FORUM: Illtyd Harrington: ‘As I Please’

Published: 18 August, 2011
by ILLTYD HARRINGTON

A FEW days after the upheaval, or major public disorder, please yourself, I read and heard reaction.

In general it is safe to conclude what additional legal violence would be applauded.

That old rogue of a 97-year-old barber, who had been trashed, said they should be bayoneted, reminiscent of Corporal Jones.

A Tottenham Hotspur supporter, angry at the cancellation of the match on Saturday, simply said ‘shoot ‘em’. Many dead, would be his solution.

A bit extreme but not uncommon.

One suspects the Metropolitan Police is now a headless chicken.

It must be obvious that David Cameron is an indecisive and inconsistent man.

His path to glory has hit the buffers with a proposal for hiring either a Rambo or a Clint Eastwood.

Senior police in this country had predicted occurrences like this at the beginning of the year.

Boris Johnson wants to keep 16,000 policemen within the metropolis.

Alas the government are sticking to savage cuts in the Met.

Mass arrests followed by continuous magistrates’ hearings are not healthy.

Everyone charged is entitled to plead. Our system is based on assumption of innocence not guilt.

A courtroom is not a Pizza Express or a sausage factory.

All this, when Legal Aid was cut by £300million and staff at the crown courts are suffering cuts as well.

Anyway, put all the blame on indolent claimants and benevolent officers in the Department for Work and Pensions.

Even mature voices on the left refused to look beneath the surface.

An amazing demonstration of humanity and compassion – startlingly enough – came from four of the five families who had been bereaved.

In their grief they pleaded not for revenge but for tolerance and understanding.

Violent crime, be it arson, GBH, street robbery, or mindless vandalism, should be dealt with.

All the powers that deal with it are there.

I saw that 50 per cent of the 2,000 people arrested were under 18.

A frightening and authoritarian call took shape, based upon society using violence in return.

Wearily I passed by one armchair general talking of “the SAS in Libya” – another of Cameron’s foreign adventures which not even unctuous Vince Cable could explain away.

Watching Parliament reminded me of the unshakable unity of the graveyard.

All parcelled up.

There is a refusal to accept that large areas have families fighting to survive.

A part of Tottenham, I read, was known as “nowhere”. Few “intellectuals” have been to pound shops.

I watched 18 policemen break a door of a council flat down in Victoria.

They emerged with a sallow youth – the cameras had been invited.

What a contrast to that lady and her gentlemen colleagues from the News of the World.

It would not surprise me if Cameron asked Rupert Murdoch to head the Met Police.

He seems to have had more influence on the leadership of that organisation.

In my Old Labour days, I asked Arthur Mitchell, a leading dancer in a world renowned ballet company, to come to London.

He had been deeply affected by President John F Kennedy’s assassination and the explosive Harlem riots.

He had forfeited fame to build up the superb dance theatre of Harlem. The Greater London Council helped them to come to London.

As a practical gift, they held open rehearsals in the Coliseum.

They arrived in their hundreds.

Our political leaders are seized by pomposity and piety and ignorance of the lifestyle of so many young people.

I remember George Isaacs, a rough-spoken cockney in Clement Attlee’s govermnent, saying “… my university is Hoxton not Oxford”.

Even in this post-Thatcherite era, there’s a craving for a more equal society.

In this emotional turbulence I told an outraged group: “Bring back the penal code of the 19th century. The last children were hanged for theft in Bedford jail in the late 19th century”.

Some agreed.

Do we really need reminding of this in the 21st century, where all our deficiencies should be recognised.

Man lives in hope and dies not alone, but reluctantly, even perplexed.

But he is entitled to a ride in the first-class carriage.