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.

RAOUL MOAT'S JERUSALEM

I'm struck by some of the similarities between Jez Butterworth's play "Jerusalem", whose "edge of town" character is played by Mark Rylance, and "the legend of Raoul Moat" as played out in the national media recently.

Admittedly, Moat's character - as played by himself - is rather more morally culpable than the hero of Jerusalem. Yet the central ambiguity remains. For Moat, although murderer, woman and child beater, and increasing threat to police and public, is also regarded as good neighbour, much loved family member, brotherly comrade and cult hero.

What is most striking about the story of Raoul Moat, however, is the manner in which the national media - usually so reluctant to move beyond London and the Home Counties - headed North in their droves.

Recent memories of homicidal Cumbrian taxi driver Derek Bird no doubt contributed to the media exodus from its home turf, but the hunting of Raoul Moat to the Nortumbrian town of Rothbury created its own unique social and police drama.

My feeling is that Moat is another character to whose story Rylance's acting skills could ultimately bring justice, as he did to the very different tragedy of David Kelly, who, nevertheless, was also hounded by the media to his own death.

As to the real lessons to be learnt from this extraordinary episode, many may feel that the socio-economic millieu of modern Britain's Jerusalem has increasingly excluded post-industrial man to "The Edge of Town". Against this background, Moat does not deserve to be simply pathologised.

Ultimately, however, "the legend of Raoul Moat" is testimony to the powerful dramatic adage that "character is fate".

ARRIVAL OF THE RED BOOK !

After 3 months of waiting my Inter-Library Loan copy of The Red Book finally arrived at the end of January. I was not disappointed ! No wonder this tome is in demand.

The illustrations - Jung's visual account of his "soul journey" - are fabulous.

Given current controversy about climate change, it is also very interesting that "Liber Novus" opens with Jung's own visions of catastrophe, in which Europe is riven by flood and ice.

However, these presaged World War 1 rather than natural disasters.

On a more positive note, some years later Jung has his important "Liverpool Dream", which acts as sort of salvation and enables him to move forward with his life and work.

Must pay a visit to "The City of Culture" myself !

Radovan Karadzic and Dragan Dabic

I wonder what Dr Jung would have made of Radavan Karadzic and Dragan Dabic ?

Karadzic is the former Bosnian-Serb leader - also psychiatrist and poet - who is currently on trial in the Hague for war crimes committed in his own country during the 1990s, notably the massacre of 8 000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys outside Srebrenica.

Dragan Dabic was Karadzic's alter ego : an apparent mystic and practitioner of alternative medicine who lived - as a neighbour of international security personnel - in Belgrade until he was recognised and captured whilst travelling on a bus.

Publication Success of Carl Jung's Red Book

News that the Red Book has become an Amazon best-seller is testimony to the enduring power of Carl Jung's thought and writing. Edited by Sonu Shamdasani, who is the Philemon Professor of Jung History at University College London, the Red Book is an account of Carl Jung's midlife crisis or soul journey which provided much of the material for both re-appraisal and future work. Incidentally, Philemon was, for much of the time, Jung's imaginary or spiritual companion (depending on one's interpretation) in this journey.

A TRUTH NOT UNIVERSALLY ACKNOWLEDGED

Hollywood writer Seth Grahame-Smith has recently created a spoof zombie novel from Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice", which is to be turned in to a film.

It is with this cultural development in mind, that I now want to reflect on the current wrangle between Government ministers and the Conservative Party on the subject of homophobia, and, on the day of London's "Gay Pride", who is the least prejudiced.

However, it is not on gay issues that I want to focus here, but on political and wider societal prejudice towards single people (of whom novelist Ms Austen remained one) and the fact that not everyone is in want of either wife/husband or civil partner, for that matter.

The fact is that New Labour, being a deeply socially conservative party - and possibly more so than "David Cameron's Conservatives" - is deeply intolerant of single people (whether straight, gay, bisexual or undecided) - and this has set the tone for wider society.

Thus a few years ago, I was set upon by a married suburban couple who had "singled" me out as someone weaker than their combined might. Unfortunately for them, I'd spent most of my adult life in a tough inner urban neighbourhood and soon put pate to the pair.

Prior to this, the man had called me a "Lesbian" in a homophobic manner, although I could have assured him that I found his wife equally unattractive. Had I actually been gay, this attack might well have been deemed a criminal offense.

What I want, however, is a society in which the "pride and prejudice" of a couple of zombies like this - many of whom, albeit in more refined guise, occupy positions of power and authority - is made ridiculous, just like the gnashings of their B-Movie kin.

NOT A VERY BRITISH COUP* !

