Conservative New Essex Man Exposes Civil Society Breakdown

Sexter - New Essex Man Brooks Newmark

"Essex man" as a political figure is an example of a type of median voter and was used to help explain the electoral successes of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, according to Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_man

I wonder what Mr Thatcher would have made of Brooks Newmark, former Minister for Civil Society? My own view is that had the Iron Lady been the leader of the Conservative Party today - an unlikely prospect, I know - the married minister would not have been sexting pictures of his honorable member to lady friends, real and imagined.

Mr Newmark has pleaded psychological problems since he was revealed sexting his "Big Society" in a Sunday Mirror sting last month. A subsequent Sun article revealed a separate affair with a real woman but conducted in a similar manner. The full story is told in The Mail - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2790302/wife-moves-family-home-tory-mp-shamed-texting-explicit-pictures-vows-fight-demons-residential-psychiatric-facility.html

Perhaps not surprisingly the views of real "Essex Man" have been somewhat less than sympathetic, as reflected in the comments on this article in a local newspaper -  http://www.braintreeandwithamtimes.co.uk/news/north_essex_news/11530189.Brooks_Newmark_makes_frank_admission_to__battling_demons__as_a_result_of_stress_and_is_seeking_help/?ref=mc

One of the politer respondents suggests: "So how does he expect to represent his constituents to the best of his ability if he is having residential psychiatric care. Go now & let's have a by election."

This seems to me to be the more sensible solution for Mr Newmark and his family, together with his constituents. Alas, we do not live in an era of political common sense of the kind that Mrs Thatcher would have undoubtedly displayed faced with a disgraced minister, albeit likely to be of a rather different kind: but then the Iron Lady was not faced with UKIP.

Indeed, had Mrs Thatcher been in office now - and unlikely prospect I'll again acknowledge  -  it is almost certainly the case that UKIP would not exist at all or in a much diminished form.

I will also venture that if the country was in the grip of an Iron Lady, albeit one reconstructed for the present age, we would not be in the midst of a civil society breakdown which is all too apparent to ordinary people; even if posh ones living in the wealthier parts of London and their hinterlands (second homes in the country etc) are blissfully unaware of this, possibly because they are too busy taking pictures of their genitals for posterity.

MARGARET THATCHER, JEREMY KYLE AND AN UNCEREMONIAL FUNERAL

Whilst Baroness Thatcher's stately ceremonial funeral took centre stage in London, less dignified dramas were unfolding elsewhere. ITV's morning schedule was unmoved by greatness passing and the Jeremy Kyle show went ahead as usual; whilst in South Yorkshire a mock funeral for the folk villainess "Maggie Thatcher" provided the centrepiece of popular protest against the former prime minister (see above). Although some may feel that the spectacle in South Yorkshire lacked the standards of political correctness expected in this day and age, for others it may have been the simultaneous broadcast of the Jeremy Kyle show which was more disrespectful. In fact, the three events of last Wednesday shared some common threads which are worth considering.

Let us begin with the only regular feature of the three: Jeremy Kyle. As the son of a onetime private secretary to the Queen Mother, Kyle has some connection to Royal ceremonial himself, and as a social science graduate to some intellectual understanding of the forces at work in wider society. When prime minister, Mrs Thatcher famously declared that: "There is no such thing as society"; although there was some attempt at her funeral to re-interpret this earlier pronouncement. For her, it was the family which held the key to a fulfilling life, and other social relationships, including those of the workplace and politics, flowed from this. The idea of a more collective set of affiliations, indeed of the "Solidarity" which would help to liberate Eastern Europe from Communism around the same time, were paradoxically anathema to a prime minister who supported democratic freedom but mistrusted trade unionism above all else. One consequence of the erosion of social solidarity which arguably began during the Thatcher governments, has been the creation of what is now starting to be called the "Precariat", a growing group of people whose lives are punctuated by both precarious employment and domestic relationships. This group typically provides the narratives played out before Jeremy Kyle. Although it can also be argued that the dysfunctional social discourse to which he give voices  now extends far beyond the Precariat, and even manifests itself  amongst the Elite.

Within this modern socially dysfunctional context, it is therefore possible that the spirit of Baroness Thatcher might have been relieved to see - perhaps even rejoiced at -  the outbreak of more traditional social protest to coincide with her funeral. For the popular uprising which took place in the one-time mining community of Goldthorpe in the North of England seemed to summon up an earlier period and place - but somehow still more real than reality television - before communities needed a government department to carry their name and propagandise on their behalf. And so it was that on a day when state ceremony held sway in London, the frontier of the state was rolled back in South Yorkshire with an unceremonial funeral.

THE DARKER SIDE OF THE NORDIC PSYCHE

News that the perpetrator of yesterday's atrocities in Norway, Anders Behring Breivik, is a native Scandinavian unfortunately comes as no great surprise to anyone who has followed the career of the late Stieg Larsson, regarded as a world authority on far-right and neo-Nazi groups.

