January 1980 in the UK: chronology

A while ago I conceived of a series of pieces on 1980 on the premise that it was now 30 years since the birth of the eighties. With 2010 running out soon, it will soon be 31 years so I will try and post some more of The 1980 Archive in the next week. The following chronology of events in January 1980 is taken from 'The Book of the Year: September 1979 to September 1980' edited by the late socialist David Widgery and published by Ink Links at the end of that year. The book's summarises that year as follows: 'A new government: pledged to change the face of Britain with a new threadbare philosophy and ruthless policy. A new decade: of economic collapse and international tension. A year when all our cosy institutions suddenly seemed fragile: the Labour Party, the NHS, civil liberties and the Olympic Games. But a year, too, of new forms of opposition, hopes for something better than survival. More strikes than 1926 and a rapid rise of popular protest movements'. Clearly there are parallels with today, 1980 and 2010 both seeing incoming Conservative governments on a cuts programme. But reading through the chronology it is also striking how different the context was - the Cold War (Russia had just invaded Afghanistan), war in the north of Ireland, the colonial endgame in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, and a large industrial working class in the UK (January 1980 was dominated by a steel strike). During the current student movements I've noticed a return of various 1980s anti-Tory slogans and tactics. I'm all for learning the lessons of the past, but we should be wary about trying to re-run the 1980s - after all in many ways radical and working class movements were defeated in that period, and in any event, those were very different times. January 1980 1 Libyan oil price reaches $34.50 record. British army patrol kill each other in Northern Ireland (N.I.) despite procedures supposed to prevent ‘unnecessary’ killings. New chief of Royal Ulster Constabulary takes over as large march in solidarity with Republican prisoners is banned from going to Maze prison. Bill Sirs [leaders of steel workers union] predicts long steel strike: Keith Joseph [Tory mininster] intransigent in radio interview. Bad weather hits holiday sports programme. 2 Biggest-yet one day rise takes gold price to record $567 an ounce. International Transport Workers Federation pledges complete halt to union handling of steel imports into Britain as first day of steel strike gets strong support. Government-imposed commissioners in charge of Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham AHA suspend kidney transplant operations until April: three patients face death. NI Ombudsman-designate not to take up post after maladministration revelations. 3 Bill Sirs [leader of steel workers union] seeks guarantee from BSC [British Steel] of productivity element in their pay offer. Gold price reaches $660 an ounce. President Carter postpones Senate discussion of SALT treaty with USSR, because of invasion of Afghanistan, as US ambassadors seek support for anti-Soviet moves from NATO countries. Government concessions after protests mean South London kidney patients will not die. 4 DPP announces no police to be charged over death of Jimmy Kelly [killed by police in Liverpool]. Robert Mugabe accuses British of favouring Smith-Muzorewa side in Rhodesia. TUC makes further bid for peace in steel strike as TGWU declares dispute official. Carter announces sanctions against USSR. 5 British ceasefire administration announces 17,000 guerrillas have reported to ceasefire assembly points in Rhodesia. 6 US spokespeople say sanctions over size of Soviet embassy in Washington and export credits will last long time, and hint at closer alliance with China. 7 British-sponsored conference on future of NI opens to immediate disagreement among participants. Collapse of yet more steel-strike peace talks. Health Education Council launches campaign against smoking in front of small children. Teachers in Trafford, near Manchester, refuse to operate new timetables imposed to cut jobs through reorganization. US government to offer to buy grain which would have been sold to USSR before their embargo. 8 US sanctions stepped up: Soviet diplomats expelled, US consulate in Kiev closed, Soviet airline flights to America curbed. Steel pickets arrested in Sheffield. Australians’ second test victory in three-match series during England tour. 350 applicants for job of warden patrolling 15 miles of Hadrian’s Wall. 9 Talks on BSC craft workers’ pay collapse. Local councillors with children at state schools forbidden by government to vote on cost of school meals, milk, bus fares because of pecuniary interest’. Atkins announces second NI conference because first unable to agree on agenda. Summonses issued against two men over December attack on Tommy Docherty [manager of Manchester United]. 10 Second closure will mean both nuclear reactors at Dungeness out of action for safety checks. TUC Steel and Nationalized Industries committees threaten industrial action over steel closures in bid to prevent Welsh miners’ strike planned for 21 January. Leaders of five African states deplore presence of South African troops in Rhodesia. Dog licence in N.I. to go up from 30p to £4. 11 Police arrest pickets outside steel stockholders in Strathclyde, and Whitelaw denies police are taking sides. Sirs says strikers now looking for 20% pay rise. Representatives of GMWU majority of water workers vote in favour of industrial action. Former IRA activist Peter McMullen wins right of political asylum in USA. 12 Reports of Soviet troops defecting to rebels in Afghanistan. Major grain-exporting countries reach deal with US to restrict supplies to Soviet Union.

