The arrival of Cruise

THE ARRIVAL OF CRUISE

There was no doubt at all that Mark Mob didn't mean every word he sang and every sentiment he expressed in his songs, and just like everyone else with an iota of awareness was totally dismayed at the way the world was going. Mark's anxiety could only have been ratcheted up another notch when Michael Heseltine announced that any protester caught within the boundary of Greenham Common missile base ran the risk of being shot.

As it was mostly American troops deployed there it obviously meant that British citizens on British soil would be shot dead by agents of a foreign power. And this was meant to be deemed as being acceptable. For his troubles, a short time later when attending Manchester University to address a meeting of Conservative students, to shouts of “Better red than dead!”, Heseltine was sprayed with red paint and pelted with eggs by anti-nuclear weapons protesters.

When Heseltine condemned the attack as being 'undemocratic', as to be expected by that time his condemnation was supported by the CND leadership. Threatening to shoot dead peaceful protesters was acceptable it seemed but not so taking direct action against the perpetrator of that threat.

The atomic bomb might well have been less culturally relevant than the poems of Charles Baudelaire but it was still without question of huge social relevance even to Penny Rimbaud, so when the first Cruise missiles started arriving at Greenham Common on November 14 of 1983, the impact was emotional, to say the least.

Tears were shed and anger was vented in abundance. Outside the House of Commons over 300 mainly women peace protesters were arrested for trying to block the entrance with a lie-down protest, whilst at Greenham another 150 women were arrested after conducting a sit-down protest outside the main gates.

Had it always been a fanciful and naive notion to believe that the deployment of Cruise could be halted? Cynics would have said 'Yes' but then they would also have chosen to remain cynically silent about the whole issue and of course, that silence would always be taken as a sign of consent.

If the anti-nuclear protesters had been even greater in number would they have succeeded in their aims? As there never seemed to be any tipping point in sight it was unlikely. If the anti-nuclear protesters had been more militant would they have been more successful? Possibly.

If all the marchers traipsing off to Hyde Park or Trafalgar Square had stopped off in Whitehall and started rioting or had made their way to the City and brought it to a grinding halt, for example, what might have happened? Whilst potentially giving ammunition to the pro-nuclear brigade both in the government and in the Right-wing press, it would certainly have made Thatcher's (and also Kinnock's) position more difficult and it may also have led to a Constitutional crisis.

Such thoughts, however, were purely hypothetical because rather than rioting or stopping the City, protesters had chosen instead to remain within the law, penned in on marches by police and CND stewards. Contained.

The government had refused to listen and for all the marching and non-violent direct action, Cruise missiles were now in Britain with the only thing to raise the spirits being the promise from anti-war groups that the deployment would open up a whole new round of demonstrations and actions.

CND - Hyde Park '83

CND - HYDE PARK '83

October 1983 saw CND's much vaunted national demonstration take place in London coinciding with other similar-sized demonstrations in West Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium and France. 'Oct 22 Where will you be?' asked all the many CND posters distributed and published in newspapers and magazines throughout the land. Come the day, over 250,000 people answered by turning up for the start of the march at Victoria Embankment from where they would wend their way to the mass rally in Hyde Park.

There was no denying, it was an impressive turnout that sent a clear message to the Thatcher government. Not that they were ever going to listen, of course, but if nothing else it must have taken them by surprise to actually see the sheer amount of support that CND had garnered. If only those same numbers had turned up for Stop The City?

For the more clear-sighted, however, it wasn't so much about communicating any message to those in power but more about communicating with each other. Those out marching that day were communicating to the people next to them, letting them as well as themselves know that they weren't alone.

Peace and a world free from nuclear weapons wasn't some strange, naïve notion but something that thousands upon thousands of people from all walks of life both believed in and sought. The problem being that the communicating and the dialogue needed to be extended and moved up a gear because however loud the plea for peace was, it was falling on deaf ears and for all the marching, it was getting nowhere.

As the protesters poured into Hyde Park, the focal point was the stage from where various members of the CND leadership spoke, all giving each other a mutual pat on the back for the huge and successful turnout. The overriding message was that the nuclear madness had to end but there was no evidence the leaders of the Western world or their counterparts in the East would ever be swayed no matter how many people CND might gather under their banner. Whether it be 250,000 or 500,000 people marching on the streets, there was no tipping point in sight.

On that day it became apparent that the solution lay not in talking to politicians and leaders but in talking to each other; to family, to neighbours, to the people marching next to you. Power lay sideways not upwards. Change would come horizontally not vertically.

The keynote speaker at the rally should really have been the Hiroshima survivor who was there in attendance but was instead newly elected Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, whose proffered solution to the siting of Cruise missiles and the end of the arms race was the voting in of a Labour government. Put your faith in him as elected leader, he advised, and nuclear armageddon would be thwarted.

The very idea was not only preposterous but insulting and the gathered Punks and anarchists at the front of the stage – many of whom had been at Stop The City – let Kinnock know it by pelting him with clumps of mud, sticks, bottles and cans. Teams of police and CND stewards rushed forward to protect Kinnock from the missile throwers, resulting in a near-pitched battle between the two sides.

The missile throwers were predictably condemned by many of the peaceniks for attacking Kinnock though it wouldn't be too long before Kinnock not only stopped being a signed-up CND member but also changing his stance on nuclear weapons from outright ban to 'negotiated reductions', therefore proving the missile throwers perfectly correct in their appraisal of him and their hostility perfectly justified.

As first indicated by The Apostles on their Blow It Up, Burn It Down' EP earlier in the year and then evidenced at Stop The City, something was stirring in the Punk ranks, underlined on that day at Hyde Park not only by the bottling of Neil Kinnock but also by a fanzine-styled newspaper being sold there entitled Class War; its front cover depicting a field of crosses, emblazoned with the headline: 'We have found new homes for the rich.'....

