The National Trust has released a list of things every child should have done by the age of eleven, it is, to say the very least, a little bit Swallows and Amazons. Even so this has been sufficient excuse for a marching corps of columnists to wax lyrical about the joys of climbing trees and making mud pies.
Rather fewer column inches have been devoted to a survey conducted for the Consortium for Street Children (CSC), which showed that four in five Britons are unaware that a hundred thousand children run away from home in the UK every year, many of whom end up living rough. Most people, myself included, associate ‘street children’ with Africa of South America, that sort of thing doesn’t happen here we tell ourselves; only it does.
As Sally Shire, chief executive of the CSC told the BBC ‘whether they are a runaway from Derby or a street child in Delhi the factors that drive children to the streets are similar.’ They include poverty, abuse and addiction and the victims have little or no access to support.
Andy McCullough, UK policy lead for the charity Railway Children said ‘Street children are over-represented in the mental health system, the criminal justice system and there are clear correlations’, they also often go on to experience homelessness as adults.
If the authorities were serious about helping vulnerable young people they had, he said, to ‘go to the streets, the estates, the street corners’, he added, ‘you can’t expect them to reach out to you. This, Mr McCullough said, was not happening because local and national government officials were trying to solve the problem ‘from behind their desks.’
In response an spokesman for the Department of Education said local authorities were ‘responsible for targeted support for families with complex needs’ and that the government was ‘providing funds through the Early Intervention Grant which they can use to invest directly in services to safeguard vulnerable children’ and that they were working with ‘a range of charities and organisations to help them do this.’
Even though we contrive not to ‘see’ them we all know that Britain’s ‘street children’ are there. They don’t beg at the roadside, instead they’re the mob of youths in hooded tops hanging round outside after dark. It is their fists and feet that smash up the property of others because it happens to be in the path of some nameless anger they can’t control.
The poor, and even more so their children, are the ‘poor bloody infantry’ of the type of capitalism Britain embraced in the eighties, forever at risk of being harmed by the stupidity or capriciousness of someone in a, metaphorical, chateau far away from the carnage. It is an old and painfully unjust relationship to which a new and even crueler element has been added. These days government doesn’t try to solve the problems of poverty and social breakdown from behind a desk; it tries to do it through tabloid editorials instead.
This isn’t a new thing, ‘chavs’, ‘feral children’ and ‘sink estates’ have been journalistic clichés for the better part of a decade, but since the riots the façade of objectivity has been torn down. Quite reasonable disgust at individual crimes is used as an excuse to stereotype whole communities as being home to ‘scroungers’ and ‘thugs’ in a show of unashamed prejudice it would be unthinkable to heap upon any other social group.
This is another symptom of a ‘political class’ that is out of touch with the realities of everyday life being egged on by a media that increasingly has little of value to say. The latest wheeze is for MPs tax returns to be made publicly available, this is supposed to make their finances more transparent, but will really just give the media an excuse to fillet the resulting documents for more evidence of public money being spent on building duck houses and renting ‘artistic’ videos for ministerial spouses to watch.
Frankly I don’t much care about politicians building houses for ducks; I want to hear what they’ve got to say about the growing number of children who haven’t got a roof over their heads. I’d also like to see what they say reported and challenged by a media that sets its sights higher than providing celebrity tittle-tattle.
On mainland Europe disaffection amongst people who have been made poor by the recession, particularly the young, is translating into increased support for extremist parties of the left and the right. Here in the UK a sense of entitlement fostered by a quarter century of rampant consumerism has curdled into resentment, anger and as last year’s riots showed occasional outbreaks of violent chaos.
None of this is being reported in the media in anything other than the most simplistic terms and worse still our political leaders don’t seem willing to come out from behind their desks to engage with a rapidly fragmenting society. As a result for too many young people their childhood has more in common with the dystopian horrors of The Lord of the Flies than the soft focus fantasy of tree climbing and den building prescribed by the National Trust.
Showing posts with label society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label society. Show all posts
Sunday, 15 April 2012
Sunday, 1 April 2012
It’s not just ‘problem families’ who need to develop character.
The Riots, Communities and Victims Panel have identified as part of their investigation into the causes of the August riots 500,000 ‘forgotten families’ who have been let down by the education system and social services. They cite poor parenting and a lack of opportunities for young people from this group combined with ineffective policing as being amongst the causes of the riots.
Chair Darra Singh told the BBC ‘We must give everyone a stake in society. There are people bumping along the bottom, unable to change their lives. When people don’t feel they have a reason to stay out of trouble the consequences for communities can be devastating.’
Amongst the proposals the panel are likely to make when their report if published are for local authorities to do more to identify and support problem families, protecting young people from aggressive advertising and improving relations between the police and the BME community. All very worthy I’m sure, but to get notices outside Whitehall a report has to stir up a little controversy, this one does not disappoint.
For a start the contents have been leaked to Sky News, even though his public position is that this has a negative impact on the panel’s ability to ‘give a voice to the communities and victims of the August riots’ Chair Darra Singh is smart enough to know that if it had stayed under wraps until its official publication the ‘voice’ provided by the report would have probably been stifled. Hence also the inclusion of the suggestion that primary schools should be fined if their students fail to reach the required level of literacy and that schools in general should do more to teach develop the ‘character’ of their charges.
