Jason Cowley (Cover Story, 16 August) and other commentators too readily make a correlation between racially motivated thuggery and socio-economic deprivation. At root what took place was social media-inspired, extreme right-wing, racist and Islamophobic thuggery. If there needs to be an adult conversation about asylum and immigration, there is an even greater need to confront the challenges posed by insufficiently regulated social media and the normalisation of racist bigotry that too often finds a home there (as Adrian Pabst points out in the same issue, Another Voice).
The true face of the communities hit by this wave of violence was of South Asian shopkeepers handing out samosas to police, of volunteers clearing up the wreckage and of onlookers applauding anti-racist marchers. Tolerance and togetherness are more widespread – and racist bile less prominent – than commentary would have you believe. To put forward deprivation as even a part of the explanation for what happened is, however unwittingly, to play into the narrative of the right. Hartlepool and the rest deserve better – better jobs, better community facilities, better housing – not because otherwise there must be racial violence, but simply because that is what fairness and social justice require.
Martin Davis, West Bridgford, Notts
Circle of life
Keir Starmer’s government, the police and our justice system have all done an impressive job in quickly identifying, prosecuting and sentencing the violent idiots who chose to bring carnage to our streets. But I’m left wondering about the long-term impact of the sentences handed down with deterrence as much as justice in mind. Easy as it is to applaud, say, a three-year prison sentence for somebody who attacked police, looted shops and/or damaged property, but how does this improve society or stop it happening again?
At the end of those three years in prison, the individual may have lost their job, their family and perhaps find themselves homeless. Just deserts many will say, and it’s hard to disagree. But we want to reduce homelessness as well as the likelihood of reoffending. So unless the prison system can achieve effective rehabilitation so that those who leave it are ready to contribute to society as responsible, independent citizens, then it strikes me that we might all just be going round in circles.
Mike Cassels, Sheffield
Hobbes’ choice
Adrian Pabst (Another Voice, 16 August) makes the salient point of the danger of the insular echo chamber of social media’s anti-democratic extremism. He does, however, miss the mark in categorising this tendency as “a Hobbesian fusion of anarchy and tyranny”. If we worked collectively, on our own terms and upon equal footing, as anarchy contemplates, we wouldn’t be under the thumb of such large, singularly powerful corporations that manipulate the social conditions we deserve to set for ourselves.
Christopher Becker, New York
A strong Musk?
Freddie Hayward (Newsmaker, 16 August) is perceptive in quoting the aphorism Elon Musk tweeted, which said that: “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times.” However, it is easily disproved by European history.
The French Revolution helped give Napoleon Bonaparte global recognition, but after the grande armée rampaged across Europe, the French never again fought a continental war without an ally, and Bonaparte ended up exiled in St Helena. The First World War helped Mussolini reach similar levels of “fame”, but he died at the hands of his own people. His mistake was in believing the rhetoric of Hitler, a monster created by war and depression. Hitler promised the Germans a 1,000-year Reich. His empire lasted 12 years. Musk is clever, but not intelligent.
Trevor Fisher, Stafford
Important lessons
The core message of Pippa Bailey’s review of Sammy Wright’s book, Exam Nation (Books, 16 August) is that while children are encouraged to succeed in school, the “system requires that some fail”. I call this “policy mortality”, because failure is a policy objective rather than a consequence of risky innovation and/or problematic implementation.
From 1979 onwards, private markets re-entered governing processes and replaced public policy, and so the failure of children, teachers, schools and communities is democratically authorised and recognised as smart. Consequently, schools do not need to unlearn. Instead, those responsible for public policy at national and school levels need to re-learn from Brian Simon, who argued in 1955 that all children are educable, because “when a school consciously rejects the theories of mental testing and puts its faith in the power of education, whole groups of children who have shown little or no promise may, sometimes quite suddenly, achieve a remarkable success.”
Professor Helen Gunter, Manchester
The word “measure” occurs twice in Pippa Bailey’s interesting take on Sammy Wright’s Exam Nation. Measurement is also a central motif in the kind of schooling Wright criticises. Yet to talk of measuring learning is to make a category mistake; it is not the same as measuring, say, lung capacity. Learning in the sense of understanding cannot be measured. It cannot be described accurately or given a numerical value. Understanding can, however, be assessed provisionally through collecting, interpreting and moderating a range of evidence going beyond exam scripts, preferably by those who know the learners personally. We have to relearn the importance of professional judgement and unlearn our unjustifiable obsession with mental measurement.
Professor Colin Richards, former senior HM inspector of schools, Cumbria
Lower education
What a delight it was to read John Mullan’s piece on satirising English academics (Critic at Large, 16 August). However, it is not just English literature academics who feel the lash of satirical accounts. I remember, fondly, how my brother sent me a link which introduced me to UBS (the University of Bums on Seats), with courses such as Post-Rational Discourse, or Arse/Elbow Differentiation Studies.
Dr Kevin Eames, Trowbridge, Wiltshire
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This article appears in the 21 Aug 2024 issue of the New Statesman, The Christian Comeback