Thatcher's children: Blair's children.

The stench of hypocrisy surrounding England's riots and rioters is becoming unbearable. Nearly 2000 rioters have now been arrested and the hunt goes on. Did you see Michael Gove on Newsnight, full of petulant rage and shock about the children who broke into shops and stole a bottle of wine? He trembled with the passion of a holy roller bringing the wrath of God down on the heads of the wrong do-ers. Yes. The same Michael Gove who, as Shadow education secretary, (£64k pa) claimed £21,634, £22,110, £23,083 from 2005-8 for furnishing his second home. In the words of the Tory Telegraph - a 'flipper.' Enough said.

More important is the debate that has opened about the differences between the riots in 1981 and 2011; between Thatcher's children and Blair's children.

Leave aside the deliberate tomfoolery (does anyone believe that classical scholar Boris Johnson thinks that there is nothing to understand about the rioting 'thieves and robbers' except their failure to see the difference between right and wrong?)

When youth rioted in Thatcher's Britain they were largely led, practically and ideologically, by young people of an African-Caribbean heritage. The 'enemy' were the police. Racism was was endemic and legitimate - in the media, politics and all of Britain's institutions. The riots produced extensive local looting and fire setting. (Brixton's Woolworth's went up in flames. Raoul's lost a shoe shop.) £ millions went up in smoke. The rioters were also denounced (including by the Sun) as scum, thieves, robbers and it was clear to many pundits of the day that some dark corners of society were 'sick' and had 'broken down.'

In 2011 the rioters were largely multi-ethnic. While there was clear anger in Tottenham about the actions of the police, in the days that followed the main aim of the rioters appeared to be to loot shops. There was an absence of any type of political focus. Instead an anger, a feeling of detachment from society, and an elemental alienation appeared to characterise responses that the youth gave to any 'vox pop' interviews. Again, opinion formers and leaders of the public panic, fear and scandal, denounced the rioters as scum, as morally vacant, as feral and joined each other in their calls for extreme penalties.

Despite any impressions to the contrary, in 1981 the layer of small business people in Britain was far smaller than today. In 2011, albeit existing in the margins of cities, off of the main thoroughfares, a huge layer of people have been expelled from the 'traditional' working class and forced to find their own, insecure routes to some sort of existence. Huge numbers of immigrants have had to adopt this particular 'way of life' - from self employed cleaners to family shops that open for 80 hours a week.

For this reason, as much as any other, in 2011 many small businesses became local targets. And behind the class outrage at the attacks on shops by rioters, the destruction of the fragile means of existence of people who endlessly toil, lurked the menace of ethnic fear and anger.

There is also a politics behind all this.

In 1981 the Labour Party was struggling over whether Benn should be its deputy leader. Great democratic strides, including black sections, were made against bureaucratic vested interests. By 1984 Labour produced what right-wingers called 'the longest suicide note in history' as its Manifesto for the General Election, which called for social democratic inroads into capital. The great strikes, including the Miner's strike, were building. Immediately the '81 riots took on a political face. They were obviously part of something - a struggle over what sort of society we might have. Thatcher's children could see a way in which their anger, their alienation, their hopelessness, might be assuaged, even reversed.

30 years later Blair's children are in a world shared with Blair's Labour Party. For decades this organisation had had nothing to do with any aspect of their lives or the lives of their families. It was not lazy when millions said in election after election over the last twenty years
'They are all the same.'
It was a profound truth.

So Blair's children burst into a deeply different political world than that of '81. Accordingly, the current Labour leaders state their offspring are not to be part of anything - except the prison system. They are to receive a 'message' about 'right and wrong' from the people who have fawned over the super rich and blessed the City of London for its bounty.

It's enough to make you weep.