Nick Griffin on the BBC

What is interesting about the appearance of the leader of the fascist British National Party (BNP), Nick Griffin on the BBC political programme 'Question Time' on Thursday, is how it has actually made politics headline news. The particular episode of the programme attracted 8 million viewers, three times the normal level and for the first time exceding the popular entertainment show on BBC1 on Saturday nights, 'Strictly Come Dancing'. If you missed the programme a lot of it is available online (for the moment) at: Http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/default.stm

Everyone seems upset about the event. The BBC said it went ahead with featuring Griffin because it feared that if they did not feature the BNP on the programme they would be sued. At present, though its policies on the race of members has been condemned as illegal, the BNP is a legitimate political party in the UK and it has two MEPs in the European Parliament. The BBC thus seems to have acted out of fear. You could also argue that any party that attracts sufficient votes to get two MEPs is sufficiently significant that it could be ignored and if it had been then the BBC could not have featured other small parties such as the Green Party.


Others fear that featuring Griffin gave free publicity to his racist views. Peter Hain, MP, a strong campainger against apartheid condemned the decision to let Griffin appear. Ministers are concerned it has given publicity to the BNP's views. Listening to BBC radio it was clear that of those who rang in, more supported the BNP's views than those who opposed them. Griffin and his supporters were far from happy about the event despite getting the widest coverage the party has received. The questions on 'Question Time' come from the audience and the BBC over the thirty years the programme has been running has always tried to get a balance of gender, ages, ethnicity and political perspective from audience members no matter what part of the country the programme is coming from (it moves from town to town each week). In my view the real left has always been under-represented, but I respect the BBC's efforts. Griffin complains the BBC put together a 'lynch mob' that only had questions directed at him and in a negative way. Clearly, very arrogantly, he had expected to go on the programme and be able to expound his racist views with minimal challenge. I think because the BNP feels its views are 'common sense' they think the bulk of white British people will accept them without challenge, whereas in fact the majority of us are abhorred by them.


Griffin whines that only a couple of questions were not directed at him. Again, he shows terrible naivety. Members of the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties appear weekly and people like Jack Straw (currently Justice Secretary) have been on the programme numerous times; there has been loads of opportunity to question them on this programme and in other places. This was the first occasion anyone from a neo-Nazi party has appeared on a British political programme, no wonder people are going be fascinated. Even if he or one of his colleagues appears again in the future, I imagine they will never have such a fascination for the audience as he did on this first occasion. In addition, of course, Griffin sees his policies almost as bland, common sense and seems oblivious (wilfully or not) to the fact that they provoke a harsh reaction from people across British society. Griffin does not consider blacks or Asian British people as British, he gives them no designation, but say he sees them as foreigners, would he expect any different response to his views if he was speaking to a French audience or an American one? Griffin's horizons are so narrow that he does not realise the implications of the arena he is wanting to step into.


Griffin claims that the particular episode of 'Question Time' was 'not a genuine Question Time' and that it was distorted to discredit him. He is angry that it was held in London (though he would have known this in advance) saying the city was 'no longer British'; he feels that London is 'not my country any more' which seems a bizarre statement. He says it should have been held in Burnley, Stoke or Thurrock, places 'where there are still significant numbers of English and British people and they haven't been ethnically cleansed from their own country'. It is clear Griffin lives in some fantasy world. Ethnic minorities make up only 17% of the UK population, the large majority of Britons are still white and the bulk of the audience, even in London which Griffin sees as some strange country, rather than housing 10 million (71.2% of whom are white) of Britain's 65 million people. Does this suggest that Griffin envisages a UK like South Africa was under apartheid with different 'tribal' groups assigned to 'homelands'? Or does he, even more sinisterly, envisage tufing millions of Britons, at least 7 million of whom are white, out of their homes in London to 'bring it back into' the UK. Now we are moving into the realm of ghettos and deportation so characteristic of Nazis.


It is clear that the programme was a shock to Griffin who clearly believed if he could get his message across he would be welcomed with open arms. The BNP claim that since the programme they have gained 3000 new members. That is not surprising, fortunately the BNP does not get much coverage so simply appearing is going to stir people who support his views to join him, I am sure the same would happen if a member of the Green Party or the Scottish Nationalist Party appeared.


