Riots (and other middle class bleeding heart liberal bollocks)

The riots were bad. We can all agree on that, can’t we?

None of us like the breakdown of law and order in certain areas, and I’m fairly certain none of us like seeing violence, destruction, assault, and in two cases murder. And while I am sceptical about the police, and the powers they have, I certainly have no desire to see them hurt or abused. They do an extremely difficult and necessary job. We should help them all we can. The people that committed these crimes should be firmly punished.

Now we’ve covered the bleeding obvious, how about some other thoughts

These weren’t directly political riots. They weren’t Brixton or Toxteth. But like all riots, like most criminal behaviour, they had political and social causes. Too many for a soundbite.

I don’t have any unity of response on this, no grand solution, just a set of themes and thoughts concerning me. I have undoubtedly left some out. Gangs for instance, and education too.

1)Family.

Mr Cameron and others have blamed families. A novelty to see that; usually they blame government. Families=good, Government=bad (of course, now they are the government). But they are obviously right to place some blame in that area. The family is the first, most formative environment of our lives, and most of us actually shift little from the values given there. But Cameron’s drive towards the Victorian family isn’t an answer of any kind. As Miliband put it, there a great single parents and awful traditional families. Keeping families together through tax breaks aint gonna help. We need a policy that deals with families in the real world not some nostalgic, slightly outdated ideal. The quality of parenting, and the support, is the thing. David Lammy talked about the lack of male role models, but he also talked about them being not just fathers, but brothers and uncles, friends of the family. Lammy said Labour needed to say more about families, and he’s right. But Labour needs to define the family in a modern way that covers what a family should give, not its particular structure. It’s about encouraging respect, values, and responsibility. It is the first community a person knows, and it forms how they respond to their roles in wider communities.

But families are alone are not the solution. I’d guess we all know someone who is perfectly nice, but whose kids go off the rails, or have one kid among a few who becomes a problem. Outside influences clearly play a role too, and it would be stupid to lay too much on parents.

2)Punishments.

The government, unsurprisingly, has responded with its usual rhetoric of “cracking down” on the rioters. I can’t say I disagree hugely as regards arsonists, muggers, people attacking police etc. And certainly not for murderers. But we’d do well to remember that only a few thousand people did this, and in specific areas. We really should beware of going into Littlejohn-style meltdown. Crime is actually the lowest for a long time. We also need to dispense a justice that is fair to people, and it is preferable to not nudge people into further criminality, or risk greater alienation (not just from them, but their families and communities too). So, no, I have little time for removing benefits or social housing from the families of those involved in the more minor offences. It starts a pretty unjust and dangerous precedent if we can seriously punish people for the actions of their kids. And it doesn’t help the other children potentially involved either. Will we be charging middle class parents for their kids’ crimes? Making people who themselves have done nothing wrong homeless is not civilised or just. And it will have knock on effects in other areas. I’m not surprised that so far only a Tory council has tried it; many of them were trying to disburse themselves of their requirements to house people as soon the cuts started. This is a mere excuse.

We also need to wary of silly sentences for people committing minor offences with no previous convictions: for instance the 23yr old who has got six months for stealing some bottled water. The respect of the justice system is reliant on its being just. This plainly wasn’t. The justice system needs not to lose its temper, and risk seeming like it is one rule for some and one rule for others. Added Value sentences, because we’re all so angry about the riots, are not a good idea. The sentence should be the sentence it would be otherwise, riot or no riot. We don’t want to push more people into serious criminality.

3) Responsibility

A term much used in the last week or so. We’ve seen a total lack of it, no doubt. But, as has been mentioned by many, it’s not a problem limited to the rioters. Bankers, Chief execs, politicians, companies, police, journalists, and benefit fraudsters (not as many of those as the Mail would have you believe though): all have shown a lack of responsibility to wider society in the last few years. We have a culture of self interest that robs the community and the country in every way, and permeates our culture. But that is the culture of free market capitalism: “The world runs on individuals pursuing their self interests”, as Friedman puts it. Combine that with: “There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families.” (Thatcher), and you have a recipe for non-responsibility, because there is no universal standard of ethics, no community or society. We saw a lot of individuals out there, pursuing their self-interest, and damn the wider consequences. These ideas come from the society we live in.

They felt no responsibility to anyone. This is inexcusable. But in the future we might want to ask if society is fulfilling its responsibilities to them (in terms of opportunities). Responsibility is a reciprocal thing, and as soon as we lose sight of that, the idea doesn’t hold. Can governments do better for those whole communities? I would certainly think so.

