BRITAIN’S FAVOURITE PASTIME

There are many possible candidates for this award, from bonking, eating junk food and allowing yourself to become hideously fat, and last but by no means least, the national obsession among British teenagers for drunkenness and lewd behaviour in Spanish holiday resorts.

To begin without trawling the obvious, an interesting possibility I have in mind for Britain’s favourite pastime is the current obsession across the working class underclass spectrum that also takes in large numbers of the lower middle class and is equally applicable to both sexes is a passion for being tattooed? This is now a flourishing obsession. One which in less than a decade and a half has become an established feature of the British way of life. The adornment of the human body with grafted signs, inscriptions, sayings and pictorial representation, while being a matter of personal choice has fast become something of a ‘must have’ personal fetish. It’s not so much a form of individual artistic expression as a statement about who we are. What we see as attractive and meaningful to us that we want to communicate to others. Tell them about what kind of people we are. This is evident from the fact that it is often arms, lower limbs, upper torso and heads that are most often adorned though it is sometimes the case that a rose is to be found neatly centered above the anal crack of large numbers of women. Most popular among fat under-class women I’ve been reliably informed.

In the latter case I’m hard put to it to understand exactly what impression they seek to convey for the money expended. They can’t see it themselves and only those drunk enough might gain sight of this artistic addition to the said area. In other words why spend money if no one can see it, or could it be that they themselves have sufficient intelligence to enjoy the laconic connection?

No, the penchant for being tattooed has become a runaway train and the question is why? Many of these things are seriously expensive, costing thousands, So what do they express. Obviously something meaningful, but is that something a recent or long term aspect of personal character? And above all, why now, in the last fifteen years? Interestingly enough the rise of the fetish coincides perfectly with the appearance of a new social class on the British scene. Margaret Thatcher’s time in office saw a de-industrialization  of British society and fundamental changes in the structure of the working class, a large part of which became unemployed and socially depressed. This led to the formation of a gathering substrata below it which today is best described as an underclass, with its own well defined characteristics in culture, appearance and habit. In tandem with the emergence and growth of this class has come its expression of self-identity, not simply in speech but more perhaps in appearance. Specifically in the tattoo. The tattoo is a necessary expression of identity in a new social class that needed one. This identity crisis has now extended outwards into the old working class which now, having lost much of its tradition, seeks some other kind of identity to replace it Especially in the case of its youth.

It is logical that the great socio-economic changes within British society over the last thirty years have created a great psychological change in the character of its people most strongly affected. Old traditions have been lost, new identifying mechanisms have been required. The rise of tattooing has perfectly fitted this psychological necessity, this need for identity.

Though a mass phenomenon and one of Britain’s most popular pastimes, it’s not the subject of this post, merely a psychological pointer to what I intend talking about. I mention it here because issues of psychology and their roots in recent profound changes in our society provide an important background for introducing the altogether more serious issue I have in mind. One that’s also psychological in character. That is, the view held by many that one of Britain’s newest and perhaps most disturbingly ugly favourite pastimes is lying. Lying as a way of externalizing personal neuroses. By this I don’t necessarily mean children’s tall stories though they in themselves, given the circumstance, can have consequences that turn out to be deadly. No, by lying I specifically mean going to the police and making statements about the conduct of others whether verbal or physical or in some cases both that are untrue. That are in fact lies.

What I am saying here is this. That in the last two decades, a favourite pastime among British people has been going to the police and making lying, malicious allegations to them about the conduct of others they know to be innocent of such with the sole intention of causing them harm. I’m saying that such behaviour is turning into an avalanche of evil intent and that its consequences, on an individual basis, are often damaging and destructive in the extreme. Such false allegation, such malicious evil intent, while not as common as watching a game of football on Saturday, is fast approaching a tipping point where it becomes part of our everyday way of life and shocking as it may seem, the statistics are there to prove it. It’s become a disgusting nasty psychological scab on the face of Britain.