Cecil, Cecil, Cecil...

CECIL, CECIL, CECIL...

Wondering if something altogether very different had been worth it was Conservative government minister Cecil Parkinson, who after details were released to the press of his extramarital affair with his secretary and a subsequent unwanted pregnancy, was forced to reluctantly resign from office.

Parkinson had somewhat inexplicably been a member of Thatcher's select War Cabinet during the Falklands crisis and had been the architect of the Conservatives' election campaign earlier in the year. Viewed by some as having 'matinee idol looks' and for some reason a firm favourite of Thatcher, at heart he was little more than a bounder and a cad. And a right fucking bastard.

Parkinson chose to scorn his secretary lover and their unborn child and stick instead with his wife, supported in his decision by Thatcher who had suddenly forgotten all about her Victorian values. His lover, however, was not going to be so casually denied and launched a scathing attack upon Parkinson, telling of his promises to marry her which in the end caused his ministerial position to be untenable. From that day on he chose not to take the slightest interest in the child, not once even casting his eyes upon her.

Cecil Parkinson was a prime example of Tory hypocrisy whose Lotharion antics would always hang over him, leading even to a whole new chant made on marches and demonstrations: “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie! Out, out out! Cecil, Cecil, Cecil! In, in, in! Cecil – out! Cecil – in! Cecil, Cecil, Cecil! In out, in out, in out, in out, in out...”

Well, on a wet Saturday afternoon trudging through the streets of London on another protest march it seemed amusing, at least.

Stop The City '83

STOP THE CITY '83

The total disregard for life by those in authority was underlined on September 1st of 1983 when a Korean civilian airliner en route from New York to Seoul via Alaska was shot down by Russian jet fighters, killing all 269 passengers and crew. After initially denying all knowledge of the incident, Russia soon admitted responsibility, claiming that the plane had been on a spying mission. Whether this was true or if the airliner had simply strayed into Soviet airspace by accident was beside the point because the bottom line of it was that hundreds of entirely innocent men, women and children had been murdered for absolutely no reason at all.

For the next few weeks the drums of war beat louder than ever before as anti-Soviet sentiment escalated and Cold War paranoia grew ever more starker. Exactly how close was the world at that moment to all out war? Who knew? Precisely how many minutes were there to midnight on the nuclear clock? How could anyone tell? For those who had been on board Korean Flight 007, World War Three had arrived already whilst all that the rest of the world could do was to watch and hold its breath as the two great super powers squared-up to each other in a frightening game of propaganda and pro-nuclear weapons rhetoric.

As identified by Crass, in general but particularly under such circumstances as these, marching from one point to another in a CND demo was clearly not sufficient but what else could be done? How could any impact be made upon the power games that the ruling elite indulged? In fact, how could any protest against anything at all be bettered and made more effective?

By setting up permanent camp outside the missile base, the women of Greenham Common had already pointed to a way that went beyond the confines of an orthodox protest march, proving to be hugely effective in raising awareness as well as being a constant thorn in the government's side. Restricting the camp to women only had been a shrewd political ploy and whenever calling out for support of an action there had always been a good, positive response.

The Cruise missiles, however, were still on their way and now as passenger planes were being blown out of the sky it was obvious that something more needed to be done not to replace existing methods of protest but to add to and if possible to move them forward.

It was around this time that leaflets and posters started to appear advertising a 'Carnival Against War, Oppression and Exploitation' to be held in the financial centre of London. Produced by a small anarchist/peace activist group called London Greenpeace and distributed via anarchist, peace and animal rights networks, the leaflets declared September the 29th the day to Stop The City.

For such a simple yet inspired idea, it was hard to understand why it had never been thought of and attempted before? The City, after all, was where the profit from and investment into war was calculated and collated. It was the base of the Stock Exchange, the Bank of England, and practically every major financial institution in Britain and according to one of the leaflets was 'where the arms race starts, oppression is financed and exploitation organised'.

Standing in proud isolation from the rest of London, the City had its own mayor, its own unique electoral system and even its own bespoke territorial police force. In effect, it was a state within a state from where real power was operated.

On being distributed, the leaflets immediately set the cat amongst the pigeons, eliciting a complete retreat away from the idea by the CND leadership. Apart from having their own national demonstration due to take place the following month and not wishing anything to deflect from that, the decision to advise their members not to attend the Stop The City carnival underlined an awful truth: The CND leadership were more concerned about their public image and how they might be depicted in the Right-wing press than in trying to move the boundaries of the peace movement forward. They still believed that the government would listen to reason, particularly if they acted responsibly and presented themselves as reasonable people.

Because Stop The City was going to be unregulated and without any clearly defined structure the CND leadership felt it would be too unpredictable, potentially leading to a clash with the police. To have a protest take place in the heart of the financial district of London might also lead to antagonism, not only from the police but also from those who worked there as any disruption to 'business as usual' could have significant impact on the diverse range of business interests located there...

So would anyone take heed of the call out to come to the City on the 29th or would everyone simply follow the edicts of the CND leadership and wait for the upcoming national demo where they could once again be herded from one place to another? Come the day, over 1500 people responded in the positive, descending upon the City like a tribe of ancient Celts emerging from the wilds of Britain to lay siege to the Roman fortress. In stark contrast to the pinstriped suited orderliness of the City workers, these barbarian invaders dressed in their Punk rags and jumble sale hand-me-downs radiated an unrepentant unruliness, signalling that something highly unusual was taking place.