Spizz Energi's Where's Captain Kirk was number one in the first UK Indie Singles Chart, issued in January 1980. 13 Press scaremongering continues against Militant Tendency in Labour Party. Veteran nationalist leader Joshua Nkomo returns home to a hero’s welcome from Rhodesia blacks: calls for moderation and reconciliation. ISTC [steel workers' union] leaders willing to talk with BSC provided there is a government-backed inquiry into the industry. Life- size statue of Charlie Chaplin found mysteriously abandoned in London’s Leicester Square. 14 Tories pledge support for possible US boycott of Olympic Games. Keith Joseph refuses to intervene in steel strike. BP raises pump price of petrol by 5p a gallon. EEC Commission to take France to court over continuing restrictions on British lamb imports. Planned all-out strike in Wales from 21 January is postponed to 10 March after TUC pressure. 15 Scottish TUC and CBI successfully pressurize steel strikers to scale down picketing in Scotland. Machbox’ toy firm announces over 1,200 redundancies. Brussels meeting of NATO and EEC countries fails to back Anglo-US hard line over Afghanistan. Government not to increase child benefit in April. Following strong protests Heseltine cancels ban on councillors with children at state schools voting on school meals, prices, fares. New Statesman magazine acquitted of contempt of Court for publishing interview with juror in Jeremy Thorpe trial. 16 Gold price reaches $755 an ounce. Government announces new financial targets for electricity and gas industries: large price increases will follow. ISTC decides to call out 15,000 workers in private sector of steel industry. US threatens to boycott Olympics if Soviets don’t withdraw from Afghanistan. Foreign Office announces resumption of full diplomatic links with Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. Parents and children join staff in protest at Nottinghamshire suspension of teacher who would not teach oversize classes. Paul McCartney arrested at Tokyo airport for possessing marijuana. 17 Bill Sirs says he is surprised that BSC announces closure plans for parts of Welsh steel industry in middle of strike. Picketing stepped up at private steel works and stockholders. Thatcher to support US initiative over boycott of Moscow Olympics. Unions at BL to hold ballot of workers over pay claim. Gold price rises above $800 an ounce. 18 Lord Soames renews emergency powers taken by Smith regime in Rhodesia after UDI. People queue to sell gold watches, rings in Hatton Garden. 19 Four arrested, including two policemen, by officers from Operation Countryman inquiry into alleged police corruption. At meeting with steel unions, Joseph and Prior make no concessions. John Tyndall resigns as National Front leader after losing vote of confidence. Dinosaur experts incensed by libel of brontosaurus in adverts for Audi cars. 20 President Tito of Yugoslavia has leg amputated. Carter issues one-month ultimatum to USSR: withdraw from Afghanistan or the US will boycott Moscow Olympics. UN Secretary-General Waldheim claims to have reached deal with Iranians for release of Americans in Tehran embassy. Protest outside Pentonville Prison over jailings, lack of inquest on Blair Peach following Southall demonstrations in April.

