The Jubilee that should have been a 'Happy Retirement' party

Isn't that Liz Taylor?

Anyone who has had the misfortune of witnessing the deluge of rain last Sunday should appreciate that at least the weather somewhat spoilt the sycophantic orgy which engulfed London and only seemed to abate mid week. That being said, stubborn flag-flying households still line my route to the tube station - one in particular presents itself as an inviting target for a spot of republican vandalism, but we can discuss that potential in person, with a carton of eggs, glue and a water-pistol full of booze. Another, which I cannot but mention and I'm sorry for completely surrendering to a mean streak inside me, is the (now presumably outdated) guide to creating the perfect Jubilee party by an author called Cherry Menlove, a name that any Soho queen would surely kill/die for. I sincerely hope this is actually some highly coded, subversive piece of writing which has insidiously wormed its way into the pastel-tone world of Mittelengland, because if it isn't, then it's just one of the most nauseating book covers I've seen recently, an uncanny mix of the patriotic with the dainty.

How pretty is that - right down to the confusing font selection!

The quintessentially British celebration, as it was called, seems to have gone fairly well, apart from a few dislocated jaws and suffocations among the assorted commentariat of the BBC and remarkably, CNN (must watch Jon Stewart on this).  The flotilla of barges, tugboats, trawlers and other floating vessels made its way down the river and the embankments were crowded with adulating subjects of the Crown. Even the objectively horrible weather provided a useful prop to revive the old Blitz mentality, when rich and poor stood together in defiance of the Nazis while the Royals waved on, or so the story goes. The problem of course is that if the Blitz is seen as a triumph of egalitarian resistance in the face of a stronger enemy, it is probably only because it wasn't very long lasting. Solidarity, it seems, is still in short supply, as the group of unemployed people who were stewarding the Jubilee celebrations for free must know (correction: they all got a packed lunch, and in addition to the unemployed, the 'apprentices' were paid a princely sum of two pounds eighty pence of Her Majesty's Sterling per hour).  The outrage of certain media outlets (yes, I mean the Guardian...) notwithstanding, this exercise in slave labour has been accompanied by a distinct lack of public opposition, coupled with laconic pronouncements from Downing Street about how this was a one-off - inviting uncomfortable comparisons to many other one-offs that should not have happened in the first place anyway. It seems that the general feeling is one of satisfaction that those out of work are put to work, whatever the circumstances may be; that this is done for little or no pay, in quite horrid conditions, elicits either indifference or disdain, even though it is quite clear that they are out of work not on account of their incompetence or laziness, but because there simply isn't enough waged labour to go around for everyone to work 8 hour days or more. (Waged labour being what we chose to call work over other activities, which are presumably non-work. Except when you're made to stand in the rain all day for no money, then it's still called work if you're unemployed. Yes, it's confusing). 

This all leads to the depressing conclusion that those with jobs, precarious as these may be, find it useful to berate those without jobs as lazy/incompetent, thereby drawing a clear line of distinction between themselves and the unemployed, and providing in this way some semblance of their own security, false as it may be. To make matters worse, most media, politicians and unions will, even when on the one hand criticising blatant system failures such as this one, find a way to include some strongly-worded message on punishing those called 'benefit frauds', just to make sure that they're seen as tough and even when there is little evidence of such fraud being quite as epidemic as it is suggested. It is, rather, symptomatic of a cleavage in society, one that separates one type of worker (those getting paid for work in a complex, belittling and alienating system of jobs) from another type (those not getting paid for work, but through a complex, belittling and alienating system of benefits). 

There is however one group of people who were working on the Jubilee and who need not fear for their jobs any time soon; Elizabeth Windsor has been in her current position for over 60 years now and though a big party was organised to celebrate her ability to hold on to a job (and quite a good one at that), it's not really that hard when the job is something handed to you by your dad - though who knows, perhaps plans to force people into early retirement in order to 'create' jobs for young people may yet bring a smile to poor unemployed Charles's face.