For as long as anyone could care to remember, the City had always been there, viewed as a great British institution and a central and essential engine room of the economy. Few people, however, had any real understanding of how it actually functioned, most only ever seeing about it when the rising and falling of stocks and shares values was being reported on the news. The Financial Times newspaper was perceived as being 'serious' and held an important position in the world of media though the only people who ever seemed to buy it were those directly involved in finance themselves. The City, then, was a self-contained world that was never queried and certainly never challenged, not by the wider public nor by those employed there in any capacity.

The workings of the City were just part and parcel of consensus normality along with the business of war and arms manufacturing, the slaughter of Argentinian conscripts, Third World hunger, pollution, vivisection, and so on. It was in the City that the profit from these 'tenets of normality' was calculated and managed; meaning that behind all the ills of the world sat gangs of usually white, rich, public school-educated, middle-aged men in suits benefiting from the suffering and misery of others and not giving a fuck.

A year earlier, those very same people had played host to the Falklands war victory parade but now they were having visited upon them a reality entirely at odds with their own. The City of London was now encountering what was in effect a section of the Crass audience. Having last congregated in a show of force at the Zig Zag squat gig, that same audience along with other fellow ideological travellers had once again gathered though this time not to celebrate, entertain or to be entertained but to put to test their collective power.

As the crowds of protesters gathered at the designated meeting points, an air of kinship and solidarity pervaded. Everyone knew that the other people around them were all there for the same reason, that being to stop the City. The city gents on the other hand were all somewhat disconcerted because after all, they were only trying to earn an honest day's pay for an honest day's work and what possible objection could anyone have to that?

The police, meanwhile, were totally confused and running around like headless chickens. If this was a demonstration that was taking place, should there not have been a start and end point to it all? Should there not have been a route to follow with some sort of rally at the end where speeches were given? Ideally somewhere out of the way such as in Hyde Park?

At the same time, the protesters found themselves in a strangely surprising position. By simply abandoning the normal mode of demonstrating they had suddenly entered a previously uncharted arena of autonomy and new possibilities. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the streets of the City appeared to be theirs for the reclaiming.

Like swarms of angry bees, large sections of the protesters started to spontaneously break away from the main gatherings and to charge through the streets, halting traffic and spreading general mayhem. Unable to decide whether to remain watching over the main crowds or to follow and try to keep up with the breakaway groups, the police were left floundering.

Mass chants of "1, 2, 3, 4 - we don't want your fucking war!" and "Human freedom, animal rights, one struggle, one fight!" echoed through the streets as anarchist black flags were raised and Union Jack flags burnt. Slogans were daubed onto walls and pavements as restaurants, banks and fur shops were stink-bombed. Under cover of the confusion, individual protesters set about glueing locks and damaging property whilst more openly, leaflets explaining the reasons behind the protest were handed out to the City workers. Large numbers headed to the Guildhall where the preparations for the election of the City's new mayor were taking place, causing disruption to the proceedings. Drums were banged, whistles blown, songs sung, paint bombs thrown, alarms set off and offices invaded. Organised chaos was the order of the day.

As the day wore on, even larger numbers made their way to the Stock Exchange in a bid to blockade the whole building although by this time the police had called in substantial reinforcements and were in no mood for further cat and mouse games. Throughout the day they had been dispensing regular punches and kicks upon the protesters, dragging them down and holding them in near strangleholds but at the Stock Exchange they fully let rip, riding their horses into the crowds whilst pushing and shoving violently. In the end these methods served them well, eventually forcing the protesters to scatter and thus disperse, bringing to a stumbling conclusion the day's events.

It was apparent that something very significant had occurred that day. Something pivotal not only in regard to the meaning of Punk (and Anarcho Punk in particular) but to the whole subject of power, control and political protest. It was the day that a definitive break was made from Punk being a musical genre grounded in image, attitude, drugs and rhetoric to a genuinely physical street level political presence, able and willing to engage in direct confrontation with those behind the levers of global economic control.

Despite the reservations Crass had about the state of Punk as described on Yes Sir I Will, Punk had in fact always been a furious womb, birthing all kinds of bawling, kicking, screaming, malformed, even stillborn offspring and now thanks in no small part to the efforts of Crass, Punk had come of age and had proved itself worthy.

Could Crass ever have envisaged when first bashing out practice versions of Owe Us A Living in their shed that it would lead to them being part and parcel of a street protest action like Stop The City? Likewise, when the Pistols called Bill Grundy a "fucking rotter" or when Joe Strummer in his squat penned White Riot, could they have imagined that it might years later lead to an attempted blockade of the London Stock Exchange? Hardly. Not that it was likely that come the day Rotten and Strummer et al were even aware of Stop The City though that didn't really matter because the lineage was there and they had already played their part even if they didn't know it.

In a similar fashion, it's unlikely that when London Greenpeace first floated the idea of Stop The City that they could have anticipated it would in the main be a horde of Punk rockers including the like of Disorder from Bristol with their 'Make Homebrew Not War' banner who would respond to the call.

Within the context of Punk, Stop The City was a high watermark but within the context of political protest it was equally significant. By simply rejecting and stepping outside of prescribed avenues of protest the Stop The City demonstrators had thrown off the shackles of conformity and touched a hitherto unrecognised freedom. No-one had imagined how easy it would be to confound the police, leaving them scrambling to regain control whilst the streets of the City were rampaged through. The freedom touched was that of acting without permission. To be out of control. A freedom that could not be asked for or given but only taken.

Permission hadn't been sought to hold a carnival against war, oppression and exploitation in the City because, of course, it would never have been granted, if only for the fact that it might incur the rights of the City workers to go about their daily business. For a large number of those workers, however, their daily business was in fucking up the world so in the end it came down to whose rights and whose freedom should prevail? The freedom touched by the protesters, then, was not a universal freedom but like all freedoms was one to be fought over.

