Howard Jackson

If her Guardian column on Monday 14th May is an indication, Polly Toynbee is becoming the Joe Louis of the left.   There is something inspiring about a tough two fisted heroine.  And since the Coalition Government, Polly Toynbee has been slinging punches faster than we thought possible.    Meanwhile, Ed Milliband is a different kind of fighter, the kind who prefers the monotonous jab.   We have to be hesitant about being convinced by Milliband but if he does eventually triumph and claim a place in history he will not be the first defensive jabber to be underestimated.    The rest of us scream from the other side of the ropes and demand a punch that will knockout Cameron.    But we are impatient spectators.   The trainers at the side of the ring understand the rigours of a championship fight.   Jab and keep your guard high and do not let the opponent get close.

‘What about hitting him with some policies, coach, you know, show him we have ideas?’

‘Just keep jabbing, son.  You’ll be all right.  His nose is bleeding and his eye is opening.’

There was a time when Polly was a jabber.   She always had compassion which she proved by taking routine and unpleasant jobs but she believed pragmatism rather than idealism had to prevail.    Thatcher had that effect on many of us.   When a leader preaches hatred and contempt for half the population and the other half respond by cheering then your ideals suffer.    In an odd way, Thatcher did shift the political opinions of almost everyone to the right.   Much has been made of the massive majority Labour had in 1997 but many people voted Labour back then without any real expectation of reform.     There is an irony.   Blair and New Labour deserve all the condemnation that they have received because they continued with Thatcherism.  But if their initiatives did nothing about the gap between rich and poor, the progress made in the NHS and the impact of tax credits was more significant than most thought possible in 1997.   The problem for New Labour was that Thatcherism did not work.   Industries vanished and Brown felt that he had no choice but to support an economic system based on finance and debt.   He was clever enough to know it was flimsy but lacked the one virtue he admired, courage.  His remark about abolishing boom and bust was misunderstood.   He had abolished it, his policies were designed to maintain spending and growth at a steady rate and they were feasible providing that there was no wholesale financial collapse.   Unfortunately, greed was not quite as good or as beneficial as some had promised.

The plates stopped spinning but long before the crash Toynbee had re-invented herself as a malcontent.   She wanted to do more than jab.    Note that the word radical has been avoided.   Her social democracy values demanded efficient management from left wing governments and when Labour returns to power she will no doubt repeat her pleas for responsibility and efficiency.    Somewhere and at some point, though, Toynbee became disgusted by what she saw in the elite of Britain.   She acquired a quality that is hard to resist when it spills out on to the keyboard.   Toynbee discovered the joy of loathing.  This has been missed by her left wing critics.  The lady who back in the eighties deserted Labour for the SDP has never been forgiven.  Yet the world and people change.   Toynbee who campaigns in The Guardian today on behalf of the poor and who exposes the callous greed of the rich is unrecognisable when compared to her predecessor, except the previous incarnation was also a battler.

She must be doing something well because the right wing hates her so much.   This is how motor mouth Boris Johnson describes her; she “incarnates all the nannying, high-taxing, high-spending schoolmarminess of Blair’s Britain. Polly is the high priestess of our paranoid, mollycoddled, risk-averse, airbagged, booster-seated culture of political correctness and ‘elf ‘n’ safety fascism.’     In other words, she is concerned about social justice.   Boris who managed to be re-elected as Mayor of London without promising any reforms that might improve the lives of ordinary Londoners presumably thought that thinking about the human hardships within his city constituted ‘elf ‘n safety fascism’.

Polly Toynbee angers the rich and powerful because her background means that she knows and understands them.   In the British class system that pretends to be a society the word background is sometimes changed for pedigree.   Because she knows them she can spot stupidity with the precise eye of an expert rifleman.   And on Tuesday in The Guardian the repeater rifle was loaded and she took aim.  I know she will not be flattered by the comparison but it reminded me of Elvis in Vegas when he used to do impressions of his rivals and then sing the song in his own voice.   ‘And this is the real thing,’ he would say.    He was right if arrogant.  Like Elvis, Toynbee understands that the grinning upstarts who think they can brush aside others and avoid scrutiny and accountability will always justify contempt.