Breivik, who has identified himself as a "Christian fundamentalist" seems to have fascist sympathies, although it is unclear whether he acted alone or with the support of others. What is clear is Breivik's extreme hate of those in government and politics embodying the Norwegian centre-left, whom people outside this region of Northern Europe associate with Scandinavian progressive liberalism.

Here is yet another "clash of civilisations", but not this time between foreign religious fanaticism and western secularism. Sadly, political assassinations, of which yesterday's mass killing is an extreme example, have been a feature of recent Scandinavian history and reflect the darker side of the Nordic psyche.

However, this particular crime also undoubtedly has a Messianic dimension, Breivik has described himself as a Freemason as well Christian fundamentalist. His actions are those of the archetypal avenger, singling out a particular group for extermination in a manner which for many will recall the actions of Hitler's Nazi regime. Let's all hope that Anders Behring Breivik has no followers.

HORSES OF THE POST-APOCALYSE

The Apocalyptic symbolism of the Bible is closely allied to the arrival of four horsemen. It was therefore fascinating to learn on BBC Radio 4's "Saving Species" programme yesterday that Przewalski horses - brought back from the brink of extinction in the last century - have been introduced into the Chernobyl exclusion zone, a place resonant with apocalyptic symbolism, to graze areas that present fire threats.

On The Edge Of A Nuclear Catastrophe

Today's announcement that Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster is to be upgraded to category 7, the same as Chernobyl, comes almost exactly 25 years after the catastrophic explosion at the Ukrainian power station which led to abandonment of the nearby city of Pripyat (shown here).

This abandoned urban area has always reminded me of Andrei Tarkovsky's evocative film "Stalker", in which a journey in to "The Zone", a place cordoned off by the authorities which appears to have undergone some kind of industrial disaster, and more particularly of "The Room" that can grant the seeker's innermost wishes: perhaps a metaphor for the endless power promised by nuclear energy.

Guided tours of the zone around Chernobyl are, of course, now available, although I suspect that a visit to the room which housed its nuclear reactor remains off bounds to the twenty first century seeker after apocalyptic experience.

MORE SOUTH MIDLANDS NOIR

RURBAN* NOIR DOUBLE MURDER

Between December 2009 and February 2010, two similar murders took place within a couple of miles of each other in rural South Worcestershire. The second incident occurred at Besford Court** (shown here), a luxury housing estate near Pershore. Here, an older American businessman stabbed his much younger wife, who came from Wales. The couple had met via the Internet.

An update on the earlier crime, which started a court hearing last week, is provided in the following extract from the "Worcester News" of 20 August 2010:

CHEATING HUSBAND BEAT WIFE TO DEATH

A CHEATING husband bludgeoned his wife to death at their home near Pershore - then went Christmas shopping with his mistress, a jury was told.

Jonathan Palmer used a heavy object to cause multiple fractures of the victim's skull, it was alleged.

He staged a burglary to make police believe that 57-year-old Melinda Palmer was killed by an intruder, Worcester Crown Court heard.

Palmer then drove to his lover's home in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, where he went shopping with Jackie Marshall, a single mother....***

Later he drove back to Pershore and dialled 999 at 8.27pm, telling police he had found hi wife dead in the front hall.

Prosecutor Stephen Linehan QC said: " He was cheating on her, conducting an affair with another woman. He is a skilled, determined and prolific liar and he put those skills to work after the killing"....

The trial continues.

*Rurban: Rural-Urban

** Prior to re-development as a housing estate, Besford Court was a residential school, whose pupils included John Thomas Straffen, later a convicted serial killer, and, until his death in 2007, this country's longest serving prisoner.

*** Palmer had reportedly told Miss Marshall that he was a single man.

Resumption of Search for Suzy Lamplugh

The resumption last week of the search for missing estate agent Suzy Lamplugh, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances whilst working in London in 1986, is a reminder of another police case which has caught the national imagination. The continuing media attention owes much to the work of Lamplugh's parents and the creation of the Suzy Lamplugh Trust which campaigns on personal safety issues.

A suspect who apparently confessed to the murder claimed to have buried Suzy Lamplugh's body at the site of the former Norton Barracks, now a housing estate on the edge of Worcester, and this area was thoroughly searched some 10 years ago.

The latest search by the Metropolitan Police focussed on a field between Drakes Broughton and Pershore, several miles from Norton Barracks, as someone had re-called seeing a mound of earth there around the time of Lamplugh's disappearance.

Her suspected murderer seems to have connections with the construction industry and had suggested that a building site was the best place to bury a body. The choice of Worcester's environs would, therefore, seem to have been a logical one for there has indeed been much construction around these parts in the period since Suzy Lamplugh's disappearance, giving rise to that certain "edge of town" quality so often linked to the "noir" and the darker side of life.