At the end of the day, through use of sheer force the police saved the Stock Exchange from being blockaded and prevented the City being stopped though that's not to say that victory was all theirs. On perhaps a more significant level, the Stop The City demonstrators had thrown open a door and revealed a whole new realm where power and control could not only be effectively challenged but potentially overturned.

Behind that door lay a series of other doors and Stop The City was but the first tentative steps along a path that like the urban riots of 1981 could potentially lead to.... Where? Insurrection? Revolution? Anarchy in the UK? Who knew? Who could say? Though wherever it was, it was a place that those in authority wished to prevent people from reaching but where people again and again would keep on trying to get to...

Embrace The Base

EMBRACE THE BASE

Born from despair at the descent into nuclear madness were the women of Greenham Common who by example were continuing to inspire both men and women around the world to stand up and let their feelings regarding nuclear weapons be known.

From the germ of an idea for a protest, an amazing illustration of what was possible came to fruition when 30,000 women descended upon the base to take part in an action. Just two months earlier, copies of a handwritten leaflet had been circulated calling upon women everywhere to come to Greenham Common and 'embrace the base'. The plan being for thousands of women to link arms and form a living, human chain around all nine miles of the perimeter fence. At the same time, everyone wishing to attend was urged to bring with them something that symbolised what they loved most so that the whole of the fence could be decorated with these items. The distributed leaflet took the form of a chain letter that asked the reciprocant to make further copies and to send them on to ten friends.

The response was staggering; as on a dreary, wet Sunday in December 30,000 women of all ages and backgrounds joined together in an emotional show of strength and completely surrounded Greenham Common. By the end of the day, the fence was covered in ribbons, photographs of children, baby clothes, bay nappies, and even a wedding dress. As a protest it was a massively symbolic one, succeeding in showing the stark contrast between life and love as represented by the women and death and hate as represented by the military base.

The following day, the Daily Mirror newspaper put the protest onto its front page with the simple headline: 'Peace!'. Greenham Common and the subject of Cruise missiles were now big media issues.

Whether or not any of the women thought their protest would actually close down the base was beside the point. For the women of Greenham it was a major propaganda coup, causing the government and other supporters and advocates of the Cruise missile plan to launch a counter attack in a bid to regain the higher ground. Women Conservative MPs such as Lady Olga Maitland and Anne Widecombe were wheeled out in a bid to show that the peace protesters weren't representative of all womankind, whilst newspaper editors adopted overnight an almost blanket policy of depicting the Greenham women as unwashed, militant lesbians.

The war to end all wars was heating up.

Stonehenge '82

STONEHENGE '82

Out at the Stonehenge Free Festival in that summer of '82, the anarchic free-for-all continued apace although even here tensions were rising over what was deemed as unacceptable behaviour and acceptable misbehaviour.

In this autonomous space where anything was allowed, the one thing the festival stalwarts objected to was the growing number of heroin dealers who were setting up shop on site. Any other drug was viewed as being fine (and dandy) but heroin came with a lot of problems and a lot of anti-social baggage; and seeing as how Stonehenge was meant to be a totally social affair, the use of heroin didn't square at all with the festival's unspoken ethics.

These tensions eventually erupted into some fighting along with damage to vehicles being caused as heroin dealers were ejected from the site. For this reason, perhaps it was just as well that Conflict didn't play there or some of the methods used to take out the unwanted elements may have been blamed upon and attributed to them?

For all this trouble, the festival as a whole was another magnificent success graced by an array of Punky/hippy bands, and was yet another kick in the eye of authority. Apart from the solstice, of course, there was even more cause to celebrate that summer due to the birth of the first baby on site. More important than anything else, however, as the festival drew to a close instead of setting off for home or for the next free festival at Inglestone Common in Bristol, a large number of festival-goers and travellers set off in a convoy of various vehicles to join and support the peace campaigners still camped out at Greenham Common in Berkshire.

This was the birth of the Peace Convoy.

Since setting up camp at Greenham Common in the autumn of 1981, the peace campaigners there had been conducting a series of non-violent direct action protests aimed at disrupting the establishing of the base in preparation for the arrival of Cruise missiles. From cutting down sections of the perimeter fence to stopping sewage pipes being laid to blockading the main entrance, the tactics were diverse and brave - and a major thorn in the side of the base authorities.

Influenced by the actions of the protesters there, similar camps were being set up at other military bases around the country such as Molesworth Common in Cambridgeshire, Fairford in Gloucestershire, Burtonwood in Cheshire, Burghfield in Berkshire, and Lakenheaf in Suffolk. At Greenham Common, however, an inspired decision was made to have the camp there be for women only. Not only would this tactic potentially prevent soldiers and police acting violently towards the protesters but it would send out a profound and unique political message.

Greenham Common was on its way to becoming one of the most famous protest sites in the world.

'If not you - who? If not now - when?' asked a pamphlet handed out at the Stonehenge festival. 'On Wednesday at 12 noon we pull out to Greenham Common, the biggest convoy these isles of Albion has ever seen, straight through the heart of the apathetic wilderness our country has become.

Even as we sit here on Stonehenge Free State, the death machine of Nuclear War threatens our very lives. The time for sitting and talking about it is over, we now need to DO IT.

The women at Greenham Common have shown us all the importance of commitment by sitting through one of the coldest winters on record to show their implacable enmity for the whole Nuclear Death Machine. The least we can do is lend these warrior women and all the other rainbow warriors our support.'

