WE are now in the middle of a deep and decisive towards authoritarian kind This drift into a 'Law and Order' society is no temporary affair; nor is it a mere backlash against the 'permissive excesses' 1960s.
It has its roots in the structural backwardness of the economy, a fact which has been with us since the closing decades of the last century, only temporarily hidden by a brief period of 'affluence' after the war.
Governments in trouble, it might be said, always have a strong temptation reach for regulation in times of social crisis. These are times treedoms and liberties flourish.
But those in power today have the means of communication available to shape public opinion in such a way as to create a popular demand for more Law and Order'.
The popular press can give voice to the silent majority, representing it in its most virulently traditionalist The Tory Party claims that it is the party of the insingle memorandum disciplinary, Whitehall to Fleet Street. of society.
support and powerless, who authoritarian development populism.
amounts to "subversive'.
Federation feels policemen discipline and criticisms of when human La dangerous pass.
When Sir Metropolitan title...usually from this pamphlet. and authoritarian disguise, without a passing. from Thereby the drift to Law and Order secures a degree of popular legitimacy among other alterAgainst this background, we must speak not only of moving towards an but also the of To raise the question of rights and cIVil Ilberties in such an atmosphere declaring oneself When the Chairman of the Police free to tell local Merseyside that the police are "mischievous or misguided', when a Jimmy Kelly, has died while in their hands we have come to Robert Mark, the last Commissioner accuses the National. Council of Civil Liberties in The Office of Constable of being a 'self-appointed political group with • a misleading trying usurp Order Society that the policies of the radical right in allowing 'social market encourage a strong authoritarian state. Below we reprint an edited extract function of the democratically appolitical change' authoritarian climate is confirmed.
The racical right hostile to the creeping collectivism of the welfare But lt nas hostility to the strong state. The new laissez faire doctrine in which market forces have free rein is, laissez faire, not at all inconsistent with a strong disciplinary state. market doctrine' the state should intervene less in some areas, but more in others. Its preferred slogan is "Free Economy: Strong There is much talk within this doctrine of 'Liberty'. 'Liberty' is highly selective.
It is the "Liberty' of property and contract, of the free movement of capital, of unbridled market forces and of the competitive 'possessive individualism' to which this slogan refers.
It is not the 'liberty of those who have nothing to sell but only their labour to withdraw. mistake about it: under this regime the market is to be Free; the people are to be Disciplined.
'Supplementary benefit known as in a less It should be a safety net, luck case around.' militantly Daily Telegraph no like the old OF LABOUR 'There is no such right known to law' Rolls But here too EQUALITY of Sir Robert Mark, on the Shrewsbury pickets:
Make • no of all crimes, worse even achieve an industrial or should be what it used to be euphemistic era: assistance.
strictly for emergencies, not a featherbed for every hard WITHDRAWAL Lord Denning Master of the 1973:
'They committed the worst than murder, the attempt to political objective by criminal violence.
Sir Robert Mark on George Ward, the employer at Grun'He courageously and successfully stood firm against politically motivated violence.
Sir Robert Mark on pressures on the Metropolitan Police in '72,750 burglaries, 2,680 robberies and 450 demonstrations.' 'Drifting Into a Law and Order Society' by Stuart Hall. Available from The Other Bookshop, price 80 pence.
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that defends the liberties overweening state.
dividual against the domination of the Stuart Hall, a Professor of Sociology at the Open University, explains in his new pamphlet Drifting into a Law and
values (to) rip', rather than 'rolling the state back', do exactly the opposite and
WELFARE RIGHTS
BEFORE THE LAW