Griffin is going to whine because that is what he does. Everything about the politics of the BNP is based on a distorted view of people and of the UK and then whining about it. What was more worrying was Conservative Baroness Warsi also on the programme telling Justice Secretary, Jack Straw that the mainstream parties need to be 'more honest' about immigration policy to see off the spread of the BNP. Personally I feel that the current government already distorts the news about immigration in favour of the racists and the policies of the Border Agency have helped to whip up racism. However, it does show that any future Conservative government is liable to be tempted to adopt even more racist policies and poor Peter Hain is likely to find himself living in a country increasingly like the South Africa that his family fled.

The danger, shown by Warsi's comment is that the Conservatives, who many are assuming will form the next government, are the ones most in fear of the increase of the BNP (and probably even more so of the less-racist nationalist party UKIP which has 17 MEPs) and so will begin introducing mild racist legislation as a way to draw support away from the BNP.  Of course, there have always been racists in the Conservative Party but they had tended to be kept under control by moderates within the party and by those who actually believe in multi-cultural Britain (which the BNP denies is reality).  However, in the context in which the BNP might be appearing to win support from the Conservatives it will allow the extremists within the Conservative Party to press for discriminatory policy.  Whilst that will not bring on the dystopia the BNP want, it will lead to tens of thousands of individual tragedies and will stoke up racist attacks and discriminatory behaviour rather than defuse it.


Anyone of my generation (I am now 42) can probably remember the 'no platform' dispute of the 1980s. This was the argument at colleges, polytechnics and universities over whether people expressing racist views should be allowed to speak at campuses. The argument from groups like the Socialist Workers' Student Societies (SWSS) was that to allow such people to speak was to give them 'the oxygen of publicity' which would attract support to their cause. Others such as the Labour clubs, argued that in a democracy you had to let everyone speak however vile their views, because otherwise you were imposing censorship something you were fighting against fascists to prevent happening. Policies ebbed and flowed with various speakers barred or allowed to speak. I always favoured letting these people speak so that everyone could at least see what their views really entailed rather than making judgements on assumptions and rumours. In addition, it meant those who opposed them had to have policies that addressed the kind of concerns that such speakers raised. If left-wingers and moderate right-wingers do not face challenges then they get complacent and do not work out or articulate policy (part of the problem with the Conservative Party at present).


Extremists are often their own worst enemies, particularly as so much of their policies tend to be one dimensional and simply complaining about how they feel things are rather than offering any positive alternative. Griffin was caught out when asked about his previous denial of the Holocaust and his persisting dispute over the number of people killed by Nazi Germany and its allies. He admitted he did not know why he thought about it the way he had before (outright denial) which for a politician seemed very weak. To natural BNP supporters even if they were not already in the party, no matter how weak Griffin's performance had been they would have seen it as wonderful and now are complaining that effectively he was not able simply to make a party political speech based on his distorted assumptions of history and of Britain today. However, to more wavering viewers, I can expect that at least some have seen that Griffin is simply full of hatred founded on a perception which bears relevance to the actual UK we live in.


Naturally the focus is on his policies on ethnic minorities, but no-one I have heard has asked him, assuming the BNP came to power, it would treat the Irish population of the UK. He keeps on mentioning the British and the English forgetting that one of the four components of the UK, Northern Ireland, actually has English and British (Great Britain is England, Scotland and Wales; the UK is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) minority. Would people from Northern Ireland be barred from coming to the mainland? Would they be barred from jobs in Britain? That is just one element in the many holes in Griffin's nasty set of policies.


I am happy for any BNP member to appear on political programmes because they cannot but help show how mentally weak they are and that all they do is based on policies of complaint and destruction of British society and its economy. They have to learn that their previously privileged position of being able to stand above the political scene and simply snipe is over and that they will face hostility when they speak in public arenas. These are not closed BNP meetings where Griffin and his cronies are speaking among friends, these are places where an audience exposed to virulent, hateful policies are more than likely to respond equally as forcefully, just as we saw on Thursday. Grow up Nick Griffin, you are in real politics now, do not expect the easy ride you have had up until last Thursday to last any longer.