Dirk Wears White Sox by Adam and the Ants was Number One in the first UK Indie Albums Chart in January 1980 21 BSC works in Derbyshire closed by mass picket as steelworkers plan to increase pressure on North Sea oil industry’s steel supplies. Thatcher urges more negotiations in separate Downing Street meetings with steel unions and management. Gold price briefly exceeds $1,000 an ounce. Somerset County Council bans use by its employees of notorious herbicide 245T, which is alleged to cause serious illnesses. Mass evacuation of homes in Barking as fire releases cloud of cyanide from store in blazing chemicals warehouse. 22 Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov arrested and sent into internal exile in provincial city of Gorky. Gold prices plunge as speculation comes to an end. Over quarter of a million demonstrate in Dublin against injustices of Ireland’s tax system. Large rise in unemployment is announced. West Indies defeat England in World Series of one-day cricket matches by two games to nil. 23 Labour Party NEC defies press and right wing, decides to take no action against Militant Tendency and other left-wingers, and fails to change composition of inquiry into party organization. Anglo-US call for boycott of Moscow Olympics gets scant support either in sporting circles or from most governments. NUPE health workers follow example of local authority colleagues and accept 13% pay offer. Catholic Archbishops in Britain call for new anti-abortion campaign. Row continues between British authorities and ZANU leader Robert Mugabe over when he will be allowed to return to Rhodesia. 24 Carrington announces reprisals against USSR for invasion of Afghanistan: unused credits withdrawn, visits by Brezhnev, Kosygin and Red Army choir cancelled. Defence Secretary Francis Pym announces £4,000 million plus spending on replacement for Polaris missile submarines. ISTC and NUB refuse to attend talks between smaller unions and BSC. IBA announces it will look at plans for breakfast TV during discussion on new contracts for ITV companies. Staff occupy St George’s Hospital, London, in bid to prevent closure. 25 House of Commons committee to investigate deaths in police custody. Independent steel companies fail to get court order preventing ISTC bringing private-sector workers out on strike from Sunday 27th. Paul McCartney deported from Japan. 26 Lord Denning issues injunction against strike by ISTC members at private steel companies, bans secondary picketing. Financial Times survey shows London is the world’s most expensive city to stay in. 27 Massive welcome demonstration greets Robert Mugabe on return to Salisbury. Iranian Presidential election won by former moderate’ Foreign Minister Bani-Sadr. Sixteen arrests in Birmingham as Right-wingers attempt to disrupt large march commemorating British shooting of unarmed demonstrators in Derry, NI in 1972. US Olympic committee votes unanimously to back Carter’s boycott of Moscow. 28 BBC to repeat ‘Law and Order’ TV series on police corruption which met hostile establishment reception when first broadcast in 1978. Over 200,000 strike in Wales in protest against proposed run-down of steel industry. Many private steel workers defy Lord Denning. Employers make improved offer to water workers in face of threatened industrial action. British-sponsored conference on NI resumes meeting but makes little progress. Granada TV’s World in Action’ alleges corruption at Manchester United. 29 ISTC executive gives way to Lord Denning over ban on strike in private sector. 39 pickets arrested in South Wales. Four Persian Gulf oil states follow Saudi lead and raise price by $2 a barrel. 30 New Statesman magazine publishes details of massive British government phone-tapping operation. ISTC rejects pay offer from private steel companies in Midlands. Picketing continues at many steel plants in defiance of Lord Denning. South African troops withdraw from Rhodesia. Anti-abortionists lobby parliament in support of Corrie bill. Teachers’ strikes against cuts, job losses in Avon local authority to be extended. Post Office chief blames 20% + price increase on government-imposed cash limits. China’s Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping calls for ban on wall posters. 31 ISTC granted leave to appeal to House of Lords against Denning judgement. Private meeting of BSC officials with ISTC and NUB. BL chief Edwardes threatens end of company if workers' ballots rejects management's pay offer. Thatcher and Whitelaw deny that unauthorized telephone taps are made by police, security forces. White Rhodesian leader calls on black voters to back Joshua Nkomo against Robert Mugabe in forthcoming elections.

The Specials released their EP The Special AKA Live! in January 1980 and it reached number one in the UK singles chart in early February. It featured Too Much Too Young and Guns of Navarone (recorded live at the Lyceum) and Skinhead Symphony - a medley of "Long Shot Kick De Bucket", "The Liquidator" and "Skinhead Moonstomp" recorded at Tiffany's in Coventry.