Chavez** Jails Top Generals

It's a tough job being a high-ranking military official in Venezuela -- one minute you're running the show, the next minute you're being dragged into a prison cell with a gun to your temple. That was the case for Raul Isaias Baduel, the former army chief of the country who was ordered detained by President Hugo Chavez last month. Baduel is only the latest officer to be arrested on suspicion of planning a coup as the increasingly paranoid Chavez has thrown admirals and generals into prison as well. For Baduel, the move was a major reversal of fortune. In 2002, he led a paratrooper operation that successfully repelled a coup attempt against Chavez. But after retiring, Baduel became a critic of the Venezuelan president in 2007, taking Chavez to task over his efforts to expand his power and authority of the state. "Chavez does not have the support he thinks he has in the armed forces," Baduel, 53, told The New York Times.

Source The Daily Beast/New York Times

* A very good Brit drama of the later 1980s which, in looking forward to a radical Labour Government also looked back to the 1970s

** A politician of whom former London Mayor Ken "Trotsky" Livingstone is something of admirer. Perhaps Mr Livingstone needs a more domestic focus again.

NEVER HAD IT SO BAD OR GOOD

The death of Sid Vicious in early February 1979 was remembered in both The Observer and on Radio 4 this week. In the newspaper's "Music Monthly", the Sex Pistol member is described by John Savage as "punk's ultimate nihilistic icon", and by a friend from contemporary girl band, called "The Slits", as someone who wet the bed at night with almost "pure Newcastle Brown" urine. Before his own untimely death from a heroine overdose, Sid Vicious (real name John Beverley) had accidentally stabbed and killed his girl friend, Nancy Spungeon.

In a previous edition of The Observer (Main Section), the columnist Peter Oborne described the second half of the 1970s as an "interregnum" between a 30 year period of post-war consensus politics from 1945 to the mid-1970s, and the arrival of Thatcherism and then New Labour. This "interregnum" was, I recall, an extremely difficult time for many people whose economic situation and prospects were at best uncertain, and, at worst, in terminal decline. The rise of Punk Rock co-incided with this period, and struck a cord with many young people, including me.

I was largely rescued from a bad bout of depression and an equally strong sense of personal fatality, by a better than expected set of "O Levels" (the exams which preceded GCSEs) in 1978. Thus my own "Winter of Discontent" had become something of a glorious Autumn by 1979 when I "won" a place to read English Language and Literature at Oxford. Nevertheless, it took me some time - perhaps another generation even - to overcome the sense of guilt which came with this achievement.

Yet the personal legacy of Punk Rock and my Oxford eduction has been, in reality, closely allied. I remain to this day skeptical of both the "power structures" that operate withing society and the intellectual constructs which go with these. Thus I have never been able to buy into the New Labour Project, for instance, as something itself born of a too comfortable alliance between "Children of the 6os" like Tony Blair, 1980s student politics and the dreaded brood of Think Tanks to which these have given rise. Roll on the next Interregnum.

Zimbardo & Why Good People Do Evil

I chanced upon a copy of "The Lucifer Effect - Understanding How Good People Turn Evil" (Random House 2007) by Professor Zimbardo the other day. This followed another chance encounter with the Professor on a BBC Radio 4 programme hosted by Celia Hammond last week.

Substantially based on his Stanford (University) Prison Experiment in the 1970s, but extensively "contextualised", "The Lucifer Effect" explores how bad/evil situations give rise to bad/evil human behaviour. Having just skimmed the book, I can't say more than that, but its contents and the radio interview have set me thinking on this subject.

My own intepretation of "Evil" and, for that matter, "Good", is threefold :

1. There are some people who are inherently bad/good almost to the exclusion of the other quality, and the rest of us exist on a spectrum between the 2 qualities.
2. Situations give rise to bad/evil and good behaviour : this seems to be the main theme of Professor Zimbardo's work.
3. There is also archetypal or metaphysical evil/good which can be "released" by both people and situations.

The overall message of Professor Zimbardo's work is that we must all seek to avoid the creation of bad/evil situations, wherever and when possible, not least because these, in my view, provide channels for the levels 1 and 3 kind of evil.

Georgia and Solzhenitsyn on My Mind

This blog began with a reflection on Alexandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago". With Solzhenitsyn's death last week, it is again time to remember his legacy.

In his latter years, Solzhenitsyn was felt by some to have become a pawn of the Putin regime. He returned to his Russian "homeland" in the 1990s, having been, by all accounts deeply uncomfortable with Western "materialism" and "moral ambivalence", albeit that Solzhenitsyn's exile to the United States had been brought about by his far deeper antipathy for totalitarian communism. Although it had not started out this way, Alexandr Isaevich had been a supporter of the Revolution, and it was only after World War II that he fell out with the Soviet State, as his understanding of its powerful means of oppression - in Solzhenitsyn's case, The Gulag and internal exile - deepened like an infernal chasm.