The Return of Battles on the Streets of Britain?

I did think of titling this 'Panic on the Streets of Britain' but thought that would imply this was something about records by the band The Smiths. Ironically I was recently told about a single released by comedy trio The Goodies (Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Bill Oddie) in 1975 called 'Panic' which apparently sums up the British response to crises which seemed as prevalent in the 1970s as they do today, notably concerning over-population, oil prices and industrial unrest and as a response to all three, shortages. Today's topic is very much about the concerns of living in Britain and is more serious than these media examples focus on. This is the potential for street battles involving fascist groups, notably the English Defence League (EDL) and anti-fascists and the police (who sometimes take up a position in the middle). The well-known plan last Sunday was for the EDL to disrupt the annual Quds Day march from Marble Arch to Trafalgar Square in London, concerning the Palestinian situation notably by the Islamic Human Rights Commission. You can read reports on what happened all over the internet. The Metropolitan Police skills in handling demonstrations may not be highly skilled as the murder at and the poor handling of the anti-G20 demonstration this year showed, but fortunately were capable enough of keeping the small groups of EDL away from the demonstration though they were still able to shout abuse at the marchers. There were about 40 anti-fascists who had arrived to interpose themselves, and appear to have been welcomed by the marchers (who themselves included members of the Stop The War (in Iraq) campaign) and the police said they could not guarantee their safety, but fortunately the day passed off without the violent clashes that the media had feared.

An interesting eye-witness report from one one of the anti-fascists can be seen at: http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/09/another-washout-for-english-defence.html The blog is called Lenin's Tomb and seems to be run by an old-fashioned British Communist (or maybe more accurately Bolshevik) but does not get hysterical. The report by Sadie Gray in 'The Independent' gives quite a different impression of what happened: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/antiislamists-target-palestinian-rally-in-central-london-1786622.html indicating that the Quds March ended up in Pall Mall on police direction with the fascists holding Trafalgar Square. Fortunately the numbers of EDL seem to have been limited.

Obviously there have been fascist movements in the UK bubbling in the background and flaring up as in the 1970s and again in the early 2000s. I am sure that the degree of success of the BNP (British National Party) in the last European Parliament elections and Nick Griffin their leader scheduled to appear on BBC1 political show, 'Question Time' in the next few months, has given heart to fascists. It is a shame that the BNP has not been faced with legal challenges on the basis of its racially restricted membership, as was raised back in 2004. However, as we have single-ethnic professional groups (as the BNP pointed out itself in reference to the Black Lawyers' Association) as well as single-gender ones, I guess that it would have been hard to make such cases stick.

Current developments seem to be alarming politicians. I suppose that this is because the EDL is a new kind of fascist grouping, not seeking the respectability of the BNP and yet far more visible than terrorist (or would-be terrorist) groups like Combat 18 (the 18 comes from the numbers of the letters AH in the alphabet; AH standing for Adolf Hitler). The fact that the Greater London Authority (GLA) diverted the Quds Day march from Trafalgar Square where it has assembled since 1982 indicates to some extent the fear of racial battles. To some degree the GLA under Boris Johnson is a captainless ship and never knows how to cope with real issues as opposed to sentimentalist, headline grabbing initiatives. The GLA's playing with control of the Metropolitan Police and so many of Johnson's aides having to resign must be distracting them from effective approaches to the issues which are arising as the recession persists.

John Denham, Secretary of State for Communities, so in charge of governmental response to racial issues did point to the history of fascist marches in East London through Jewish areas in the 1930s, notably the so-called Battle of Cable Street. I used to live very near Cable Street, though in fact the 'battle' was spread right over a large area of East London from Aldgate underground station, North-East to Victoria Park and then South to the Burdett Road-Mile End Road junction where a tram was turned over and farther South to Cable Street itself, now a quiet street primarily distinguished by the commemorative mural (interestingly there had been race riots in the area as early as Summer 1919). Back in 1996 I took part in an anniversary march through Whitechapel then round to Cable Street. It attracted a wide range of people and I was most privileged to meet three German volunteers who had fought on the side of the Republic in the Spanish Civil War thus risking death both in Spain and if they ever returned to Nazi Germany.

