riots

The cameraman – chasing for clicks

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A couple of weeks back the UK was rocked by a series of far right/racist riots, mainly across towns in England – the pretext being the murder of three young girls in Southport, but widely stirred up by the likes of Tommy Robinson, Nigel Farage and other populist figures who spread misinformation on and offline.

As I watched the videos of these mobs attacking housing asylum seekers, targeting mosques and marauding through town and city neighbourhoods, several things struck me. One was how many people had brought their kids along for the ride – even in Rotherham where they broke into and tried to burn down one of the hotels.

The other was how many of the crowd appeared to be filming what was going on, streaming it to social media. It reminds me of the streamer-agitators who follow the weekly pro-Palestine marches, goading attendees in the hope of getting a rise – which in turn would generate more clicks and engagement. The more extreme the better; it becomes a self-reinforcing doom loop.

In both of these cases it’s about attention and clicks – there is little attempt to engage with the issues, it’s simply theatre for its own sake. It really made me think of a clever animated clip which I saw years ago and which still sticks in my mind, so I went looking for it:

Strangeways/Strangedays

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It’s kind of mad to think that Thursday marks the 20th anniversary of the Strangeways prison riots. Anyone aged 30 or over and from the North West of England will probably remember this very clearly – I know I certainly do. For 25 days in April 1990, the authorities lost control of Manchester’s iconic Victorian jail and inmates took to the roof to protest against poor conditions and abusive staff. Chronic overcrowding, a lack of sanitation in the cells, frequent moves from one prison to another and poor visitation rights were among their complaints. When it all kicked off there were 1,600 men sharing 970 single cells. A series of copycat protests followed in a number of other UK jails. At Strangeways, the numbers quickly dwindled of course and by the last day just five protestors were left.

I was 10 years old in 1990 and along with the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, assorted terrorist attacks in Northern Ireland and Margaret Thatcher’s resignation speech in 1991 – when my top junior class was actually summoned to the AV room to witness the glorious moment live on TV – Strangeways is one of my earliest memories of really being conscious of current affairs. The riot left the prison in chaos and cost tens of millions of pounds and several years to repair. But more importantly, the protest and the seminal Woolf inquiry which followed it are credited as being a turning point in penal history. Many of Lord Woolf’s recommendations were too radical for the Tory administration and subsequent New Labour government to stomach and the prison population stands far higher today. But conditions at Strangeways – now HMP Manchester – and other prisons are undeniably better than they were on April Fool’s Day two decades ago.