Are there any sociologists among David Cameron’s advisers in 10 Downing Street? The answers appears to be No. Even a GSCE-level sociology student would have advised the prime minister against setting himself up as the man who will now go out and put Britain on the moral straight and narrow.
The concept of a moral collapse or moral panic has long been a staple of sociologists. Brunel University devoted a whole conference to the theme last December. Sessions were devoted to ‘Crime and Deviance; Immigration and Security; Economic Crisis and Political Scandal’ which seems to have covered pretty much the field of all the chatterboxes from Ken Livingstone to IDS plus every single commentator in the last fortnight.
Forty years ago, Stanley Cohen, one of the doyens of British sociology defined moral panic as what happens when a ‘condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests.’ Today it is those who participated in the three days when the state lost control of the streets as Britain’s leaders were off on holiday. It was race rioters in the 1950s, mods and rockers in the 1960s, muggers in the 1970s, miners in the 1980s, paedophiles in the 1990s, and extremist Islamists after 2001.
At each stage Conservatives have sought to raise fears about society. Sir Keith Joseph, the ideological patron saint of Thatcher’s children like David Cameron and his cabinet blamed the moral breakdown of the 1970s on the fact that too many youngster had been allowed to go to university. In 1974 he argued : ‘When young people are taken away from their home milieu, in late adolescence, crowded together in age groups, with diminished parental, and indeed, adult influence, and without the social disciplines which the need to earn a living impose, is it surprising that their late-adolescent rebelliousness should feed on itself, and seek ideological rationalisations? Leftwing ideology is so convenient for this purpose; it requires little knowledge and less analytical thought, just a compendium of all-purpose phraseology .’
So far, Cameron has not blamed the left for the riots though the Melanie Phillips school of columnists who control 80 per cent of available commentary space did. But Cameron will seek quietly, insidiously to blame the left and Labour – just wait for the Conservative party conference.
Poor Tony Blair who presided over the most authoritarian, crime-cutting, police number-increasing governments in recent British history is right to protest that part of the real problem is an irreducible core of poor, broken families. But as we can see in the court appearances, the bourgeoisie is well represented and the courts are beginning to find that the massive police round-ups may not have caught as many hard criminals as originally thought. Predictably the magistrates of Manchester, heirs to the men who ordered the Yeomanry into action at Peterloo in 1819 – another era of moral collapse in the eyes of the Conservative ministers so cruelly treated in Shelley’s ‘The Mask of Anarchy’ – felt they had to get tough. Wiser judges are deciding that rule of law and proportionality still exists.
As Angela McRobbie wrote nearly 20 years ago moral panic is about ‘instilling fear in people and, in so doing, encouraging them to turn away from complexity and the visible social problems of everyday life and either to retreat into a ‘fortress mentality’ – a feeling of helplessness, political powerlessness – or to adopt a gung-ho, ‘something must be done about it’ attitude.’
Cameron, who has little idea of how to lead the nation through an impossibly tricky era of Euro-Atlantic economic and political meltdown, has reached out for the language of moral collapse hoping it will given him a political boost. He does not need to be insincere because the whole structure of the democratic state depends on agreement not to go over given lines of behaviour. As he and the commentariat get out their high-pressure rhetorical hoses and blast bankers, politicians, the press, the police, coked-up footballers and popstars, (why not paedophile priests or the producers of Celebrity Big Brother? – the list can be as long as you like) they sound more and more shrill. There are probably similar statements from politicians about mods and rockers, or the Brixton and Toxteth riots, or, as Tony Blair rightly pointed out, the cruel murders of children or Dunblane-style shootings.
But is it the job of a political leader to try and remoralise the nation? And is Cameron the prime minister to do it? Alan Massie, a marvellous novelist, whose feline capture of history and its conversion into great novels, writes in the current Spectator that fascism starts with demands for troops to be out on the streets, condign punishments and outrageous statements by people. He cited some fatuous demands from a loudmouth Tory MEP for the army to open fire on kids nicking a Krispy Kreme from a brokenwindowed Tesco Express.
Massie adds that one of the pre-conditions for fascism is to spread the belief that the existing institutions – press, parliamentarians and other anchors of society like the police and financial institutions are corroded and corrupt beyond repair. Cameron and the unctuous Clegg seem to enjoy trashing elected politicians and, in the former’s case, make a virtue out of reducing elected democracy in Britain.
Massie knows his history and should be read carefully. As Cameron disappears on his fifth holiday so far this year he should read some of the history about politicians and moral crusades. It is language we should leave to bishops we admire and columnists whose judgement we trust. But then, they are in short supply, aren’t they?
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Denis MacShane is MP for Rotherham and was minister for Europe
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I’m afraid this is a very disappointing contribution from a politician whom I have mostly admired. It’s the kind of knockabout stuff that will go down well at a meeting of Labour Party faithful, but which is of no use at all in persuading ordinary voters that Labour cares about their concerns.
‘…the magistrates of Manchester, heirs to the men who ordered the Yeomanry into action at Peterloo in 1819..’ is cheap and unworthy. I suspect many Manchester magistrates are Labour Party members, and that all feel a genuine sense of responsibility to their communities.
‘…Tony Blair who presided over the most authoritarian, crime-cutting, police number-increasing governments…’ Sorry, lost me. I assume ‘authoritarian’ is intended as a boo word, while ‘crime-cutting’ is unquestionably a good thing. So is MacShane praising or condemning the Blair administration?
Like MacShane, I am sceptical about Cameron’s ‘broken Britain’ rhetoric. The way communities came together both during and after the riots to defend themselves and provide mutual help and support was an inspiration, and much more typical of the state of modern Britain. Tony Blair’s article on Sunday was a much more constructive contribution.
