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TOYTOWN COPS

IDIOTS IN UNIFORM

Quick Quiz. Who said this about the new British FBI, the Serious Organised Crime Agency?

“History will show such organisations aligned to political control can easily become an instrument of state abuse of the individual. Placing all agents under effective political control has worrying potential consequences.”

a) Another armchair anarchist from the Cowley Club.
b) Che Guevara.
c) Brian Stockham - Police Federation Spokesman.

Rough Music were gobsmacked when it turned out to be (c). Commenting on government plans to give Community Support Officers (CSOs) powers of arrest he said “The creeping increase of their police powers is a dangerous path.” Has Brian done a David Icke? Will he denounce Chief Constable Ken Jones as a lizard? Or is he scare mongering just like any trade union leader worried by an influx of cheap labour?

If its none of the above then perhaps it’s time to start paying attention. Who are the police now? Who’s watching the watchmen? Who are the watchmen? The number of organisations authorised by the state to use physical force is continually increasing. Even private companies like Group 4 now employ large numbers of people legally authorised to use “Control & Restraint” techniques to ensure the compliance of the awkward. Abuses within the Asylum detention system largely run by these companies are well documented.

Sussex police have pioneered the introduction of CSOs, there’s over two hundred of the little fluorescent blighters now. Are Sussex Police also going to be at the forefront of giving them powers of stop and search and arrest? Do we really want people who’ve had only three weeks training wandering around our streets armed with pepper sprays, batons and handcuffs?

PLASTIC PIGS

At least CSOs are in some ways publicly accountable. A more worrying development is the “networking” of shop security to control Brighton’s supposedly public spaces. Equipped with radios and bomber jackets little fat men and inadequate bullies are made to feel big and encouraged to use violence. In a recent incident on London Road six security guards, the combined security forces of four different shops, ganged up on one woman leaving Somerfield, accusing her of stealing a single can of lager, which she hadn’t!

An eyewitness told Rough Music, “It was horrible, at one point they were kneeling on her throat - What really came across was that they thought they were on a par with the police - they kept threatening to arrest people – it’s total bullshit.” On this occasion bystanders intervened and the woman was freed. Luckily London Rd security haven’t been issued with handcuffs like the doormen of the Koo Klub in Poole Valley. (We don’t know, it might be a Tory MP thing).

Brian’s words echo those of another copper who wrote to Worthing’s freesheet the Porkbolter (www.worthing.eco-action.org) saying “The Police Service as we know it is being slowly privatized through the back door and we have to ask ourself who is going to benefit from this. Will it be the individual person who lives in the UK? Not at all, it will be a great deal worse for them. So will it be the country as a whole? Again no, it won’t. So looking at it from a logical perspective, the only group of people to gain from this enterprise is of course the Politician”

What sort of people are going to want to roam the streets armed with batons for £13,000 p.a.? How many people do we need in our society who have the right to assault and imprison us? The fact that the Police are uneasy about current changes should show us just how far to the right this country is moving. History has shown that letting shaven headed morons wander around in uniform is generally a bad idea, so why are we letting it happen here?

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RUNWAY TO HELL

SHADY SHOREHAM SHENANIGANS

At the last meeting of Communities Against Runway Expansion (CARE) 30 people from Lancing, Adur, Worthing and Brighton turned out to say yes, direct action plus support from botanists, wildlife experts and the like can wipe the smiles from the faces of smug developers. Currently Brighton & Hove and Worthing Councils, owners of Shoreham airport are putting plans for expansion of the runway out to tender, keen to offset the £4m debt which they are saddled with.

Five companies are eager to snap up the meal ticket despite the debt, no doubt foaming at the mouth with the expectation of all the readies coming their way once the extra flights kick in. Fuck all regard for the devastating effects to wildlife of the nearby marshlands of course – protected water voles, oystercatchers, snipe, lapwing, sedge warblers, reed buntings, and common blue butterflies all face the chop. And that’s saying nothing of increased pollution to the local community and climate change to the wider. The winning bidder’s plans will be announced in September. Why not let John Haffenden, airport manager, know what you think about the plans (01273 296900 or admin@shorehamairport.co.uk)

FLIGHT PATH

CARE supporters have sent out 7,500 letters calling for campaign support and a video has just been produced; a ten minute summary of the environmental dangers involved. It’s available in DVD format for showing to any groups or individuals interested (go to www.adurcare.wanadoo.co.uk for details). CARE is also carrying out their own monitoring of pollution levels. The flight path goes over two schools and with nitrogen oxide, a cause of children’s asthma, their futures look none too rosy.

