ABSTRACT
Politicians of all parties, police officers of various ranks and clergymen from many denominations often expressed the view that what had occurred was an aberration from the law-abiding and peaceful normality of the English nation. Underlying the complex web of arguments which followed incidents of public disorder in the 1980s was a particular conception of British national identity and political culture. The perceived threats to national identity posed by disorder may be particularly acute. Incidents of public disorder have a specific discursive power in terms of the 'imagined community' of the nation when compared to other forms of criminal behaviour. It is informative to examine the discourse surrounding the disorders in St Paul's because they were perhaps the first distinctly urban confrontation for many years, as opposed to the 'industrial' or 'political' disorders of the 1970s. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
