I think in starting this piece it’s pretty safe to say that everyone has received news of the riot clean-up with great warmth and pride. Call it Dunkirk spirit – a resilience and refusal to be cowed in the face of violence and destruction, a reassurance that there will always be an element of society good enough to counter any doubts we may feel about the capacity of human beings to be so vile towards each other. None of us can have failed to be shocked and saddened by the scenes we’ve witnessed in recent days: burning buildings, mobs running on the streets, the injured student, Ashraf Rosli, being mugged while dazed and bleeding, at his most vulnerable.
What interests me in all of this is the discussion surrounding the clean-up and, in particular, the people who have suggested that it is such a good idea that we should be doing it regularly. Here’s an example:
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if @riotcleanup evolved into a monthly London borough clean up to help schools, parks, youth centres… (@amanda)
I have a problem with this. While as a society we consider being community-minded to be a good thing, I believe it’s also important to set boundaries on what we view to be appropriate and acceptable responsibility for our surroundings, and what we do not.
There are wonderful examples all over the country of community spirit and what people are doing for their local areas. My own is one such example. At the moment there is an excellent project put together by volunteers to create community gardens: many of them are retirees who love gardening and are putting their passion to great use for others. The city’s parks department does a truly excellent job of making our public spaces look beautiful all year round, but this doesn’t extend to smaller urban areas. If people are getting out there and guerilla gardening for those who don’t have access to green space to enjoy, that is a fantastic idea and very much to be supported.
However, I am troubled by the suggestion that we should get out and clean up our streets as a matter of course, for several reasons. The first is that Britain is not an underdeveloped country. We have mandatory financial collection in place for our local areas to be looked after – council tax – and everyone pays a serious amount to ensure that this actually happens.
My argument is that it isn’t so much a question of ‘Why the hell should I clean up my neighbourhood when I pay for it?’ – but more the fact that because we have this arrangement, we have people who are employed to do that job, and to whom having that livelihood matters. We should not be considering a course of action which could deprive anyone of their livelihood, however well intentioned it may be.
The second is that being ‘community minded’ in this context – one of basic service provision – plays right into the hands of Cameron’s Big Society agenda, which bases its ideal on ‘goodwill’ in order to dismantle the public sector and abrogate responsibility for local government services. While proposers of community help may baulk at the idea that they might be aligned with this rhetoric, unfortunately it is the case because the Big Society places responsibility for services firmly in the hands of volunteers.
Where all these volunteers who Cameron believes can run libraries, social care, youth projects, clean streets and so forth come from, I have no idea. We are already working hard to survive, yet we are supposed to do more simply because a pampered multi-millionaire has got it into his head that the solution to the UK’s ills is to eliminate essential services and expect citizens to take up the slack?
I don’t know how you feel about that, but I for one think it’s pretty unpalatable. I find it hard to listen to Cameron calling our society ‘sick’ and ‘broken’ when the Big Society agenda is based on vandalising vital services and vilifying the poor and needy. And the idea that a political party could prey on the generosity of decent people already disposed to giving in order to pursue its own motives is deeply unacceptable.
There is a third issue which many appear to have overlooked. Cameron’s relentless attacks on local government, which he presents as inefficient, financially bloated and wasteful, belie a very simple fact:
The majority of councils in the UK are Conservative-controlled, and have been for some time.
If anyone needs to learn the values of community spirit, it is the Tory party, which is peopled by wealthy grandees for whom the concept of social responsibility means very little. If anything is ‘broken’, it is this government.
What is most important is that the kind, thoughtful people of Britain who have helped in the riot clean-up, who genuinely want to give something back to their communities, should not be inveigled into using that generosity to support the aims of politicians whose real motives run very much to the contrary.
My entirely-Labour council hasn’t put my council tax up for four years. And yet the bins are emptied weekly, the streets are swept every day, the parks are immaculate, the libraries are open, including at least one late night, some of them are also open on Sundays. I’m not seeing this inefficiency, bloating and waste that Cameron goes on about.
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve lived in both Labour and Lib Dem London boroughs and the services have been fine. It’s the Tory councils that cut services and expect everyone to pay for ‘extras’ such as green bins and so forth.