St Pauls Uprising, Bristol 1980

One year after the election of Margaret Thatcher as Conservative Prime Minister, the uprising in the St Paul's area of Bristol in April 1980 was the precursor to the inner city riots that swept the country in 1981. The riot was sparked by a police raid on a cafe in the context of broader conflicts about racism, black sociality and licensing laws. In the ensuing uproar police cars and a Lloyds Bank were set on fire. 134 people were arrested, 88 black and 46 white so it is misleading to describe it as a 'race riot' (as the media tended to label such events at the time) even if police racism was a major factor. Remarkably, in the most serious trial arising from the riot, the jury failed to convict 16 people charged with 'riotous assembly'. The collapse of the trial in March 1981 was followed a month later by rioting in Brixon and then the wave of summer uprisings. 

The first document is an extract from the book Uprising! The Police, the People and the Riots in Britain's Cities by Martin Kettle and Lucy Hodges (London: Pan Books, 1981): 

 'St Paul’s is an area to which black people from all over the city come for parties, shebeens (illegal drinking clubs) and to play ludo, dominoes and pinball machines at the Black and White Café, the premises where the spark for the riot was lit. They come because there is nowhere else to go. Much of the activity is perfectly lawful and, even where it is not, it involves behaviour such as illicit drinking and cannabis-smoking which does other people no harm. If the district is the focus for black social life in the city, the Black and White Café in Grosvenor Road, the ‘frontline’, is its nerve centre. When the riot broke out, it was the only black café (it,is in fact run by a black and white husband—and-wife team) which had not been forced out of business for contravening local authority health regulations or for similar reasons. But it had had its licence to sell alcohol removed. A seedy joint created out of the ground floor of a terraced house, the café was of great importance to the black community. It was the only bit of territory they had left and they were prepared to fight for the right to do what they liked there... 

 What brought hundreds of black and eventually white Bristolians up against the law on 2 April, 1980, a day when the schools closed at midday, was a police raid on the Black and White Café. This had happened many times before but serious violence had never broken out though it had in London in connexion with the Mangrove and Carib clubs). On the Second, as the occasion become known, thirty-nine policemen armed with search warrants for drugs and illegal consumption of alcohol moved in; the majority were to go into the café and the rest were to be held in reserve...

 What they could not have known was that tension was high in the Black and White that day. There was much talk about a St Paul’s youth who had been arrested on ‘sus’ in London and was appearing in court the following day. Young blacks were angry about the ‘police harassment’ and talked of going to London to protest. At about 3.30 p.m. the officers, the drugs squad in plain clothes and the rest in uniform, raided the café. They searched the place and questioned the twenty customers, searching some of them as well. Bertram Wilks, the café’s owner, was arrested and taken away in handcuffs, protesting loudly, to be charged with possessing cannabis and allowing it to be smoked on his premises. The police found large quantities of alcohol, including brandy, vodka and 132 crates of beer which they proceeded to load into a van in front of a growing crowd outside. 

The loading took a long time because there was so much liquor. As each crate was humped into the van, the crowd grew more restless, and when the van left a bottle was thrown, but there was no real violence as yet. A man complained that his trousers had been torn by a police officer in the café, an allegation which was later canvassed as the reason for the riot, and drugs squad officers made a run for it clutching their booty. This was what really seemed to annoy the crowd. ‘Let’s get the dope, let’s get the drugs squad,’ they are reported to have shouted. Missiles were thrown in earnest at a police car and at officers, and the riot had begun. 

The violence spread quickly: officers outside the café took refuge inside under a steady hail of bricks, bottles and stones from the crowd of black and white youths which had grown to about 150 (others were looking on) on the grassy area opposite. The police radioed for help and at about 5.30 p.m., two hours after the raid began, reinforcements arrived, assembling down one end of Grosvenor Road and marching down the road to rescue their besieged colleagues. This was a hazardous operation, with officers coming under a terrific barrage and being forced to take cover under crates and behind dustbins. It was the start of the really serious violence. As a black prostitute told the Sunday Times: ‘They came down the road, left right, left right, like they were on parade. They had dogs with them. When they came in front of the café, we let them have, it.’ The mistake the police may have made was to try to impose control with too few men. The marching column contained only 100 police and, on this interpretation, was a positive incitement to the angry crowd.,, Defence counsel at the riot trial months later suggested that the police had provoked the crowd by their military- style tactics. The police said, in turn, that they hoped this show of strength would disperse the crowd. It did no such thing'.

