Happy Slapping Hoodies

London Fields # 26
First published Inpress, Melbourne on 17 May 2006
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here


Picture the scene: a quiet suburban street. Three ne’er-do-wells are up to something. Their backs are turned to you, but you know they have evil intents or will be planning acts of mischief. How? Why of course, they’re all wearing hoodies!

Another image – the same street. Don’t you feel better, now that there’s two police officers (and a Community Support Officer) walking towards you? Ridiculous? Yes, but it was with these two contrasting images that Labour campaigned in the elections the other week. It wasn’t the big election - that was held just under a year previously. This was the local elections for around half the councils in the UK.

But this was a disturbing trend. Up till now, you would have thought that the great threat in local politics was the growing prominence of the racist ‘little England’ views of the British National Party (BNP). I didn’t expect this kind of fearmongering being employed by the Labour Party, especially as it bordered on racism - this mode of dress is particularly favoured by black and Asian youth. I saw my local member leafleting the following day and called him to task on it. He said that he wasn’t pleased about it, but it was the decision of the London branch, and that he had no say in the matter. That filled me with confidence!

Two days later I went to see old lefty stalwart Billy Bragg play small homecoming gig in his old patch of Barking, Essex on the Hope Not Hate Tour. This was specifically designed to hit the areas where the BNP were gaining a following, and try to arrest their progress. It was a great show; Billy was in fine form. He was accompanied by Small Faces legend Ian McLagan on keyboards and they played for two hours. There were some old numbers, great stories (including his politicisation at the Anti Nazi League concert by The Clash), and of course a just a little bit of politics. Bragg felt that the swing towards the BNP was one of disillusionment. Even after nine years, this Labour government has failed to deliver what the people would expect from it, namely good health care, education, decent housing and fair pensions. The end of March saw the biggest strike in the UK since the General Strike of 1926 as 1.5 million council workers went on strike over proposed changes to their pension. Sadly the people of Barking and Dagenham (or at least the 38.3% who bothered to vote) voted 11 BNP candidates to that safe Labour seat. The good news is that they only won 27 seats all together across 176 councils, making 32 seats in all.

I suppose fear is a tool often used in electioneering, but I hadn’t realised that the fears of runaway youth ran so deep. Leaflets through my door promised that, if elected, ‘X’ would issue even more Anti-Social Behaviour Orders [ASBOs] locally. A year ago, the UK’s largest shopping centre Bluewater banned shoppers wearing the near ubiquitous hoodies, or baseball caps! Last month, 35 pubs in Warrington (near Manchester) banned the wearing of hoodies, baseball caps or tracksuits after 8pm on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. If you wear them, you won’t get in, let alone served. In Newport in Wales, ASBOs have been issued which prohibit two brothers from wearing hoodies at all! No wonder grime superstar Lady Sovereign released Save The Hoodie – it even got its own website.

Not to be outdone, John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, wore one to get down with the kids at Bradford Grammar School last week. It’s as much a part of modern culture as the Chav. In a recent episode of Doctor Who set in a contemporary school, the Doctor, acting as a substitute teacher, showed how ‘with it’ he was by ranting, “Happy slapping hoodies - with ASBOs”.

These are indeed worrying times. New-fangled Tory leader David Cameron has claimed that The Smiths' The Queen Is Dead is his favourite album. As Billy Bragg noted in Barking – this is such a contentious choice, it must be genuine. One wonders if he once danced round the bedroom singing “When will you die?” from the anti-Thatcher tirade Margaret On The Guillotine with his eye on her job? After all, that was their working title for that album. With all this, is it any surprise that comic creation Alan B’Stard is back? Sadly only on stage, but Rik Mayall’s satiric Tory is returning – only now he’s a new Labour man, as it fits his ideas nicely. Stranger than fiction is talk of introducing lessons in “core British values” in the light of the 7/7 bombings, to try drum a patriotic message home across cultures through the school syllabus.

Is there a greater discontent brewing? I was shocked to see an airport-style metal scanner set up at the local train station the other week. A new anti-terrorism campaign perhaps? Nope – it was an anti-knife initiative. I tell ya, it’s gonna get real ugly, real soon…


© James McGalliard 2007