4)Equality

Behind the riots, the underlying culture of our society has become explicitly clear: the bailing out of reckless investment bankers (who are still paid the same), the MPs expenses scandal, the Press and Police corruption in the Newa of the World affair. Now these weren’t explicitly political riots, but they will have underlying political and social causes. An basic climate of unfairness rubs off on everyone’s attitudes. It becomes very hard to get people to take part in a system, if the system doesn’t seem fair to them.

If we want people to choose to be inside society and playing by its rules, we need to make sure the rules and the pitch aren’t skewed against them. We need governments that are prepared to help people to help themselves. Governments that make full employment the aim, and a decent standard of living available to all who work. Not just getting by and insecurity. This doesn’t just affect the rioting areas, it affects most areas. High rents, high utilities, high transport costs, and low wages equal not much of a life. It doesn’t seem much to expect that people who work should be able to avoid all that. And rents, utilities, and transport costs are well within government ability to influence if they ditch the dogma.

The fact is that those societies with greater equality have better social mobility, and lower crime rates (see most northern European states). This is made clear in numerous studies and books, using actual facts; the most recent being the Wilkinson and Pickett’s The Spirit Level. It is hardly surprising: if you can work hard and get decently rewarded, and it seems that others are being fairly rewarded too, then crime and disorder become distinctly less appealing. But again, this is only part of the solution.

5)Yanks and Supercops.

We should be very wary of the idea that America, specifically Bill Bratton, holds all the answers to this. Britain has this strange perception that America is more successful on crime when there is actually nothing to suggest that. The opposite in fact. America has a much higher number of murders per head of population, and generally higher crime per head of population. Britain has nowhere near as high a proportion of its citizens in jail. The idea that America’s strong deterrents work is negligible in statistical terms. Which isn’t to say we couldn’t learn from some of their technical expertise, merely that we should be sceptical about its uses. America isn’t here, and we have found our own ways that work arguably better. The idea that one man offers the solution is nonsense. We have our own excellent police. What seemed missing last week were both numbers and leadership. It is also slightly concerning that some police cannot tell when something is a violent disturbance, and when it is a peaceful protest.

6)An Inquiry

Ed Miliband is right to call for an inquiry. We need to get to the root of why these riots occurred. It needs to be wide-ranging, and it needs to be focussed on the communities involved. Many of those communities will know the rioters better than we do. They, for all their anger, will have a better perspective on the problems in their areas. We shouldn’t just assume this is some widespread moral breakdown. It happened in areas with particular problems. For instance, why were Wales, Scotland and the North East largely spared these riots? Why Bristol but not Southampton? Why Manchester, but Leeds hardly at all? There will be particular socio-geographic factors involved and we need to find out. And, of course, Why now? Why not last year or the year before? The government will be reluctant to address that last question but it’s undoubtedly important.

If we are to prevent this happening again, we need to understand why it happened at all. A crackdown, followed by a reassertion of family values, is not going to be enough.

Where to next?

Unsurprisingly, given the neither awful nor breathtakingly wonderful local election results, virtually everyone with any interest in the Labour Party is offering an opinion on where it, and more particularly, Ed Milliband need to go next. A few are happy enough to assume, or imply, that Ed Milliband is failing somehow, and should either go, or shift rightwards to gain those much sough after working-class and middle-class Tories that New Labour once appealed to.

Perhaps even more unsurprisingly, i have an opinion on this too. So here goes.

