scholarly journals Fox-Trotting the Riot: Slow Rioting in Britain's Inner City

2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 68-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Mckenzie

In recent years there have been significant discussions and arguments raised relating to the position and behaviour of those who live in Britain's poorest neighbourhoods, however there has been little in the way of solutions put forward by any of the political Party's. August 2011 was a flashpoint in the history of these debates, the civil unrest which took place during that month has led to further and continuous on-going social and political debates relating to welfare, unemployment and a sense of disenfranchisement within specific neighbourhoods in the UK. This paper focuses upon a community in Nottingham, St Ann's, a council estate housing 15,000 people, who rely upon social housing and public services to as they say to ‘keep their heads above water’. The families who rely upon public services, welfare benefits and social housing are the poorest and most disadvantaged people in Britain, and since 2010 are being subject to harsh cuts in their welfare benefits. They are also the most vulnerable to unemployment caused by shrinking the size of the public sector, as they were to the loss of the manufacturing industries in the early 1980s under the Thatcher Government. This paper examines the lives of those who live on this council estate; rely upon social housing, local services, and when the employment market shrinks welfare benefits. The paper addresses the key argument that there has been a significant change in representation of how council estates and working class people who live in them have been negatively re-branded and stigmatised over the last 30 years. Although the focus of the riots has centred around five days in August 2011, this paper introduces families, and individuals who have been part of this ethnographic research over an eight-year period. Thus arguing that the disturbances in 2011 were an unintended consequence of a significant neighbourhood and community decline over a generation, but which has been exacerbated since 2010 with the Coalition Government's austerity measures.

Acoustics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-136
Author(s):  
John L. Drever ◽  
Aysegul Yildirim ◽  
Mattia Cobianchi

In a leading article by Sir Percival Philips in the UK popular newspaper, the Daily Mail, July 16, 1928, came the following headlines: “Millions Lost by Noise – Cities’ Worst Plague – Menace to Nerves and Health – What is Being Done to Stop it”. The article was supported by research from Prof Henry J. Spooner, who had been researching and campaigning on the ill-effects of noise and its economic impact. The article sparked subsequent discussion and follow-up articles in the Daily Mail and its international partners. In an era of rapid technological change, that was on the cusp of implementing sound pressure measurements, the Daily Mail, in collaboration with the Columbia Graphophone Company Ltd, experimented with sound recording technology and commentary in the field to help communicate perceived loudness and identify the sources of “unnecessary noise”. This resulted in the making of series of environmental sound recordings from five locations across central London during September 1928, the findings of which were documented and discussed in the Daily Mail at the time, and two recordings commercially released by Columbia on shellac gramophone disc. This was probably the first concerted anti-noise campaign of this type and scale, requiring huge technological efforts. The regulatory bodies and politicians of the time reviewed and improved the policies around urban noise shortly after the presentation of the recordings, which were also broadcast from the BBC both nationally and internationally, and many members of the public congratulated and thanked the Daily Mail for such an initiative. Despite its unpreceded scale and impact, and the recent scholarly attention on the history of anti-noise campaigning, this paper charts and contextualises the Daily Mail’s London Street Noise campaign for the first time. As well as historical research, this data has also been used to start a longitudinal comparative study still underway, returning to make field recordings on the site on the 80th and 90th anniversaries and during the COVID-19 lockdown, and shared on the website londonstreetnoises.co.uk.


Author(s):  
Donald Cohen

This chapter focuses on the right wing's astonishingly successful efforts to privatize public goods and services. Privatization has been one of the highest priorities of the right wing for many years, and the chapter shows how it threatens both labor and democracy. Intentionally blurring the lines between public and private institutions, private companies and market forces undermine the common good. This chapter documents the history of privatization in the United States, from President Reagan's early efforts to Clinton and Gore's belief in private markets. Showing how privatization undermines democratic government, the chapter describes complex contracts that are difficult to understand, poorly negotiated “public–private partnership” deals, and contracts that provide incentives to deny public services. With huge amounts of money at stake, privateers are increasingly weighing in on policy debates—not based on the public interest but rather in pursuit of avenues that increase their revenues, profits, and market share. Privatization not only destroys union jobs but also aims to cripple union political involvement so that the corporate agenda can spread unfettered. Nevertheless, community-based battles against privatization have succeeded in many localities, demonstrating the power of fighting back to defend public services, public jobs, and democratic processes.


Author(s):  
Mark Thomas ◽  
Paul Johnson

This chapter focuses on one fundamental aspects of an ageing population — how to pay for old age, individually and collectively. It also presents a study of the history of old age support in the UK and US and concludes that despite the quite different beginnings of the public pension and social security systems, government policy in both countries has become similarly locked in to a set of institutional arrangements which were devised to respond to immediate social and economic problems, but which have acquired a rationale and a dynamic of their own.


Author(s):  
Emma Davidson

This chapter demonstrates how, in the UK, austerity has not been limited to the provision of social security. Most government departmental budgets were cut and there was a clear shift in responsibility from central to local government, which also had its budgets slashed. The cuts to local government have also resulted in a marked decrease in the provision of key services. The chapter finds that libraries can be important spaces for support workers to meet clients, as well as for those with fewer resources to access computers, books, or simply a safe communal space outside of their home. Future lack of investment in universal public services may perpetuate and further widen the inequalities in access to these resources.


1950 ◽  
Vol 76 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-37
Author(s):  
A. C. Robb

A study of the history of public superannuation schemes reveals that, in general, steady progress has been, and is being, made; there is, however, little consistency as between various branches of the public service. There have already been many post-war developments, in which there is some evidence of a common pattern, yet in which there are many startling divergencies. In view of the ever-increasing scope of the public services, it is surely time to give serious consideration to the question of standardization of such schemes; and the object of this paper is to suggest possible future developments along these lines.