The Battle of Cable Street is a complex event. The battle was not really between Sir Oswald Moseley's British Union of Fascists and anti-Fascists but between each of these two groups and the police. Anti-Fascists secured Victoria Park as the rule was whoever was speaking there first had the right to remain there, so they occupied it from 6 a.m. to keep the Fascists out. The park had long been used for political rallies, especially around dock strikes and is still a venue for liberal-minded events. Police were seized by anti-Fascists and some had hot water poured on them from houses, some were locked in garages and had their helmets confiscated. The police remain as popular in the area today! However, the fact that police persuasion and direction kept the two groups apart actually reduced the danger of a full-scale riot. What could have happened was seen after the war in the Nottingham and Notting Hill race riots of 1958. Of course, the absence of full-scale riots tends to blind us from the day-to-day racially motivated violence that happens against individuals and small groups. We also seem to have very short-term memories about race riots and those of us not living in the particular towns have already forgotten the riots in Bradford, Burnley and Oldham in 2001. The pattern of racial riots is also becoming complicated by fighting between British Asians and newer immigrants from Asia and Eastern Europe. Denham is right to remind us of Britain's troubled history, but there are more recent examples he can point to as well.

Unlike the BNP, the EDL established by football hooligan groups, notably from Luton, is looking for confrontation by carrying out marches and notably contesting Islamic and Islamist demonstrations. Their focus is very much anti-Muslim rather than anti-Black but this may simply reflect the nature of the towns members are drawn from. The BNP has distanced itself from the EDL but unsurprisingly former BNP members are members of the EDL. As the BNP becomes seen as more 'respectable' those young men who want an excuse for a fight will turn to other more active groups. There have been clashes in Luton, Birmingham (on two occasions, leading to 125 arrests) and London, notably in Harrow which has a large South Asian population. At the Harrow Central Mosque 2.000 Islamic youths gathered to defend the location from an EDL march.

It is unsurprising that as in the 1930s, with unemployment high (today reaching 2.47 million, the highest since 1995), there are numerous young men around, brought up in the very macho culture for males (ironically influenced heavily by rap culture from American blacks) and now with little hope of work. They see foreigners as being to blame and easily equate local Asians with recent immigrants. Of course, propagandists from the fascist groups give them that easy lie. In fact people from ethnic minorities can be four times as likely to be unemployed as their white equivalents, but may have more family support. Football hooliganism always appealed to such men, especially in the 1970s before it became an issue of dressing in designer wear to carry out violence as it became in the 1980s, but the desire for violence remains. Give the tacit racism which is so prevalent in the UK, these men can even feel they are doing 'the right thing', something noble that will be respected by their white neighbours. For these men, to some degree unlike the 1930s Fascists, there is not really any political creed just a hatred that has been stoked up. Social networking sites can make members feel they are part of a large and sophisticated organisation which may keep them loyal and active whereas in the past their interest may have wavered.

In addition, the government has played right into the fascists' hands since 2001. By trying to alarm us to the supposed dangers of Islamist terrorism as basis for a war to secure Iraqi oil, they have legitimised racist attitudes towards Asians, whether they are Muslim, Hindu or Sikh or even atheist. When you see the prime minister going on about the threats and you hear about policies to make entrance into Britain harder and teachers and university lecturers are expected to monitor their students for extremist activity you are almost compelling British people to be prejudiced. Naturally this fans the flames of anger and violence in those predicated to being racists anyway. When the government says it is alright to combat Islamists and to a great degree suggests that anyone from an Asian background can be under suspicion, then naturally fascists feel they have no need to curb their behaviour; they have a green light from the government.

Are we going to see a repeat of the 1930s as Denham expects? These things were never as severe in Britain as they were say in France or certainly Germany of the 1930s and the British never seem to adhere to any kind of political extremism for long. Rioting in Britain typically occurs during hot summers and the desultory weather of the past couple of years has probably dampened the kind of violence we might have seen if the promised heatwave had actually appeared this year. What happens next depends on many factors, not simply the weather. If the war in Iraq really begins to wind down, and more importantly people like Gordon Brown and even Tony Blair who has recently been whining on about how terrorism remains the greatest threat, stop seeking to scare the population and using Islamic people as an easy target we may stand a chance of dousing the current fad for anti-Islamism. There will always be extremists in any population, they reckon at any one time 3-4% of the UK population is on the extreme right and the same percentage on the extreme left politically, though that balance seems to have shifted a great deal and the fascist figure is probably climbing well above the revolutionaries' one. Of course, only a fraction of this fraction will be out of the street with the others being sympathisers providing funds and succhor to the real radicals.