Firstly, let's deal with the English council results (Scotland is a different and, sorry, separatist kettle of fish), which were quite good and perhaps as to be expected (which is to say, i predicted the score). Comparisons to 1980/81 are not applicable. The party situation is different now to then: more parties getting votes, particularly the Lib Dems and the nationalists (Greens too; in many council seats the hundred to two hundred votes gained by Greens would be enough to hand Labour the seat in a three horse race). Labour have also been in power much longer, and are not embroiled in a battle with more leftwing factions within the party. The party is relatively unified. Perhaps more than the Tories, in truth. Labour in 2010 has not pissed off the centre, but had, in many ways, pissed off its natural voter base. Even I was slightly surprised at how, given everything, the Tory vote held up..... however, when I consider it more and more, I'm not surprised at all. In 1997, the Tories got 9.6 million votes, a 30.7% share; in 2005, the Howard-led Tories got 8.8 million, 32.4% share; in 2010, Cameron got 10.7 million, 36% of the vote.... The Tories gained 1 million voters from 1997 to 2010, a poor extra 5.4 % of the vote on a 6% lower turnout than 1997. If people expected the vote share to plummet, where exactly to?! Thatcher had 40-44% vote shares, and never went below 32% (1981) in local elections. and that was before the SDP alliance made inroads on Labour's voter base. It looks more sensible to suggest the Tory vote has bottomed out, and in fact may have topped out too, at between 30-36% of the vote. It is astonishing really: the Conservative Party, even with a unpopular prime minister and a party lacking in ideas after 13 years in office, couldn't get to 40%. They now have a hardcore who aren't going to really listen to Labour unless Labour stop being Labour entirely. And they aren't going to desert over these cuts really; they think the Tories are really right.. As has been pointed out by people on several occasions, Labour lost 5 million voters between 1997 and 2010, but hardly any of them went to the Tories. They went to the Lib Dems, the nationalists (who are social democrats, mainly), the Greens, or just lost interest and stopped voting. These are the people Ed Milliband and Labour need to win back (Milliband seemed to recognise this in the leadership campaign). So those on the Labour right, who wish to revert to New Labour style rightward shift, are ignoring that it was arguably this rightward shift that not only did the damage in terms of our core vote, but also resulted in policy errors such as the failure to regulate the banks, the mess of PFIs, the Iraq War, and ultimately meant Labour was blind to the downturn risk that the Tories now blame them for. It recovered, but too late. When you fell asleep with the cigarette, no-one is going to give credit for you putting the couch out. But the voters are there, waiting for an alternative to the cuts, just not the one these people suppose.

New Labour (that branding was a bad idea, it only gives the opposition a stick, Old Labour, with which to beat you) said that 'one more heave' wasn't enough, but New Labour ideas themselves have become the "one more heave" of the 2010s. New Labour failed because it became naive, complacent and deluded about the real implications of markets and the so-called "choice agenda", and their effects on the majority. The party now needs what has always driven it, but got lost: a sense of egalitarianism, democracy, progressive values, and a scepticism of the uses of the free market and the private sector. Playing to the Mail and the Murdoch press will not get those voters back, those voters who went Lib Dem or Plaid or SNP. It isn't to say a return to 'Old Labour' is necessary, but a modern rethinking of classic principles: core values but modern policies. And this will require a correcting of the right wing excesses of New Labour, which were ultimately where the last government failed (that 50p tax band is actually rather popular beyond the boardroom). The Labour Party should not be the kinder version of Tory party dogma.

Labour now needs to be strong on the environment, keen on finding non-market reforms of the public sector, finding strong but necessary intervention and regulation to build the fairer, more ethical economy we need. growth is important, but so is the distribution of it. And it needs new policies to bring this about. Some should be interventionist, some should be enabling, and some areas it should get out and leave people alone (tough on crime, but strong on civil liberties).

That i guess is the ideological thrust. And Ed Milliband seems to realise this, but until the policy review comes out with real policy ideas and plans, we really won't know. He is genuine, comes across as reasonable (the left always gets media-screwed when someone appears hectoring), and has a decent sense of where New Labour failed. The new Shadow Cabinet look promising, but need to be less by the book, and, frankly, dull; appearing like a competent management figure will not get voters on its own. Furthermore, we need to see real evidence of policy-making skills, and policy selling skills. One area Cameron may have it right is in his ditching of Blair/Brown style top down management. Labour needs serious policy thinkers, or a shadow cabinet who know the advisers to get in this situation. If they've any sense they'll be keeping their eyes on the centre-left thinktanks, the sympathetic economist etc, that can provide Labour with fresh ideas. Because, ultimately, Labour wins by moving the centre to them,like the Atlee government, like the Wilson government, not by moving towards some perceived centre based on newspaper scare stories. it remains to be seen if this will happen, but i am hopeful.

In the next post, i shall posit some areas and policies that may be a step in the right direction.

Race, Culture, and why the indigenous shouldn't confer value

A friend who has a habit of getting into debates with those of disagreeable viewpoints (bigots and idiots of various sorts), posted a link to blog earlier today. The person who wrote the blog, whilst being fairly normal and polite in many ways, described themselves as a nationalist, meaning a BNP supporter. To me, it's still racism.

the peculiarity, a common one in recent nationalist debates, is their ability to use the terminology of liberal/left rhetoric to their own use. So, the person proclaimed the value of defending 'indigenous' cultures from oppression, repression, suppression or dilution.

