“the landlord sells happiness.”

Don’t you mean the landlord sells the ability to forget sadness?

Either way, good read.

Yes, a good article. I wrote a short piece a few weeks ago about Nazi pubs (http://frankowenspaintbrush.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/nazi-pubs/). Maybe I will have to add this unsavoury establishment to the list?

Certainly a good read – liked it a lot.

But, there is always a but…I read your take on tradition and history, though a little different from mine. I was brought up in and around the area where the Luddite’s took to the road – and, mostly organised in the local pubs – under the protection of the jolly landlord.

So we have to look at the history and tradition in different ways, certainly look at the good but there is, from whichever perspective, bad as well. It is just now that we see violence up front and personal – I am sure our ancestors did, too. But as it fades into history will it be seen in the same way as it is today?

We can only wait and see for that one.

Will @3:

Oh, we’ve been involved in violence all through, as well. Taverners in the 1330s were instrumental agents for both the loyalist and rebellious factions in York and in Chester, and several risings in London have started at an inn. I’ve had to throw people out of pubs the hard way. But the point there is I was throwing them out to protect my customers. The publican who hosts a Chartists meeting has a distinct moral terrain advantage over the one who hosts the BNP, or known firms of football hooligans. As I have said before, there is a difference between politics and mayhem, though it may not always look like it. The group Racial Attack, who claim to be Millwall fans, started a major riot for no political purpose. They did it for fun.

Lovely article. There’s a book in this subject.

Excellent article. As a drinker – which does not mean ‘alcoholic’ or ‘thug’, despite what the government or media think – I can only applaud your application of ‘good old British common sense’.

I’m a regular pub goer, a visitor to local breweries and a member of CAMRA. I can’t speak for all others but I can see little here that I would expect any sensible person to disagree with.

Alix:

Thank you. I suspect there is, but I also suspect it would be Stonch who should write it, rather than me

Shatterface:

Thank you. I’m hoping in time to switch sides of the trade and get into brewing ales and meads; if I get the chance, I shall have to get you up to the brewery and see if I can organise a piss-up.

Your core point – landlords should not be allowed to turn their pubs into bases from which racist thugs start violence – at first glance doesn’t gain anything from the vague, sweeping allusion to “Britishness”.

Neutral language about rights and legal enforcement of the basic principles of social stability and cohesion do the job fine. Nothing is gained in strictly intellectual terms by making the appeal to British Pride.

But having said that, this sort of patriotism is probably very important in not letting the BNP monopolise the patriotic discourse/agenda.

So whilst your “Ain’t Blighty Great Guv’Nor!” approach is not my cup of tea, I’m more than happy for you to go that way – better you than Nick and his mates.

Paul;

I feel your categorisation of my argument goes a bit far, but that’s all right. I am a person who likes traditions when they make people act more, rather than less, honourably. Britain has a whole load of both; it’s only really in the last thirty years that the public discourse has been almost entirely about the latter rather than the former.

Neutral language about rights and legal enforcement of the basic principles of social stability and cohesion do the job fine. Nothing is gained in strictly intellectual terms by making the appeal to British Pride.

Neutral language arguments do the job of debating fine. Less good on persuading, unless the person in question is very highly educated. I believe in persuasion as well as education, and I’m writing for a non-partisan audience; I can’t rely on people I want to reach being middle-class, enlightened and liberal all at the same time. It’s too easy to poke progressives with the ‘you hate the past’ stick. In my case it isn’t true; my respect for, and wish to develop, British traditions is a major determinant of my political philosohpy. Since this is true, it should be reflected in my work, if only to make any biases I have clear to the audience so they can adjust for them. If, therefore, it should be in the piece I might as well use it for something.

I never used to be one for tradition – except where it involved partying or days off work – and I’ve only recently began to appreciate the basic liberties enshrined in common law, a tradition I’d taken for granted until it began to be rolled back. I’m also conscious of our rich heritage of myth that can’t be left in the hands of the Right.

John, let me know when you pull your first pint of John Q Publican and I’ll lend you my jaded taste-buds.

‘I love England’s traditions, such as liberty, and that one we made up in 1914 that allows the state to arbitrarily close any dispenser of alcohol it happens to dislike.’

I don’t like the BNP either, but bugger this sort of authoritarianism.

“Neutral language arguments do the job of debating fine. Less good on persuading, unless the person in question is very highly educated.”

You’re certainly right about that.

I think Winstone Churchill and Martin Luthor King might have been a lot more successful if they’d cut the flowery stuff about beaches and dreams and stuck to ‘neutral language’.

Look, where facts and figures are concerned public speakers should be as neutral as possible but politics is fueled by values and those are subjective: ‘neutral language’ is meaningless in that context. It’s obvious (or used to be) when listening to Left and Right that neutral language simply masks fundamental differences in value, that ‘modernization’ or ‘restructuring’ do not refer to neutral concepts.