2008 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Needham

The concept of co-production – also called co-creation – is gaining widespread attention as a way to increase user involvement in service provision in the UK. It is usually taken as self-evident that more co-production will improve services. However, it is necessary to be clear about how far and in what ways co-production can improve public services. This article looks at the purported advantages of co-production, and considers how these can best be accessed. A case study workshop involving social housing users and providers, conducted as part of the National Consumer Council-Unison Shared Solutions project, is used to illustrate the need for collective dialogue and deliberation between co-producers rather than purely transactional forms of co-production.


2015 ◽  
Vol 143 (15) ◽  
pp. 3182-3195 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. A. ROBINSON

SUMMARYDespite many years of state-sponsored efforts to eradicate the disease from cattle through testing and slaughter, bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is still regarded as the most important and complex of animal health challenges facing the British livestock agricultural industry. This paper provides a historical analysis of the ongoing bTB statutory eradication programme in one part of the UK – Northern Ireland (NI) – which began in 1949 as a voluntary scheme, but between 1959 and 1960 became compulsory for all cattle herd-owners. Tracing bTB back through time sets the eradication efforts of the present day within a deeper context, and provides signposts for what developed in subsequent decades. The findings are based primarily on empirical research using historical published reports of the Ministry of Agriculture and state documents held in the public archives in NI, and they emphasize the need to consider the economic, social and political contexts of disease eradication efforts and their influences on both the past and the present.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (7) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Danilo Araújo Moreira

Durante o século XIX a instrução pública figurou como pauta frequente nos debates políticos do jovem império do Brasil. Nas altas galerias da política nacional e nas salas das assembleias provinciais, a formação escolar dos cidadãos brasileiros foi tema de leis e regulamentos diversos. Iniciava-se neste período a estrutura de ensino público no Brasil independente. Na corte e nas províncias, planejavam-se e fundavam-se faculdades, escolas normais, liceus, externatos, aulas avulsas e outras instituições escolares. Este processo integrou o curso da organização do Estado Nacional no Brasil. No interior deste movimento, a instrução pública foi progressivamente se constituindo como um instrumento a ser utilizado para auxiliar na resolução de algumas questões colocadas às elites imperiais. Pouco ainda tem se discutido, contudo, sobre os discursos e as representações que foram construídas neste processo acerca do valor da instrução, do letramento e da formação escolar. Neste ensaio, buscamos realizar uma reflexão sobre este tema nos orientando pelo seguinte questionamento: ao longo da criação do titubeante sistema de instrução pública da província de Minas Gerais, de que modo a escolarização era abordada nos discursos políticos? A discussão aqui delineada é pautada pelo enfoque sobre uma documentação específica que já foi utilizada em algumas pesquisas em história da educação, mas que ainda consiste em uma fonte de informações importante sobre a organização da instrução pública em Minas Gerais: os Relatórios dos Presidentes da Província.* * *During the 19th century the public instruction has figured as a frequent matter in political debates from the early Brazilian Empire. At the highest galleries of national politics and into the provincial assemblies rooms, the scholar formation of brazilian citizens was theme of a huge variety of laws and rules. In this period, the public education structuration has been started at the independent Brazil. At the court and provincies, it was planned and founded new colleges, normal schools, day-schools, lyceums, single classes and other institutions. This process has integrated the organization course of the National State in Brazil. Within this moviment, the public instruction was progressively constituting itself as an instrument to be used to help finding the answer of some questions posed to the imperial elite. Only a little has been discussed about the topic yet, however, the speech and representation were built at this process around the value of instruction, the literacy and the school education. In this essay, we seek to reflect about the theme, guiding ourselves by the following question: throughout the creation of this hesitant public instruction system in Minas Gerais’ province, in which way did the schooling use to be addressed at the political speeches? The argumentation outlined in this arcticle is marked by the focus on a specific documentation which has already been used in some reaserches in the history of education, but it still represents an important information source about the public instruction organization in Minas Gerais: the Province Presidents’ Reports.


Author(s):  
Angelika Wodecka-Hyjek

The chapter presents the models of co-operation between the public administration and non-profit organisations with regard to performing public services, supporting civil initiatives, building social dialogue and shaping civil society in the context of the development of public entrepreneurship. The issues presented at the beginning related to the separation of entrepreneurship in the public sector; emphasis was put on the need for co-operation between the public sector and non-profit organisations as a condition of the development of public entrepreneurship. Then the models of co-operation of the public sector and non-profit organisations in the UK, Canada, Estonia and Poland were characterised. In consequence of the conducted discourse, postulates and recommendations were presented with regard to building efficient and effective co-operation between the public administration and the sector of non-profit organisations and its role in the development of public entrepreneurship.


This chapter traces the history of public service television. The history of British public service broadcasting policy in the 20th century is characterized by a series of very deliberate public interventions into what might otherwise have developed as a straightforward commercial marketplace. The creation of the BBC, the launch of an ITV network required to produce public service programming, and the addition of the highly idiosyncratic Channel 4 gave the UK a television ecology animated by quality, breadth of programming and an orientation towards serving the public interest. At each of these three moments, the possibilities of public service television were expanded and British culture enriched as a result. The 1990 Broadcasting Act and the fair wind given to multichannel services may have ended the supremacy of the public service television ideal. However, public service television has survived, through the design of the institutions responsible for it, because of legislative protection, and as a result of its continuing popularity amongst the public.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document