Culture Wars

by James Curran

  Political subversion

  This image of the GLC administration as marxist and undemocratic was reinforced by its depiction as being politically subversive. The Livingstone regime was repeatedly attacked in the tabloid press for undermining law and order, endorsing Irish terrorism and supporting Britain’s enemies abroad.

  The GLC’s stance on the police anticipated what was later to become part of a political consensus. The GLC argued that the Metropolitan Police should not answer only to the Home Office but, like other police forces in Britain, should be accountable to representatives of the local community. Since the government refused to relinquish sole control of the Metropolitan Police, the GLC-funded police monitoring groups represented the only available way of exerting community pressure. The GLC maintained that local accountability fostered communication and co-operation essential for effective policing and the fight against crime. The stock complaints of monitoring groups – that violent assaults on women and ethnic minorities were not being taken seriously enough – were, in the GLC’s view, legitimate concerns that the police should address. Indeed, a Conservative Home Secretary, Kenneth Clarke, argued subsequently that the Metropolitan Police should be made locally accountable. This paved the way for the Blair government’s introduction, in 2000, of a Metropolitan Police Authority, with elected representatives. By then, a ‘community policing’ approach, involving ethnic minorities, had become a new orthodoxy.

  However, what became mainstream politics in the 2000s was viewed by right-wing tabloids twenty years earlier as political extremism. The GLC was portrayed as wanting to ‘handcuff’ the police (Evening Standard, 20 July 1981) or, worse, ‘destroy’ the police (Sun, 31 March 1982). The tenor of this coverage (markedly different from that of the broadsheet press) is best conveyed by the way in which the Sun (15 July 1981) reported the GLC’s funding of a police monitoring unit in Tower Hamlets. The decision was announced under the emotive headline ‘Council Gives Cash to Fight Bobbies’. This was accompanied by a photograph of a policeman standing in front of a blazing building with the caption, ‘Burning Britain’. The short report was given over largely to an impassioned attack on the GLC by the Police Federation Chairman, Jim Jardine, who was quoted as saying: ‘I’m disgusted at public money going to fanatics who pursue allegations against the police. We are constantly bedevilled by political agitators fighting against us.’ There was no attempt to clarify the composition of the monitoring group beyond the description given by Jardine, nor to provide a balancing comment from another source. By contrast, the broadsheet Daily Telegraph’s report (14 July 1981), though critical in tone, explained that the monitoring group included representatives from the churches, the Commission for Racial Equality and trades councils, and quoted a spokesman defending the unit’s work.

  Portrayed by right-wing tabloids as an enemy of the police, the GLC was also cast as a friend of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The GLC administration argued that it was right to engage in talks with the IRA. Although the council condemned the IRA’s bombing campaign (which had recently come to London), it also claimed that dialogue represented the way forward because the conflict in Northern Ireland could only be solved through a political rather than military solution.

  This position seems less controversial now than it did then. We now know that the Thatcher government did in fact have secret, mediated talks with the IRA. A political, as distinct from a military, solution to the conflict in in Northern Ireland was what subsequently transpired. But in the early 1980s, the GLC’s position was widely viewed as irresponsible and subversive. The British government defined the conflict in Northern Ireland as a struggle between the forces of law and order and criminals. This reflected the all-party consensus in parliament, and was the dominant framework for reporting IRA terrorism in television news and current affairs programmes (though this interpretation was contested in some television dramas).14 The IRA bombing outside Chelsea barracks in October 1981 had also raised the political temperature, prompting the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, to describe the IRA bombers as ‘sub-human’.15

  Livingstone and his colleagues were thus perceived to be stepping outside the framework of understanding – shared by government, the opposition leadership, and mainstream media – that the only way to respond to terrorists was to crush them with all means at the government’s disposal. Livingstone’s punishment was to be pilloried, and – whether wilfully or not – misrepresented in a way that made him look callous and foolish.

  Some tabloid newspapers refused to accept that speaking officially to the IRA could mean anything other than covert approval. To engage in dialogue meant, in their view, ‘backing’ terrorism. Thus, when Livingstone met at County Hall the children of a woman murdered by the IRA, the Daily Mail (22 August 1981) reported the encounter as ‘Victims Face IRA Backer’. Similarly, the GLC’s invitation to two Sinn Fein members of the Northern Ireland Assembly for talks to discuss the end of bombing in London was hailed as ‘Backing for Terror’ (Sun, 6 December 1982).

