A London punk diary on frightened power, empty inns, and gifts that mean more than money
Punk exists to make frightened authority nervous, so this December I went looking for the most frightened authority figure in the oldest story we have, and I found him: a king so scared of a rival that he burned the whole place down. I am Siobhan, London punk, and King Herod is the most anti-punk character ever written, which makes the punks who oppose him the real heroes of the season.
The frightened throne is the enemy
Every punk knows the enemy: not the poor, not the outsider, but the terrified establishment guarding its power at any cost. The account of King Herod and his worried throne is the definitive portrait of that enemy, a powerful man who hears of a challenge and, instead of listening, panics, lies, and lashes out. That is the exact energy punk was invented to oppose: insecure authority, terrified of losing control, willing to hurt anyone to keep its grip. Herod is every landlord, every censor, every nervous power that ever tried to crush the thing it feared. And the story, brilliantly, is on the side of the ones the frightened king was scared of.
I find this genuinely thrilling. The nativity is not a cosy establishment tale. It has a tyrant in it, panicking on his throne, and it sides entirely against him, with the powerless, the travelling, the overlooked. That is a more punk moral than half the songs I have screamed along to in basements.
My genuinely defiant personal week
Let me report on the state of me. I organised a benefit gig this week for a venue about to be priced out by developers, the modern worried kings, and we packed the room, passed the bucket, and made enough noise to rattle their planning application. It will not save the venue. Almost nothing saves the venue. But we made the frightened power nervous for one night, which is the whole point of the racket. I went home hoarse, broke, and happier than I have been in months, because there is nothing like annoying a nervous establishment to remind you why you do this.
According to the broadcasters, grassroots music venues across London continue to close under commercial pressure, which is the worried king of our age, guarding its property values against the noise that scares it.
No room for the ones who need it
The frightened establishment always finds the room full for the people who need it most, which is why the account of there being no room at the inn hits me as a punk. It is the original story of a system with no space for the outsider, the traveller, the family with nothing, until the humblest place, the stable, opens its door. That is punk housing policy: the grand establishments turn you away, and salvation comes from the overlooked place, the squat, the spare room, the stable-keeper who makes room when the proper inns will not. The season sides with the stable. So do I.
Every punk I know has slept on a floor offered by someone with little, because the ones with plenty had no room. The nativity got there first. Salvation comes from the margins, from the people who make room when the establishment locks its doors.
The gifts that mocked the king’s wealth
My favourite anti-establishment detail is the gifts. The piece on the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh describes travellers bringing the finest treasures not to the king in his palace but to a baby in a stable, which is the ultimate snub to frightened power. The wealth that Herod hoarded and feared to lose was carried straight past his throne and given freely to the powerless. That is punk economics: value belongs not to the one who guards it but to the one who gives it away. The king had everything and gave nothing. The travellers gave the best they had to someone who could offer nothing back.
According to the Royal Parks people, London’s shared winter spaces belong to everyone, which is the closest the establishment gets to admitting that the best things are the ones given freely, exactly as the wise men understood.
The scene and the story, same enemy
The more I look, the more the overlap unnerves me. Punk and the nativity oppose the same enemy: frightened, hoarding, controlling power. Both side with the outsider, the traveller, the one turned away. Both understand that the real value is in what you give, not what you guard. I spent years thinking punk invented this defiance, and it turns out the oldest story in the culture had a tyrant, opposed him, and sided with the powerless two thousand years before I ever picked up a grudge and a leather jacket.
Where the punk lands
So I will keep organising benefit gigs against the worried kings of our age, keep making frightened power nervous for a night at a time, and keep noticing that the oldest story in the culture is more punk than most of my record collection. Herod is the enemy. The stable is the answer. The gifts belong to whoever gives them away. I like Christmas. I like it defiant, on the side of the outsider, rattling the throne of every nervous power that ever tried to lock the door. The eyeliner stays on. The bucket goes round. The frightened king can panic all he likes.
For more scene chaos, The Hard Times rattles the throne.