 

The second document comes from The Leveller magazine in 1980, a very radical piece from a member of its collective who later became... well I won't spoil it, read it first before you skip to the end to see who wrote it: 

'Just when it had become fashionable for world-weary, elitist, metropolitan lefties to claim that class struggle was somehow ‘old-wave’, the Bristol race riots have put it triumphantly back on the political agenda in its most classic form - urban insurrection. The riots confirmed that the front-line is still where it has always been, which is not in animal liberation groups or whatever happens to be the current O.K. cultural preoccupation. The front-line is located where people are in struggle; where working people under all types of pressure, racism, capitalism in crisis, clash with the forces of the state. The riots are probably the most politically progressive thing that will happen all year. 

But because they are difficult to assimilate into conventional political thinking they run the risk of being dismissed as almost a sideshow. The ‘New Statesman’, at a loss as to quite what to say about them, chose to say nothing at all. Paradoxically the state probably has a clearer idea of their significance than the white left establishment. Social workers, vicars, race relations officers, local councillors — in other words the whole structure of social control - wrung its collective hands and wailed ‘How could this have happened in Bristol, it had such good community relations?’ Someone ought to tell them that the race relations industry has increasingly little to do with the reality of life as it is lived by most black people and as such is not a barometer of anything, still less a cure or even a palliative. 

They could try asking black people from St. Pauls. They are scathing about ‘community leaders’ who are unknown to the community, black social workers who are primarily concerned with holding down their jobs and the local Community Relations Council. This body has allegedly been involved in deals with the police which would involve handing over lists of names of rioters in return for police promises to confine prosecutions to names on the list. In parliament politicians tried to incorporate the riots into their own sterile Westminster games. Labour MPs blamed Tory policies for the riots, ignoring not only the fact that Geoffrey Howe and Willie Whitelaw are carrying out monetarist and law-and-order policies which were initiated under Denis Healey and Merlyn Rees, but that the Labour party record on fighting racism is just as bad as the Tories.  The extra-parliamentary left has followed its traditional opportunism towards black struggles. At the march commemorating the anniversary of the death of Blair Peach the ANL [Anti Nazi League]— ever sensitive to fashion — had a black youth from Bristol on the platform. 

 The response of the state to Bristol has been more considered. It is clear that the other big city police forces are very cross indeed with the Avon and Somerset force for failing to stand and fight it out in St. Pauls. The Metropolitan police — in a novel exercise in community relations — has called in key black activists to warn them against following the Bristol example. The significant thing is that the people of St. Pauls were able to hold it for five hours against the police, not just because they technically outnumbered them but because a whole system of police control, which includes surveillance had broken down. They won’t be caught like that again. The lesson of Bristol for the police is not only the need for bigger and better SPG type units in all the big cities but the need to strengthen the whole submerged infra-structure of police control: surveillance, phone-tapping etc. 

Black people in St. Pauls dislike talk of the riots as a defeat for the police. They say the police victory is only just beginning. Over a 140 people have been arrested on charges connected with the riots — the first batch of them came up in court on May 1st. It seems there will be extensive use of conspiracy charges and the community is having great difficulty co-ordinating its defence because of the lack of grass-roots organisations and committed lawyers in Bristol. 