Referring back to the 1930s, Denham forgets one key factor, one that was even present in the 1970s and that was popular anti-fascism. I came across an Anti-Nazi League badge from the 1970s in a retro shop the other day. I remember slogans like 'Black and White Unite Against Racism' and that is an important element, it cannot simply be white liberals (if there are any left) to oppose racism, there needs to be an alliance across races and generations. This is what the commemorative Cable Street march showed in 1996 and why we have seen success with campaigns as diverse as opposing power stations, the Iraq War and even in support of fox hunting. Of course, the Anti-Nazi League (ANL) formed in 1977 and still in existence today is an adjunct organisation to the Socialist Workers' Party (SWP) a Trotskyite revolutionary party, but an incredibly visible and active radical party in the 1970s and 1980s not least in being the key supplier of placards for protest marches. SWP have a broader revolution than simply contesting fascism but formed a bedrock for such activity.

Not associated with any political party, it is vital to mention the monthly anti-fascist magazine 'Searchlight' which started in 1975 and has links across Europe to anti-fascist groups and UK trade unions: ACCORD, ANSA, AMICUS-AEEU, AMICUS-MSF, AMO, ASLEF, BFAWU, BECTU, CWU, CYWU, CONNECT, FBU, GMB, GPMU, MU, NAPO, NASUWT, NUM, RMT, NUT, PCS, PFA, T&GW, TSSA, UCU, UNIFI, USDAW and UNISON, helped by their Trade Union Friends of Searchlight (TUFS) campaign which began in 2004 and which has its own periodical. It has support from people like Glenys Kinnock, MEP and the General Secretary of the TUC (Trades Union Congress). For more information see: http://www.searchlightmagazine.com/index.php

From this site I followed a link to Philosophy Football, a company which makes political teeshirts: http://www.philosophyfootball.com The ones I find most interesting are those with designs drawn from banners and slogans of the Soviet side of the Eastern Front of the Second World War (which seems rather hypocritical as even though Stalin was fighting Nazis, he was a tyrant and racist). More appopriate appear to be those from the Spanish Civil War, I imagine Clement Attlee (UK prime minister 1945-51) never envisaged he would have his name on a teeshirt in the 21st century via the Banner of the Number 1 Major Attlee Company, British Battalion of the International Brigade. Attlee had been a major and was leader of the non-National Government Labour Party at the time of the Spanish Civil War. Someone said that fascism often wins supporters by its 'glamour' and so I suppose in attracting young people anti-fascists have to at least appear 'cool'. Money from the sale of these teeshirts goes to the International Brigades Memorial Trust.

Since beginning this posting I have been looking at the group, Unite Against Racism (founded in 2004; acronym UAR), possibly sceptically because I feared that they might be a front for another revolutionary party, but given the backing of various unions (who are usually not revolutionary, in fact can be pretty conservative in outlook): Communication Workers’ Union (CWU), National Association of Schoolmasters and Women Teachers (NASUWT), National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), National Union of Teachers (NUT), National Association of Probation Officers (NAPO), Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), University and College Union (UCU) and UNITE (many of whom also back 'Searchlight') and the fact that the email connects to a UCU email address suggests this is really a Guardian-reading kind of group. They even have a list of pop bands who are allied to the movement, more mainstream than those that backed Rock Against Racism (RAR) in the late seventies and early eighties. Some I have never heard of and some you would expect like Madness, Bernard Butler, Jarvis Cocker and Franz Ferdinand; perhaps David Gray and the Kings of Leon are less expected. I have also just noticed that there is also a list of MPs which usually suggests it is not a Trotskyite body!