A funny turn of affairs, but perhaps not surprising. The nationalist movement is always looking for ways to become more palatable to the majority. And after all, if you feel "swamped" by alien cultures and people, then it would be easy to dwell on those words of liberal discourse which suit your prejudice. And, to be fair, the left (myself included) loudly bemoan the imperialist subjugation of "indigenous peoples" and native cultures such as the Maori, Native Americans, Africans and Asians of various sorts. We are right to do so, but perhaps we shouldn't have been so keen to use those words "native" and "indigenous" as if value is somehow tied to place or race, even in an act of separation. The racist right can find a lot of use in them. After all, the phrases do seem to fetishize the native, the indigenous as of essential value in itself.

I think most people on the left are sensible enough to realise that 'indigenous' is an arbitrary, relative and valueless term in itself.

(We assume people have a right to their homeland; though even this is debatable. People have been migrating for millennia, there is no reason that one place should be theirs particularly. And the Jewish diaspora begs the question of where exactly is their place? originally it was Israel alone, but like most people they have migrated. Why should emigrant Jews feel Israel is theirs any more than the descendents of the Mayflower folk feel England their home. It is a long sidetrack i don't mean to go into too much, because of time)

However, the side effect of the over-stressing of the term 'indigenous' seems to be an implication that anyone who isn't should somehow not be in the country because of it (with often a secondary, understated implication that they are lesser). So, the BNP (or the EDL) claim immigrants are not indigenous, not somehow "of us" They are equal, but different and separate all the same. It is a clever bit of idiocy. The BNP conflate ethnicity, race, nationality with values, ideas, and culture.

There is however no connection between the two spheres. It is the usual essentialist fallacy of assuming a link between biological inheritance/qualities and cultural or moral values. It is the same fallacy that sexists fall prey to. biology equals destiny etc.Of course, it does not, and there is little serious scientific evidence to suggest so.

Anyway, if you ignore the flaws, and fetishize the indigenous into a value, then racism is no longer racist. Black Africans, Asians, the Sioux, whoever, are just essentially different. Like the old US segregation ruling, they are "separate but equal". It's neat really, it manages to encompass both rightwing racial separatism and liberal sensitivities about protecting minority racial cultures and rights.It says "We aren't racist, we are just protecting our way of life, our values. we respect your differing values, they are separate from ours." It attempts to turn racial separatism into a positive. The underlying emphasis is race or nationality, it is just construed in terms of cultural difference.

It is the sort of insidious idea that persuades a lot of people who are, shall we say, afraid and not quite thinking right.

Frankly the real scrutiny in our world should be on values. And values are not race or nationality exclusive. A Britain full of people from all over the world would be fine with me. A Britain with less white people wouldn't bother me, nor would it please me. What would please me is a Britain full of people with a shared language (communication makes society; but anyone can learn that), and shared values.

The BNP and other nationalist groups will give the example of other "positive" nationalist movements. But the latter shouldn't really be considered nationalist as such. They are emancipatory movements; it is about democracy and self-determination, not nationalism. South Africa was wrong to deny the political rights of the black majority because of democratic principle and equality, not nationalist ideas of it being their country. The white South African has a right to their role in that country too. The same with Englis- descended Protestants in Ireland. It is not their indigenousness (?) that counts, but their support for the basic values of the country. And that is why nearly all immigrants come here. Being a Muslim, Hindu, Catholic or any religion is no barrier to being British unless you fail to subscribe to the values of the country. Should Scotland gain independence, it should be because it wants self-determination at a level closer to home. Because, in effect, they no longer feel that the British government acts in accord with their core values.; it becomes a minority dictating against majority Scots opinion and beliefs.The same should apply to the people of Cornwall, Essex or Leamington Spa, should they wish it. Race or nationality has little to do with it, it is the subjection of people of any hue or origin that concerns us. They may have been oppressed because of race, but they do not gain rights (gain value) because of race; they gain rights because they are people. The tragedy of imperialism wasn't that it murdered, exploited and oppressed the indigenous people, but that it murdered, exploited, and oppressed people.Racial or ethnic separatism is no answer; States should be founded on values. If the BNP have issues with the culture an value of immigrants, they need to accept that these values have nothing to do race or ethnicity; the freeborn white Englishman can be as offensive and against our culture and values as anyone. I mean, one need only look at the BNP and the EDL to see this.

what do people want from bookshops? (clue, check their title)

hearing of the marvellous sales figures at our parent company, and its tumbling share price as a result, I've been considering something other than politics for a change.

It is fairly apparent to anyone who goes into our sister store (purveyors of Cd's, DVDs, games, and annoyingly these days, cheap books), that they are falling flailing on their arses. They keep hitting up related areas of product, sales gimmicks, etc, all to no avail. They tend rather to overlook the fact that what made you popular is what sells. Now, obviously it may be you are part of a dying retail area: The Internet is changing everything yadda yadda....