Fired-up if not somewhat frazzled from the Stonehenge experience, a rag bag alternative army took up the challenge and set off for what was to be a date with destiny. It was a sight to behold as the ramshackle convoy of coaches, buses, trucks, motorbikes, caravans and other assorted vehicles descended upon the prime future location for Britain's Cruise missile national defence system.

Having navigated the roads and the continuous police presence, the convoy by-passed a police road block at the base and successfully landed; the travellers immediately launching themselves into setting up the Cosmic Counter-Cruise Carnival.

There followed weeks of the usual (and unusual) festival frolics attracting thousands of visitors, with much pulling down of perimeter fencing, smashing of concrete posts with sledgehammers, and confrontations with MOD police.

Society in general might well have been fragmenting but this was a pivotal moment in the cultural cross-pollination that was also occurring during the early years of the 1980s. It was the moment when the core of the Stonehenge festival crew announced themselves as the Peace Convoy and set off for a confrontation with what was nothing less than western military interests, and in doing so fully and completely politicising themselves in the process. Joining with the women peace campaigners already there at Greenham Common and displaying moral and physical support in such things as drawing more public attention to the campaign and showing the women how to build benders and other more practical accommodation to live in rather than normal tents.

A common link between the Stonehenge festival and the protest site at Greenham Common was in many ways, Crass. From members of Crass being involved in the initial instigation of the Stonehenge festival in 1974 to the condemnation displayed by Crass of the Cruise missile plan and their wholehearted support of the women peace campaigners.

Apart from being a seminal Punk band, this was where the true worth and importance of Crass lay.

The War Game

THE WAR GAME

Far away from the world of records (and other commodities), if only Thatcher had not made the decision to refuse political status to the Irish Republican 'H-Block' prisoners and to refuse to be moved by their hunger strikes, then perhaps Bobby Sands MP would still be alive?

If Thatcher had not made that decision then perhaps an IRA bomb would not have subsequently been let off outside Chelsea Barracks in London that summer, killing one by-stander and injuring many soldiers?

This was the age of tension and quarrel where it was becoming increasingly difficult to escape from the results and effects of the political decisions being made by the Thatcher government. Clearly, war was very much on the agenda be it home-grown war between the Irish Republican Army and the British State or impending global nuclear war, with everyone being sucked into it and being forced to take sides whether you wanted to or not.

You either supported Thatcher's political decisions or you didn't but as silence was being interpreted as consent, the only way to register disagreement was to demonstrate it in whatever way able. So, whilst hundreds were taking to the streets in protest marches calling for Troops Out of Northern Ireland, thousands were attending mass demonstrations called for by CND as well as attending public meetings where the Cruise missile question would be addressed.

Often at these meetings a copy of the banned BBC docu-drama The War Game would be shown, which though being a work of fiction was still the truest depiction there was available at the time of a what a nuclear attack upon Britain would look like. The fact that The War Game had never been shown on British television since being made in 1965 only added to its power as an effective propaganda tool for CND, helping to convince a huge number of people that Thatcher's nuclear sabre rattling was seriously insane.

Apart from depicting the horror of a nuclear bomb being dropped upon the south of England, it was incredibly realistic scenes such as looters being lined up against walls and being shot by British policemen armed with rifles that made The War Game so effectively shocking.

Incorporating vox-pop style interviews, scientific reports, official Civil Defence documents and dramatic 'pre-constructions' shot in newsreel-style black and white, the film was fully reminiscent of old World War Two footage; in particular scenes of cities such as Dresden, Nagasaki and Hiroshima after being destroyed.

Whilst it was a total flashback to the horrors of WW2, the film also served to catapult the viewer into the future where the idea that there might be survivors of a nuclear war seemed to be an even more terrifying prospect than total annihilation.

Condemnation of and objection to the nuclear arms race being waged was coming from all sections and all levels of society: from clergy and retired army generals to middle class housewives; from academics, Trade Unionists, and the unemployed, to teenage (increasingly black-clad) Punk Rockers and beyond. Or as Poison Girls had put it: "Housewives and prostitutes, plumbers in boiler suits, wild girls and criminals, liggers and layabouts, accountants in nylon shirts, feminists in floral skirts, astronauts and celibates, deejays and hypocrites, liars and lunatics, pimps and economists, royalty and communists, rioters and pacifists, visionaries with coloured hair, leather boys who just don't care, garter girls with time to spare, judges with prejudice, dissidents and anarchists, strikers and pickets, collectors of tickets, beggars and bankers, perjurers and men of law, smokers with heart disease, cleaners of lavatories, the old with their memories." Persons unknown, essentially.

That summer's Glastonbury Festival featuring among many others New Order, Hawkwind, Gong, Ginger Baker and Aswad had been organised primarily so as to be a benefit for CND, subsequently raising over £20,000 for the cause - the largest single contribution CND had ever received.

In London, a demonstration called for by CND attracted around 250,000 protesters whilst from Cardiff, in Wales, a relatively small group of 36 people calling themselves Women For Life On Earth set off on a protest march to Greenham Common with the intention of delivering a letter expressing their opposition to the site being used as a Cruise missile base.

After having their request for a meeting with the Base Commander ignored, the women set themselves down just outside the perimeter fence and set up camp. The women's camp immediately became a Peace Camp that unbeknown to the Base Commander and even to the women themselves would remain there for the next 19 years, becoming an extraordinarily powerful and extremely provocative symbol of resistance.

Maze

MAZE

There was a sense of newsiness about Crass that was very unique to them. A sense of being very on the ball and of being very up to date on worldly matters. So much so, in fact, that people were looking to Crass to interpret not only the news but the world itself. People trusted them and had a lot of faith in their interpretation and understanding of what was going on and how the world was - and the possibility of there being something that could be done about it.