Let’s pick some of this apart, when it comes to heaping blame on schools I’m with David Lammy, MP for Tottenham where the riots began and one of the more lucid commentators on the issue since when he says that is ‘a bit unfair.’ The best, most inspiring, teaching in the world is rendered ineffective if a student lacks application and comes from a family background where education isn’t valued.
Mr Lammy is also right when he points out that many of the rioters were old enough to know better; in fact some of them were old enough to have sciatica and grey hair. As he puts it these were ‘people in their thirties and forties who did not feel they had a sufficient stake in society and were certainly prepared to stick tow fingers up at society as a whole.
The report is right to identify a growing number of families slipping through the societal net, but fatally flawed if it thinks the solution is to ‘do’ something with or to those families to bring them back into line. The solution lies in working with troubled families and communities to give them a sense of agency over their lives, a process that could take decades and doesn’t fit easily with tabloid wails that ‘something must be done’; even if it turns out to be the wrong thing.
I am also somewhat dubious about the idea of schools teaching their students to have ‘character’, not least since there is a risk that some people on the right will interpret that as teaching them to ‘know their place.’
Perhaps the greatest flaw in the report’s conclusions though is that they seem to ignore the wider malaise afflicting our society. Without exception the institutions of our country fail to inspire even the most basic level of trust.
The government is mired in corruption with the chance to have dinner with the Prime Minister being hawked to the highest bidder in return for a donation to the Tory Party coffers. Elsewhere Chancellor George Osborne seems not to have realised that a footling measure regarding VAT on pasties would seem like a tax on the pleasures of the poor to a public enraged by his budget and silly Francis Maude caused widespread panic with his advice that in the event of a strike by tanker drivers people should hoard petrol in jerry cans.
Things are no better on the Labour benches, despite leader Ed Milliband finally seeming to find his feet over the budget the party has managed through a mixture of complacency and an inability to communicate with voters to lose one of its safest seats to George Galloway.
I’m not a believer but I feel deeply sorry for those people who turn to the Church of England for comfort and inspiration during these difficult times only to find that it is too busy squabbling amongst itself over gay marriage, women bishops and a lot of other things the rest of society accepted years ago to notice.
The BBC has all but given up on making the sort of dramas and documentaries that encourage its audience to explore challenging ideas or to take a critical look at the world around them; instead it pumps out antiseptic drivel just like all the other stations. As for coverage of current affairs, television and press alike have dumbed their output down to a level where even the lowest common denominator feels his or her intelligence is being insulted.
The list goes on and as I write it my blood bubbles like lava inside a volcano. Perhaps it isn’t just ‘feral’ kids on rough estates who need lessons in character; maybe our political and cultural elite need a little tuition too.
They need to develop an understanding of the experiences, hopes and fears of the people outside the charmed circle they inhabit. That can’t be done through focus groups and consultations; it can only be done by engaging with the man and woman in the street; especially when they say things you don’t want to hear.
The riots of last summer were an embarrassment for Britain as a country and a devastating blow for communities already struggling with entrenched deprivation. They were also a wake up call to our complacent leaders, if we can’t find a way of lifting everyone up together; then we will all surely go down into chaos together.
Chair Darra Singh told the BBC ‘We must give everyone a stake in society. There are people bumping along the bottom, unable to change their lives. When people don’t feel they have a reason to stay out of trouble the consequences for communities can be devastating.’
Amongst the proposals the panel are likely to make when their report if published are for local authorities to do more to identify and support problem families, protecting young people from aggressive advertising and improving relations between the police and the BME community. All very worthy I’m sure, but to get notices outside Whitehall a report has to stir up a little controversy, this one does not disappoint.
For a start the contents have been leaked to Sky News, even though his public position is that this has a negative impact on the panel’s ability to ‘give a voice to the communities and victims of the August riots’ Chair Darra Singh is smart enough to know that if it had stayed under wraps until its official publication the ‘voice’ provided by the report would have probably been stifled. Hence also the inclusion of the suggestion that primary schools should be fined if their students fail to reach the required level of literacy and that schools in general should do more to teach develop the ‘character’ of their charges.
Let’s pick some of this apart, when it comes to heaping blame on schools I’m with David Lammy, MP for Tottenham where the riots began and one of the more lucid commentators on the issue since when he says that is ‘a bit unfair.’ The best, most inspiring, teaching in the world is rendered ineffective if a student lacks application and comes from a family background where education isn’t valued.
Mr Lammy is also right when he points out that many of the rioters were old enough to know better; in fact some of them were old enough to have sciatica and grey hair. As he puts it these were ‘people in their thirties and forties who did not feel they had a sufficient stake in society and were certainly prepared to stick tow fingers up at society as a whole.
The report is right to identify a growing number of families slipping through the societal net, but fatally flawed if it thinks the solution is to ‘do’ something with or to those families to bring them back into line. The solution lies in working with troubled families and communities to give them a sense of agency over their lives, a process that could take decades and doesn’t fit easily with tabloid wails that ‘something must be done’; even if it turns out to be the wrong thing.
I am also somewhat dubious about the idea of schools teaching their students to have ‘character’, not least since there is a risk that some people on the right will interpret that as teaching them to ‘know their place.’
Perhaps the greatest flaw in the report’s conclusions though is that they seem to ignore the wider malaise afflicting our society. Without exception the institutions of our country fail to inspire even the most basic level of trust.