‘That’s very Yankee thinking; that any progressive view or compassionate view or inclusive view is anti-patriotic.’

No, it really isn’t. Tom Paine best put the case for American liberty from Britain, and he was nobody’s idea of a reactionary. Not all the Union soldiers in the Civil war were abolitionists, but a great many were. The GIs who liberated Europe voted in large numbers for FDR (if they were old enough) and for Truman (if they survived). Truman, as it happens, was a war veteran himself.

‘I am very proud of Britain, and of England as well. I am a patriot, though not a nationalist; I love the heritage of ancient law and modern music, of megalithic religion and inquiring minds. Poets and dreamers, singers and craftsmen and strong, clever women. ‘

Look, JQP: I love this country too, and one of the things I love most is that we don’t have to bang on about it all the time. You can point out that the cops did a good job, or that you like pubs, without singing ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ every time you do so. I think we probably good do with a proper discussion of patriotism, but ‘proper’ doesn’t mean ‘wheeled into every conversation’.

Probably could do, even.

Dan @14:

No, it really isn’t. Tom Paine

Was not a Yankee.

I wasn’t referring to American history, I was referring to current US politics. The New Deal was the last gasp of old-school progressive thinking in the States. It was the last time that most of the country was solidly behind anything all at once. Historically it was Yankees and Rednecks. Since Vietnam, since equal rights and since Watergate, it’s been ‘yeller-livered liberal commie long-haired bastards’ (i.e. anyone with liberal or progressive ideas) versus God-fearing, clean-living, patriotic Americans (i.e. the Bible Belt). That’s the rhetorical spectrum I was referring to; one of the massive ironies in it is that one of their fabled ‘grand traditions’, the Pledge of Allegiance with the words ‘One Nation, Under God’ dates from 1954 and has no legal force.

Regarding your last point: how many conversations have you seen me wheel it into? It seems your response is a little too vigorous for my actual content; can it be that you’re tarring me with a brush aimed at someone else?

‘ Tom Pain- Was not a Yankee.’

No, he was British, and he was also an American, and in fact one of the greatest of Americans. An Englishman by birth, and an American by settlement, and by dint of his actions in the War of Independence. He was a Yankee in the broad sense of being an American and a Yankee in the narrow sense of living in the north-east of the United States.

In the last thirty-odd years there has been a concerted attempt by American conservatives to tar liberals and progressives with the ‘unpatriotic’ brush. (If by ‘Yankee’ you meant north-eastern Americans, btw, they were precisely the people least impressed by this gambit.) Many Americans did not accept this rubbish in its Reagan/Bush heyday, and the overwhelming election of Obama in the face of the Palin-McCain rhetoric does rather indicate that the ‘unpatriotic Dems’ stuff has died a death. It’s neither fair nor intelligent to say that a gambit by one political tendency in the US indicates a general ‘Yankee’ attitude, just as it would be neither fair nor intelligent to say that Margaret Thatcher’s three consecutive victories meant all ‘Brits’ were Thatcherite.

You made three good and simple points, with all of which I agreed: kettling doesn’t work as crowd control; the Met recently did a good job dealing with racist thugs without resort to kettling; landlords have responsibilities.

It is really not necessary to bolster such points with patriotic boilerplate like ‘…megalithic religion and inquiring minds. Poets and dreamers, singers and craftsmen and strong, clever women. ‘- which sounds like something a John Cleese character might declaim. I feel the most ‘British’ reaction to this kind of thing is to say ‘what, so the women in other countries are all weak and stupid?’

John the Pub is a fantasist. The bit about Millwall fans calling themselves “Racist Attack” is completely made up. I’d like to see him corrobarate it. He seems to live in some Guy Ritchie football hooligan fantasyland.

Dan @18:

In the last thirty-odd years there has been a concerted attempt by American conservatives to tar liberals and progressives with the ‘unpatriotic’ brush.

Yes, that was my point. They have largely succeeded over there, and during the tenure of New Labour, considerable equivalent rhetoric has begun to get traction over here. Note the manner of response to the Climate Campers, even on here.

Apologies if clumsy expression undermined it, for you. To most Brits I know, “Yankee” means variously “Modern American” or “overweight tourist”.

Regarding the other issue: feel free to take issue with my invocations of whatever you wish but unless you think my underlying point is wrong, could you note it as an indicator of my bias and move on? I am not just writing for someone (like you) who already agrees with me. I was explicitly trying to prevent my point from being overwhelmed by LfaT and other fellow travellers shouting at me because I’m anti-patriotic for criticising the BNP. Instead it’s being overwhelmed arguing about the utility of emotive and symbolic language in a polemic opinion piece…

Chavscum @19:

John the Pub is a fantasist. The bit about Millwall fans calling themselves “Racist Attack” is completely made up. I’d like to see him corrobarate it. He seems to live in some Guy Ritchie football hooligan fantasyland.

