David Cameron’s efforts to heal his “sick society”, following rioting and looting in a number of large British cities last week, will likely further exacerbate problems in deprived areas.
Having caught police and politicians unawares, there was a genuine sense of bewilderment from the British establishment at what was happening on the streets of their capital city, and further afield, as scores of shops were broken into and set alight.
These weren’t scenes that anyone had ever expected to see in English cities and it immediately became apparent that nobody knew what to do. The initial police response could generously be described as shambolic and it seemed like law and order had completely broken down while officers stood back and looked on, under strict instructions not to intervene – even as more and more buildings went up in flames.
Following a huge public outcry, which cut politicians’ holidays short, vast numbers of police patrolled London’s streets and the riots came to an end – but not before five people were dead and hundreds of millions of pounds of damage had been caused.
In the aftermath of the chaos, as police and politicians try to restore public confidence in state institutions, much of the response has felt more like a slick PR exercise rather than any genuine attempt to deal with the problems that sparked the unrest.
So far, everything from hip hop, absentee dads, black culture, and bad parenting has been blamed but the reasons that thousands of, predominantly, young people, in different cities, took to the streets and broke the law cannot be explained away so easily.
Cameron, for obvious reasons, refuses to accept that his cutbacks, which have seen youth centres in some of the poorest areas of the country closed, police funding decimated, and college fees set at £9,000 per annum in most universities, have anything to do with the unrest.
While poverty is not an excuse for anti-social behaviour, in our consumerist society, which makes instant assessments of people’s worth based on the kind of clothes they wear or car they drive, the kind of despair that is adopted by people who see no way out of their dead-end job or dead-end flat cannot simply be dismissed as insignificant.
Similarly, the draconian punishment now being meted out in British courts, for relatively minor crimes, will almost certainly further deepen tensions. Of course criminality needs to be punished but some degree of nuance in the sentencing should be expected. Instead, there have been some truly idiotic sentences, like the 24-year-old mother-of-two who slept through the riots but was jailed for six months for accepting a pair of looted shorts from a friend the next morning.
Not to be outdone in the stupid stakes, another judge sentenced a 23-year-old student, with no previous criminal record, to six months in prison for stealing a bottle of water from Lidl. Sentencing the young man, he told him he was lucky that the matter was not being sent to a higher court, where he could be given an even tougher sentence, to be dealt with.
Meanwhile, the police, desperate to save face after they were stung by criticisms about their initial reactions to the riots, have been inviting camera crews from 24-hour news stations to accompany them as they physically drag teenagers from grotty-looking flat complexes.
I watched incredulously over the weekend as detectives broke down the door to a sad little terraced house and, what looked like, about 30 pumped-up officers wearing anti-stab vests poured in to arrest one skinny teen. It looked more like an inane episode of Cops than any kind of public service programming.
I’m no police tzar, but it strikes me that the zealous nature of the high-publicity arrests is a tad OTT and that taxpayers’ money would have been far better spent preventing the wholesale destruction of large swathes of London when rioting first started in Tottenham.
Not to be outdone, home secretary Theresa May now wants to discard long-standing legal practice and start naming children who are convicted of any involvement in the rioting. It’s unclear why she wants to publicly name children, some as young as nine, who are convicted of crimes but she evidently believes that she can shame, and scare, ‘em straight – a much cheaper solution than actually having to invest in their communities, schools, and youth clubs.
May has also praised the odious actions of Conservative-controlled Wandsworth Council which has issued an eviction notice to a woman whose son appeared in court charged in connection with the riots – even though he hasn’t even been convicted yet.
“If there is a member of a family who has been out there on the streets involved in these riots, where has that family been in ensuring that that individual is not involved in that activity? This one of the issues we need to look at.
“On the issue of evections, those parents should have been making sure that their youngster was not involved in this activity. They may see they actually have to pay a price for the fact they’ve not been unknowing in what their youngsters were doing,” she said, apparently of the belief that making families homeless will somehow reduce crime and restore public order.
The danger of having a Conservative-led government running the country in the wake of these riots is that they now have the perfect excuse to enact all sorts of crazy new laws and policies under the guise of being tough on crime.
So, we have seen calls for even more evictions and for benefits to be rescinded for those convicted of crimes – which begs the question, how can people with absolutely no money survive other than engaging in criminality?
Cameron is pretty good a coining trite sound bites but the “slow motion collapse of morals”, as he’s called it, cannot be mended by jailing 3,000 teenage rioters and merely talking tough on crime.
Meanwhile, Labour leader Ed Miliband has contrasted the government’s reaction to the riots and other recent high-profile scandals.
“It’s not the first time we’ve seen this kind of me-first, take-what-you-can attitude. The bankers who took millions while destroying people’s savings: greedy, selfish, immoral. The MPs who fiddled their expenses: greedy, selfish, immoral. The people who hacked phones to get stories and make money for themselves: greedy, selfish and immoral. Let’s talk about what this does to our culture,” he said.
