Smash hit

There is no doubt that Labour has coarsened the political culture. But Gilbert stretches the point until it becomes unconvincing. To claim that a few tirades from Labour spin doctors or government whips amounts to a culture of systematic violence is just absurd, while there is something repellent about the self-pitying whines of the former Department of Trade and Industry press officer Martin Sixsmith, who was forced out of office by Stephen Byers after a bitter personality clash. This sort of incident has happened in politics for centuries.

Gilbert also bangs on too much about the hostile environment of the City, portrayed as a cesspit of foul-mouthed abuse and terror. If that were true, the City could hardly be one of the most successful financial centres in the world.

Gilbert tries to end on a more elevated note. He points out that the introduction of antisocial behaviour orders (ASBOs) may be yielding some results in urban areas. He explains that his own research has made him less fearful on the streets because he is now more willing to assert himself. He is no longer one of the “cowering people”, waiting on a bus to be attacked. But he had to expose himself to some real savagery to reach that point.

An Extract From Yob Nation

I staggered out of the nightclub on to the train. The seats were ripped and the windows were covered in graffiti, but I didn’t feel intimidated.

I am a Londoner and expect nothing less from my public services . . . I had lived and worked in London most of my life. I had taught in some of the roughest schools in the city and felt at home in the dirtiest streets — too comfortable perhaps.

There were other people around and I felt secure enough to put my feet up. I dozed. I dreamt that the nightclub was not the noisy, thumping hole that I had been happy to leave. Instead, soothing music stroked my soul . . .

I woke up with a jolt. Oh no, the train was terminating here! I was at the benighted Leytonstone station. I scrambled off and managed to catch a night bus. I congratulated myself on my luck: I might have waited an hour for the bus. It smelt really badly of vomit downstairs, so I climbed the stairs and positioned myself in a seat tucked away behind the stairwell.

Even in my drunken state I registered that there were about five black boys at the back of the bus. A tiny squirt of adrenalin suffused my veins. I dismissed my fear as racism. Besides which, I had taught kids like this for years.

I clamped on my Walkman earphones and pressed play. Neville Jason reading Proust’s In Search of Lost Time enlivened my mind. I was walking on the shimmering beach, watching the lithe bodies of Albertine and her friends in their bathing costumes. The sea of Proust’s prose washed over me . . . A rough hand shook my shoulder. It was one of the boys from the back.

“Oi, have you got a quid?” My reaction was immediate. I snapped back that I didn’t. I bitterly resented the way in which my sublime vision of Albertine had been interrupted. I was also very afraid.

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