The TV comedy The Thick of It brilliantly satirised the tendency of New Labour to govern by ‘initiative’. Politics was reduced to public relations. Policies were created on the hoof with an eye to the next morning’s headlines.
If you thought those days ended at the last general election, think again. The recent riots should have given everyone pause for thought. Instead, many politicians and commentators were shooting from the hip or trotting out predictable responses.
Playing to the gallery pays only short-term dividends. Yes, “something must be done”. But politicians of all parties have a duty to think before they open their mouths, and not try to cash in on gut reactions or tabloid hysteria – despite the media’s hunger for sensational news and tendency to incite sensational comment.
Despite the pressure to meet emotionally-driven imperatives, only an intelligent, long-term, considered response will prevent a recurrence of these riots. What needs to be done?
First, we need moral clarity. Rioting, looting and arson are wrong. There are no excuses. But profound moral questions confront us all, not just the rioters. What sort of example is set by the scandals of executive pay or MPs’ expenses? How have we allowed society to corrode and consumer tat to become the pinnacle of people’s ambitions?
We must examine the deeper causes of the riots if we are to formulate an effective response. We should start by listening to people who work at the sharp end and know what they’re talking about, such as Camila Batmanghelidjh (Kids Company) or Decima Francis (The Boyhood to Manhood Foundation). The government’s inquiry into the riots, brokered by the Liberal Democrats, is a step in the right direction.
If the prescription is to be based on a rational diagnosis, it follows that knee-jerk responses must be rejected. And we’ve had no shortage of those since. People naturally feel angry and want action, but calls for plastic bullets, water cannon, spraying people with indelible dye, bringing in the army, shutting down social networks or ignoring human rights laws will do no good at all. If such measures were adopted, they would undo years of patient work to build police-community relationships.
David Cameron has set a poor example. His decision to hire an American ‘supercop’, without consulting the expertise available in our own country, is nothing more than grandstanding. And his simplistic suggestion that parents should take more responsibility for their children completely ignores the fact that many of the looters don’t have two parents.
The knee-jerk demand to evict rioters from social housing is simply irrational. Such a policy is inconsistent, since the families of offenders who are private tenants or home owners will not be made homeless. It is also counter-productive, since local councils will be under a duty to re-house most of the evicted families at a huge cost to the taxpayer. It is for the courts to decide appropriate punishments, not the local council.
The riots should force the government to rethink its policy towards the police. Now is not the time to cut police numbers. The riots stretched police resources to the limit. The government’s cut of £1.9bn in police budgets is equivalent to 16,000 officers – the same number of officers that were placed on London’s streets at the height of the riots. If police numbers continue to be reduced, it will be increasingly difficult to deal with future unrest.
Nor is it the time to introduce elected police commissioners. When police budgets are being cut, how can the government justify spending more than £130m on setting up the new system, £50m on each round of the elections and £112k in an annual salary to each commissioner? In particular, it would be highly irresponsible to launch a major overhaul of police administration in London only months before the 2012 Olympics (the greatest security challenge this country has ever faced in peacetime).
Talking of the 2012 Olympics, Adidas is a major sponsor of the Games but it is also one of several global brands that cash in unashamedly on gang culture. Adidas was quick to condemn the riots, yet is about to launch an advertising campaign featuring rapper Snoop Dogg, who personifies gang culture. Olympic sponsors should not be allowed to promote the gang culture that leads to violence on our streets.
Gang culture is to a significant extent a product of the criminal drugs trade. The ‘war on drugs’, launched by President Nixon forty years ago, has been counter-productive and an unmitigated disaster. Politicians’ macho posturing on drugs policy must end. We need a smarter approach.
Of all the knee-jerk responses, the most depressing has been the talk of a ‘broken society’. But, for every single rioter, there were a hundred volunteers cleaning up with their brushes and a thousand generous donors providing money and clothing for those burned out of their homes. Society may have corroded but it survives and in many areas prospers.
We must now focus on fostering a healthy society for all. If the sort of people who riot felt that they were part of society instead of feeling excluded, they would be less likely to riot in the first place.
Baroness Doocey is a member of the London Assembly and the Metropolitan Police Authority.
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14 Comments
Great article. You’re right that the government seems to have had a bit of headless chicken response, sheepishly appeasing the tabloid media rather than showing leadership with a calm and rational response. Some individual lib dems (such as yourself) have made good speeches on the subject but we would be able to give a stronger message as an official lib dem response.
Some of us have been talking about drafting an emergency motion for conference to set out Lib Dem opposition to kneejerk reactions and to set out a more positive response.
What would you consider the key points for such a motion to cover?
In an earlier version of this article, which I reposted at http://twickenhamlibdems.co.uk/en/article/2011/508436/doocey-riots-a-case-for-reason-and-not-posturing
from the London Lib Dem site, Dee suggests we should adopt the following 10 principles:
• Rioting is wrong
• We cannot prescribe without a diagnosis
• We must reject knee-jerk responses
• Punishments must be proportionate
• Now is not the time to cut police numbers
• Now is the time to ditch elected police commissioners
• There is no case for vigilantes
• Gang culture is not just another lifestyle
• The ‘war on drugs’ has failed
• There remains much to celebrate
You should be able to construct a motion from this.
