NOMENCLATURE CULTURE

BOTH THE PRINTED AND VISUAL MEDIA have had to reconsider their terminology in relation to the recent riots on more than one occasion over the last week. While it at one moment seemed sensible to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to use the term “British riots” or later the “UK riots” (perhaps to show that they had not yet spread to the Channel Isles or the Isle of Man), instructions have now been given to call them “English riots”, as there is, as yet, no widespread destruction in the Celtic sphere.

FURTHER HESITATION INVOLVES describing who these “rioters” are. Easy opinion falls heavily on “disaffected lower classes”, the “unemployed underclass”, “discriminated immigrant communities” and the like, but the arrest and conviction statistics are proving otherwise, driving newspaper headline-writers crazy.

WHAT DOES ONE CALL a group of rioters that includes a primary school teacher, a graphic designer, a female university student and the child of a millionaire? All of whom are in their early or mid-twenties? Are these more newsworthy than the numbers of unemployed and inarticulate white and black children from social housing estates? And if, like the BNP British National Party, we wish to use the term “immigrants”, should we point out that no Chinese are involved, even though almost every major city in the UK has a large Chinese community, and Liverpool has had one since the late XIX century.

CUDDLY ALEX SALMOND the leader of Scotland, has been particularly keen to insist on the term “English riots”, given that, as he stated yesterday: Scotland has a “different society”, adding it was unfair of broadcasters to describe the lawlessness as “UK riots” because it was an English phenomenon and Scotland has “no history of this sort of disorder”.

POLITICIANS NEVER STUDY HISTORY, so perhaps I should draw Salmond’s attention to the worst riots in British history, in Edinburgh, from 1811 to 1812. The account also serves to remind those who talk about old-fashioned values that the XVII and XVIII centuries were violent beyond anything we can imagine nowadays.

IN 1812 YOUNG THUGS, PICKPOCKETS AND THIEVES bearing knives and sticks stormed through Edinburgh looking for easy victims to attack. Dozens of children from organized gangs in the suburbs attacked, robbed and beat up passers-by “for no apparent reason”. They stole hundreds of pounds from individuals and shops, and magistrates and judges struggled to deal with the workload in court. Local newspapers and citizens groups offered huge rewards for the capture of the gang leaders, and sixty-eight arrests were made, including boys as young as 12.

THREE BOYS WERE HANGED and five were sent to Australia. Dozens were given minor punishments. The general view at the time was that there was a lack of moral values in these young people, that they had easy access to alcohol, that the upper classes, who were usually just as immoral and drunk, should provide a good example, and that more of the sheriff’s men on the streets would solve the problem. In an unconnected incident, British Prime Minister Spenser Perceval was assassinated in the House of Commons.

My picture shows Scots parliamentarians at the European summit meeting early this year.