White (Power) Riot

A depressing, jaw-dropping moment of idiocy at the Clash Culture event, called, ironically, to mark the 30th anniversary of White Riot being released:

What could have been a simple symposium to trade shirt-stencilling tips was soured somewhat by the presence of Clash manager and "punk philosopher" Bernie Rhodes.

Rhodes was in no mood to sit still in his museum cabinet. He began by laying into Julian Temple's new film about Joe Strummer, The Future is Written, describing it as "crap - a film made by a public schoolboy about another public schoolboy" and adding, "They've turned Joe into a hippie because they want another John Lennon." All very punk rock, of course, but Rhodes wasn't finished. During a rambling tangent on the Iraq war, Rhodes dropped the bombshell that "If you want to sort out crime in London, sort out the niggers in Peckham." Following catcalls and heckles from the audience, the organisers brought up the house lights, and brought the night to an early close.

As Louis Pattison deftly points out in his Comment Is Free piece, sad though this is, it's in-keeping with punk's tradition of gormlessly embracing all kinds of stinking politics for either fashion, cool, or just plain old nasty ignorance and spite. It was telling back when Clive James' most recent autobiography came out, with the anecdote about being backstage with the Sex Pistols, the focus was on how it couldn't have happened rather than the Pistol's use of the swastika.

We're not so sure it didn't happen, by the way - James' places the story backstage at both Granada and the Today programme; we suspect he's recalled meeting the band in Manchester (presumably pre-So It Goes) but assumed the occassion had been Bill Grundy's interview. The reference to Lord Bernstein confirms this interpretation, and perhaps if Clive can get that fixed for the paperback, we might all be able to focus less on why there was Sid Vicious in the anecdote than why there was a swastika in it in the first place.

[EDIT: Louie, Louis - correct Louis now identified. See comments]