It was also last week, that conflict broke out between the former Soviet State of Georgia and the Russian Federation. This is primarily a dispute about territory and "homeland", although the discordant political personalities, and aspirations, of the Russian and Georgian Governments are important. Western material interests too come into play, as Europe is deeply dependent on Russian reserves of oil and gas, and there is some moral ambivalence about the conflict as a consequence. Although some optimism should be attached to the intervention of the European Union, of which, along with NATO, Georgia's present government would one day like it to be part, we should all be ever wary of the potential for Russian oppression.

Gordon : Get Rid of Those Two !

I'm referring to the Teflon-coated Balls-Cooper duo, the "Children's Secretary", Ed Balls, and his wife, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Yvette Cooper. It's high time both of them spent more time with their family. They've done enough damage to this country.

Am I the only woman who'd like to spank Ed Ball's no doubt well-fed buttocks ? Perhaps spin doctor turned psychotherapist Derek Draper, now returned to the Labour Party bosom, could counsel me, as an NHS referral, of course.

The Suicide Files@Dark Lyrics

I've discovered the following verses on the web under "The Suicide Files" and "Dark Lyrics". Not sure of their origin (directions welcome), but they they perhaps express sentiments meaningful to an increasing number of young people out there. Maybe some food for thought for politicians returning to earth following exclusion from high office....

The Edge Of Town
The Cul-de-sac jungle is a cruel place.
It's a living rotting failure from a different age.
And if you're looking for the place that dreams go to die,
it's not in the city it's around the outside.
You can mortgage your future for subleached purity
and accept the sterility in exchange for security,
but no matter how many times you run from your fears
the same problems always re-appear.
Day after day it's all just decay,
and the promised land just gets further away.
On these dead lawns lie your father's dreams.
White flight. White blight. White screams.
On these dead lawns lie your mother's dreams

Rum, Romanism and Tammany
Idealism is fucking dead.
Laughed off the stage at countless conventions.
Laissez faire is en vogue again.
It's silver tongue has been heaven sent.
One man, one vote, throw it away.
One land, one hope, throw it away.
When every candidate looks the same, born of noble blood.
So don't fucking talk to me about our tradition of democracy.
Who the fuck am I supposed to believe in?

On the Edge of Town

Leader Thursday April 22, 2004 The Guardian

Appropriately, this week's announcement of the UK's first research centre of suburban studies coincides with a new government report on creating more sustainable cities. The new centre is welcome, as is its director's robust rejection of the suggestion that his discipline risks being branded with the "education-lite" label applied to media studies. Residential districts that now accommodate over half the country's population are ripe for study by town planners, sociologists and architects - as they have long been in America. The Kingston centre's remit is wider still. It also intends to look at the suburb in film, fiction and history. The roots of British prejudice against suburbia - a love that dare not speak its name, says the centre - will repay exploration.

But as John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, declared in the report examining the success of eight core English cities, a quiet urban revolution has also been taking place. The drift away from cities has been reversed. Proportionately, the drift began in the 1930s, followed by an actual drop in numbers in the 1960s. But new populations are being attracted back. Old industrial urban economies have gone, but new ones have sprung up. In Mr Prescott's words: "Our cities are back and the reasons are simple. They remain the centres for wealth creation, trade and exchange." It is not quite that simple because as the Kingston centre will note, the suburbs are no longer just dormitories, but generators of jobs too.

The government is right to celebrate the revival of Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Liverpool. But big challenges remain, that ministers should not be allowed to duck. Beyond the big eight - the other four cities are Bristol, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield - there are a score of smaller industrial towns in the North where the prospects are far from bright. The government has still not got the north v south balance right, partly because it still does not have a coherent regional policy. The divide is getting wider. Then there is the growth of "doughnut cities" - flourishing city centres with a collar of decay them. Urban renaissance is far from won.

The "Original Planet of the Apes" & Police Treatment of Climate Change Protestors

The original film version of "Planet of the Apes" (not the prequels/sequels or re-makes !) had a profound impact on me as a child. In this film the hero, Charlton Heston, is one of a crew of astronauts who land on what we believe to be a far distant planet at some equally distant time in the future. Only the Heston character, Taylor, survives. At the end of the film we discover that the planet is, in fact, earth : an earth now run by ape men. I will call them "ape men" rather than "apes" because this is what they are. There are 3 species of "ape men", supposedly corresponding to chimpanzees (scientists), orang-utang (politicians) and gorillas (militia). The gorillas are frequently seen chasing humans (now a subordinate species) on horseback.

The image on the front page of the Financial Times today also had a profound impact on me, as a reminder not only of the original "Planet of the Apes", but of media images of the 1980s Miners Strike in Britain, when policemen on horseback pursued protestors. The FT image shows a mounted police officer in riot gear, followed by another, chasing, whilst shouting at, a climate change protestor who is running through the scrub land around Heathrow Airport. In short, this is an ugly scene, particularly so for someone who is an environmentalist, in fact a supporter of the climate change protestors, and a horsewoman. I seriously question whether mounted police should conduct themselves thus, or have we already fast-forwarded into the future ?