Journalists faced with fast-moving events (such as the riots in England this August) often take snap decisions which, they hope, will properly reflect the events as they unfold. In the case of the BBC, it was briefly criticised for at first describing the rampage in Tottenham as a ‘protest’, based on the fact that the riots stemmed from the death of a 29-year-old man killed by a police bullet.
To its credit, the ‘Beeb’ not only swapped ‘protests’ for ‘riots’, but made a determined decision to refer to them as happening ‘in London’ then, later ‘England’ or ‘English’ cities – for two reasons: 1) the riots were not happening in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, and 2) it was felt that constant references to ‘Britain’ or ‘British cities’ might – if only by implication – encourage copy-cat disturbances in those three countries.
On this basis, it seemed perfectly reasonable to assume that The Western Mail (as Wales’ national paper) would have approached the events in a similarily objective manner – as might be the case (for example) if riots had broken out just over the water in Northern France or Dublin. But unfortunately no, and largely thanks to an outburst by Professor Dave Adamson of the University of Glamorgan and chief executive of the Merthyr Tydfil-based Centre for Regeneration Excellence in Wales (Crew).
Writing on the Bevan Foundation website, he announced: “If Wales has escaped the scale of problems experienced in England it is only a temporary reprieve, deriving more from the dispersed nature of the Welsh urban population than by any immunity to these anti-social behaviours.”
Whereupon The Western Mail took up his case with gusto. In an editorial comment on August 17th headed: ‘Powder keg conditions exist on this side of the Severn crossing,’ the paper boldly assured its readers: “Prof Adamson is not a pundit in an ivory tower…. With the passion of a prophet he describes the wild differences in wealth in modern Britain as symptoms of a society which has lost its ’moral direction’”.
Moreover, the paper told its readers: “It is rare for professors to use exclamation marks …. But when examining whether Wales is blighted by the same challenges as England, he [Prof Adamson] states: ‘The clear answer is yes!’”
This is totally nonsensical: the rare use of an exclamation mark by an academic does not by any means make his views all the more profound – the more so in light of Prof Adamson’s declaration that the scale of the socio-economic challenge in Wales “matches that of the banking crisis” and could result in us seeing “Welsh streets burning”. I beg his pardon: the banking crisis did not lead to the deaths of individuals trying to protect their property, the wanton destruction of buildings and the wholesale looting of shops. The banking crisis did not place an enormous operational, financial and political burden on our police forces, lead to families being left homeless and our gaols overflowing.
But let’s not be too pernickety: Denied the chance to report on riots in Wales, it was thanks to Prof Adamson that The Western Mail was at least able to jump on the riot bandwagon – to the extent of producing a lurid front page on August 17th featuring a white-clad black youth in a hoodie walking past a burning building, and complete with the strap line “Academic’s damning verdict on why Wales’ escape from the riots which swept across England is just a ‘temporary reprive’”.
But there is more to this. In watching the news unfold, the outbreaks of rioting as they occured in Birmingham and elsewhere appeared less random than was first apparent. After all, why not in Leicester, Luton, Bristol or Newcastle-upon-Tyne? In fact, people have already been jailed for inciting violence which never happened. This suggests to me, therefore, that some fairly strong, personal connections existed among those who used social networking media to promote their ‘’cause’ beyond London’s bounds: relationships forged via family, upbringing, business or (even) gangland connections, which effectively left those who failed tried and failed ‘out of the loop’.
So it was reassuring to read the comments of John Osmond, the director of the Institute of Welsh Affairs, who argued (on the Institute’s website) that: “Wales is altogether on a different scale to England. It is not just a question of population size but the urban experience as well. Cardiff has a population of just less than 350,000…… [and} although most Welsh people now live in an urban milieu, the background culture of Welsh society is more rural and close-knit village-style communities than the cityscapes that characterise the bulk of the English experience.
“And significantly, the wealth and income gap between the least and most well off is much smaller in Wales than most of England, and certainly that found in London and the south-east”.
But it is here that John Osmond gets to the nub of the matter: “Related to this background economic reality is what I would argue is the dominant ideological outlook that characterises Welsh politics and to a great extent shared across the parties – even these days some in the Welsh Conservatives – and that is social democracy.”
He then quoted the English historian Tony Judt, who argues that, like most liberals, social democrats favor progressive taxation in order to pay for public services and other social goods that individuals cannot provide for themselves; but whereas many liberals might see such taxation or public provision as a necessary evil, a social democratic vision of the good society entails from the outset a greater role for the state and the public sector.”
Osmond continued:: “In the Welsh political context this passes for mainstream thinking. Can the same be said for the English? It does not seem so. Thatcherism, followed by the years of Tony Blair, extolled different virtues, of competition and individual opportunity and took its eye off the importance of the public realm.”
To be fair, Osmond’s comments were published by The Western Mail – but with significantly less prominence than was acorded to Prof Adamson: yet Osmond provided us with an an insight into Wales’ socio-political personality which The Western Mail would be well advised to consider in some depth. The riots in England should not have been seen as an excuse to jump on a shock-horror bandwagon, but an opportunity to demonstrate that Wales does have its own very distinct set of cultural, social and – above all – political values which are are distinct from those pertaining in English cities. Thank you, the BBC, for recognising and respecting this.
gan Jeremy Fonge
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