But I look to Progress for thoughtful arguments that go beyond policial knockabout and propose innovative and radical solutions that will also strike a chord with our target constituency. Sadly, this wasn’t one of them.
Denis,
Not sure the usage of generalist soiologists is of any use to anyone. It is in any case a seriously overly politicised area a bit like this article.
Of course Cameron is incorrec about a state of moral collapse, the vast majority of people are fine we have only in the last two years as a result of greater scrutiny and the economic banking farce discovered precisely where the moral decline has occured have we not Denis?
Where Tony Blair is lost is in identifying the core problem. Families are not born broken and dysfunctional families are not limited to any particular social group. Also h failed to aknowledge there will always be people of any social category that contains people of low ethical character, it is just that there are areas where such people congregate, whether its MPs or their staff stealing Government property (as reported by Keth Vaz), whether its the backward bullying of women in the finance sector by arrogant thugs, whether its corruption in sections of the police or military or Council Offices.
It is usually very unwise to go in at any extreme and Tony Blair failed utterly to address the issues regarding society and community and was very reckless on a number of occasions.
Politicians as leaders do not understand via the media how much affect they have, or at least some do when they are using it deliberatly and do not when it’s inconvenient.
Was it not Lord Reid continually reminding us live on TV about the threat of Iraq and terrorism whilst G4S Security cashed in and of which he is a Director. Actually indirectly profiting at expense to muslims across the UK and at expense of those people who become victims of radicals who feel victimised by such reckless behaviour and who are aware of the blatent corruption and fairly sick behaviour and motive.
It is not the job for politicians to “moralise” or “demoralise” anything. It is there job though to change the law and be advocates of existing laws. There is an element of trust and competance that the laws made will be in the best interests of the country and society as a whole. Its basic stuff Denis and I hope you are able to keep up.
In making Laws then a degree of conduct and morality is needed, transparency is neded to show the people that our elected reps are doing what they have ben telling us and not abusing their powers and behaving like those countris our country frequenntly lectures.
The rioting thugs were already at the brink, they had been there for years, they just needed the excuse and you all gave it to them, not as a rational argument or political point, but as a feeling ov “how it is” and “how things work in society”. What has been most amusing for me is the complete and utter lack of understanding of in-depth Fundamental Constitutional principles and the relationship between people and the Law.
Our society is not on the decline, our politics is though in a big way and fascism is going to capitialise. You see Denis the Tories do have to go around talking about corruption, the policy position of the major Parties and their attitude towards vulnerable groups and lack of social responsibility and toilet attitudes are already well known and taken for granted as the current norm.
This is merely the latest manifestation of the chaotic trouble resulting from the collapse in credibility you and your colleagues and those in the Law enforcement and judicial system who no longer enjoy the public trust.
However many people do not need the Law s they lead civilised lives anyway and would not be comfortable burning down their neighbours shop unless they were in genuinly desperate and dangerous times (which they are not). However those who are truly weak of character will seek this opportunity and take advantage of it, whether its a Corporate Leader, a banker, a Politician, a reporter or a dole scrounger, because they can. Because the Law no longer enjoys any potency or the public faith (moral legitimacy) and so is no longer to the same degree a et of rules that are in societies best interests, they are merely hypocritical boundaries created to ensure everyone stays where they are and the corrupt get richer.
Have you and your colleagues addressd the issue?
No.
Are you going to address it?
Very unlikely.
Do you actually give a damn in all honesty?
Judging by your article certanly not.
Where do we go from here?
Further decline as vested interests and raw undiluted and shameless greed rules your minds and your politics and to hell with the consequences. Something I have witnessed all to often already since being elected.
But you do not have to take my word for it, take a walk down any street of the Uk and sk people if they think MPs and the Law is on their side?
I think you all have a lot of work to do and a lot of soul searching because it was your colleagues who convinced the electorate to hang Parliament, who brought Nick Griffin to the EU Parliament along with all the other lovely things (not) that you have done to our democracy and laws.
Fascists need no help from Cameron, they get all the help they need in making our institutions fail from you all as a collective body whose agendas are blatently pathetic and small minded.
We do not want a moral crusade, we just want people who can do their jobs right and live to basic levels of decency as advocates of Law and Order and you need some morality for that or its open day to immoral behaviour.
Tebbitt blamed the loose morals, as he saw it, of the sixties for the perceived breakdown of society caused by his Thatcherite government as I remember(probably because he never got ‘it’ in that decade). Cameron insults and labels the majority of the 18 to 24 year olds who have no desire to steal undies from a trashed Tesco’s. As the Guardian demonstrated last week in its analysis of court appearances the majority come from wards with the highest deprivation factors. In London most were local to the areas they destroyed whereas, outside of the capital, they mainly came from the edges of the city centres. Another case of politicians raising their arms and waving their hands in the air before they fully understand anything. There is even talk about curfews.
I’d love a curfew here in Nottinghill,we have all these blasted (literally) hoorays ripping it up in late late night expensive supper (euphemism) clubs
vomiting,scoring,hooting,sex um, ing, through to 4am if they can get away with it.Often they think oh its a poor neighbourhood so what,we’re being all rock’n’roll. NO,YOU ARE NOT ,CLEAR OFF !! You see the poor kids don’t have bouncers with them so they don’t do it,yes they go on the rob or whatever its called ,plenty of rich pickings until the Tories clear the poorer residents out to the periphery of London if they can where yes next time they probably will call in the army,cos they’ll conveniently have the disaffected all in one place.
What Cameron calls “moral collapse” started when the ConDem Government was formed in May 2010