 The riots have had interesting reverberations within the black community as a whole. My mother is a black working class lady nearing 60. Eminently respectable and conservative-minded, she was pleased and excited by the ITN film of policemen running away from black youth and said firmly: ‘It shows they can’t push us around any more’. The riots politicised my mother and others like her and the state is well aware they posed a direct threat to its power — the more so because they were entirely spontaneous. But those on the white left who won’t learn the lessons of Bristol and insist on incorporating what happened into their own world-view may well find that the revolution happens without them'. (The Leveller, no.38, March 1980 - written by Diane Abbot, later Labour MP)

   

So what about music? There is actually a direct line between the Bristol riots and the Bristol music scene that exploded later in the 1980s and early 1990s. Quite a few people from that scene were amongst the estimated 2000 on the streets that night. More to the point the riot carved out a social space in which music flourished. According to the excellent Port Cities: 'In the early 1980s competing ‘crews’ like The Wild Bunch (who later became Massive Attack), 2Bad, City Rockers, UD4 (Roni Size’s brother) and FBI Crew were battling it out on home-built speaker systems, modelled after those in Jamaica in the Caribbean. The Wild Bunch became legendary for their much-attended parties at which their music sets combined punk, reggae and Rhythm and Blues. They played at local events, such as St Pauls Carnival and in disused or empty buildings in or close to the St. Pauls area. After the St. Pauls riots in 1980, the police avoided the area, which made such gigs possible'. Clifton Mighty, brother of Ray Mighty of 'Smith and Mighty' fame, was one of those acquitted in the riot trial (though he was still facing hassle from the police twenty years later).

 

1980 & 2010: screwing the poor

Courtesy of 56a Info Shop in SE London, I have recently had access to an archive of radical publications from the early 1980s, in particular The Leveller, a London-based 'independent socialist magazine'. So I'm going to start a new series called 1980, highlighting things that happened 30 years ago. There are quite a lot of similarities between 1980 and 2010, not least the fact that in both cases in the UK, a Conservative government had recently come to power and was implementing a programme of public spending cuts amidst rising unemployment. So there's plenty of food for thought for the present in looking back.

2010

So here we are in 2010, with the multi-millionaire Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announcing a new campaign against the poorest people in the country: benefits claimants. According to the BBC today:

'The government has set out a series of measures to tackle benefit fraud, as ministers spend the weekend finalising spending cuts. The steps would mean anyone with three convictions could forfeit their rights to benefits for up to three years...

Mr Osborne said state aid had "to go to the people who need it, and people who pay for it these days are going to demand no less". Under the new scheme every welfare offence - no matter how minor - would mean an immediate fine of £50. The government is promising to share more data with credit reference agencies to find patterns of offending. It is also recruiting 200 new inspectors, creating a mobile task force to go into areas with high rates of fraud and check every claim individually. The strategy, to be unveiled on Monday, will use hi-tech data tracking techniques between government offices and credit reference agencies'.

1980

Here's a report of something very similar, an article written by Tim Gopsill published in The Leveller, no.36, March 1980:

'Any doubt the Tory leadership might have had about Reg Prentice’s reactionary credentials must now be dispelled [Reg Prentice was a former Labour politician who switched to the Tories]. Chosen as Minister of State for Social Security to direct the attack on unemployed people and single parents, he has undertaken the task with tremendous zeal. On February 13 he announced a ‘new clampdown on scroungers’, a programme of breathtaking savagery against the Tories’ favourite target, the poor.

Margaret Thatcher knew how well Prentice was qualified for the job. He has a vast experience and proven ability in the field of fraud, having arguably deceived more honest Labour voters than any other politician. And like his mythical millions of scroungers, he has lived off the back of the taxpayer and the state for many years.

The ‘clampdown’ is not on scroungers at all. In co-ordination with the rest of Tory strategy, it is on working and unemployed people’s living standards and organisation. It is scapegoatism on a huge scale, making the poor pay for the failures of capital. And it is a strengthening of the apparatus of the state to this end. It is the same story as the new laws to break the unions, the cuts in housing, education, health and social service expenditure on the one hand, and the increase in resources allocated to police and military expenditure on the other.

Prentice announced the appointment of more than 1,000 extra staff to tackle ‘fraud and abuse’, which he predicted would save £50 million of the estimated £200 million to be lost over the coming year.