The reverse onus of proof in drug-possession cases is incompatible with the rule of law and therefore cannot be recognized by any court anywhere. In other words, it is universally unconstitutional. Besides, the economics of the drug trade imply that criminal sanctions are self-defeating unless concentrated on retail sales. See this article for details.
Cheers Chris.
We have also submitted a motion on this along these lines. I have written about it here. http://socialliberal.net/2011/08/21/responding-to-the-riots/
I totally agree about this nonsense being peddled about broken Britain – almost by definition it excludes those who need most of all to be included.
Sue
Dee, you need to mention what percentage of the time is spent doing admin work. The constable should be able to spend 50% of the time on the beat. If these means changing the laws so less paperwork is required, so be it. One would not expect a plant operator only to spend 14-20 % of the time operating the equipment and the rest doing paperwork. When Qualiy Assurance was introduced it rapidly became a proliferation of red tape. The more intelligent companies rapidly reduced the paperwork to the core essentials: the same is true for Health and Safety. Too often rules are used to avoid making decisions.
A study should be done where a statistically significant proportion of the police have every 15 mins of the working defined in order to reduce non-patrolling activities. In particular, attendance at meetings and courts appearances should be analysed to assess if time is lost because people fail to attend, bring relevant information or fail to make decisions. The Police need to prove the resources are being used effectively and could not be better used. Too many government bodies seem incapable of proving they are using their resources effectively. Many companies, in order to survive, have to deliver 5% savings annually.
Excellent summary, Dee, of what all true Liberals should believe. Look forward to a splended debate on one of these emergency motions at conference. Am also putting in something similar.
But first we beed to restore the Liberal Democratic right of conference reps to choose emergency motions.
An overbearing, self-important and autocratic policy committee has removed that long-held right and taken it upon itself to decide what is discussed. And cut back drastically on debating time with all kinds of ministerial speeches, or question times, if the ministers are not thought up to it.
We may be coalition with the Tories, but that doesn’t mean we should ape their obsequious attitude to their masters.
We need either to refer back its report or a motion of no confidence. Perhaps both.
Good article.
But I’m a bit fed-up of hearing people mention bankers and MPs expenses, as I don’t think behaviour – however bad – by one group is any excuse for bad behaviour by another.
If someone sets a bad example, no one else has to follow it.
Using someone else’s faults and shortcomings to minimise your own actions?
It’s like saying “yeah, I drove while drunk, but loads of other people do it.”
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Quite agree, Cassie.
I’m glad to see that Dee has taken her own advice, as in:
“Instead, many politicians and commentators were shooting from the hip or trotting out predictable responses.”
“What sort of example is set by the scandals of executive pay or MPs’ expenses?”
We are pleased that other people are spotting the connection between the war on drugs and the recent rioting.
If you are interested, read our article:
‘Drug Laws Create Negative Attitudes Towards the Police & Authority in the Minds of the Youth’
http://wp.me/p1L1q6-1v
Interesting to note today’s Guardian/ICM poll, where the British public strongly supports (70 % in favour) tougher sentencing for those involved in rioting. Of particular significance is that some 60% of respondents who identified themselves as Lib Dem voters believe that those convicted of riot-related offences should receive a tougher sentence than they might ordinarily expect:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/23/british-supports-harsher-sentences-riots
@ Gavin R Putland
If a person found to be in possession of a controlled drug, alleges that the drug was planted on him, it is for him to prove this to be the case. If there is no evidence to support his story, he cannot expect a jury to believe him. The law does not reverse the burden of proof. The jury will be directed to acquit the defendant if there is some reason for the jury to believe that it might be true that the drug was planted on him, so that it is not sure that the drug was not planted on him. There cannot be a presumption that, if someone is found to be in possession of a controlled drug, that the drug was in his possession without his knowledge. Your argument that the law is unconstitutional is bizarre.
There’s much to commend in Dee’s article, however I’m a bit concerned about the over-simplified and cavalier categorisation of ‘knee-jerk responses’.
It is imperative we also warn about political cynicism among sections of the professional classes and officialdom who use the public as pawns in the theatre of policy debate – they show a level of inhuman contempt for the lives of ordinary people as they machinate for their ends. LibDems should be absolutely clear that sort of untempered aristocratic or academic approach to ideology is something the party stongly denounces and will steadfastly oppose.
The riots can be analysed in many ways, but they exploded as the direct response to the Met’s Operation Trident – stemming from an operational incident which was the immediate causal flashpoint. Something clearly went wrong at the policy level which lead to operational misdirection in the initial phases of handling the disorder, so attention must be brought during the inquiry onto what changes must be adopted at the policy level too.
While the kneejerkers may talk in process terms of resourcing and numbers LibDems must advocate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of community policing methods which raise the dignity of citizens and uniformed intermediaries alike. We don’t want the Olympic Games to be held in an atmosphere akin to a birthday party in a prison camp.
Real community politics requires real community policing – and if we want to win the war against disorder and confusion then first we must defeat the prevailing faith in cynicism.
The draft motion for this is at http://socialliberal.net/2011/08/25/responding-to-the-riots-emergency-motion-to-conference/comment-page-1/#comment-10407
Its too long at present and I aim today to amend it to make it crisper and also to reflect the current view re social media.
Sue