The government is mired in corruption with the chance to have dinner with the Prime Minister being hawked to the highest bidder in return for a donation to the Tory Party coffers. Elsewhere Chancellor George Osborne seems not to have realised that a footling measure regarding VAT on pasties would seem like a tax on the pleasures of the poor to a public enraged by his budget and silly Francis Maude caused widespread panic with his advice that in the event of a strike by tanker drivers people should hoard petrol in jerry cans.
Things are no better on the Labour benches, despite leader Ed Milliband finally seeming to find his feet over the budget the party has managed through a mixture of complacency and an inability to communicate with voters to lose one of its safest seats to George Galloway.
I’m not a believer but I feel deeply sorry for those people who turn to the Church of England for comfort and inspiration during these difficult times only to find that it is too busy squabbling amongst itself over gay marriage, women bishops and a lot of other things the rest of society accepted years ago to notice.
The BBC has all but given up on making the sort of dramas and documentaries that encourage its audience to explore challenging ideas or to take a critical look at the world around them; instead it pumps out antiseptic drivel just like all the other stations. As for coverage of current affairs, television and press alike have dumbed their output down to a level where even the lowest common denominator feels his or her intelligence is being insulted.
The list goes on and as I write it my blood bubbles like lava inside a volcano. Perhaps it isn’t just ‘feral’ kids on rough estates who need lessons in character; maybe our political and cultural elite need a little tuition too.
They need to develop an understanding of the experiences, hopes and fears of the people outside the charmed circle they inhabit. That can’t be done through focus groups and consultations; it can only be done by engaging with the man and woman in the street; especially when they say things you don’t want to hear.
The riots of last summer were an embarrassment for Britain as a country and a devastating blow for communities already struggling with entrenched deprivation. They were also a wake up call to our complacent leaders, if we can’t find a way of lifting everyone up together; then we will all surely go down into chaos together.
Sunday, 25 December 2011
Do we really want Britain to be the sort of country where the police fire on rioters?
The week leading up to Christmas is a good time to ‘bury’ bad news, parliament is in recess and the public are too busy with last minute shopping to take notice. That is, probably, why the Inspectorate of Constabulary chose last week to release its review of how the police coped with the August riots.
The review calls for new guidelines for how the police deal with a breakdown in public order, suggestion that water cannon and plastic bullets could be used where there is a risk of ‘violent attacks on the public’ or on members of the fire and ambulance services. A survey of 2000 people carried out in September suggests there is widespread public support for the use of such tactics.
This is all well and good even though, as Sir Hugh Orde of the Association of Chief Police Officers and a man with considerable experience of coping with public disorder gained during his time in Northern Ireland pointed out, water cannon and plastic bullets are ineffective against widely dispersed mobs of the sort that took to the streets in London and Manchester. The review though went on from there to enter far more dangerous territory.
It claimed that following legal advice received by the inspectorate firearms could ‘potentially’ be used where ‘the immediacy of the risk and the gravity of the consequences’ made doing so necessary. The example most commonly cited was that of protecting homes or business from being destroyed by rioters as happened in London.
Chief Inspector of Constabulary Sir Dennis O’Connor said that in the wake of the riots it was necessary to raise what he called ‘awkward issues’ and that the police needed ‘some new rules of engagement’ so that they could ‘protect the public in confidence.’ As is the way of things raising awkward issues, such a lazy euphemism don’t you think, provoked an instant and mostly negative response.
Speaking for human rights group Liberty Sophie Farthing said the tactics recommended by the review were a ‘very serious step’ and there was a risk they would ‘sweep up the innocent with the guilty.’ Jenny Jones, a Green Party member of the Metropolitan Police Authority said that ‘endorsing the use of live ammunition is the approval of the tactics of war on London’s streets and implementing such recommendations would be madness.’
Perhaps the most eloquent rebuttal of the proposals was made on the BBC news by Professor Gus John of the Moss Side Defence Committee, he called the suggestion that the police might open fire on rioters as ‘very worrying’ and went on to say ‘the state is not in a military confrontation with its citizens, so what one should be looking at is how the police and the community engage in such a manner that you do not have these things happening.’ The real action needed was, he said, for the authorities to work to help those people who ‘have no hope, who have a future of futility, but want to engage meaningfully with the community.’
Professor John’s objections are backed by solid evidence, in a study conducted by the London School of Economics 85% of the 270 people questioned cited anger at the behaviour of the police as a contributing factor to the riots. In its interim report the Riots, Communities and Victims Panel found ‘no single cause’ for the riots but did identify ‘an overriding sense of despair that people could destroy their own communities.’
Quite how giving the police powers to fire on rioters can be expected to calm tensions in parts of our major cities where people feel alienated from society and that they have nothing to lose is a question ducked by the inspectorate. The answer is that it will do nothing to calm tensions; in fact it would in all probability inflame them.
At the time of the riots the reaction of public and politicians alike, helped by the hysteria of much of the media, was a sharp jerk of the knee. That was unfortunate but, perhaps, understandable, frightened people often exhibit extreme reactions; but the time for such silliness has long passed.
In Britain the relationship between the police and the public is different from that in the United States of much of mainland Europe, we have policing by consent, meaning the police are there to protect the public not keep them in line. Such a relationship is built on trust not the use of strong arm tactics, where it has broken down it is the result of the police and other authorities retreating from communities where they are needed most due to a toxic mix of misplaced idealism and cynical cost cutting.