Whether it was a conscious decision or not, their album Penis Envy was Crass almost reinventing themselves and presenting a credible interpretation of the world through the eyes of woman. The world, however, was changing fast and in Britain events were taking place that anyone working in the medium of music would find impossible to keep pace with let alone report on.

In a bid to gain special category and political prisoner status, Irish Republican prisoners being held within the H-Blocks of the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland had been conducting a 'dirty protest' consisting of smashing up furniture, refusing to wash, shave or wear clothes, and smearing their own excrement over the walls of their cells.

Upping the ante further, a hunger strike was started by the IRA leader in the Maze, Bobby Sands. At the same time, Sands stood from jail as a candidate in a local by-election which if he won would make him a Member of Parliament. Despite all the best efforts of the British authorities to prevent this happening, Sands did indeed win the parliamentary seat, leading to news headlines around the world.

Other governments, newspaper editorials and protest marches came out in support of him, demanding that Thatcher relent and grant Sands and other IRA prisoners political status. She refused. The Iron Lady was not for turning, choosing instead to face down all her opponents. To Thatcher, the Republican prisoners were terrorists, murderers and just plain criminals and in no way were their crimes political.

Bobby Sands MP died on Tuesday 5th of May 1981, his death provoking large-scale rioting in Londonderry and Belfast. More significantly, however, from that date on Thatcher became the IRA's top target for assassination.

None of this, of course, was touched upon by Crass in Penis Envy, nor, to be fair by any other Punk band in their recordings. Crass instead were singing of love - albeit the politics of love - but in doing so giving much credence to the oft quoted words of Belgian Situationist, Raoul Vaneigem:

"People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraint - such people have a corpse in their mouth."

The Brixton Riot

THE BRIXTON RIOT

By 1981, if the communities within the inner cities weren't already potential time-bombs waiting to explode, they certainly were after suffering two years of Thatcherism and increasing police prejudice.

Racial tensions in London were further stoked when a fire took place at a house in New Cross, leaving 13 young black people dead. Family members, friends and neighbours all felt the police simply weren't doing enough to establish what the cause of the fire was, particularly after it was suggested it may have been arson perpetuated by racists. In any other circumstances the deaths would have been considered a national tragedy but the event went hardly acknowledged by the authorities. In any other circumstances The Queen would have typically sent a message of condolence but instead there was silence. It seemed to the black community that if the victims had been white, perhaps the police and the media would have been more sympathetic and taken the incident more seriously.

As an expression of dissatisfaction and protest against the apathy as shown by the police and authorities regarding the deaths, a Black People's Day of Action was held and up to 20,000 people marched from the borough of Lewisham to central London; chanting and bearing placards with the words 'Thirteen dead, Nothing said'. The march was noisy but peaceful and viewed as a symbolically significant moment for Britain's black community for this was the first time they had ever amassed on the streets in such numbers. The next day's papers, however, depicted the event somewhat differently.

Unbeknownst to most people on the march, a fight had broken out between some black youth and the police and though it was an isolated incident and over very quickly, it was this that led the newspaper headlines. Darcus Howe had been asked his view of the demonstration and he had replied "It was a good day". His quote was used by the Evening Standard as a headline but juxtaposed with a photo of an injured police officer and it was this that was used to characterise the entire day. Other headlines read 'Black day at Blackfriars', 'When the black tide met the thin blue line', and 'Day the blacks ran riot through London'.

It was unbelievable. You couldn't make it up.

For many, the final straw came with Swamp 81, the name given to a police operation conducted in London that involved flooding specific areas with police in a bid to hunt down muggers and robbers. As nobody likes a mugger this was all well and good although as one of the main areas targeted was Brixton, to call the operation 'Swamp' was a tad insensitive as it was an obvious echo of Thatcher's pre-election comments regarding white neighbourhoods fearing being swamped by minorities. It didn't help matters that many entirely innocent people were being stopped, searched and arrested for no apparent reason, it appeared, other than being black. In Brixton, 1,000 people were stopped in just five days.

It was one such incident involving the harassment and arrest of a black taxi-driver that was the spark that caused Brixton to erupt into a riot that lasted for three days that saw the first widespread use of petrol bombs on the British mainland.

As in Bristol exactly one year before, objections from a crowd suddenly escalated from the verbal to the physical, to the throwing of missiles to full-blown riot. Unlike Bristol, however, the Commander in charge of the police was determined not to have his officers forced out of the area by the mob even under the most ferocious of assaults and the most dangerous of circumstances, choosing instead to remain on the streets and to suffer the consequences. In a bid to retain control 3,000 police officers from different areas were bussed into Brixton immediately though all to no avail.

A torrent of missiles were rained down upon the police lines - bricks, stones, bottles, pieces of iron, paving slabs, petrol bombs, even glass china plates. At one point whisky was poured over police riot shields in a bid to set them alight. Police cars, police vans and private vehicles were overturned and set on fire. Barricades were erected from overturned cars and corrugated iron. A car and even a hi-jacked bus was driven and pushed as battering rams into police lines. Wheelie bins were set alight and then pushed at the police. Youngsters taunted the police causing them to chase after them, only to lead them into dead ends where their friends waited to ambush them with volleys of bricks. Houses, shops and pubs were looted and burnt out. The police were battered, hammered and ultimately beaten.

Although complete disorder seemed to reign it was apparent there was a logic to the violence, evidenced by the properties that went untouched. Certain pubs and shops were left as smouldering ruins while others were left totally alone. The local anarchist squat/bookshop at 121 Railton Road, for example (which just so happened to be sporting a poster of the Bristol riot in its window), was left without a scratch.