The point I was going to bring out about the difference from the 1936 or 1977 to today is how little political activity there is today. The people selling 'Socialist Worker' newspaper on Saturdays in shopping precincts or at campuses have long gone. In student elections there are no political parties, just individual independent candidates. Grass roots political parties seem non-existent. The most political activity is focused on environmental concerns such as power stations and airport expansion and conversely opposing wind farms and in support of fox hunting. In some ways environmental concerns, though vital, are apolitical and certainly can straddle across a wide spectrum of people. What I fear is lacking over contesting fascism in the past are the people to get out on the streets and oppose it. I am not saying we should have street battles as in Germany of the early 1930s, what I am saying is that people need to show that fascism is unacceptable in every town and that people opposing it are not just from ethnic or religious minorities but from all sectors of every community. The absence of that kind of resistance means that it is more likely that violence will appear. In addition, the police attitude seems to remain as ambivalent as when ANL member Blair Peach was murdered in 1979. I am not expecting special privileges for the anti-fascists over the fascists, just equitable treatment and to not see every protest as inherently violent and thus needing to be met with pre-emptive violence as was the case at the G20 protest. However, I think that in our apolitical age, when people are referring to Socialism as extinct and thinking about your society and people in it does not even cross the mind of the bulk of the population, the EDL and other extremists will find minimal or no resistance to their marches and if they do it will only be on the basis of self-defence from minorities rather than founded on disgust on the part of broader society.

UAR is not a cool, radical group that young people want to be part of, partly because our society has had politics flushed from it and they simply think about their own comfort. Even students now have to worry about getting to their job to pay their fees rather than protesting against prejudice and injustice. Middle Britain, never happy with anything politicised, thinks it likes it that way, but seems oblivious to the fact that it has drained away the balance that extremism has to face if it is not to spread further and so, in turn, those Middle Britons will find cars in their street smashed, they will find the corner shop burnt out, they will find strict police regulation that they will get caught up in. Thus, to John Denham's statement about a risk of returning to 1936, I would argue that if it went back to what happened in 1936 it is not going to be half as bad as what I fear may happen in 2009 with only 40 protestors against rising numbers of fascists. I am not one for censoring fascists, they can hang themselves by their own statements, but the government is wrong if it thinks that as in 1936 popular resistance and time will make the problem go away.


Researching this posting I noted that Garry Aronsson, a leading member of the BNP lists as one of his hobbies: 'devising slow and terrible ways of paying back the Guardian-reading cunts who have betrayed the British people into poverty and slavery. I AM NOT JOKING.' So I have a lot to look forward to if he ever comes to power! It is funny to think that reading 'The Guardian' is an act of defiance and begs the question: are readers of 'The Independent' exempt? I wonder who Aronsson thinks he is enslaved to that he can make such horrific statements without being arrested or silenced? As to the poverty, well, I think he should knock on the door of many white American mortgage lenders before he looks elsewhere. In the current climate, if he was black he would be four times more likely to be unemployed than he is as a white man. In addition, Aronsson seems to have a low opinion of the British public if he thinks that they could be 'betrayed' by people like me, I certainly wish I had the power. Looking at the history of Britain the country over the past decades has been run by readers of the 'Daily Telegraph' and more recently 'The Universe' rather than 'The Guardian'. Of course they have all done a great deal more for this country than Aronsson could even dream of achieving.

Our Selfish Society 2: Mobile Phone Abuse

This one was prompted by recent commentary I have heard about the use of mobile phones as they are called in the UK. I was very much in sympathy with it. As you can see, yesterday I already commented about the selfishness of using mobile phones while driving. Though 'hands free' kits are safer than holding the phone, research has shown that just talking on a phone tends to send the sight lines of even experienced drivers all over the place. I know that talking on a phone is no worse than having children screaming in the back, but it does tend to be more sustained and unlike listening to the radio or a CD or your MP3 player in the car, it needs you to pay attention in order to respond, attention you cannot give to the road or the traffic. Paying attention is very necessary to keep you alive on the UK's roads given how dangerously so many people habitually drive these days.

