There’s a new type of puritan at loose in the land, and if there’s one thing everybody should be wary of, it’s loose puritans.
The old type of puritanism, which peaked in Britain in the17th century and is still going very strong in election-year America, was based on radical Protestantism.
The new puritans have got rid of God but retain a general distrust of recreation in all its forms and a determination to make others, for their own good, do as they say. They like to be in control.
For example? Well it’s difficult to know where to start. The Taliban, who are God-based (by their own lights) puritans, stopped boys flying kites; modern British puritans just disapprove of young people showing any sign of independent thought or non-regulated dreaming, such as might be brought on by flying kites, wearing experimental clothing, hanging around in groups or failing to devote every spare moment to getting straight-As.
The new puritans love school uniforms and academies (which they think of as more regimented than schools) and although, because they are very keen on healthier lifestyles, they want children to play out, they don’t want them to play out in the aimless, improvised way me and my pals made the most of in the 1950s and 60s.
The new puritans want playing out to be an organised and improving experience, so that Tuesday night is tennis, Wednesday football and the most fun gift for an 18th birthday, when at last you can get legally drunk and do as you please, is membership of a gym club.
But the most extraordinary example of the march of the new puritanism came last week from the Local Government Association, which, facing devastating cuts in council spending, decided to distract itself by getting upset about the ‘clustering’ of betting shops and strip clubs in high streets.
Members of the Local Government Association are probably natural new-puritans, being sober-minded types with a mission to organise people, so the very mention of gambling and nudity is likely to bring on pursed lips and tutting.
But modern puritans, not having the word of God to fall back on, have to rely on surveys – they’re the new Truth. Surveys can be easily manipulated and don’t have to be published if they reach the wrong conclusions. They provide the new puritans with all the ammunition they need.
In this case, the Local Government Association asked local government officers whether they thought the growing numbers of bookies and strip joints on the high street created a problem which, by implication, would need to be corrected by local government officers using new planning regulations.
Yes, said the council officers, as a cobbler would say if asked whether he thought more people should get their shoes mended.
New puritans can’t, as the old puritans of New England did, just say they disapprove of things and tar-and- feather any dissidents; they have to connect their prejudices to a general secular good and win some measure of public support.
Polling
So the Local Government Association claims that bookmaking shops and strip joints (which I suppose means lap dancing clubs) are deterring families with children from going on to the high street – and they’ve done some polling on this: ‘Excuse me madam, do you want your high street to be clustered with gambling shops and naked woman? ‘Err, probably not.’ ‘Good, that’s a No then.’
I have no experience of lap-dancing clubs nor, except on Grand National Saturday, of betting shops, but I can’t think either of them was responsible for destroying the high street. More likely, as is true of almost all situations, it was the bankers.
It was the economic collapse which made high street rents cheap and made it profitable for bookmaking firms to open more shops. Betting shops and lap-dancing clubs both have bland facades which, far from corrupting children, are likely to leave them puzzled, and in any case, what’s the alternative, apart from more charity shops, nail bars and ‘to let’ signs?
I suspect the Local Government Association’s stance is based less on a determination to improve high street shopping (a tall order during a recession anyway), and more on a puritan disapproval of the working classes gambling away their money, or young women disporting themselves in immodest clothing.
Incidentally, I have a friend who was taken by his boss to a lap dancing club as a kind of corporate reward. He found it to be one of the most joyless, utterly depressing experiences of his life.