Regrettably, it doesn’t appear as if Cameron is up for a reasoned debate – not when he can try to score some easy points with his hang ‘em and flog ‘em conservative base.
Nicely written and well-reasoned. Thanks!
Hi Colette,
I must say I agree with some of the points you made, but with others I believe you missed the mark entirely. It is true, the youth today do have gripes that need to be addressed, but none justify the wanton destruction and looting that took place.
We have to look at the root causes for the unrest among our youth, and they are two-fold. You mentioned our young people consider themselves in dead-end jobs with no hope for the future, which is correct. But you need to ask yourself why are they in this position?
Firstly, when the ‘politically correct’ crowd outlawed discipline in schools and in the home, they sowed the seeds for an entire generation who do not know, or care, what is right and what is wrong. Hence the feeling, “I can go and do what I want”.
Secondly, they have been failed by the education system as a whole. The breakdown of our successful education system (don’t forget some of the world’s brightest brains came from Britain) began when the previous Labour government started dumbing down the pass levels for exams just to make themselves look good. Remember: “Labour is working on education”! Right!?! Remember too that it is pupils from that ‘dumbed down’ era that are now teaching the young of today, which doesn’t give the next generation much hope!
The majority of young people today, especially those from poorer families, have the education level of twelve-year-olds. You can thank your precious Labour Party for that.
The problem with having poor numeracy and literacy levels means none of these people are ever likely to get a decent job. British industry has already come out and said that today’s youth is unemployable in the high tech world we live in. Few can read or write properly, and as for simple mathmatics – forget it!
I don’t blame them for this situation, only the fact that rioting is not the answer to their complaints.
As for your comments on police tactics, you appear to be one of the many who, during all the riots and demonstrations in recent years, pilloried the police for ‘brutality’ and ‘heavy-handed tactics’. These attacks came as much from M.P’s as the general public and, quite rightly, the police chiefs have tailored their response to public opinion. Now we didn’t have any ‘heavy-handed’ tactics or ‘kettling’ and the police are still wrong. You cannot have it both ways!!!!!
Either you back the police 100% while they restore order and protect your property, or you make sure they stand on the sidelines and watch. Your choice!
In closing, I would add the following if you are interested:
http://floroy1942.wordpress.com/2011/06/27/britains-education-system-the-blind-leading-the-blind/
http://floroy1942.wordpress.com/2011/08/10/behind-the-headlines-an-analysis-of-britains-troubles/
Best Regards,
Roy Peters
Hi Peter, thanks for the comment. re the police handling of the riots, I don’t believe they have to act brutally in order to do their jobs. They were just unprepared for the sheer volume of people who took to the streets and seemed to think that protests would remain in Tottenham or just fizzle out. Even on day three, when rioting began in broad daylight. they were toally ill-equipped for what went on and it was only when Cameron came back from holidays, and presumably shouted a lot, that suddenly 16,000 officers were available for duty.
I agree that education is key but corporal punishment is not necessary to achieve discpline. Making sure kids are interested in education from an early age, and explaining that it can transform their lives, is essential – but difficult, especially in areas that are riddled with unemployment and poverty.
Hi Again Colette,
Your comment of the police is to a certain amount accurate, but you still ignore the underlying reason, i.e. their reluctance to employ proper tactics because of public and political criticism.
With regard to your discipline argument, I am not promoting cruelty to children, but there is nothing wrong with a clip around the ear as has been suggested by many political bloggers. To expect that you can ‘educate’ children into behaving properly by ‘talking’ to them, well, events have shown for years that this approach does not work, period! When children misbehave they need to know who is in charge, and what their parents say is the way it will be. This has not been the case since the anti-smacking laws were put in place. Since that time, children know that if they misbehave there is nothing anyone can do about it. Even if they end up in trouble with the police the law does nothing because of their age, and they know it!
Events over the past decade have shown that many parents, especially from the lower income and benefit groups have little or no interest in bringing up their child properly. Their only concern is that the kids do not interfere with their ‘social life’. How many parents from these areas are down the local pub every night while their children roam the streets? Please don’t tell me this isn’t so, because you can see it on the streets of most towns ands cities every night. Why else are children as young as nine roaming the streets at ten or eleven o’clock at night?
We have also reached a stage where a great number of the population are quite happy to live their lives on benefits rather than go out and do an honest days work. You will I am sure agree, this is hardly provides a good role model for children as they grow older.
There is much wrong with our society today and no amount of pussy-footing, glib talk or excuse making will fix it.
I read a lot of the comments people make on news articles, and everybody seems intent on blaming the current government for our troubles. How short-sighted these people are, and how short their memories! They have already forgotten that it was the previous Labour government that got us into this position, moral and financial! It’s time for these dunder-heads to wake up and see the reality of the situation, and in particular, to admit that they are as much to blame as they system.
Best Regards,
Roy.
http://www.jeremykyleshow.co.uk/forum-smf/domestic-abuse/skegness-child-stealing-by-the-state-conference/
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