Car pollution is expected to rise four fold if the expansion goes ahead and is already rising with the current increase in scheduled flights to Paris and Jersey courtesy of wanker companies Rockhopper (01481 824567) and European Executive (01273 465566). Their name just says it all: it’s the richest 10% who make the vast majority of flights in this country, either business trips or weekend breaks to holiday homes. With 800,000 people expected to use the airport by 2018 (5-10 times more than current use) we need to stop this expansion dead in its tracks now. Recent planning permission for a golf course on expansion land seem like a front for more earthworks to be carried out with muck-rakers Penfolds (01273 412224) already landfilling to raise the land the required two metres before work can go ahead on expansion.

FUNNY GOINGS-ON

And they’re already in deep shit themselves, figuratively as well as literally. The Environment Agency is prosecuting them for sorting rubbish on site, without the proper licence. Funny goings-on at New Monks Farm as well, which has been sold to Southern Housing who plan to build seven two-bed houses. Now as council planners, why would you sanction that?– new houses at the end of an extended runway? - unless of course it meant a new road and a new road just happens to be a requirement for the extended runway which has to have at least two access roads for the emergency services.

RM will keep you posted on developments from our hide-out in the bushes at the end of the runway – you should just be able to make out our binoculars.

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Cop Spot

Thought you’d enjoy a can on the way to the East Brighton Park fireworks did yer? Think again sonny – hand over that Grolsch. This is what happened to one unsuspecting punter happily going on his way to the May 15 event. Cops taking the piss, as well as the lager?! There we were thinking the Brighton,(sorry Simon Fanshawe) Festival was all about inclusivity. Maybe it’s ok to swill a glass of chianti al fresco after your book launch, but a beer sure as hell ain’t allowed in Whitehawk.

CARRY ON UP THE INJUNCTION

NUTS CRACK SLEDGEHAMMER

And this month’s dumbest bombs surely have to be the management of Brighton’s favourite warmongers EDO/MBM. They thought they’d hit on an easy way to rid themselves of a few pesky protestors. Goaded on by Insp Kerry Cox of Sussex Police, they applied for an injunction (see Rough Music# 3) to create an exclusion zone around the bomb factory.

The plan backfired nicely when in contrast to the usual weekly demos of ten or twelve peaceniks, over seventy people turned out to make Rough Music outside the factory. Suddenly from being a minor local peace campaign our mates at SMASH EDO became something of a cause celebre and shot into the headlines. Headlines bring politicians and it wasn’t long before various wannabe MPs crawled out of the woodwork to “stand alongside the campaign” (Not directly alongside we gather, more being there in spirit).

DRACONIAN

Currently EDO/MBM have spent nearly fifty grand (well, bombing kids is profitable) on the services of dodgy solicitor Timothy Lawson Cruttenden. Having been successful in getting draconian injunctions against various animal rights groups boasting he no doubt promised EDO/MBM that a fat wedge in his pocket would ensure the end of inconvenient demonstrations.

However a strongly argued case in the High Court led to Judge Gross (yeah really) saying that “freedom of expression is a right jealously guarded in English law”. He then refused to impose most of EDO’s proposed injunction, leaving the proposed exclusion zone in tatters and Lawson-Cruttenden in a stuttering fit of pique. Basically protestors are now forbidden only from attacking members of staff and making threatening phone calls, neither of which has ever happened and was illegal in any case. There is no legal limit on the time or frequency of demos or the amount of noise made at them.

SMASH EDO encourage everyone who’s against the arms trade and for freedom of speech to join them. (see Gig List)

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BEGGARING BELIEF

A crackdown on the city’s homeless population fuelled by the greed of Fanshawe and his cronies has now become a traditional ritual of Brighton public life. Much has been made of the city’s resolute stance on beggars. A series of heavy handed and much publicised “crackdowns” together with quieter joint police/business programs have been targeted at the traditionally colourful street drinking community. At all costs it seems our new city must be a clean, predictable and above all commercial enterprise. Beggars are bad news for business.

At the beginning of April a consortium of well funded quangos (the Anti-Social behaviour team, the Crime Reduction Initiative, Brighton and Hove Safe in the City etc etc (who’s paying for all this?) proclaimed a victory over Brighton’s beggars. Councillor Gill Mitchell of the Environment Committee in brilliantly sympathetic Neo-Labour mode said “These clients that we are targeting are some of the most vulnerable and chaotic in our society and we have given them the clear message that we are there to help them, but we cannot tolerate their begging and street drinking activity to continue unchecked.”

