Riotous Times

I remember one Sunday night back in October 1985 listening to LBC radio as residents of the Broadwater Farm estate in Tottenham phoned in, providing a running commentary on the riot that was exploding all around them. In a time before rolling news, let alone the Internet, this was a gripping novelty - instant reportage from the front-line, unmediated by journalists and official spokespeople.

Last night rioting again broke out in Tottenham, and I found myself tuning into not LBC but Radio Five Live. And there was Stephen Nolan, wallowing in concern whilst worrying about a caller saying 'Shit!' as a bus burst into flames. But it wasn't quite the same. Because the radio was very much the poor relation when there was also live coverage on Sky News and BBC News to be consumed. And, boy, did the television have fun - hour after hour of footage of the street with nothing much happening, while experts and commentators gave us the benefit of their opinions.

The best bit was the emollient police commander who took time off from operational matters to reassure us that everything would be okay. He baulked at the word 'riot', preferring to talk about the 'distressing scenes', and insisted that the disorder wouldn't be allowed to continue any longer than was strictly 'necessary'. Whatever the reality of policing on the streets, the PR operation has got much slicker since the 1980s.

So too have the politicians. The MP for Tottenham is David Lammy, who now thunders against the rioting last night: 'This is a disgrace. This must stop. This is an attack on Tottenham, on ordinary people.'

And one can't help remembering the late Bernie Grant, leader of Haringey Council at the time of the Broadwater Farm riots. He it was who pointed out the obvious truths: 'The youths around here believe that the police were to blame for what happened on Sunday night and what they got was a bloody good hiding.' And, he added, sometimes violence was an effective shortcut to attracting the attention of national politicians: 'Had it not been for the disturbances, they would never have heard of the estate and never have visited Tottenham.'

Those comments were enough to turn him into a media hate figure, perhaps best summed up a few years later by Richard Littlejohn, who was by then a presenter on LBC whilst Grant himself had become an MP: 'I don't hate Bernie Grant because he's black. I hate him because he's a cunt.'

That was in 1993, as opinion began to take over from news. The media's changed as well, then.