State Of The Nation

London Fields # 71
First published Inpress, Melbourne on 11 November 2009
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

Overhead there’s an explosion every few seconds as rockets and mortars light up the night skies. It feels like a siege is underway, and the view outside is reminiscent of the CNN footage at the beginning of the 1991 Gulf War. But the barrage is actually the height of the annual firework season; where every man sets something alight, and his every dog (or cat) hides behind the sofa. While Guy Fawkes Night can be seen as a celebration of over 400 years of religious persecution (certainly more traditional events, such as Lewes, centre on anti-Popery), for me it serves to illustrate an ongoing conflict between the forces of reform and reactionary change which lie at the heart of a conflicted nation.

Remembrance Sunday this year saw attention focused on current British military actions, particularly those in Afghanistan. As the death toll (in hostile actions there) passed 200, it came to light that Prime Minister Gordon Brown had misspelled the surname of one of the fallen in his handwritten condolence letter to the soldier’s mother. It could be argued that this was a failing of his support staff by not noticing that their partially sighted boss had confused ‘m’ and ‘n’, but instead the whole thing felt like a rejected script from satire The Thick Of It, and just seemed to reinforce the general lack of confidence his premiership inspires.

The pound is excessively weak, and Britain is about the only country in Europe that is yet to emerge from recession. Inflation may be low, but unemployment is steadily rising, and with banks collapsing, redundancies and last year’s real estate crash, folks fear for their futures. This has led to the rise of the staycation – a holiday in the only country where a £ is still worth a £. For tourists coming to Britain, the cheap pound is great news. But once they arrive, they may find things a little more difficult. Ongoing upgrading of technical systems on the London Underground is seeing widespread line closures, particularly at weekends, making the city damn hard to get around. Next year we are promised further closures and huge fare rises, as well as a general reduction in buses and late night tube services.

But what will the relatively low value of the currency mean to traditional Aussie backpackers? Why work in the UK for pounds when Euros are available to earn in Ireland and throughout Europe? The money they save here will no longer be that nest egg for when they return home, nor will it go far in those European escapes. Meanwhile you may find it tempting to internet shop while prices for Australian consumers are so comparatively low, but with the recent rolling strike action by Royal Mail employees, who knows when your purchases may arrive? I ask a local postie if he thinks the current strike action is just handing the government over to the Tories. As far as he’s concerned, that battle’s already lost, and the only hope of a continuing living wage for postal staff is industrial action now.

The parallels with the winter of discontent and the Britain Isn’t Working campaign which led to the election of Thatcher and all that followed are striking. The only thing missing is the power blackouts (which, we are told will come in the next few decades unless a lot more nuclear power plants are built). This climate of fear is leading to a rise in popularity of far right groups, perhaps most visibly by the British National Party (BNP), which was the centre of a recent furore when invited to appear on flagship current affairs show Question Time. Even those tabloids which make it their passing trade to engender distrust and fear, pilloried BNP leader Nick Griffin on their front pages, thus giving him the chance to claim bias and attempting a form of martyrdom. Yet selecting such a specific target misses a bigger picture – the empty promise of a return to a nostalgic world which never actually existed.

The daily news is filled with stories of random acts of senseless violence, and am saddened as I watch things slide. Meanwhile, out to the east, the building of the facilities for the 2012 London Olympics continues regardless.


© James McGalliard 2009