A RECENT damning article on Dover by Andrew Anthony has caused widespread upset in the town.
Some of the comments in Mr Anthony’s piece serve to distort it and paint an unreasonably negative picture of Dover. Coming at a time of genuine distress over our Tier 3 grading, it felt there was a touch of Schadenfreude.
I am especially disappointed with The Observer as it is supposed to be among the more fair-minded of the national press. However, it seems this piece voyeuristically reports on public ignorance more than it informs.
Dover is not an easy place to live in sone respects – the prospect of a hard Brexit being one of them – and articles like this are another.
It looks as if the writer just vox popped a few people to get the result he wanted. I am not sure how he fits the word “scumbags“ into the semi-intellectual/political construct of exceptionalism, on which some of his jibes are based. If anyone is guilty of thinking someone is different it is Mr Anthony. He judgementally surveys Dover from the high ground of white liberal privilege, as if we were exhibits in some zoo to come and gawp at, and then scuttles off with the quotes he thought his editor wanted.
We have endured over 20 years of coverage such as this from parts of the national media. Pieces like Mr Anthony’s have first established Dover – and then sustained it – as a kind of a rubbish chute where others think they can project their disowned “stuff” and imagine that it is all safely penned into Dover behind some invisible wall. This kind of coverage started in the late 90s thanks to the dubious “journalism” of the then local newspaper editor, who had come from the Daily Sport and stirred up racial tension. Some people seem not to want us to shake this off. Let’s move on, instead of peddling tired old tropes, just to reassure a comfortable middle-class audience.
The headline could even be taken to suggest Covid is some kind of divine retribution for voting for Brexit – as if Dover were unique in both respects – just because it is the closest town to Europe. Where was Mr Anthony when our Covid rates were among the lowest in the UK? Yet he shows up just when they are spiking. Why treat Dover as so exceptional? How many other Districts are there in Kent in the same position? Why not go to Tunbridge Wells for some angry stockbroker quotes about wanting a UDI from poor little East Kent and breaking away into their own unitary authority? Or maybe it is easier to kick poorly educated and socio-economically disadvantaged people when they are down – less danger of pushback, presumably?
As for the causes of the rise in cases in “Dover” – which of course includes Deal, Sandwich and their hinterland – I think all the factors mentioned in the article have contributed, with schools possibly being the biggest spreader.
As for the “potent mixture of self-pity and exceptionalism” I think he is just fitting one or two comments from random passers-by into his preconceived notions. Seven Kent MPs lobbied the government for a District-by-District Tier-rating for Kent so, again, why single out Dover? And what did he expect to find, joy at being put into Tier 3?
He claims there is a “sense of isolation” – what does he expect in a town at the end of a peninsula, in lockdown, on the cusp of winter, when people are not supposed to be out and about?
There is more than a touch of deprivation porn abut he article and I believe he would find far more toxic views on immigration in any large British town or city than he does here.
As for being “not a bad place to start” if he were looking for a place that embodied the saying “Fog in The Channel, Continent cut off”, on what basis does he make that remark? Just because Dover is the closest town to France?
People here have endured a lot of hardship and tragedy as a community, and shown considerable resilience in doing so, and do not deserve this kind of treatment.
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Local resident Tina Trevett said on social media: “I’ve lived in Dover for 10 years. I’ve seen the town struggle but I’ve also seen lots of new businesses too. There’s a massive sense of community if you just look for it. We’ve met many Dovorians who do amazing things for the town.”
Dover Town Team Chairman John Angell said: “It’s’ just off-the-peg metropolitan snobbery”.
Indignation over Dover’s portrayal came across clearly elsewhere. Jennifer Lott said: “I love Dover and being a born and bred Londoner that says all that needs to be said. So much to offer for those that lift up their eyes and look”.
Moreover, the headline was not even an accurate reflection of what was written, as it was angled around cafe owner Sandra Mahlo, who expressed grief over our Tier 3 status. So why the clichéd “Fear and Loathing”?
More seriously, as a No-Deal Brexit threatens, Mr Anthony demonstrates the metropolitan liberal elite have still failed to grasp their part in creating the Brexit – the constant finger-wagging, preachy, superior attitude from a privileged position of relative insulation from the issues at hand, towards the less well-off, less articulate and less well educated. It is that very failure to acknowledge anxieties, even if they are badly expressed, that contributed greatly to the Brexit vote.
Even the tone of the headline in the complaint letter you printed was distorted – “we are not all bad in Dover” as if there was ever a question that we might be. It was at least a tacit acknowledgement that the article had given that impression.
Dover does face its challenges as a result of being such a major port, for example because of the traffic chaos that Brexit looks likely to cause. And if it does, the effects of trade disruption will be felt across the country, so I am afraid it is false comfort to believe Dover is some kind of holding bay where a whole series of comfortable issues can be sealed off.
As Dovorian Alex Wilshaw stated on social media, to widespread approval: “Belittling a working class town during a pandemic is wrong. A lot of people here have kept up their efforts to remain Covid-safe and help out their community during troubled times.
“This article is a kick in the teeth for those here trying to maintain their livelihoods, businesses and wellbeing”.
We are a diverse town of 35,000 people, not objects of curiosity to be treated as if we were something other, lower, lesser.
© Andrew Stucken, December 2020 Twitter: @androidandreas
You can read Anthony’s piece here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/29/fear-and-loathing-in-dover-where-brexit-and-covid-meet