  The full ferocity of tabloid disapproval was unleashed in reports of a meeting of the Cambridge Tory Reform Club in October 1981, when Livingstone was asked a question about Northern Ireland. He replied that the IRA were no ordinary criminals but militant nationalists; and that the only way to deal with the crisis in Northern Ireland was to work towards a political settlement. It is not possible to determine for certain whether Livingstone’s spontaneous answer used the phrase ‘not just criminals’ or ‘not criminals’ in relation to the IRA. Livingstone said that he used the conditional ‘not just’;16 the Daily Mail reporter, Richard Holliday, who was present at the meeting, backed him up;17 but an anonymous agency reporter, relied upon by most newspapers (without attribution) took a different view. Whether or not Livingstone made a slip of tongue, it is clear from all reports of the meeting that he explicitly condemned IRA violence. He also rushed into television and radio studios the next day to ‘clarify’ what he had said: ‘I at no time said that people who set off a bomb aren’t criminals … Quite frankly, I wouldn’t agree with what I was quoted as “saying”’.18 He then repeated his usual line that there could only be a political rather than military solution to the Northern Ireland crisis.

  The right-wing popular press used Livingstone’s alleged gaffe at the Cambridge meeting to attempt to bury him as a politician. On its front page, the Sun (13 October 1981) began its report: ‘This morning the Sun presents the most odious man in Britain’. It concluded with a demand that Livingstone be sacked ‘right this minute’ (original emphasis). This theme was taken up by the Daily Express (13 October) which declared rhetorically ‘London has endured fire, plaque and the blitz. It should not have to endure Mr. Livingstone at the head of affairs for one more minute’. The strongest condemnation came, however, from the Daily Mail (13 October) which proclaimed that Livingstone was ‘a man who through Marxist dogma has become an alien in his own land’. It concluded by declaring that ‘he is certainly not fit to rule Britain’s capital city’. Furthermore, it was not only the right-wing press which set out to destroy Livingstone. The pro-Labour Sunday Mirror (18 October) also felt compelled to warn the public that ‘this man is dangerous’.

  The image of Livingstone as the ally of Fenian terror, apologist for black rioters and opponent of the police was rounded off by tabloid portrayals of him as unpatriotic or a Communist fellow traveller. His opposition to the dispatch of British troops to the Falklands was misrepresented as ‘Red Ken Backs Junta’ (Sun, 10 April 1982). The GLC’s refusal to implement the government’s civil defence plans as part of its anti-nuclear stance was interpreted by the Sun (9 September 1982) as revealing that Livingstone’s loyalties lay elsewhere. ‘Where will you be’, asked the paper, ‘should the Russian stormtroopers march through the streets of London … in the streets welcoming them with open arms?’ (original emphasis). The Daily Express (29 August 1983) suggested that Livingstone should emigrate to Communist Eastern Europe. The Sun (10 July 1985) extended the geo
graphical range of this familiar taunt by accusing Livingstone of wanting to turn Britain into a ‘Cuba of the North Sea’ with ‘the likes of the IRA and Vietcong’ as a volunteer army.

  Moral subversion

  In fact, the new urban left differed from a significant strand of the old left in being anti-Soviet. The identification of Ken Livingstone as a fellow-travelling Communist sympathiser merely revealed how little the right-wing press understood the phenomenon that it was reporting. However even when mechanically deploying Cold War rhetoric, some right-wing journalists sensed that the GLC represented something new, something that they did not quite understand.

  Their first inkling that the GLC leadership was different occurred when Ken Livingstone addressed a meeting of the Gay Unity Group in Harrow in August 1981. In his speech, Livingstone attacked the bigotry of all the political parties, and promised to oppose discrimination against sexual minorities. This fuelled speculation about Livingstone’s own sexual preferences. The Sun (19 August 1981) reported ‘Red Ken Speaks Up For The Gays – I’ll Get Them Jobs and Homes, He Says’, and published a photograph of the GLC leader with the nudge-nudge caption: ‘Red Ken … would not talk about his private life last night’. However, subsequent journalistic enquiries revealed that Livingstone was heterosexual.