But if you are attempting to maintain yr niche, or adapt it, a company does well to remember what people will still need you for, and this is as true for my employer as her sister company:

1) no-one really shops for pleasure on the Internet. They would prefer to be in shop with items in hand, browsing, reading labels, comparing prices. As most of the silly market research i have to listen to points out: a CD/DVD/book in the hand is worth two on the Internet. the sense of possession when you leap onto something physically there, is much greater than browsing an image. so bearing this in mind

2) YOU SHOULD STOCK AS MUCH RANGE AS YOU CAN. yes, you can never compete with the Internet in terms of what you have in; but equally, the Internet is no more than a catalogue. it has no physical product to put in people's hands. people go back to record shops and book stores for new and different things. why would anyone go into a different branch on their holidays, for instance, if they didn't expect to see something different from home. Furthermore, the chance purchase is based on surprise, is based on people picking something up adjacent, seeing something on a shelf, and looking at it, turning it over. People want to peruse as much choice as they can reasonably find.

3) it is pointless to stock hundreds of copies of something huge, that will be cheaper on the Internet, and could be orderedquickly by your store if desperately needed. Those big items, the ones everyone knows about, by all means stock a good quantity, but remember they are the ones that will be sold largely online and in supermarkets. NEVER CHASE THE VERY CASUAL BUYER, THE MOST PRICE CONSCIOUS BUYER, AT THE EXPENSE OF CORE CUSTOMERS. Yes, you want them, but they are fickle and there is little point in overstocking discounted items for them when the regular users are so tired of you having nothing new that they give up on you entirely. So if you have space for 40 copies of the latest massive sellers, by all means get it, but not if it means pushing out half the subject range. Everyone knows where they can get The Girl With the Deathly Nigella Code or whatever, you'll never win their loyalty by having it in all the time.

4) Prices should be sensible. there is no point devaluing the product, even though you obviously have to compete. Rather than being extreme in your prices, hit a sensible medium. This is a bit problem with the sister company. a CD/DVD comes out at £9,goes on offer at £5 and then goes up to £14-£16. Shops underestimate, i think, how irritating price changes are; especially those that change every couple of weeks (as we did with some items over Xmas). put the CD out at £10, and mostly leave it there. perhaps include it in multi buys, but keep a steady price. People are conservative in shopping terms, and will buy at a reasonable price when the item is there to be taken. Adding an extra £6 onto its price once the item is older is likely to drive people elsewhere; Better to have it at £9 when new, and then maybe up the price by a pound or two after a couple of months. Better still, just price it in the middle and have done. Price reliability is greatly underestimated. And avoid doing what we have done this year and last, by keeping a book on offer even when it is getting close to Xmas. A bit of plain dealing instead of milking will almost certainly go down well. Customers that trust you, consider you fair minded regarding price, are much more likely to keep coming back.

On a more specific noet, our store has, i gather, been singled out for an experiment. Not a particularly clever one, by the sound of it. we are to reduce our non-children's books space to 50% of the store, and expand our Related Product. Given we are the only proper bookshop in the county, and highly dependent on a core of regulars, this will undoubtedly prove unwise. I got quite a few comments over Xmas about how ----- section was half what it used to be; any more shrinkage and many will probably give up entirely. I'm all for experimenting, provided its a clever experiment that takes consideration of the market. The increase in RP seems bizarre, its percentage margin per item may be good, but you'd still need to sell 10 cards for instance to make up the margin on a book. and the margin amount is more important than the percentage, i would've thought. Plus, Related Product is, as the term accurately puts it, "related", its an extra. To expand the range of RP at the expense of books is the equivalent of a restaurant adding lots more sides or starters to its menu and cutting the range of main meals. Few people go in for the sides or starters. After early movement in the right direction at the start of the year, it would seem we are looking into making the same mistakes Smith's made for so long. Jack of all trades, master of none. Smith's figures only improved once they shrank their core concerns; and even now they aren't doing so well to suggest there is a big market for competitors. Finally, Smith's are, item for item, cheaper and more downmarket than we are; it would be unwise to compete when our products are marginally more expensive, and to lower the prices would remove the margin to a financially pointless degree. If the company has any market to expand into, it may be better served by posters and prints, which are these days less available on the high street.

The future, you feel, still remains in rediscovering the core of what we do well, and doing to the highest standards with best staff at sensible consistent prices.