The real danger is that David Cameron, a man who like all Tory prime ministers lives in constant fear of being deposed by a party that has always been ruthless when it comes to ditching leaders who aren’t up to the mark. After more than five years of frantic modernisation all he has managed to deliver is an awkward coalition in which must of the Tory grassroots believes too many concessions have been made to the Liberal Democrats, his back benchers are busily sawing away at the thread holding the sword over his head. This has prompted a recent and extreme lurch to the right.
The opportunity to portray himself as a fearless champion of law and order by endorsing these mad suggestions could prove all too tempting. Tragically wheeling out the water cannon is no solution to the problems associated with endemic social and economic hardship that lie behind the riots.
It is right that people who put the lives and property of others at risk should be dealt with forcefully, but punishment without rehabilitation is pointless. We will only solve the social problems we face when the money we spend on rubber bullets and water cannon is spent on rebuilding shattered communities and empowering their inhabitants to take control of their lives instead.
The review calls for new guidelines for how the police deal with a breakdown in public order, suggestion that water cannon and plastic bullets could be used where there is a risk of ‘violent attacks on the public’ or on members of the fire and ambulance services. A survey of 2000 people carried out in September suggests there is widespread public support for the use of such tactics.
This is all well and good even though, as Sir Hugh Orde of the Association of Chief Police Officers and a man with considerable experience of coping with public disorder gained during his time in Northern Ireland pointed out, water cannon and plastic bullets are ineffective against widely dispersed mobs of the sort that took to the streets in London and Manchester. The review though went on from there to enter far more dangerous territory.
It claimed that following legal advice received by the inspectorate firearms could ‘potentially’ be used where ‘the immediacy of the risk and the gravity of the consequences’ made doing so necessary. The example most commonly cited was that of protecting homes or business from being destroyed by rioters as happened in London.
Chief Inspector of Constabulary Sir Dennis O’Connor said that in the wake of the riots it was necessary to raise what he called ‘awkward issues’ and that the police needed ‘some new rules of engagement’ so that they could ‘protect the public in confidence.’ As is the way of things raising awkward issues, such a lazy euphemism don’t you think, provoked an instant and mostly negative response.
Speaking for human rights group Liberty Sophie Farthing said the tactics recommended by the review were a ‘very serious step’ and there was a risk they would ‘sweep up the innocent with the guilty.’ Jenny Jones, a Green Party member of the Metropolitan Police Authority said that ‘endorsing the use of live ammunition is the approval of the tactics of war on London’s streets and implementing such recommendations would be madness.’
Perhaps the most eloquent rebuttal of the proposals was made on the BBC news by Professor Gus John of the Moss Side Defence Committee, he called the suggestion that the police might open fire on rioters as ‘very worrying’ and went on to say ‘the state is not in a military confrontation with its citizens, so what one should be looking at is how the police and the community engage in such a manner that you do not have these things happening.’ The real action needed was, he said, for the authorities to work to help those people who ‘have no hope, who have a future of futility, but want to engage meaningfully with the community.’
Professor John’s objections are backed by solid evidence, in a study conducted by the London School of Economics 85% of the 270 people questioned cited anger at the behaviour of the police as a contributing factor to the riots. In its interim report the Riots, Communities and Victims Panel found ‘no single cause’ for the riots but did identify ‘an overriding sense of despair that people could destroy their own communities.’
Quite how giving the police powers to fire on rioters can be expected to calm tensions in parts of our major cities where people feel alienated from society and that they have nothing to lose is a question ducked by the inspectorate. The answer is that it will do nothing to calm tensions; in fact it would in all probability inflame them.
At the time of the riots the reaction of public and politicians alike, helped by the hysteria of much of the media, was a sharp jerk of the knee. That was unfortunate but, perhaps, understandable, frightened people often exhibit extreme reactions; but the time for such silliness has long passed.
In Britain the relationship between the police and the public is different from that in the United States of much of mainland Europe, we have policing by consent, meaning the police are there to protect the public not keep them in line. Such a relationship is built on trust not the use of strong arm tactics, where it has broken down it is the result of the police and other authorities retreating from communities where they are needed most due to a toxic mix of misplaced idealism and cynical cost cutting.
The real danger is that David Cameron, a man who like all Tory prime ministers lives in constant fear of being deposed by a party that has always been ruthless when it comes to ditching leaders who aren’t up to the mark. After more than five years of frantic modernisation all he has managed to deliver is an awkward coalition in which must of the Tory grassroots believes too many concessions have been made to the Liberal Democrats, his back benchers are busily sawing away at the thread holding the sword over his head. This has prompted a recent and extreme lurch to the right.
The opportunity to portray himself as a fearless champion of law and order by endorsing these mad suggestions could prove all too tempting. Tragically wheeling out the water cannon is no solution to the problems associated with endemic social and economic hardship that lie behind the riots.
It is right that people who put the lives and property of others at risk should be dealt with forcefully, but punishment without rehabilitation is pointless. We will only solve the social problems we face when the money we spend on rubber bullets and water cannon is spent on rebuilding shattered communities and empowering their inhabitants to take control of their lives instead.
Sunday, 14 August 2011
Only building a consensus on how to heal our society can save it from descending into chaos.
