The Day When Consensual Politics Failed Us All

London Riots: The Day When Consensual Politics Failed Us All

Gareth Knight asserts that politicians wanting to be all things to all people has resulted in weakness and ineffective handling of the riots.

By Gareth Knight




When the London riots started on Saturday they were contained to a small area of north London and based on the excuse that the local community were upset with the police over the shooting of a member of the public. Whether or not you believe that member of the public is an innocent victim of police brutality or the deserved recipient of a police bullet is no longer the argument, a point made by a bullish Diane Abbott MP some days ago. That issue has absolutely nothing to do with the riots that took place last night and are expected to continue tonight.

I initially thought it was pointless for the Prime Minister and Mayor of London to return from holiday, it’s not as if they were going to don riot gear themselves, but I changed my mind following the reports last night. The people of London need leadership, and the PM and Mayor are the people to provide it.

The general public is absolutely incensed by the rioting and there are no excuses for a lack of action to combat it. The police are clearly stretched too far to do their job and the law abiding vast majority are not blaming the police, but their masters and the criminals themselves. They want action, and they don’t really care what needs to be done anymore, they just want the riots to stop and for the criminals to be swiftly prosecuted and locked away.

It is therefore extraordinary that our elected politicians are so far behind the curve. David Cameron is at his best when he’s angry and show’s real passion and determination. Had he been watching Sky News last night, Mark Stone’s now famous report from Clapham Junction, the fires in Croydon and the riots in Hackney and Peckham, he’d have known just how strongly people feel. Sky interviewed a girl from a Peckham youth group yesterday who expressed her feelings about the riots, saying the criminals were pure evil, and she summed it up perfectly. When Cameron took to the microphone this morning he should have reflected that view and be unashamed to say it, but instead he sounded firm but understanding, as if he didn’t want to upset people and as if he was using his words carefully. The problem is, the public is far more hawkish than he is.

He needed to show leadership to the vast majority and attack the criminals with passion and anger and instead, as someone on my Facebook profile observed, he came across as someone who was irritated by Kraft’s takeover of Cadbury, not as a leader in a national crisis. So he’s re-called parliament, whoopee-doo! So on Thursday lots of MPs will line up to condemn the violence and a handful will try to hijack the debate by claiming it’s about social deprivation and the like. There’s no time to pass any legislation and there’s nothing MPs can do. I would far rather my MP be visiting shopkeepers and victims of crime in the constituency than agreeing with every other MP in the House of Commons.

I wanted him to make it clear that the government would grant the police emergency powers to stop the rioters, that the rights of the law abiding and their property would be the only priority. He should then have said that the resources of the military would be on standby should the police need them and that the police would have power to impose local curfews where necessary. He should have pressed the point that the investigations will not just focus on the rioters but also the spectators and, where they are under 16 as many are, on those legally responsible for them too. He should have cited examples such as the 89yr old barber in Tottenham, named people and businesses and praised those who have stood out like the girl from Peckham to personalise the matter and emphasise that this is absolutely nothing to do with youths vs adults or black vs white but about criminals vs the law abiding regardless of class, colour or age.

In short, everyone from the youth leader to the businessman to the resident should have been left with no doubt that he was here to do business and protect them from the trash. He needed to say all this looking like someone entering a boxing ring, not someone entering a conference call.

Some political commentators have said that any mention of the military being on standby will be a political disaster, but it would be far more of a political disaster if we have one more night of innocent people being mugged, shops being looted and houses being broken into. What happens when someone actually dies, or when a member of the public decides to defend their own property and gives some direct swift justice to one of the criminals? The public want more uniforms on the streets and they don’t care about you being the first government to deploy troops on the streets of London in peacetime, but they will blame you if and when more riots happen. By denying the extra resources, politicians appear to be putting standard PR wisdom over the safety of the public; they are complicit in the crime through their inaction.

When Boris Johnson stood in Clapham he should have been more aggressive, batting away petty points about the Mark Duggan shooting and focused on the matter in hand. When the public surrounding him are demanding more active police, a Tory Mayor of London should be there already, but instead we have the public crying out for action and Boris, of all people, being Mr Reasonable. Where’s the anger Boris? Where’s the usual sense of you telling it like it is and to hell with the government’s carefully thought out lines to take?

Finally, Theresa May, someone who has been an excellent Home Secretary to date, comes out and say that we don’t police by water cannon but with the ‘consent of communities’. The problem is, ‘communities’ want you to smack heads together, not to sit down with self-appointed ‘community leaders’, invite criminals in for chats and gain consent. We want the police to stop talking to people and start hitting people – the ‘community’ is completely on your side and they’ll thank you for it. The majority are more than happy for you to trample all over the human rights of criminals if it stops the rioting.

The saving grace for our Prime Minister, Mayor and Home Secretary right now is that Diane Abbott is not the Leader of the Opposition or the Labour candidate for Mayor. If the anger of the public was on a scale of 1-10 the public are at 9, Abbott is at 7, the rest of the political class are at 4, still trying to stay calm, still trying to be reasonable, still trying to understand, desperately unwilling to call evil ‘evil’ and make enemies of a section of the population for the good of the other 99%.

It’s that desire to be all things to all people that has already driven down interest in politics, voter turnout and the idea that politicians can actually make a difference to people’s lives. I just hope it doesn’t lead to any more looting and rioting.

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