By the end of the riot, Brixton was a scene of utter devastation. 60 civilians had been arrested but over 300 policemen had been both injured and hospitalised. Burnt-out cars littered the streets and buildings stood burnt-out, looted or damaged. 56 police vehicles had been destroyed. To the black community the riot would for ever more be known as 'The Insurrection' or 'The Uprising' but for the Metropolitan police it would be known as the first most serious riot of the 20th century.

According to the then Metropolitan police commissioner Sir David McNee and various reports in the newspapers, the violence in Brixton had been instigated by "trouble-makers from elsewhere" though no evidence was ever proffered to substantiate this. Much more likely was that the main influence upon the riot was the St Paul's riot in Bristol a year earlier which if nothing else had served as an inspiration. It would have been more relevant in actual fact for the police to have wondered why - following the Bristol riot - had it taken so long for Brixton to do likewise? But instead it seemed as if they preferred to apportion blame upon shady individuals, at one point even raising suspicion about the anarchists lurking within 121 Railton Road.

One thing for certain, however, was that Britain's most infamous anarchists at that time - Crass - had absolutely nothing to do with it. Though sympathetic to the anger and the reactions of the rioters to their conditions, Crass felt that rioting would only serve to increase the forces and modes of oppression.

In the official investigation (The Scarman Report) that followed the riot it was indeed stated that the police needed to be better organised for riot control, while the Met would later announce that many important practical lessons had been learnt from the experience which they would apply to any such future riots. Sir David McNee was also to put in a request as a matter of urgency for proper riot equipment which included a greater variety of shields, more vehicles, longer truncheons, water cannon and sufficient stocks of rubber bullets. At a grass roots level it also left the police wanting revenge. So in effect, Crass were correct though that's not to negate the very positive aspects of the Brixton riot:

Never again would the police feel so easily able to surge into a community such as Brixton; stopping, searching and arresting people on the most flimsiest of pretexts.

Never again would the police feel so easily able to blatantly disrespect the black community without also knowing of the risk being run.

And if any other community ever felt in the words of Discharge that they'd "been shit on for far too long", an example had been set about what could be done about it and what the authorities could expect as a result...

Protest And Survive

PROTEST AND SURVIVE

Almost immediately upon coming into government, the Conservative Party gave the green light to not only maintaining Britain's independent nuclear deterrent but to upgrading it from Polaris to the even more powerful Trident system. The Labour Party had fought the General Election on a policy of unilateralism and although this hadn't won them the election, it didn't mean there wasn't a lot of opposition to Trident. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) had been steadily fighting their corner for some time but it wasn't until the election in America of Ronald Reagan as President that support for CND began to really grow.

Reagan came across as a homely, simple type advocating uncomplicated and very general political objectives aimed at the reassertion of American self-confidence. This primarily meant the recovery of the American economy through tax cuts for the rich and the revival of American power by means of a massive defence build-up. Reagan's political views chimed almost perfectly with Thatcher's and she very quickly became his principal cheerleader, particularly when it came to his anti-communist stance.

Reagan saw Russia as nothing less than an Empire of Evil whose ultimate, insidious goal was world conquest and domination. To counter this and to stave off any attack from Russia upon Europe or the United States it was proposed that 572 American-owned and - more controversially - American-controlled Cruise and Pershing missiles be sited throughout Europe. These nuclear warhead-carrying weapons would be capable of flying extremely close to the ground so as to go undetected by radar and if required conduct a first strike upon the enemy. In one fell swoop Reagan with the full backing of Thatcher was escalating the arms race to an unimaginable and unprecedented level and in effect turning the whole of Europe into a potential nuclear battleground - a theatre of war.

Britain's allotted amount of 144 missiles was accepted immediately by Thatcher and when Germany requested that they reduce their allotted amount by 16, Thatcher readily accepted these too, bringing the total amount of Cruise missiles to be based in Britain to 160. All to be sited at Greenham Common in Berkshire and Molesworth Common in Cambridgeshire.

When discussing civil defence, Cruise missiles or the Cold War, Thatcher's eyes would harden. It was apparent that her support for Reagan's arms race and her total backing of Cruise missiles in Europe wasn't being done so much for the defence of Britain but for her hatred of communism. So fierce was that hatred she seemed quite willing to have Britain (and the world) destroyed in order to save it.

Reagan on the other hand, when discussing the same subjects would always appear the proverbial lonesome cowboy - and a stupid one at that. How could, everyone wondered, such a cretinous, second-rate, ex-Hollywood B-movie actor become one of the most powerful men on earth, with his finger on the nuclear button? The point was, however, that people who were as mad as Thatcher and as stupid as Reagan could well be mad and stupid enough to destroy the world in an all-out nuclear war.

Suddenly it seemed a little inappropriate to paint a white stripe across your nose and dress up as a pirate whilst dancing to Adam And The Ants. In the face of world destruction it didn't seem quite enough to dress Mod and groove along to Secret Affair, or indeed to pose as a New Romantic whilst getting down with Spandau Ballet.

A generation had been and was continuing to be radicalised by a cocktail of Sixties idealism, Seventies desperation and Eighties anger.

Radicalised by the Sex Pistols and The Clash.

Radicalised by Punk Rock.

Radicalised by Crass.

To protest and survive was where it was now at.

Schizophrenia

SCHIZOPHRENIA

1979 was a very weird year. A schizophrenic year. Swinging from Left to Right but with no set rhyme and no set reason. It had started with what was called The Winter of Discontent where thousands of public sector workers were on strike. January 22nd was the Day of Action when an estimated 1.5 million workers downed tools and took part in the largest stoppage of labour in the UK since the General Strike of 1926.

