England and the fits of public morality

The English historian Macaulay once wrote “We know of no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.” Those words were written more than 150 years ago, but England still does ‘periodical fits of morality’ with an almost impressive regularity. I, in my humble position as the bemused foreigner, often find myself baffled by these events. A few weeks ago, we had the ‘Jeremy Clarkson’ incident. Clarkson is the host of the TV Show Top Gear. During an interview in Australia, he referred to Gordon Brown as a ‘one-eyed Scottish idiot’ and all hell broke loose. In other countries if a similar comment was made about a politician, the real outrage would be the fact that the politician has been so viciously insulted. However this is England and they do things a bit more differently. First we had disabled groups condemning his comments because they were derogatory to one-eyed people and they demanded an apology. The people of Scotland also took the comments very badly and insisted that Clarkson say sorry to them as well. If the ‘Letters to the editor’ section in most newspapers was any guide, a substantial percent of the general public also took the matter extremely seriously and Clarkson was roundly condemned. In fact, I wouldn’t have been surprised if a National Association of ‘idiots’ had also popped up to demand an apology. Nobody spoke up for the Prime Minister-indeed, the real insult for those groups appeared to be the fact that they were being associated with Gordon Brown. Clarkson somewhat surprisingly apologised and the storm died down. Clarkson’s gaffe took place during a period of particularly intense public outrages. In the last few months, hardly a week has gone by without some kind of massive public outcry. The most high-profile involved Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand who-in the course of hosting a riotous radio show- called a retired actor and left long rambling messages insinuating with little subtlety that Brand had slept with his granddaughter. The stunt attracted an astonishing 30,000 complaints to the BBC and the country could hardly talk about anything else for weeks. Brand resigned and Ross was suspended but people wanted heads to roll. (in some cases, you felt they meant it literally) The scandal also revealed the generation gap in the Country (most people under 30 thought it was a storm in a tea-cup) and was an almost classic case of what Macaulay had in mind when he talked about the ‘fit of morality.’ That scandal- which broke out last year-was just the beginning. Another one erupted when Carol Thatcher- Margaret Thatcher’s daughter- called a black tennis player a ‘golliwog.’ Again, there was mass public outrage and a demand for an apology. Then a controversial play called England people very nice also became the centre of a moral storm because its comedy lay in the fact that its characters were considered offensive stereotypes. The Director claimed his actors were portraying stereotypes so that he could mock the idea of discrimination but such technicalities didn’t sit particularly well with the outraged people who demanded an apology and a cancellation of the offending play. A more recent controversy revolved around the release of the ‘atheist buses.’ An atheist group raised enough money to plaster some buses in London with a message stating God did not exist (The actual message was ‘There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life’). This set the cat among the pigeons, so to speak. Many Christians reacted with fury (the Advertising Authority received nearly 200 complaints.) even though some buses were already carrying Christian messages before the atheists joined the fray. A group of Christians got together and launched their own bus slogans to counteract the atheists. Most of these cases had a common theme: A group of people insisting they have been offended, a polarizing debate in the public sphere and demands for an apology from those who were offended. In some rare cases, public outrage was unified against a single target. When Sir Fred Godwin stepped down as Head of the Royal Bank of Scotland after the Bank made astronomical losses, he was given a very generous pension. The reaction to this was uniformly hostile-especially when he refused to waive his right to claim the pension. For a few weeks in March, Godwin was more unpopular than Satan himself. Some of these events have comical undertones- after all; the idea of Christians and atheists having a public fight via the medium of public transport is so comical you couldn’t make it up. However there are more serious issues at stake. One key question is what role the law has in all this. The Government passed the Racial and Religious Act in 2006 making it an offense to incite hatred against a person on grounds of their race or religion. There was obviously no debate in the case of race, and there were already comprehensive laws against racial hatred. However religion was a more controversial issue and the Act provoked a fierce debate about the possibility that it would stifle free speech and unfairly shield religion from any criticism. The House of Lords eventually passed amendments making it more palatable to its critics, but it still appears unpopular. There are also questions about whether this could create a slippery slope whereby different and increasingly more marginal groups also start demanding legal protection from mockery or criticism. Either way, there is plenty of outrage to follow. minega_isibo@yahoo.co.uk