With great pride it was announced that a 90% reduction in the number of people begging on any one day in the city had been achieved. Sounds good doesn’t it? A 90% reduction in poverty , a 90% clear up rate for mental illness, 90% of the “chaotic and vulnerable” people rehoused. Of course what they mean is that 90% of these people have been frightened off the streets. At a meeting of St Peters’ Traders’ Association on 25 January, Sergeant Richard Siggs explained a new long-term strategy of ‘befriending’ street drinkers in order to “get them to change their behaviour once paranoia has set in”. Savage prison sentences have been handed out to homeless people in Brighton who breach ASBOs concerned with begging. One homeless man was sentenced to two years for breaching an ASBO.

A ninety percent success rate sounds great. But 90% of what? When it becomes apparent that all this effort was targeted at just over thirty people, that’s thirty people out of a population of 250,000 it begins to look truly pathetic.

AESTHETIC CLEANSING

So why is street drinking and begging such a threat? Surely it can’t be because cracking down the real aggro in town (According the Community Safety Forum 60% of Brighton’s violent crime takes place on West street between 8pm and 3am) would affect the big pub and nightclub chains? The worst the police can say about these vulnerable people is that “we know that the public will think twice about using a cashpoint if there is someone begging next to it”. Well God forbid that anyone should be delayed from wasting their cash on binge drinking in the town centre in “The City by the Sea”.

Meanwhile after the tough talk, funding is actually being cut to front line services. The Big Issue Office used to have two support staff funded by the council, who worked with Big Issue vendors to point homeless people effectively in the direction of services. Following council budget cuts both support workers lost their jobs. The reason? Big Issue staff refused to agree to the council’s “local connections” policy. Although the whole of the world is supposed to come to Brighton according the Fanshawe’s feted ‘Tourism Strategy’, beggars it seems can’t be choosers. Homeless people without a local connection are simply “encouraged” to leave town.

In short order homelessness becomes a crime. If you fall through the cracks in life then fuck you, get out of town! Cleanliness and Order are the watchwords. Like the removal of street kids in a big city before an Olympic bid, Brighton’s homeless people are becoming subject to a form of aesthetic cleansing.

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FANSHAWE’S FANTASY ISLAND

Stalin had a five year plan, Fanshawe’s gone five knuckle-shuffles better. Heading up the Committee responsible for Brighton’s Tourist Strategy he prophesies manically...

“In ten years Brighton will be transformed… By 2014 we want to be …

An international seaside city on a human scale - proud of and defined by its difference. Original, independent, alternative, creative, vibrant, exciting, relaxing, refreshing, invigorating, inspiring Young at heart – and for the young at heart trendsetting, innovative, and in tune with the zeitgeist. But it retains its powerful personality – creative, bohemian, innovative, eccentric.”

No thanks to you, you dipshit.

Introduction: Brighton and Hove is an extraordinary place – a destination with a 250-year reputation for fun and freedom that answers the key demand of tourists: to find “someplace different from home”.

Tell us something we didn’t know Simon

Unlike most traditional British seaside resorts, the city is a tourism survivor because it has constantly reinvented itself, responding to changing markets, tastes and styles.

How many coffee shops in the space of 20 yards? - at the last count 15 wasn’t it.

It is time for a clear Tourism Vision for the next 10 years, and a strategic direction and action plan to take us there.

Right you are sir, we’ll catch them in a classic pincer movement.

That’s why Brighton & Hove Economic Partnership has joined forces with Brighton & Hove City Council to agree a way forward for tourism. In putting together this document, we have been guided by a 39-strong Steering Group representing most of the many different organisations and sectors that make up the visitor economy, and by the responses to our Consultation Programme. This wide-ranging Programme, in summer 2003, saw 500 Consultation Documents mailed to organisations and individuals, live debates with business organisations, information published online and in the local media - all designed to stimulate input to this work.

Oooer stop it Simon I’m coming over all flushed with the excitement of it all.

We are not starting with a blank sheet. Brighton and Hove is an established visitor destination, and it has had a clear strategic direction for tourism for many years.

We’ve been here before haven’t we?

ABC1s now represent the mass market. Consumers are ever more widely-travelled – leading to increased sophistication and discrimination. There has been a “democratization of luxury”, with design-driven concepts becoming the norm. There is a wider expectation of quality, an increase in style-consciousness and brand awareness and a new demand for exclusivity and privilege (eg private clubs, limited editions).

That’s a picture of Simon’s ideal tourist. Sound like anyone you know? How about some inclusivity and equality for a change.

This document marks the start of a 10-year process. It only sets the direction: now people involved in tourism across the city and our partners beyond will take it forward, shape it, refine it, flesh out the details and deliver the actions. We are committed to helping to make this happen.

You should be committed mate and don’t stop at GO on your way to the asylum.

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Looking for a New England?