This week the eyes of the world were on Britain because this was the week when our city centres went up in flames.
Before we go any further some important cards have to be put on the table. The riots that started in Tottenham and spread to other areas of London and then to cities such as Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool were wrong, despite shrill claims to the contrary they had nothing to do with either the troubled relationship between the Metropolitan Police and young black males or the government spending cuts. They were the vicious and inexcusable actions of a mob who seemed to be enraged with the world for not obliging by providing them with the objects they desired, designer trainers and flat screen televisions for the most part, without having to put in any effort of their own.
Legitimate questions remain to be asked about the shooting by the Met of Mark Duggan; taking to the streets in protest against spending cuts or any other government policy is a fundamental democratic right; both of these things have been seriously compromised by the actions of the mob. The moment you throw a brick through a window then however just your cause may have been beforehand you instantly remove yourself from the political argument.
In a statement to the House of Commons Prime Minister David Cameron said ‘What we have seen on the streets of London and other cities is completely unacceptable,’ he described the actions of the rioters as ‘criminality pure and simple;’ and pledged that his government would not ‘allow a culture of fear to exist on our streets.’ All of which was very much par for the political course, even though the debate that followed was heavy on posturing and light on forensic analysis of the situation.
I am less convinced though by some of the things he has said outside of parliament, earlier in the week he described pockets of British society as being ‘sick’ and has expressed support for taking draconian measures such as removing benefits from convicted rioters and evicting them from council housing against people who ‘loot an pillage their own community.’ Perhaps he imagines that by making people who live chaotic lives characterized in many cased by addiction and extreme violence destitute and homeless too will cause them to renounce their evil ways and become church wardens. His response when challenged on this by a reporter on the BBC’s Northwest Tonight programme: ‘Obviously that will mean they’ve got to be housed somewhere- they’ll have to find housing in the private sector- and that will be tougher for them, but they should have thought of that beforehand,’ suggest that his mouth was accelerating rapidly through the gears whilst his brain still had the handbrake on.
Labour leader Ed Milliband’s response to the situation was little better and seemed to consist of a hand wringing admission that he regretted that ‘inequality wasn’t reduced under the last Labour government,’ and that under the premierships of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown Labour ‘did better at building up the fabric of our country than the ethic of our country.’ His analysis of why the riots happened extended no further than blaming it on a ‘me first culture’ and his prescribed solution is for a public inquiry to be held. Quite what this would produce other than another volume to add to the commons library is unclear. Aides pointed out that unlike Deputy PM Nick Clegg Mr Milliband got a favourable reception when he toured the riot torn streets of the capital; mostly you suspect because hardly anyone recognized him.
The response of the right to the riots seems to be a sort of crisis of wounded machismo, the Prime Minister and other senior government figures dropped the ball dramatically by not returning to the UK soon enough so now they jerking their knees frantically to prove how tough they really are. The left seem to be hamstrung by an unwillingness to make judgements and a characteristic obsession with process. None of this sets us on a path towards finding a solution to the underlying cause of the unrest.
To do that politicians would need to face up to something they fear more than an angry mob armed with Molotov cocktails; the need to build a cross party consensus on how to heal our broken society. That would involve the left having to admit the value of responsibility and self restraint and that liberal ideals are meaningless if they are not allied to a willingness to differentiate between good and bad behaviour and how both should be responded to; the right having to admit that the market can’t solve every problem, sometimes government has to be big enough to step in and take a hand and that it isn’t just the kids on the local council estate who behave in a ‘feral’ and selfish manner much of the city is culpable of that sort of thing too.
Consensus is not, of course the same as unthinking conformity, that is partly what got us into this mess, there is still a role for a robust exchange between the government and opposition and within both political parties on matters of policy, but the overall framework would be a shared desire to work towards the common good.
Instead we have been presented so far with a massive and massively ineffectual displacement activity that may well exacerbate the problems of our atomised society. A really tough response would be to punish criminal behaviour whilst understanding its underlying causes; working for the long term to build a society that includes everyone and a popular culture that offers the young a more positive aspiration that a futile chase after fame.
None of that could be achieved quickly or without difficulty, but what is the alternative? More riots and more panic stricken thrashing around disguised as making a tough response to disorder on the part of our disconnected political leaders whilst the chaos on the streets gets a little worse each time. I doubt very much that that is what the vast majority of people living in poor areas who daily face up to the difficulties of their lives without rioting in the streets want; and it is certainly not what they or the rest of us deserve.
Before we go any further some important cards have to be put on the table. The riots that started in Tottenham and spread to other areas of London and then to cities such as Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool were wrong, despite shrill claims to the contrary they had nothing to do with either the troubled relationship between the Metropolitan Police and young black males or the government spending cuts. They were the vicious and inexcusable actions of a mob who seemed to be enraged with the world for not obliging by providing them with the objects they desired, designer trainers and flat screen televisions for the most part, without having to put in any effort of their own.
Legitimate questions remain to be asked about the shooting by the Met of Mark Duggan; taking to the streets in protest against spending cuts or any other government policy is a fundamental democratic right; both of these things have been seriously compromised by the actions of the mob. The moment you throw a brick through a window then however just your cause may have been beforehand you instantly remove yourself from the political argument.