At its heart lies a curious circumstance. A connection that provides a kind of take off point for its emergence like some kind of social bacillus into the bloodstream of British society. In 1994 Tory Home Secretary Michael Howard’s Criminal Justice Bill proposed a major and fundamental change to the British Criminal Justice System that was to have profound consequences for the relationship between the public and the police. When it became law the police no longer required independent verification of the facts of any allegation i.e. confirmation by an independent witness before they could arrest or charge. This could now be done solely on the basis of the individual making the allegation. In short the police could now arrest or charge on a basis of unconfirmed or uncorroborated allegation. This is an absolutely key change in the administration of British Criminal Justice and police conduct and has, astonishingly, been little remarked on by media commentators. With Michael Howard’s proposals the police power of arrest became extended beyond the bluest ever hoped for horizon. And coincidentally, from this time on a new kind of social behaviour emerged. Tentatively at first but soon gathering pace. That of going to the police and making false allegations.

It became all too easy. Just go to the police and make a formal complaint that a neighbor, or work colleague, or someone you’d  overheard saying something you didn’t like, or someone who’d you’d thought had been rude to you, say in  a supermarket… Someone! Anyone! It doesn’t even have to be someone you know… Just taken a dislike to! Just think up something to say, go to the police and make a statement, then the police could arrest that third party if they wished or at least take them down to the Station. There! Now you felt better! That would definitely teach them a lesson! 

And if you really wanted to teach them a lesson, give them trouble they’d never forget, or better still put them in court, what better than to make an allegation about sexual misconduct! The police would be duty bound to investigate, arrest, take the matter to the Crown Prosecution Service. It wasn’t a malicious evil thing you were doing, making it all up, just making sure a nasty person like that knew trouble and fear. Got what they deserved…

It wasn’t long before the police knew they were onto a good thing, with little to check their power of arrest, and in the case of allegations for sexual misconduct the easiest nick in the world. On the other side, that of the genuine innocent victims of false allegation neurosis, especially those sexual in character, the damage and harm was immense. In the years following the passing into law of Michael Howard’s proposals, malicious allegation became a weapon in the hands of countless neurotics and among this number can be counted children as well as adults! During the 1990s allegations made by pupils against schoolteachers reached epidemic proportions as those with grudges had little more to do than go to someone in authority and have some unfortunate victim summoned in by the head with suspension the least of their worries. Police involvement, dismissal and ruination of reputation and career was more often the outcome of refusing to back down under pupil threat or provocation. Teachers unions have extensive statistics of this rise of malicious allegation within schools and countless well documented cases of uncontrolled juvenile behaviour backed up by violent parental demand. Prior to the 1960’s teaching was a respected profession. From the 1980’s secondary education became an abominable hothouse of pupil-parent control with teachers turned into endless victims of false allegation and malice.

Outside education the bearers of Britain’s collective neuroses post 1994 were now on a roll. False, malicious allegation has now become something of a national sport and interestingly enough, of the many countries in Europe, it is only in Britain that such deeply vicious behaviour has reached epidemic proportions. Such allegations are by no means always sexual in character. They can be about what may be considered threatening language or behaviour. Something entirely inconsequential like a complaint about the behaviour of someone’s dog in a public place. To neurotics such a triviality may be sufficient for it as threatening or aggressive. In short any perfectly decent and innocent person may suddenly be seen as dangerous. Someone to complain about in turn. Someone to lie about, make up a story about and often, if the person is known or easily identifiable, go to the police with a concocted allegation of threatening behaviour when the real issue is that for some reason you didn’t like the way you were spoken to. You felt angry and demeaned. Determined to hit back!

In recent times a deadly and dangerous fragility in interpersonal relationships has become part of the British social scene. Part of the British psychology. People experiencing serious economic pressure for example such as fears about job loss may only too often transfer their anxiety into a variety of other spheres of life such as family, potentially magnifying their psychological character. Anxiety and fear are indeed well known catalysts for the creation of neuroses so it is perhaps no surprise that the recent decade of economic instability has gone hand in hand with the rise of plain bad social behaviour and malicious, false allegation.