YUPPIE HEAVEN IN CITY CENTRE

New England Quarter, on the corner of New England Street and Whitecross Street: Doesn’t it sound so bijoux, so yuppiefied, so London. Ahhhhh, we at Rough Music can’t wait to sip our soyaccinnos in the towering presence of the new luxury hotel - rumoured to be 42 stories - and the canyon of nearby buildings which will bring the city of London to the centre of Brighton. Think blocked out sunlight, more car pollution, oh and the small matter of three or four articulated lorries pulling up each day to feed the giant mammon which is Sainsburys - the economic driver of the whole motherfucking catastrophe.

PIXIE

It’s being marketed somewhat differently. Barratt hoardings (now replacing the much loved Harvest Forestry) on the corner of New England St. show pictures of happy families cycling without a care in the world. Now far be it from Rough Music to suggest that some daring pixie should be the first to add their own artwork to the delightful imagery, but come on. Luxury housing is another spoke in this yuppiefied wheel you see, a wheel which is riding roughshod over your average joe in Brighton, who wouldn’t be able to buy the kitchen of one of these apartments let alone the apartment itself. And like we really need another superstore, especially here, just to put the final nail in the coffin of Brighton workers down at the Open Market or along London Road, people who graft for a living instead of poncing about with 3G new generation XYFFFFFFFFF3120 mobile phones and wifi laptops… darling.

And as such this development is billed as ‘becoming a vibrant new urban quarter for the 21st century - a place where the latest thinking in urban regeneration and sustainable development will bring a new vitality and style to this gateway to the City’. Smell anything?

SQUEEZED

There’s more, ‘This £150m regeneration boost for the London Road, the largely vacant 15-acre site will become an urban neighbourhood incorporating a rich mix of uses.’ Rich is the word, you’ll need a wad of cash to step foot inside the place. Naaaah this is all wrong – affordable housing should be at 99%, not a pitiful 30%, there should be no luxury housing, no luxury hotels, no European headquarters for international businesses and definitely no frigging Sainsbury’s - and what about the Sunday market shouldn’t that be restored to its rightful place, not squeezed into a tight corner? In fact what was wrong with BUDD’s (Brighton Urban Design and Development) ideas for a community based development built around a green corridor and Site of Nature Conservation Importance, with eco-buildings and resource centres that are actually needed for people on the ground here, now.

Last word to the parasite developers, “We are always keen to hear from people who are interested in the redevelopment of the New England Quarter. [like fuck you are] For general comments or questions about the redevelopment, please email us at: info@new-england-quarter.co.uk. If you have specific questions about the construction programme, please contact Adenstar’s dedicated community liaison manager, Tony Baker: Office: 01273 595 743 Mobile: 07891 118 795.

Let ‘em have it with both barrels, we say. Twats.

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MIND YOUR LANGUAGE

SWEARING BANNED IN HOLLINGDEAN

Just when you thought Neo-Labour had come up with the most ridiculous non-solution to ‘anti-social’ behaviour in the estates of our green and pleasant land – the infamous ‘ASBO’s – along comes Brighton council to out-poop the party-poopers. The council have written up an agreement banning people from swearing, loud music, fly tipping and er bad driving in the neighbourhood of Hollingdean – which everyone who moves into the ‘hood has to sign or face eviction. However – only one member of each household has to sign the agreement, and that doesn’t have to be the teenagers who are causing most of the noise.

The plan has been hatched by council housing bosses and residents, in an attempt to deal with ‘neighbours from hell’. ‘Council from hell’ more like.

Faye Cooper, the estate’s safety co-ordinator says, “We want to help people who are causing problems to change their behaviour before we need to enforce the rules but there is now a legal back-up if we need it.” Help? Do they fuck – they just want more powers to kick people out. And the council are also saying that if the scheme ‘works well’ it could be extended to the whole of Brighton and Hove.

TURNING THE SCREWS

Of course we’re not suggesting that there aren’t social problems, and that people are being intimidated outside their own homes. But turning the screws and winding up a little tin-pot totalitarian state only attacks the symptoms, not the causes. New laws to stop anti-social behaviour – namely the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 - have already been proven unworkable, and unpoliceable, by the range of absurd ASBOs which have been handed out in the past two years. Here’s a couple of choice ASBOs we’ve heard of: A 13 year old boy was banned from using the word ‘grass’, and an 87 year old man banned from ‘being sarcastic’ (www.asboconcern.org.uk).

Its only a matter of time before a family is kicked out of Hollingdean for saying the ‘f’ word… But Rough Music says that instead of all this bollocks, why doesn’t the council spend money actually addressing the problem – which is that many teenagers are at a loose end and don’t have anywhere to go on the estates. How about spending the cash on more youth social centres, sports facilities, community projects, training opportunities…