This Is England, This Is How We Feel

The last few days have shown the worst of this country and the best too- the sadly predictable response by knuckle dragging racists to three young men missing penalties for England at Wembley on Sunday night, not to mention the behaviour of some of the fans in and around the stadium and central London, is profoundly depressing and enraging. 

The response by people in Withington, the part of South Manchester where I grew up, has been moving and uplifting, with heartfelt messages of thanks and inspiration left on the mural of Marcus Rashford which had been defaced by scumbags at some point on Sunday night. Marcus Rashford spent some of his childhood in Withington living close to Copson Street where the mural is (the picture below shows our visit last year). 

Marcus Rashford's own statement in response to events was powerful and moving, a statement of apology for missing a penalty (as if that were needed) and a defiant note against racism and intolerance. Teammate Tyrone Mings responded to Pritti Patel's shamelessness (denouncing racism this week, condemning the players for taking a stance against racism three weeks earlier), calling out her hypocrisy. It's easy to find events and the state of modern England dispiriting but the eloquence and defiance of the youth, both professional footballers and ordinary people interviewed on the news in Withington and elsewhere, is enough to make me hope for better in the future. One day the likes of Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Pritti Patel will be gone and the upcoming generation will I think make a better job of things than ours is. 

Back in 1985 as The Clash spluttered to a conclusion Joe Strummer wrote a state of the nation address, the last great Clash song, This Is England. Joe looks around and sees the collapse of industry and loss of jobs, war in the South Atlantic, jingoism, police brutality, violence and racism. 'This is England/  This is how we feel', he laments.  

This Is England

Kirsty MacColl and Billy Bragg both claimed not to be looking for a new England, just another girl. But I think we all know they wanted both. Is it wrong to wish on space hardware? Nope, whatever it takes I reckon.

A New England (Extended Version)

A List And Your Love

The clocks went back last night, ending British Summer Time for another year. As the jokes on Twitter have been having it, if you're a Brexiteer you can set yours back to 1973 or some imaginary time before you were born when England won the world war and immigration hadn't been invented. If you're a supporter or member of the current government you can reset your clock back to the nineteenth century when letting children go hungry was all part of good old Victorian values. Funny how for a group of people so often vilified as overpaid, useless and insensitive, the most effective campaigner for the impoverished in Britain in 2020 is a footballer. Hats off to Marcus Rashford.

It's funny as well how many Tory MPs are now tripping over themselves to attack him and to accuse him of 'virtue signalling'. There's a list here of all the Conservative MPs, three hundred and twenty- two of them, who voted against extending free school meals vouchers into the October half term and Christmas holidays. Next to their name, constituency and party is a column detailing the amount they have claimed on expenses from the public purse for dining and entertaining since June 2019. Jake Berry, the MP for Rossendale and Darwen and a man who was a big proponent of the so- called Northern Powerhouse, for instance claimed over £60, 000. Vicky Ford, the Minister for Children and MP for Chelmsford, claimed over £50, 000. Three of them claimed over £80, 000. Matt Hancock, role model for over- promoted car showroom middle managers everywhere, claimed over £60, 000. I'm sure that for these MPs, raised on Thatcherite ideology about dependency culture and the managed decline of northern cities and propelled into government by the Brexit culture wars, voting against poor children getting a £3.00 a day lunch voucher while supping subsidised drinks in the House of Commons bar and eating out at London's top restaurants is a moral circle they can square but for many of us it is the worst kind of hypocrisy. 

This list compiled by Pete Wylie and Josie Jones as Big Hard Excellent Fish back in 1990 and remixed by Andrew Weatherall summons up the right kind of disgust and shows how little progress we've actually made in the three decades in between then and now.

The Imperfect List (Version 1)

Anyway, onto happier things... today is my wife Lou's birthday. This is the kind of thing she likes to dance to given the chance. There hasn't been much dancing recently. We did get drunk a few weeks ago and play some records a little too loud in the dining room while our daughter cringed upstairs. In 1987 Frankie Knuckles and Jamie Principle released Your Love, a thumping, hands- in- the- air, genuinely inspiring and uplifting piece of early house music, a record that shows that the world can be a better place even if it's only for a few minutes.

Your Love

In 2014 London goth rock 'n' rollers The Horrors covered it for a session at Radio 1 showing what good taste they had and how a great song can translate from one form to another. 

Your Love 

Happy birthday Lou. Let's make it a good one despite Tier 3 and all the rest of it.