This Tuesday, she described the Government as ‘unwise’ which she soon demonstrated was sarcastic understatement.   If that sounds oxymoronic read the article.   Admittedly it has been a week when her opponents have stood like imbeciles next to the shooting targets but nothing defines present day economic absurdity better than her sentence, ‘iron laws set by bankers whose grotesque pay flows from bailouts by states they impoverished’.   While the rest of us were still gobsmacked by cabinet ministers, William Hague, Phillip Hammond and Eric Pickles, arguing that economic growth would only be achieved if everybody worked harder she quickly held them all to account.  She soon found opinion within the Chambers of Commerce and the CBI to remind the three not so wise men that economic growth requires a strategy from government.   Swatting three ministers would be enough for anyone and any article, but Toynbee also battered Cameron, Osborne, Clegg, Gove and Duncan Smith.   This is impressive even though she is correct, ‘the bungling and dogmatism are unrivalled in post war Britain.’   1500 words and seven victims later she sneers at the end of the column.   ‘You Gov yesterday reported Ed Milliband polling higher than David Cameron who with every passing day looks increasingly like the prime minister of a one term government.’   The reader can almost hear Cameron splutter his breakfast over the kitchen table.  We cheer, hope and wait.   Loathing and contempt have to be managed but when Duncan Smith talks about disabled people ‘festering’ he actually means eating and surviving.  He deserves every blow that two fisted Polly lands.  So does Michael Gove whose empty head supposedly yearns for a working class for whom ‘deprivation need not be destiny.’   Presumably the deprivation is fine; it is just the destiny that is embarrassing.   Gove does not last long and is soon felled by blows from Toynbee to the head and the body.  Clegg is the easiest target; he is knocked out with a direct upper cut.

Not everybody approves of the detours that this blog takes into politics.  But rock and roll and Elvis grabbed me at an early age and insisted that I was entitled to heroes and fighters, especially those like Elvis who know a life that values consistency over growth is mistaken.   The two fists make a difference.

If you want to read about Elvis, rock and roll and much more click here.

This challenge was issued by Peter Harrison on Twitter, who is currently reading Treat Me Nice. The challenge is to relate Elvis Presley to a Guardian article on violence in America. It has been picked as number one as the article is topical.

Wall Street Protests reveal slice of America’s barely tamed brutality – Ed Pilkington, Guardian.

The article in The Guardian talks somewhat gloomily about the presence of violence in American society and culture. Pilkington believes it is demonstrated by callous actions, for example the random cruelty by policemen and SWAT teams, and by the glamorisation of violence in American culture. Pilkington is not the first to make this point. Crime levels within the USA are high and though they vary they are quite consistent across individual States. Various factors have been identified, wide gaps in the level of income, the ubiquitous presence of the handgun and a liberal and creative society that encourages individualism and values achievement.

To relate this to Elvis we first need to make a decision. Do we accept the assertion about America?

Yes, but generalisations about the USA are like generalisations about Elvis.

The scope and achievements of both invariably contain contradictions. Overall, the assertion, though, has validity and it is confirmed by crime levels, gun ownership, its high use of capital punishment, and a foreign policy heavily dependent on its armed.

So, how does Elvis relate?

Well, he was an American and, as critics Dave Marsh, Jon Landau and Robert Palmer argued frequently, he was an American artist. Jon Landau in his review of a concert in Boston in 1971 actually used the word violent to describe his performance although he used other words more flattering in his review.

Critic Jim Morrison, who was appreciative of the talent of Elvis, also described him as narcissistic and violent.