What about mobile phone use outside the car? Before I go further, I must say I have no problem with mobile phones, I have no problem with laptops and palmtops, with fancy watches or digital cameras, what I have a problem with is the selfish way that people use them. People can sing or whistle selfishly if they choose, it is not an issue of technology. However, I do think, that as many mobile phone advertisers suggest, mobile phones take the users into 'another world' and they become oblivious of where they actually are. Classic cases that all of you must have witnessed is someone sitting in a 'quiet carriage' on a train (I assume other countries have these) and the person is sitting right under a sign with the symbol of a mobile phone crossed out and they are busily chatting away, usually far louder than is necessary and certainly louder than you would normally talk on a train. There is a sense that it is a human right to be able to use your mobile phone, and conversely that no-one has the right to have some quiet even if they have deliberately gone into a specific place to get it.

I see people using mobile phones in libraries, often, in the case of teenagers, to talk to someone actually in the same building. The worse case I witnessed was back as early as the late 1990s when a librarian came over and asked the young man to stop using his phone and he started narrating what was happening to the person on the other end of the phone 'there's an old biddy getting lary with me...' he said, to quote. To translate, 'there is a middle-aged woman who is in a position of some authority but I do not respect who has asked me to comply with the regulations of this building, but I am too selfish to comply...'. Such attitudes again demonstrate the trend I noted yesterday - a supreme arrogance. These people believe that their, very petty concerns, trump any regulation or any comfort of anyone else on the planet. They do not exist in society, just (interestingly again as many mobile phone advertisers suggest in how they style their adverts) in a bubble of their own importance.

I once visited a government office which had some kind of unobtrusive system that blocked mobile phone signals, causing lots of dismay to some visitors who looked like drug addicts cut off from their supply. I do not know if courts, churches, schools, libraries can invest in such equipment themselves. It would benefit everyone even the potential phone users who might actually pay attention to what is going on.

There is much other use of mobile phones, such as texting which is common and may seem anti-social but generally does not cause much harm. Though I acknowledge that many people texting are oblivious to what is around them so put themselves at risk, especially stepping off kerbs without looking and they do knock into others but are usually moving at such a slow speed as to be avoidable. The fact that people should into mobile phones as if they were a tin can tied to a piece of string or that phone technology has not advanced in the past 80 years, is also a curiosity but really only bad when combined with the phone misuse in places like trains and libraries noted above.

I have no desire to ban people breaking off midway through a conversation to answer their mobile phone even when they know the caller's number will be recorded on their phone in the way it was never done in the past with landline phones and also the person most likely leave a message. Doing that is simply rudeness though born from this feeling that the bubble the owner lives in is far more important than the rest of the Planet. People need to learn manners. They also need to learn that they are signalling to the person that they are talking to that that other person means less to them than a squeaking machine which is incredibly insulting.

The most offensive misuse of mobile phones, though, is their use in bullying. This is both in terms of texts, pictures and calls that threaten people and also of images recorded of people being bullied and attacked. Bullying by mobile phone is particularly invasive for one of the reasons I have outlined, it seems to reach right into the person's bubble. Usually with the worst bullies you can run to your bedroom and bolt the door but with phone bullying they get right in there providing no escape. For young people being without a mobile phone is to be socially dead and yet it makes them vulnerable to this additional, very intrusive form of attack.

As for filming or photographing attacks on people by phone, that is simply a criminal aspect. You might wonder why people would video themselves or their friends bullying or attacking someone and so providing evidence of their crime. Well, it happens, and increasingly they even post it on YouTube. Clearly it is part of the bravado of both young men and women, to show how tough they are and that they are 'in' in terms of youth culture. However, to me, it is scarily reminiscent of the photographs taken by SS and Gestapo units on extermination action during the Second World War. There were thousands of photographs taken of such people torturing and murdering people right through Poland, the Soviet Union and elsewhere, absolutely revelling in their barbarity. This aspect of the war was probably best expressed in a mainstream story in the movie 'Music Box' (1989) which features a lawyer uncovering such photos of a unit of the Arrow Cross, a Hungarian paramilitary unit which also carried out such atrocities during the Second World War. The author George Orwell (1903-1950) argued that the UK could never have a dictatorship of the kind that was experienced elsewhere in Europe, but from what I see of British people's willingness to behave in such similar ways, I doubt his view was accurate. The abuse of mobile phones, it seems, just highlights what an unhealthy, self-centred society the UK is today.