Playing with fire: Street politics

[CHIMO]

It is important neither to exaggerate the violence that occurred in central London on Thursday nor to trivialise it. Crowd violence is a relatively rare but nonetheless a recurrent aspect of British life. It should neither be foolishly romanticised nor overly demonised. Violence against people and property is wrong and against the law. Those who commit public violence must be answerable, just as those who commit private violence are. But that does not mean the street violence should be dismissed as merely wicked and denied any wider meaning or significance. There are lessons to be learned from the fighting and damage around parliament this week too — many of them immediate, others relevant to the coming years and some maybe applying over future decades. A sensible society needs to reflect on such events as well as condemning them.

The attack on Prince Charles's limousine has inevitably grabbed the headlines and drawn the greatest condemnation. The attack was the responsibility of those who mounted it. Fortunately no one was hurt. But it was clearly a mistake for the prince to be driven along the chosen route in such a grand vehicle at such a time. The prince was poorly advised, including by the police. Given that he is who he is, there is a clear public responsibility to protect him better. That does not mean he needs more armed guards. It simply means he needs security advisers who keep up with the news better than they did this week and who respond accordingly.

The most urgent thing is for parliament to consider the public order and policing lessons. All people, property and buildings must be protected. Parliament needs particular consideration because of its fundamental importance as the national arena of democracy and law. This is not just a matter for the police or London's mayor, or even the Home Office. Parliamentarians as a whole will next week debate legislation that will refine the sorts of demonstrations that are and are not to be allowed in the immediate vicinity of the House of Commons. MPs need to weigh the evidence from this week about police tactics as well as the tactics of demonstrators. The violence was principally caused by demonstrators. But the police have been accused of acting foolishly too, and of not being present in sufficient numbers. The Metropolitan Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson has not handled things well.

No one can seriously claim that modern Britain is a disorderly and dangerous country. By most yardsticks it is the reverse. Now that the Commons has voted to increase student costs, it is possible that the protests will subside. But public disorder may increase over the coming months too, partly because of distress and anger against the government's spending cuts and partly because these things sometimes develop a copycat quality. The Britain of the 2010s is not the Britain of the 1980s, the 1960s or the 1930s, of course. It is not inevitable that student protest will be matched by violence in industrial disputes, violence in political movements of right or left, or by violence in Northern Ireland. But these things cannot be ruled out either. A responsible government should not treat such disorder, if it occurs, as exclusively a policing problem. There have to be creative political responses too.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/11/student-protests-playing-with-fire

The government is playing. Creating a reason for the future. The others are reacting.
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