Blogs and Briefings
Responding to the riots
Connect’s Ben Wright hears a discussion on the factors behind this year’s civil unrest
29 November
Stella Creasy MP and Phillip Blond of Respublica took part in a debate at the LSE yesterday discussing the response to this summer’s rioting and, politically, what needs to happen next.
Stella began by outlining her experiences of the riots as MP for Walthamstow, and highlighted the genuine fear and alarm which many in the community had felt. She has received significant praise for her leadership of the local response to the rioting and outlined initiatives, such as pop-up kitchens to serve police officers, which took place in the community in the immediate aftermath
Alongside this local angle, her contribution was framed very much in the context of her new position as Shadow Home Office Minister and was peppered with warnings regarding Government reforms to policing and associated youth engagement services.
On the political response, she suggested that politicians had too quickly accepted the line that the rioting was mainly down to criminality rather than disenfranchisement. Her main assertion seemed to be that there was not one ‘catch all’ explanation for the rioting and that the presence of local factors and distinctions meant that such assumptions were unreliable.
Her most interesting contribution, clearly influenced by her experiences as a London MP, was on policing. She spoke of the geographical dislocation of many officers from the boroughs they police in the capital and highlighted the need for trust between police and communities in order for a bedrock of local law and order to exist.
She suggested that the practical response to the rioting had focused too much on “buildings – not building relationships” and said that there needed to be a bigger focus on long-term programmes such as peer mentoring and leadership training for young people. Framed around a recurring theme of "civiv resillience", she drew firm links between unemployment and disenfranchisement, claiming that work gave a “sense of purpose and identity”.
Phillip Blond clearly disagreed regarding the lack of clarity over causal factors for the rioting and was more clear-cut in his analysis of the rioting. Although he suggested that Stella Creasy's analysis of the rioting was overcomplicated, both appeared to agreed that the current political 'system' was ill-qequipped to respond effectively.
His most thought-provoking point was his claim that, as a political wake-up call, the rioting had highlighted the failures of both the Left and Right. He suggested that the basis of this was that the Left “can’t do morality and the Right can’t talk about economic exclusion”.
Stella Creasy’s speech is now available online at http://www.workingforwalthamstow.org.uk/?p=957