It’s not too great a problem in France. It doesn’t sit well with the relaxed amiable French character, and likewise in Italy malicious allegation is almost unheard of. As a widespread phenomenon it’s almost unheard of in Germany and throughout Holland, Denmark and Scandinavia.

Perhaps people who feel under threat have a greater tendency to lash out but such conduct first requires a cause then a release mechanism. Economic anxieties and family dislocation certainly provide reason, a psychological petri dish for the incubation of neuroses… the trigger for an explosion of anger or rage on the other hand may be just about anything! Its intensity perhaps depending on the period of incubation itself. These are factors unknown to the unselfconscious victim of the neurosis, because they are indeed a victim, but they are certainly unknown to the recipient of any such anger or rage, the many perfectly innocent individuals against whom false allegations are made. The terrified, frightened and only too outraged victims of lies, spite and malice.

It’s an absolute farce that most people in Britain believe the charming little folk tale of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ where criminal justice in this country is concerned. Only the legal profession, the judiciary, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service would have you believe such a lie. In practical terms the notion of innocence DOES NOT EXIST anywhere in the British criminal justice system. Once an individual is charged by the police for committing a crime they can either by found GUILTY or NOT GUILTY in a court of law. However being found not guilty is most definitely NOT THE SAME as being regarded as innocent by the Crown Prosecution Service and the judiciary. Technically, you are only NOT GUILTY and in some circumstances the judge in the case may still regard you as guilty and indicate as much in court as recently happened in a high profile case despite the fact that the accused had been found not guilty by a jury minutes earlier

I mention these circumstances to point out that while the burden of any malicious allegation proceeded with by the police falls entirely on its victim, the person against whom the allegation is made, the weight of justice is also entirely against them as the Criminal Justice System, indeed the State, DOES NOT REGARD THEM AS INNOCENT. Indeed, no innocent person once charged with a crime by the State can ever be innocent in law! The other side of the coin to this is that both the police and Crown Prosecution Service are duty bound and heavily committed to act on behalf of the accuser, the person making the false allegations. This commitment indeed goes far beyond a call of duty as many people have learned to their cost after being found NOT GUILTY. Subsequently seeking to bring a private legal action against the person who’d made the false allegation/s against them they’ve discovered to their astonishment that the CPS acts to protect their witness by refusing to allow any private legal action against them. Indeed they only too often tell the real victim that they will allow no private case to be made and should the NOT GUILTY victim proceed with it they will take it over and ensure that it is abandoned. This is a particularly sinister development as there are documented records of the police and CPS using their witnesses, complainants, bringers of false allegations - call them what you will – on other occasions, subsequently AGAINST OTHER PEOPLE, knowing that the first case they brought using that witness was thrown out of court!

What they do in fact is try again using the same witness with a different set of malicious allegations against another person which, in a case that I am aware of, also failed. The woman in question bringing a second set of false allegations of sexual misconduct was again protected by the CPS who likewise refused another NOT GUILTY individual permission to proceed with a private case. Such protection of clearly malicious, neurotic individuals by the Criminal Justice System in this country is an absolute scandal

For victims of false allegation then this is a straightforward double whammy. And there’s the joke really. Only the person making the false allegation is innocent! Unfortunately, the joke goes a lot further. You pay in your rates for the nice policeman to conduct an attack on you on behalf of the lovely sick person making the allegation/s and you pay for the Crown Prosecution Service in your taxes to prosecute you on the basis of false allegation and try and put you in prison! I bet you never thought you were so generous!

Malicious, false allegation has been around quite a while so it may help a little if we went back to the Bible. Hello there, has anyone out there heard of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS? Yes, I know it’s a bit silly to talk about them these days but for some people like the victims of malicious allegation one of them is rather important.

THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS… is exactly about this kind of thing. Right up there with killing, adultery, stealing and wanting things that belong to other people. Very much a microcosm of the way British society is today with a bit of football thrown in. However, bearing false witness is extra special. Telling lies about people to cause them harm, and great harm it often is, is a hateful un-human thing. In fact it’s beyond evil because this intention to do harm is deliberate. Harm done in a premeditated way for self-satisfaction and pleasure. However such activity has alas gone a stage further. That of the neurotic telling the unfortunate person they regard as a transgressor that they might go to the police and make a complaint. This leaves a threat hanging over them so that they are now fearful, wondering what on earth they have done. The accuser knows this. Whoever they are they have the ability to malign given to them by the police, a power they are often only too conscious of along with its devastating flip side, the fear of a victim. This transfer of power is significant. In practical terms it is the empowerment of a neurotic to do harm and they are all too often aware of it. They take on a fearful aspect to their intended victim rather like the power of a snake in the animal kingdom.

For decent innocent people well aware of its malevolence, perhaps because they have already experienced it themselves, heard stories from friends or taken the trouble to investigate, its effect, particularly in cases involving sexual misconduct from minor allegations say of indecent exposure up to the most serious of molestation of a minor to rape, the consequences to a man, if innocent, and his family, can be utterly devastating. Prior to allegations involving celebrities in recent times such main line allegations and accusations were relatively rare across the board. Far more common was the lower order stuff from exposure to bottom pinching in crowded trains. Women especially were reluctant to pursue genuine complaint because a certain ‘masculine culture’ pervaded the police and their procedures. This has led to unfortunate consequences. The pendulum has swung back the other way and rightly, but for the sake of equity and justice for genuine victims this should have stayed balanced at the center not taken a 180 degree turn. In recent years a vast slough of serious allegations of celebrity sexual misconduct has dominated the media. Major ‘cultural’ figures have been shown to be serial offenders whose relationship with the police has come under considerable scrutiny along with monstrous cases of child grooming by Asian gangs. Left below the horizon in such high profile reportage are the many genuine low profile cases many of which the police may not be inclined to take up.

Alas, one of the effects of this recent publicity frenzy has been to mask the much wider problem in our society of false, malicious allegation and the equal devastation it has caused so many families. It all rides along together with the many social, economic and cultural changes of recent decades; economic depression and family break up… the rise of an underclass… strange modes of fetishistic personal expression from body piercing to the ubiquitous tattoo… rampant unchecked illicit financial activity...  Everything set in a society in which old traditions and certainties are in meltdown, in which values established over generations are breaking down or under threat, in which norms of conduct and behaviour are challenged or in flux, but above all else, where your place in an order of things with which you were familiar isn’t the same anymore. Nothing the same anymore and you and your place in it under threat. And along with it all the problems and challenges of mass immigration.

Psychologically you’re no longer empowered by the old certainties. You’re now in a world of potential  hurts. In a perfect breeding ground for endless anxiety. Of fears real and imagined. Of neuroses that you can’t get a grip on. You need to hold onto something. Regain a sense of who you are by not letting others get to you by what they say or do. You need to hit back. Show them who you are and what you can do. Yes you’ll teach them what’s what! That you’re someone who won’t be messed with! Teach them a lesson they’ll never forget. Put them back in their place. Teach them what it means to know insecurity and fear. It’ll make you feel strong again. Make you feel that you’re someone!

Interestingly enough, Hitler’s early years in power from 1933 onward saw a staggering rise in malicious and false allegation made by hundreds of thousands of ordinary Germans against one another. Many political many sexual in nature. They called it ‘informing’. Files containing statements made to the Nazi police still exist as a documented record of a febrile society where neuroses ran wild in a people who felt they’d lost their place in the world, made up stories and lies and maliciously informed on their neighbours. Countless numbers of people lied about and informed on died in the Camps.

To find your place in shifting sands you need to be special and you need to be strong. Special enough to recognise your own neuroses and not allow yourself to become a victim of them, and on the other side strong enough to fight malicious allegation all the way to the end and not let it damage you. Just remember the nature of the crime you are fighting and the grim fact that it is state sponsored!  

Finally, at the conclusion of this post, let me say that I hope I have made clear the profound psychological connection between the parallel rise of tattooing as a vehicle for the externalization of neuroses as a compulsive means of self-expression and that of malicious allegation as a neurotic form of empowerment. The psychological locus of such neuroses originate in the times in which we live and may remain with us and evolve into much darker forms in the coming decades.

 

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