In a statement to the House of Commons Prime Minister David Cameron said ‘What we have seen on the streets of London and other cities is completely unacceptable,’ he described the actions of the rioters as ‘criminality pure and simple;’ and pledged that his government would not ‘allow a culture of fear to exist on our streets.’ All of which was very much par for the political course, even though the debate that followed was heavy on posturing and light on forensic analysis of the situation.
I am less convinced though by some of the things he has said outside of parliament, earlier in the week he described pockets of British society as being ‘sick’ and has expressed support for taking draconian measures such as removing benefits from convicted rioters and evicting them from council housing against people who ‘loot an pillage their own community.’ Perhaps he imagines that by making people who live chaotic lives characterized in many cased by addiction and extreme violence destitute and homeless too will cause them to renounce their evil ways and become church wardens. His response when challenged on this by a reporter on the BBC’s Northwest Tonight programme: ‘Obviously that will mean they’ve got to be housed somewhere- they’ll have to find housing in the private sector- and that will be tougher for them, but they should have thought of that beforehand,’ suggest that his mouth was accelerating rapidly through the gears whilst his brain still had the handbrake on.
Labour leader Ed Milliband’s response to the situation was little better and seemed to consist of a hand wringing admission that he regretted that ‘inequality wasn’t reduced under the last Labour government,’ and that under the premierships of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown Labour ‘did better at building up the fabric of our country than the ethic of our country.’ His analysis of why the riots happened extended no further than blaming it on a ‘me first culture’ and his prescribed solution is for a public inquiry to be held. Quite what this would produce other than another volume to add to the commons library is unclear. Aides pointed out that unlike Deputy PM Nick Clegg Mr Milliband got a favourable reception when he toured the riot torn streets of the capital; mostly you suspect because hardly anyone recognized him.
The response of the right to the riots seems to be a sort of crisis of wounded machismo, the Prime Minister and other senior government figures dropped the ball dramatically by not returning to the UK soon enough so now they jerking their knees frantically to prove how tough they really are. The left seem to be hamstrung by an unwillingness to make judgements and a characteristic obsession with process. None of this sets us on a path towards finding a solution to the underlying cause of the unrest.
To do that politicians would need to face up to something they fear more than an angry mob armed with Molotov cocktails; the need to build a cross party consensus on how to heal our broken society. That would involve the left having to admit the value of responsibility and self restraint and that liberal ideals are meaningless if they are not allied to a willingness to differentiate between good and bad behaviour and how both should be responded to; the right having to admit that the market can’t solve every problem, sometimes government has to be big enough to step in and take a hand and that it isn’t just the kids on the local council estate who behave in a ‘feral’ and selfish manner much of the city is culpable of that sort of thing too.
Consensus is not, of course the same as unthinking conformity, that is partly what got us into this mess, there is still a role for a robust exchange between the government and opposition and within both political parties on matters of policy, but the overall framework would be a shared desire to work towards the common good.
Instead we have been presented so far with a massive and massively ineffectual displacement activity that may well exacerbate the problems of our atomised society. A really tough response would be to punish criminal behaviour whilst understanding its underlying causes; working for the long term to build a society that includes everyone and a popular culture that offers the young a more positive aspiration that a futile chase after fame.
None of that could be achieved quickly or without difficulty, but what is the alternative? More riots and more panic stricken thrashing around disguised as making a tough response to disorder on the part of our disconnected political leaders whilst the chaos on the streets gets a little worse each time. I doubt very much that that is what the vast majority of people living in poor areas who daily face up to the difficulties of their lives without rioting in the streets want; and it is certainly not what they or the rest of us deserve.
Friday, 8 January 2010
Nothing to say for Britain’s tongue tied teens.
The grunting uncommunicative teenager is one of the classic cartoon images of modern British adolescence, if the findings of a YouGov poll released this week are correct it could hide an uncomfortable reality.
The poll, in which 1015 parents were questioned, found that 1in6 children in the UK, a quarter of them boys, had trouble learning to speak and out of these more than half had little or no access to help.
The report was carried out on the instructions of Jean Gross, England’s first ‘Communication Champion’, who told the BBC on the day its findings were announced ‘Our ability to talk is fundamental and underpins everything else. Learning to talk is one of the most important skills a child can master.’
Six out of ten of the parents questioned by YouGov agreed, saying that the ability to talk, listen and understand was the most important skill for a child to master in its early years, I shudder to think what the other four people questioned gave as an answer. Maybe they didn’t give an answer at all; maybe they just grunted.
You could be facetious about teenagers who pepper every sentence they utter with ‘like’ and ‘whatever’, isn’t that just how teenagers have always talked, meaning in a patois totally baffling to anyone over twenty five. That would be a mistake, yes teens have always used slang to separate their identity from that of their parents, doing so is a part of growing up and becoming a person in your own right, but there is huge gulf between that and being dangerously inarticulate.
Think of the slouching, hooded, binge drinking teenagers so beloved of tabloid columnists out to scare their readers and at the root of their problems is often an inability to communicate on either a written or verbal level, in fact the two are closely related. A student who finds it difficult to make his point verbally is hardly likely to ask for help with his lessons and so the cycle of exclusion gets more vicious with every turn.
