Some decades are characterised by a name. The last of the nineteenth century was “the Naughty Nineties,” though by current standards I suspect they were very straight-laced. The second decade of the twentieth Century was the “roaring Twenties” when people enjoyed the relief of the end of the First World War. I suspect most of the “roaring” was done by the better better-off.
There followed the “Swinging Sixties.” I lived though these. There wasn’t much swinging in my life-style, but I do recollect a tremendous amount of optimism and hope. We really thought we could “Build the New Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land” as the then deputy leader of the Labour Party, Mr George Brown, put it at an election rally I attended in Cleckheaton.
If the present decade gets a name it will surely be the “Nasty Twenties.” Day after day the news is peppered with small-minded sniping, much of it directed at people of other cultures, particularly those coming across the Channel in boats (despite the fact that they represent only 7% of the total number of migrants, most of whom we desperately need.)
Tory Robert Jenrick complains that while filming in part of Birmingham he couldn’t see another white face. Another Tory, Katie Lam, suggests that | lot of migrants already here perfectly legally may have to be sent “home” in order to preserve a “mostly but not entirely culturally coherent group of people.” A Reform MP, Sarah Pochin, complains of being driven mad when she sees “adverts full of black people, full of Asian people.” Maybe this, at the very least “dog whistle,” racism, is legitimised by Sir Keir Starmer’s having expressed fears of our becoming an “island of strangers” (though he has retracted the statement.) Justice Minister David Lammy refers to a recent migrant accidentally released too early from prison as “Vile”. He’s certainly no gentleman, but . . . “Vile?”
It’s not just racism. After fourteen years of Conservative rule of which he was part and in which the justice system, along with the rest of the public realm was allowed to deteriorate, the above mentions Mr Jenrick has the audacity to blame Mr Lammy, barely two months in the job, for the “incompetence” (more probably over-stretched resources) which led to the prisoner’s release.
The right misses no opportunity to expose and exaggerate the tiniest slip that the government and its members make. The latest is a concerted attack, probably confected by ex-Prime Minister Johnson and his cronies, on the BBC for the improper conflation of Mr Trump’s speech to his followers as they marched towards Congress to try to prevent the declaration of the Election of Joe Biden as President in January 2021.
What Trump actually said early in the speech was. ““We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women”. The bit about “fighting like hell” came towards the end. None of this alters the fact that Trump played every trick in the book in his attempt to coerce judges and returning officers to declare results invalid, and is now dong his best to rig the coming mid-term elections.
In the UK the Right has the money to control most of the media and can make sure its prejudices are well aired. The BBC attempts a balance. Most of us on the “Left” believe it gives more exposure than is deserved to the Right (consider climate change, the excessive appearances of Farage ). So if both ends of the spectrum feel affronted , the BBC is probably getting it right
The BBC, the jewel among the world’s communicators, should not be cowed. I dearly hope Starmer and Co have the courage to defend it to the hilt. But I’m not optimistic.
Nic Aubury’s 4-line poem in this week’s “The New Word” sums up our decade:
Poppy Zealots
Ironically, they do appear
Quite broadly to support
The views against which those that we’re
Remembering once fought.