Before we consider the real facts, a few more figments from Prentice’s fevered brain. This figure of £200 million, which picked up a good deal of publicity, where did it come from? Embarrassed DHSS officials, under pressure, while maintaining that of course you can’t, by definition, produce a figure for something you know nothing about, concede the following: (You aren’t going to believe this) that big retail chains and other companies handling large amounts of money regularly reckon to write off 1 to 2 percent of turnover to theft. And that’s it: Prentice got his officials to work out what was 1 per cent of the estimated £19,000 million to be paid out by the DHSS in 1980-81, rounded it up to a headline-grabbing £200 million, and gave it out as the scroungers’ swag…

More than half his new staff will be extra Unemployment Review Officers — 530 new UROs, more than doubling the present establishment of 447. These men and women are not at all concerned with fraud. Their job is to stop the long- term unemployed (people who’ve been jobless for six months) receiving the benefit which is their perfect entitlement.

UROs are armed with quite an arsenal. They can cut benefit or stop it altogether if they consider claimants fail, without justification, to find work. They can send them to Assessment or Re-establishment Centres (workhouses). They can initiate prosecutions for failure to maintain oneself or one’s dependents. These powers do not often have to be used. Their threat is usually enough to achieve the aim of getting a claimant off the books — whether to some low-paid non-union sweatshop, or into a limbo without income, or petty crime, they don’t care...

The next biggest increases in personnel are to be new Fraud Officers and Liable Relative Officers — 170 of each. The Liable Relative (LR) operations are already the heaviest harassment squad in the business, with 2,034 officers nationwide. Their job, quite simply, is to get hold of people (usually deserting fathers) who are considered to be responsible for dependent relatives that are receiving benefit, and extort money from them.

Again, there is no ‘fraud’ involved. The common picture is of a husband who has left the home. The wife and child need supplementary benefit (SB) to survive, and while one department is grudgingly paying this out, the LROs are despatched to find the errant father. He is presented with a bill for the benefit paid, with the sanction of prosecution for failure to maintain his dependents. The mother is cajoled to prosecute or give evidence against him for failure to pay maintenance. In many cases, the father may be poor, or have acquired a new home and dependents; either way he can’t pay much, and it helps no-one to prosecute; no-one except DHSS officials with their fanatical determination not to pay benefit.

Claimants’ Union activists around the country are reporting a recent upsurge in enthusiasm on the part of LROs, with cases of men being presented with bills for years of benefit, running into thousands of pounds.

The other classes of new staff are the Fraud Officers, and 100 more Special Investigators. The SIs are the elite fraud detectives; they are the scum of the earth. They are the ones who rise with the dawn to sit outside the homes of women claimants to spot a man coming out to work. They are the collectors who can convert tittle-tattle from nasty neighbours into cases for the courts. They work a lot with the police, and with employers, for the majority of their cases are ‘working and drawing’ — that is, unemployed claimants or dependents who are found to be supplementing their state pittances by taking jobs. Not usually comfortable, established jobs with tax and insurance deducted of course, but casual ones: seasonal agricultural work, window-cleaning, decorating, odd jobs. These cases made up 55 per cent of prosecutions for SB fraud in 1978-79, and 69 per cent of Unemployment Benefit (UB) fraud.

What the DHSS’s ridiculous figures for projected savings (50 million out of estimated fraud and abuse losses of £53 million) mean is that every claimant will be under suspicion. How else can all estimated fraud or abuse be eliminated? It has already been policy for two years that every case proved will be taken to court. This explains the prosecution statistics (hold your breath, comrades): In 1976 there were 19,000 prosecutions for benefit fraud. In 1977-78: 26,000. In 1978-79: 29,147.

The conviction rate was 98 per cent. To put these facts into context, compare the zeal with which government is pursuing fraud of two other kinds that should be comparable — that are comparable, if truth can be admitted in Thatcher’s Britain: income tax evasion, and under-payment by employers...

So same old rhetoric about 'scroungers' and punitive measures against people just trying to get by on very low incomes, sometimes by knowingly or unknowingly getting round the rules. Still maybe something reassuring about the fact that after 30 years or more of endless persecution of the poor, the state apparently still finds itself in the same position.

And here, by Crass from the same period (from 1978 to be precise), is the only possible response to the Osbornes and Prentices of this world. Do they owe us a living? Of course they do...