I must admit to being more than a little dubious about the ability of a government appointed ‘Communication Champion’, complete with an office in central London staffed by a marching corps of civil servants to address the problems. Ms Gross could, and should, campaign for parents to be given more flexible working hours to allow them to spend more time interacting with their children, reading a picture book with mother (or father for that matter) is a splendid way for a child to learn about things like turn taking in conversation and to expand its vocabulary, but as cutting the budget deficit becomes ever more of a priority she may face a long struggle before she can produce even the most modest of results.
Perhaps we should, instead, think about the way in which personal interaction is being steadily eroded from our everyday lives. We shop, bank and, increasingly, socialise online and even supermarket checkouts have are rapidly being automated, all of which is undeniably quicker and more cost effective. At least it is if you count the cost in financial terms alone, the social cost though is quite different.
A child who experiences the interaction involved in running errands for its parents to the neighbourhood shops learns, without the addition of another burden on the already groaning national curriculum, how to interact in social situations, a skill that will be invaluable in later life. It would be a tragedy if our paranoia about child abduction and love of technology were to mean that future generations would be denied that experience.
One of the lighter notes to be found in the YouGov survey was that the most common first word spoken by babies in the UK is ‘Dadda’, experts claim this is because the ‘da’ sound is easy to reproduce. If we aren’t careful in a few years time baby’s first words might be ‘unexpected item in bagging area’ instead.
Source: bbc.co.uk
The poll, in which 1015 parents were questioned, found that 1in6 children in the UK, a quarter of them boys, had trouble learning to speak and out of these more than half had little or no access to help.
The report was carried out on the instructions of Jean Gross, England’s first ‘Communication Champion’, who told the BBC on the day its findings were announced ‘Our ability to talk is fundamental and underpins everything else. Learning to talk is one of the most important skills a child can master.’
Six out of ten of the parents questioned by YouGov agreed, saying that the ability to talk, listen and understand was the most important skill for a child to master in its early years, I shudder to think what the other four people questioned gave as an answer. Maybe they didn’t give an answer at all; maybe they just grunted.
You could be facetious about teenagers who pepper every sentence they utter with ‘like’ and ‘whatever’, isn’t that just how teenagers have always talked, meaning in a patois totally baffling to anyone over twenty five. That would be a mistake, yes teens have always used slang to separate their identity from that of their parents, doing so is a part of growing up and becoming a person in your own right, but there is huge gulf between that and being dangerously inarticulate.
Think of the slouching, hooded, binge drinking teenagers so beloved of tabloid columnists out to scare their readers and at the root of their problems is often an inability to communicate on either a written or verbal level, in fact the two are closely related. A student who finds it difficult to make his point verbally is hardly likely to ask for help with his lessons and so the cycle of exclusion gets more vicious with every turn.
I must admit to being more than a little dubious about the ability of a government appointed ‘Communication Champion’, complete with an office in central London staffed by a marching corps of civil servants to address the problems. Ms Gross could, and should, campaign for parents to be given more flexible working hours to allow them to spend more time interacting with their children, reading a picture book with mother (or father for that matter) is a splendid way for a child to learn about things like turn taking in conversation and to expand its vocabulary, but as cutting the budget deficit becomes ever more of a priority she may face a long struggle before she can produce even the most modest of results.
Perhaps we should, instead, think about the way in which personal interaction is being steadily eroded from our everyday lives. We shop, bank and, increasingly, socialise online and even supermarket checkouts have are rapidly being automated, all of which is undeniably quicker and more cost effective. At least it is if you count the cost in financial terms alone, the social cost though is quite different.
A child who experiences the interaction involved in running errands for its parents to the neighbourhood shops learns, without the addition of another burden on the already groaning national curriculum, how to interact in social situations, a skill that will be invaluable in later life. It would be a tragedy if our paranoia about child abduction and love of technology were to mean that future generations would be denied that experience.
One of the lighter notes to be found in the YouGov survey was that the most common first word spoken by babies in the UK is ‘Dadda’, experts claim this is because the ‘da’ sound is easy to reproduce. If we aren’t careful in a few years time baby’s first words might be ‘unexpected item in bagging area’ instead.
Source: bbc.co.uk
Sunday, 30 August 2009
A light in our darkness- maybe.
If you’re willing to ignore the mutterings of the pessimists who say it will only turn out to be the headlamp of an oncoming train it seems the UK might be beginning to see a little light at the end of the long, dark recessionary tunnel we entered when Northern Rock collapsed in the Autumn of 2007.
This week the Institute of Chartered Accountants reported that its index of business confidence had risen to 4.8% and predicted that the UK economy would grow by 0.05% in the second quarter of 2009. Chief Executive Michael Izza said: ‘This quarter’s business confidence monitor suggests the UK recession is at an end,’ although he warned against ‘underestimating’ the challenges ahead it looks like the good times may be about to start rolling again.
An impression further confirmed by the announcement by Ben Bernake of the US Federal Reserve that the world’s largest economy looked set to join Germany, France and Japan in emerging from recession before the year is out.
So, I ask myself, why aren’t we all out dancing in the streets or at the very least dusting off our credit cards and heading for the shops? The answer is because it isn’t that simple.
Growing confidence amongst business professionals and the emergence of major economies from recession are good things but real people care about and are influenced by much more than just the economy stupid. A number of other factors mean that the good times aren’t going to start rolling any time soon for a large number of Britons.
If, like me you live in a town that has lost the industries that were its sole reason for existing over the past thirty years the recession didn’t begin in 2007, it began around the time Denis Healey went to the IMF with his cap in his hand.