  The popular press’s reaction was to attribute Livingstone’s support for gays and lesbians to his personal freakishness. Although initially viewed as a newt-loving eccentric, Livingstone came to be regarded as both morally and politically subversive. This view was summed up in the Sunday Express’s denunciation of him as an ‘IRA-loving, poof-loving Marxist’ (27 October 1981).

  However, it also dawned on journalists that it was not just Livingstone who was different: so were the people around him. Personal attacks on Livingstone broadened to a sustained assault on the GLC as a morally subversive institution. The GLC, declared the Daily Express (29 May 1984), is ‘the Boy George of Local Authorities’, a reference to the androgynous, lipstick-wearing pop star. According to the Daily Telegraph (23 January 1985), the GLC is ‘out to confuse the many by perverting all normal feelings and turning all accepted ideas upside down’. It is against the natural order of things, warned columnist Lynda Lee-Potter, even wanting to close down beauty salons and make ‘women strip down lorries instead’ (Daily Mail, 2 November 1985). The GLC’s championship of personal freedom was portrayed as a new form of oppression in which the young and vulnerable were being indoctrinated. ‘Children as young as five’, warned the Daily Mail (2 November 1984), ‘are being taught by lesbians and militant feminist teachers to question the traditional value of the sexes’.

  When the Inner London Education Authority (technically a branch of the GLC) endorsed the right of gay teachers to ‘come out’, its decision was angrily attacked on the grounds that it would corrupt and confuse the young, and weaken classroom control. ‘Standards of education may fall relentlessly’, warned the Daily Express (28 June 1983), to the point where ‘codes of discipline and decent behaviour may hardly exist’. Where the Express anathematised, the Sun (28 June 1983) chuckled with the headline, ‘Gay Sirs’ Charter To Cuddle In Schools’. But its editorial that day called for the GLC to be closed down.

  Patrons of deviance

  The theme of political subversion thus had as a counterpoint the theme of moral subversion. These two themes were brought together, and given a dramatic unity, through a tabloid focus on GLC grants to organisations that were deemed to be deviant.

  The GLC administration developed a policy of financially supporting community groups as a way of enhancing their activities and assisting their participation in public life. This was in line with the new urban left’s belief that local government should facilitate and enable, not just administer.

  However, this policy became the target of right-wing newspapers in a sustained campaign in which newspapers repeatedly drew attention to GLC grants awarded to ‘controversial’ organisations. Articles often referred also to allegedly contentious organisations that the GLC had previously funded in order to cue reader indignation. The same names featured in a regular roll call: the English Collective of Prostitutes (a pressure group), London Lesbian and Gay Centre, Babies Against the Bomb (a child-minding group in north London), the Marx Memorial Library, Spare Rib (a feminist magazine) and the Rastafarian Advisory Centre. These favourites fell into four categories of undeserving ‘other’: ethnic, feminist, homosexual and radical organisations. Hostility was also engendered through the use of emotive rather than neutral language: with words such as ‘handouts’ rather than ‘grants’: ‘snoopers’ rather than ‘monitoring group’; ‘queers’ lib’ rather than ‘gay rights’.19 The undeserving ‘others’ were also rolled into a generic category as in ‘loony lefties and fringe groups’ (Sun, 23 February 1984) or distilled in an ironic caricature, as in ‘black lesbians against the bomb’ (News of the World, 15 April 1984).