Following the mass protests that took place that day many unions chose to remain on strike until their demands for a proper pay increase were met, among these being gravediggers and waste collection workers. It was the strike action taken by these two particular groups of workers that came to define that period, with the press depicting the streets of the country as strewn with piles of uncollected rubbish and with unburied bodies piling up in cold storage depots. That's not to say these things didn't happen and to have happened at all might be deemed as wholly unacceptable but it wasn't quite on the same scale as projected into the public consciousness by the press - the Right-wing press, it should be noted.

Strikes were flaring up, however, left, right and centre leading to stoppages at water and sewerage works, schools, hospitals and old people's homes. All in a bid to gain nothing more than a basic minimum wage though if reading the newspapers anyone would think Britain was in the throes of revolution and that the barbarians were at the gate. And to some people perhaps they were?

In a further twisting of the truth, when Labour Prime Minister Jim Callaghan returned to Britain from an international summit in the Caribbean and was asked by waiting reporters what his thoughts were on the strike actions taking place, he replied he didn't believe it amounted to the kind of chaos the reporters were suggesting it was. The headline in the Sun the next day famously declared 'Crisis? What Crisis?' and was taken if not as a direct quote then as the opinion of Callaghan, which of course it wasn't. Or not quite.

After much vilification of the strikers by politicians, newspapers and media pundits, the government made a deal with the unions and their demands were met. The workers had won and were now gaining their feet. The government had lost and was now on its knees. A short while later, Callaghan found himself in Buckingham Palace asking for a dissolution of Parliament, followed thereafter with an announcement of a date for a General Election.

Throughout this Winter of Discontent, the Conservative Party in Opposition had been busying themselves with making hay whilst the sun shone, using the strikes to their own advantage and making mischief whenever possible. In a Party Political Broadcast presented by their leader Margaret Thatcher, the public sector workers were labelled as 'wreckers' and trade union reform was called for to avoid "not just disruption but anarchy".

Meanwhile a little further to the Right, the National Front were busy arranging an election rally for their supporters to be held in Southall, in London, an area well known for its large Asian community. Insulted and somewhat intimidated by what they perceived as a racist invasion into their community, residents requested that the meeting be banned but as this was now an election year, the Home Secretary declined the request and instead ordered that the Metropolitan Police safeguard it and prevent any disruption to what was after all, the democratic rights of a legitimate political party.

Come the day of the rally as hundreds of National Front supporters were bussed into Southall, thousands of local Asian residents and anti-racists rallied to protest against it. The police were there also, of course, and in huge numbers with the express intention of ensuring the NF rally proceeded unhindered. For some strange reason they seemed somewhat overly zealous in administrating the execution of this duty as they sealed off the whole area surrounding the venue, thus preventing any form of peaceful protest at all. Frustrated by the police actions and provoked by the pushing and shoving of them by the police, tension within the amassing crowds inevitably rose. It was from within the ranks of the police, however, that an ugliness suddenly reared its head in the form of the police punching and batoning the protesters for no apparent reason. The police suddenly started going berserk.

From behind their front lines more police appeared but this time wielding riot shields and then from behind them came mounted police practically galloping into the crowds causing widespread panic. A riot situation immediately erupted but this, as everyone there would later testify, was exclusively a police riot.

With barely disguised enthusiasm the police attacked anyone within reach be they black, Asian, white, man, woman or child. Fleeing from the violence a number of protesters sought refuge in a local community building called People Unite, run by members of acclaimed reggae band Misty In Roots. Not so easily thwarted, the police simply charged in after them and in the process smashed everything up inside including the heads of the people in there. Misty In Roots' manager, Clarence Baker, was one of those people and due to being batoned was put in a coma. "Clarence Baker, no troublemaker" as The Ruts would later sing in their song Jah War. "The truncheons came down, knocked him to the ground. See the blood on the streets that day. The blood and the madness." Outside on the streets, others fared even worse.

Blair Peach was a 33 year-old school teacher from New Zealand who was there that day protesting alongside his friends in the Socialist Workers Party. His body was found laid out on a road near the back of the venue where the rally was being held by some local residents who immediately called an ambulance. Later that night in hospital Blair died from injuries sustained from a blow to the head. Witnesses came forward to say they had seen Blair being set upon by police belonging to the Special Patrol Group, a formidable and notorious mobile police unit specialising in public order confrontations though more akin to a hardcore football hooligan firm than any normal idea of how the police should be.

A pathologist's report later stated that Blair had been killed not by a blow from a truncheon but by something more along the lines of a rubber cosh filled with lead. A raid on lockers belonging to SPG officers discovered a cache of such home-made, illegal weapons along with Nazi regalia but no-one ended up being charged for Blair's murder. During the investigation into his death, police officers belonging to the SPG blatantly perverted the course of justice through lying and hiding and destroying evidence but still no-one ended up being charged for Blair's murder. The investigation finally whittled it down to six suspects, highlighting one specific SPG officer as being the one most probably responsible but still no-one ended up being charged for Blair's murder.

10,000 people gathered for Blair Peach's funeral and to this day his name is synonymous with both anti-racism and police violence. In Southall a plaque has been erected in his name and a primary school named after him. But still no-one has ended up being charged for his murder.

The following day after the police riot in Southall the newspapers were full of praise for the way in which the police had maintained the democratic rights of the National Front and allowed them to have their rally. Such a good job had been done in protecting Fascism from a 'Left-wing hate mob'.

Just over a week later the Conservative Party as led by Margaret Thatcher won the General Election.

And at No.1 in the Charts that month and subsequently being constantly played on the radio was Bright Eyes by Art Garfunkel in which Art was plaintively enquiring "How can the light that burned so brightly suddenly burn so pale?" The same question that coincidentally was being asked by a lot of other people though unlike Art they weren't referring to a bunch of rabbits....