You will also have received the figure released this week that 3.3 million homes in the UK have no adults in work not as an indictment of a too generous welfare state, but as a stark reminder of how many lives are blighted by poverty and a lack of purpose.
While it is good news that business leaders feel more confident and that Lord Turner has started the debate about tightening the way the city of London is regulated, although it would be a mistake to think said debate should end with his rather student union proposals for banning ‘socially useless’ banking activities, real steps will have to be taken to mend our fractured society before the man and woman in the street feel a similar boost in their confidence levels. As Churchill might have put it, this isn’t the beginning of the end of the recession so much as the end of the beginning of our journey along a long and difficult road.
Big Brother, we’re not watching you.
There is at least one thing about which the joy of all right thinking people can be unconfined this week, Big Brother the granddaddy of all reality television programmes has been axed. Makers Endemol said the 2010 series would be the last citing falling ratings and the dismal nature of the current crop of contestants.
Lets not be under any illusions Big Brother isn’t and never was any kind of social experiment; it was a tawdry freak show. A few of the freaks, the late Jade Goody being the most prominent example, made sizeable fortunes and achieved a larger than expected place in the nation’s affections, but they were freaks none the less and we all demeaned ourselves by taking an interest in their antics for so long.
One question remains though, what will all those self obsessed nonentities out there who want to enjoy the trappings of fame and fortune without having to trouble themselves with either working hard or having any discernable talent do now their prime outlet has disappeared? I hear there may be several hundred vacancies at an establishment very similar to the Big Brother house situated in Westminster up for grabs next May.
Poetic Justice.
The conference season will soon be upon us, made a little more interesting this year by the impending general election. Never mind fending off a challenge to his leadership from Foreign Secretary and part time Jerry Lewis impersonator David Milliband Gordon Brown looks certain to lose the election and with it the place at the top table of British politics he has dedicated his whole adult life to achieving.
A haiku published on the New Statesman’s reliably amusing competitions page summed up his predicament and that of his party perfectly, it reads as follows:
Sound of no music
Fills the upturned half-lit hall:
Yesterday’s party.
Talk about many a true word being spoken in jest.
This week the Institute of Chartered Accountants reported that its index of business confidence had risen to 4.8% and predicted that the UK economy would grow by 0.05% in the second quarter of 2009. Chief Executive Michael Izza said: ‘This quarter’s business confidence monitor suggests the UK recession is at an end,’ although he warned against ‘underestimating’ the challenges ahead it looks like the good times may be about to start rolling again.
An impression further confirmed by the announcement by Ben Bernake of the US Federal Reserve that the world’s largest economy looked set to join Germany, France and Japan in emerging from recession before the year is out.
So, I ask myself, why aren’t we all out dancing in the streets or at the very least dusting off our credit cards and heading for the shops? The answer is because it isn’t that simple.
Growing confidence amongst business professionals and the emergence of major economies from recession are good things but real people care about and are influenced by much more than just the economy stupid. A number of other factors mean that the good times aren’t going to start rolling any time soon for a large number of Britons.
If, like me you live in a town that has lost the industries that were its sole reason for existing over the past thirty years the recession didn’t begin in 2007, it began around the time Denis Healey went to the IMF with his cap in his hand.
You will also have received the figure released this week that 3.3 million homes in the UK have no adults in work not as an indictment of a too generous welfare state, but as a stark reminder of how many lives are blighted by poverty and a lack of purpose.
While it is good news that business leaders feel more confident and that Lord Turner has started the debate about tightening the way the city of London is regulated, although it would be a mistake to think said debate should end with his rather student union proposals for banning ‘socially useless’ banking activities, real steps will have to be taken to mend our fractured society before the man and woman in the street feel a similar boost in their confidence levels. As Churchill might have put it, this isn’t the beginning of the end of the recession so much as the end of the beginning of our journey along a long and difficult road.
Big Brother, we’re not watching you.
There is at least one thing about which the joy of all right thinking people can be unconfined this week, Big Brother the granddaddy of all reality television programmes has been axed. Makers Endemol said the 2010 series would be the last citing falling ratings and the dismal nature of the current crop of contestants.
Lets not be under any illusions Big Brother isn’t and never was any kind of social experiment; it was a tawdry freak show. A few of the freaks, the late Jade Goody being the most prominent example, made sizeable fortunes and achieved a larger than expected place in the nation’s affections, but they were freaks none the less and we all demeaned ourselves by taking an interest in their antics for so long.
One question remains though, what will all those self obsessed nonentities out there who want to enjoy the trappings of fame and fortune without having to trouble themselves with either working hard or having any discernable talent do now their prime outlet has disappeared? I hear there may be several hundred vacancies at an establishment very similar to the Big Brother house situated in Westminster up for grabs next May.
Poetic Justice.
The conference season will soon be upon us, made a little more interesting this year by the impending general election. Never mind fending off a challenge to his leadership from Foreign Secretary and part time Jerry Lewis impersonator David Milliband Gordon Brown looks certain to lose the election and with it the place at the top table of British politics he has dedicated his whole adult life to achieving.
A haiku published on the New Statesman’s reliably amusing competitions page summed up his predicament and that of his party perfectly, it reads as follows:
Sound of no music
Fills the upturned half-lit hall:
Yesterday’s party.
Talk about many a true word being spoken in jest.
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