Johann Hari

London’s living rooms are vibrating once again to the high-pitched squeal, “Remember you’re a Mitchell!” Yes, Barbara Windsor wiggled her way back to Albert Square this week, and yet again the press is fawning over “everybody’s favourite Eastender” and “a working class hero.” But I don’t think a lover and defender of
a gang of torturing, slashing thugs is heroic, no matter how many times her bra pings off into Sid James’ face.

The Krays belong to a strange lost slice of London’s history. When we hear about warlords in Afghanistan and Iraq, it seems impossibly foreign – armed gangs challenging the authority of the state? But the Krays brought warlordism to where I live – East London – only fifty years ago. Barbra Windsor teetered and tottered around their human rights-meltdown, offering nothing but her famous giggle, some sexual favours and a clutch of excuses.

She still describes the Krays mistily as “charming and polite”, and spews the lines used to defend fascistic tyrants everywhere: they seemed nice to me (they got her a rehearsal room for free once), they only killed Bad People, they kept crime down. Her mate and fellow Eastender Mike Reid says, “Had the Krays remained free, the London of today would be a safer place. During their reign there was no mugging.” Of course – what’s a bit of torture and butchery (not to mention abuse of underage children) if it keeps down the mugging rate?

I tested the real popularity of Babs and Reid’s theories here in the East End by heading round the corner to the Blind Beggar pub, the sweetly dingy hole where those “charming, polite” Krays tortured and shot a man in the head in what they called a “public execution.”

Most of the customers were Aussies or Asians with no memory of that time, but a few old cockneys were nestling in a corner. Jessie Glass, 62, said, “They were just gangsters, nothing more.” I offered him the standard list of excuses. Weren’t they generous with their money? “Yeah, other people’s money.” Didn’t they only hurt their own? “What about the jurors in their murder trial? The brothers threatened them, that’s why they got off. There were a lot of people terrified of the Krays who had nothing to do with crime.” Weren’t they nice to women? “What about the teenage wife Charlie Kray was so fucking horrible to she committed suicide?” And, he could have added, what about the wives and children of the men they doused in petrol and tossed matches at?

If you are hungry for real working class heroes, here’s one: the barmaid from the Blind Beggar – still living in hiding as Mrs X – who risked her life to testify against the Bruvvers. She was not prepared to wipe the memory of the Krays shooting a man in cold blood from her mind, and she risked her life for justice. Doesn’t she deserve our respect a little bit more than a screeching blamange still reminiscing happily about the days when the East End cowered infear? Here’s a new slogan for you Babs – remember you’re a Kray-lover.