David Cameron has just made a speech about youth crime and measures to reduce it. You can read the whole speech on conservatives.com but the main points are:
- Youth crime is rising: there’s a ‘crisis of order’ on Britain’s streets. Tony Blair wanted us to believe that the recent spate of murders of teenagers only affected a specific part of specific communities – but that ignores the fact that it’s becoming more and more common, in more and more parts of the country, and is no longer confined to any one community or area.
- Labour has tried legislation and saw activity as a replacement for results. They were wrong. Consistent, coherent, reformist action is required, not just more laws and more ‘attention-grabbing headlines’.
- The real solution lies in a three-dimensional approach: the police, the courts and society as a whole.
There’s lots more, but this is the key both to this speech and to David’s argument for social responsibility.
Just expecting the state to do everything is wrong. Just expecting someone else to do something is wrong. Changing our social environment requires all of us to act. That means that we need to make clear what people’s rights AND responsibilities are.
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The problem is that relatively few parents nowadays DO take responsibility for their children’s behaviour. I was in Italy recently and in every restaurant there were small children perfectly behaved and contented – but then, in Italy there are largely TWO parents and the children are included in everything. This means sitting properly at a table to eat, and not slumped in front of the TV.
Excellent speech from David Cameron today that really set the focus on the causes of the problem itself. Quite a contrast with Labour’s punitive approach. The problem of anti-social behaviour among youths comes from communities and must be solved by communities. Starting with the family and parental responsibility. A major problem with single-parent households without a father figure is that boys will often ‘take over’ and set their own agenda. A situation where estates have several boy-dominated households soon becomes a problem as these youngsters team up and share common inverted values. The problem starts at family level and becomes communal. I’m pleased David Cameron sees that there is a problem and that he has given it priority.
Dizzy has a very good piece on the 11 year old boy shot by another yesterday in London. Cameron’s speech has been rubbished by NuLabour, in it’s usual fashion,but the most interesting thing about this is that the attacks on Cameron are pathetic.
Brown and his people actually have no idea how to deal with someone who speaks the truth, so they resort to name calling and don’t address the problem either with action, or in fact with even a new czar or commission. That particular way out (seen to be doing something) is moribund.
NuLabour tactics might have worked when in opposition, but apart from the spin and keeping a lid on things, they have never learnt how a Government needs to behave. It certainly isn’t by name calling.In the present situation it ought to be to live up to Brown’s call for ” ministry of all the talents” (and how hollow does that ring) thinking and discussions.
something i keep reading from all the professional commentators in the papers about this problem is youths “shame”. I do not agree. A lot of these young men and women who are going around in “gangs” attacking people because of the enjoyment of the power it gives them. Violence is a physical demonstration of your need for, or actual power. I think that fathers are at the root of solving this problem. It would be nice to see the tories addressing the fact that fathers have little chance of seeing their children if the mother does not wish them to, even if the courts rule access without the mother’s consent it won’t happen. Our system basically discriminates against fathers. Not all men who leave wives and girlfriends also want to leave their children.
The young men in our society are like the young male elephants in Africa and India. Because of poaching, the older (ie bigger-tusked) males have been killed off, so are not around to teach younger males how to behave. In some areas this has become a big problem and has led to culling young bulls. We have the same problem – dad is not around to teach them how to behave.
Mitch: that’s exactly Labour’s problem. They were a fantastic opposition – they learned how to be that. They then spent their first term WASTING that golden opportunity of a huge majority, vast goodwill and those soundbites that they COULD have out into practice. Instead they dismantled all the long-term reforms that were just beginning to come to fruitition (eg GP fundholding). Then in their second term, they started to put them all back. Now in their third term, they still have no idea how to govern.
Imagine what they could have achieved in that first term. Instead they wasted it all on simply manoeuvring to be re-elected. Now I’m not saying that working to be re-elected is wrong, but I do hope that (now that we have finally accepted that we’re not the natural party of government and we have to work at it – though I’ve yet to see much of the Shadow Cabinet on this), we have the guts and the public interest to at least try to take decisions in the long-term interest of the country.
I think it would be a huge change in how politics operates in the UK, and be much more involving for non-voteres, if they could see a party taking the tough decisions in the wider interest rather than just their own.
Who knows. I hope so though.