  Tabloid reporting exaggerated greatly the financial burden that GLC grants represented. In this way, two potential sources of resentment – towards outsider groups and towards paying rates – were brought together in a synergy designed to increase public anger. ‘Terroristic rates … have produced a rash of bankruptcies and a flight of firms and offices’, thundered the Daily Mail (19 May 1983) because ‘the militant lesbians, babies for peace, Irish and black extremists, prostitutes’ collectives, left-wing theatre groups and revolutionary ‘creators’ of all kinds have soaked up millions of ratepayers’ money’. This dual message – the ratepayer burdened by undeserving outsiders – was succinctly conveyed through the description of the GLC as ‘a hand-out machine for the feckless and freaky’ (Star, 27 July 1984). It was also imparted in numerous headlines designed to cue a critical response: ‘The Livingstone Follies’ (Daily Express, 23 February 1983), ‘The Crazy Things They Do With Your Rates’ (Daily Mail, 16 February 1983), ‘£220,000 Hand-out For Prostitutes, Gays and Daft Plays’ (Sun, 23 November 1982), ‘Red Ken Livingstone Hands Out Cash With Gay Abandon’ (News of the World, 21 February 1982). Angry reactions were solicited through the way in which news reports and features were written. ‘GLC leader Ken Livingstone was once again yesterday doing what he does best – giving London’s ratepayers’ money away to bizarre minority groups’ was a characteristic opening line of a Daily Mail feature article (16 February 1983).

  The popular press published news reports and specially commissioned articles that conveyed the impression that there was a gathering storm of anger directed at the GLC. The right and the sensible left, it was implied, were united in a shared sense of outrage. Thus, the Conservative Party Chairman, John Selwyn Gummer, complained bitterly in the Sunday Express (11 August 1985) about the way in which GLC ‘extremists have their hands in YOUR pockets’. His indignation was echoed by the retired, trade union leader, Frank Chapple, in the Daily Mail (27 March 1986). ‘The GLC’, he wrote, ‘has made London the laughing stock of local government by opening its doors to every no-hoper, Marxist trouble-maker, political scrounger, foreign terrorist and sexual pervert who wanted a public handout’.

  In fact, GLC grants accounted for only a small proportion of the council’s total budget. And the grants that gained tabloid attention accounted in turn for only a small proportion of GLC grants. The Conservative Home Office Minister, David Waddington, estimated in 1984 that only 1.8% of the GLC’s grants went to controversial organisations.20

  Crystallisation

  The right-wing popular press thus began by projecting a standard identikit of the left, derived from the Cold War, onto the GLC. It then superimposed a new layer of signification centred on the GLC’s alleged moral deviancy. This resulted in old and new structures of representation being merged together in an uncertain, fluctuating synthesis.21

  However, this blurred vision gradually gave way to a pathological explanation of a new, unhinged left that was different from the ‘traditional’ left. An early attempt to pathologise the new urban left appeared in the Daily Mail (20 August 1981). It commissio
ned a clinical assessment of Livingstone’s mental condition from ‘three leading psychologists’, who suggested that Livingstone was an emotionally damaged publicity-seeker. One unnamed ‘senior woman psychologist’ was quoted as saying that ‘it is most likely’ that his overworked parents were unable to give him enough attention. A named psychologist, Dr. Dougal MacKay, was also quoted as saying: ‘Probably the only way in which he could get it was to be a naughty boy – which he still acts like’. The doctor continued by saying that ‘the desperate need for attention is the hallmark of the hysteric. Mr. Livingstone is in the same category as a punk rocker who wears outlandish clothes’.

  Dr. Mackay protested subsequently that words had been put into his mouth. ‘When I was approached by the reporter concerned’, he claimed, ‘I made it clear that, although I was prepared to discuss a particular type of personality phenomenon with him, I was not willing to comment on any one individual’.22 According to Dr. Mackay, he spoke only in hypothetical terms. He did not even know who Ken Livingstone was until he read the article quoting his comments.

  However, mental instability was not at this early stage a central, organising theme in the depiction of Livingstone and the GLC. It was just one among a number of tabloid taunts, with echoes from the school playground. Thus, Livingstone was attacked as ‘the pipsqueak leader of the GLC’ (Sun, 23 July 1981), ‘little twit’ (Sun, 19 August 1981),‘this weird creature’ (Daily Mail, 20 August 1981), ‘a puffed-up crackpot’ (Sun, 27 July 1981), ‘this fathead’ (News of the World, 7 July 1983), ‘a doctrinaire clown’ (Daily Mail, 24 July 1983) and ‘the Mickey Mouse of British politics’ (Daily Mirror, 29 August 1983). The theme of mental instability was not in itself new. It had been used, as we have seen, in relation to other left-wing politicians in the past. It did not have traction in 1981, because the necessary foundation of identifying and characterising the new urban left had not yet been established.