Follow the links. That’s where the data came from. Specifically, the son of the pub landlord, who knows the people and was trying to defend his BNP regulars’ reputation from violence caused in fact by Millwall fans… That bears repeating, since people aren’t following the links. The pub landlord’s son was explicitly defending the BNP from the accusation that they had caused the riot, on the grounds that it was in fact football supporters. Why he doesn’t think that the BNP are football supporters, I find hard to understand…

You also seem to think that I believe all Millwall fans are members of the RA firm, or indeed that all Millwall fans are racists.

Milwall supporters have long been associated with extreme right-wing views, and with extreme violence

What I actually said is that the supporters of Millwall have a reputation. Are you seriously going to try and claim that the supporters of Millwall do not have a reputation? I never claimed it was all Millwall supporters. I never claimed that “Millwall fans” as a class called themselves Racial Attack. I quoted (from a source I linked to, which you can therefore substantiate if you can be arsed) the statement from the son of the landlord at the Trax, that the fight was started by a firm called the RA Crew. Follow my links. Read the articles and threads. Understand what I was talking about. Or don’t; really not my problem if you wish to ignore evidence.

‘Instead it’s being overwhelmed arguing about the utility of emotive and symbolic language in a polemic opinion piece…’

Look, I’m in full agreement with you that patriotism should not be seen as a preserve of the Right. But one of the main distinctions of British patriots is that they *don’t bang on about it the whole time*. Drag patriotism into a reasonable post about policing and pubs, and one runs the risk of sounding like John Kerry, who seemed incapable of answering any question on any topic in 2004 without mentioning his service in Vietnam.

Whether Yank means ‘US citizen’ or ‘resident of the Northeastern US’, Tom Paine was both, as well as being British. Which makes him rather a good starting point for any discussion of whether immigrants can be patriotic.

Dan: your mileage and mine clearly vary when it comes to the attitudes of the English. IME, what’s left of our national pride resides with the louts, precisely because among the educated it’s not done, you know, to blow one’s own trumpet. “We’ve lost St. George and the Union Jack / It’s my flag too and I want it back”.

Secondarily, regarding Tom Paine again: I wasn’t having a discussion about whether immigrants can be patriotic. I was talking about an entirely modern American habit of saying that anyone with liberal or progressive views can’t.

This is even funnier that I originally believed. Jon the Pub’s source is an anonymous post on a website forum by someone using the name of famous South London gangster. If you then read the comments on the newspaper article, people ridicule the spreading of rumours that originate from the Police in attempt to justify their actions that some believe turned a fight into a riot. This is exactly the kind of Police action that Jon the Pub has been squealing about in numerous articles.

If you scroll down the link provided, you can read this response to the newspaper article:

“I cannot believe the lies that have been fabricated in this story!
I was drinking in Trax from 1pm until the violence started and the atmosphere was happy and relaxed. It was nothing to do with being a racist day. Ironic really as the group I was in had four black people and five indian people. Lets ask them if they’re racist shall we? In fact I have already sent them a link to this story and they were amazed!
The riots were nothing to do with Trax or it’s patrons on the day! A group of delinquents (trust me I would use stronger words if I could!) arrived at about 7.30 who werent even drinking in the bar and in fact were not even old enough to drink. They were the ones who were fighting and smashing property! I was having a fantastic day until this point. If anyone’s to blame it’s them and the over zealous riot police who quite frankly did no good at all. They seemed to enjoy scaring the life out of the children and elderly who were there and even two of the Met Police regular police commented to me and my partner how they thought the riot police were taking their authority WAY too far! They even stopped people from giving first aid to an elderly gentleman who had fallen and was in a bad way. For the record if anybody knows how he is could you please comment as I am really concerned! Im shocked with this account of what happened. It was nothing to do with racism, football hooligans or alcohol. It was simply to do with the scum of the earth minors who will go out of their way to cause a scene when and wherever they can. I was always told never to believe what I read in the papers and god what good advice that actually was!! Im disgusted at this ‘account’. It’s all pretence!”

This is what you said:

“the fight seems to have originated with a group of Milwall supporters who are known as the RA crew. It turns out that RA stands for ‘Racial Attack’.”

This is made up. Can you actually believe a mob of Millwall fans would give themselves such a name? Its hilarious that you actually believe such nonsense, but worrying that you seek to propogate on a political blog. You look a complete mug.

Interestingly, all London football firms, bar Chelsea, in the 70-80s contained many black faces. These days, there is hardly any. This is because socially and culturally, London is much more segregated, due to mass immigration and multi-cultural policies.