Violence has many aspects but it can be valued by its protagonists as having something that has aggressive worth and defensive importance. The aggressive worth can be how it makes the aggressor feel – superior, important and, ultimately, cool. This aspect is not only specific to Tarantino movies but it is often in the rock and roll and blues of Elvis. Sometimes the violence has a sexual edge but this does not mean it is sadistic. The violence is more a masculine celebration of previous or remembered ecstacy. Sometimes it can anticipate ecstacy. This music can be accepted and enjoyed as innocent fun but the violence which is rooted in masculine hedonism is there and it requires an American artist to identify its existence and implications. Elvis has no inhibtions about using it to add to the urgency of rock and roll or the menace of the blues. This is why Palmer. Marsh and Landau are consistent in describing Presley as an American artist. Examples of this violence are rock songs such as ‘Hound Dog’ and blues like ‘So Glad You’re Mine.’
But his use of violence can also be defensive, a warning against potential hurt and disappointment. It is not confined to the all conquering male. The gun in American culture is of value to the defendor and the aggressor. Damon Runyan, the American writer, described the handgun as ‘the great equaliser’. It enables the weak and ignored to be assertive against those who think they are all conquering, male or female. Elvis was always keen to assert the warnings of the powerless. Not necessarily the economically powerless but the emotionally dependent and vulnerable. The songs, ‘Is It So Strange’, ‘I’ll Never Let You Go’ and ‘Don’t’ are good examples of this warning. Sometimes the warning is no more than a description of chaos and implies only irretrievable damage to the person giving the warning. Many Elvis ballads contain this bleak prediction. Songs such as ‘Blue Moon’ and ‘Loving Arms’ imply that the demands of the singer need to be honoured by a sympathetic response from the woman he loves. If not honoured the price will be a horrible destructive responsibility for the woman. Sometimes, though, the warning is a threat that implies damage to the woman. A fine example is his marvellous blues record ‘Reconsider Baby’. In this record the violence is quite serious; his plea that she does reconsider implies that if she does not she will be hurt. Sometimes, though, the threat is comic such as in ‘Dirty, Dirty Feeling’ where the naive male is both destructive and bewildered. The tradition of comic and serious violence exists within American culture so Elvis is being consistent. Comic and serious violence, of course, are not specific to American traditions. There is defensive and aggressive violence and the music of Elvis contains it all.

Violence may not involve physical assault but it does overlap with sexual conquest although, again, it may not be meant in a harmful way. ‘Merry Christmas Baby’ does not suggest physical violence but it does contain an erotic threat that will defeat resistance from women. Elvis was always quite willing to use this erotic threat in his music and on stage. Apart from the conquest that may follow it relates to violence because it requires Elvis to issue a challenge that we associate with a contest. If he is not erotic then his challenge fails. The risk involved is consequential and it requires a confidence we associate with violent confrontation.

In the behaviour of Elvis we see violent interests. These are – the exceptionally violent games of American football he played with the Memphis Mafia, his interest in guns, his policemen fantasies and his final incarnation as an omnipotent super hero in the 70s. Although his main interest was to entertain the final identity is a violent assertion of his importance over others. Although, this is using the word violence in its widest sense it is appropriate. For example, we sometimes describe obscene language as violent. Nobody gets physically hurt by obscene language but the word violent is used to define the attitude of the speaker. Elvis was willing to offend both the establishment and his critics. He also aspired to a narcissistic potency, to be powerful and ‘special’. He did no harm with these ambitions and they do not indicate in themselves a flaw in his character but they can be considered as violent and they were obvious in his stage performances.

Elvis was an American and we are obliged to admire how he drew on the violence within both his culture and himself to enrich his music. If you disagree listen to his records ‘Reconsider Baby’ and ‘Don’t’ or even the record ‘He’ll Have To Go’ which Elvis recorded with reduced powers. ‘Baby’ was originally a begging, plaintive blues, ‘Don’t’ was conceived as a pretty ballad and ‘Have To Go’ was first recorded as a muted plea by Jim Reeves. Elvis redefined all three songs by adding a threat. He did this by using his experience of the violence within his society and himself. This has always been an aspect of his talent that makes him important. His success facilitated other musicians introducing into their music more blatant violence. Regrettably, much of this later explicit violence has been directed towards women. The escalation of violent attitudes within American popular music would suggest that America still has a serious issue to address. Presumably, this is why Ed Pilkington in The Guardian resides there so uneasily.

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