The Met are in open revolt.  Does this mean that they see Boris Johnson as an opportunity for change?

Tom suggests a very plausible strategy for Boris’ spinning strategy:

Hmm, Boris can always say he’s looking forward to working closely with the next appointment on KNIFE CRIME and YOUNG HOODIE MUGGERS etc. The spin is obvious and easy, show Boris as the Voice of the People, we need change, fresh start, new broom, Blair unfortunately tained by the failed policies of the Labour past, yada ya. Job’s a good ‘un. I should do this for a living.

That assumes he gets his way; as well he might, given the subservience of the London papers and Blair’s numerous enemies on either side of the spectrum. But it could go wrong.

Blair’s statement made it clear from the start that Boris forced him out. That makes the move look political, and that could play badly. The police exist to enforce the legislation of democratically elected bodies. The need for that legislation to be applied universally and without prejudice means that the police force must exist without political influence. Democratic bodies should exist to ensure the force remains accountable and enforces the laws properly - but it must itself remain free from interference from partisan individuals.

Democracy comes in the formulation of the law, not its application, which should remain the same no matter who does the application. So when a politician clearly edges a public servant out of their job, we should worry. Blair is abused as a political appointment, but his political resignation matters just as much - it’s exactly the same principle, after all.

And, if Boris did force Blair out, that raises a perhaps more damaging charge; that of political immaturity. Blair gives the impression that Boris wanted him gone largely out of dislike and disagreement. And yet that’s what you’ll encounter every day in public, and indeed general, life. You won’t like everyone you meet, and you won’t agree with everyone you work with; but you need to accept that and move on if you want to ever get something done.

That Boris apparently couldn’t do that here could be made to work against him. The opposition could easily use this, and the rash of resignations from his office over the Summer, to form a narrative of incompetence; with such trouble, they’d say, it’s clear the man can’t operate in public life. That could hurt, if it last long enough.

Someone please explain the following logic:

An exam board is removing a poem about a knife-carrying violent loner from its anthology for GCSE English because of fears over teenage knife crime.

The AQA exam board has decided to withdraw the poem Education for Leisure written by Carol Ann Duffy.

The exam board is writing to schools to advise them to destroy the copies of the anthology - and says it will send replacements not containing this poem.

Why? I’ve read the poem; it hardly glorifies knives. Far from it, the protagonist seems the model of mental instability: he kills because he’s bored, and it makes him feel as though he counts. At most, it provides a decent model of some of the reasons behind gang-membership without glorifying death:

Today I am going to kill something. Anything.
I have had enough of being ignored and today
I am going to play God. It is an ordinary day,
a sort of grey with boredom stirring in the streets.

I squash a fly against the window with my thumb.
We did that at school. Shakespeare. It was in
another language and now the fly is in another language.
I breathe out talent on the glass to write my name.

I am a genius. I could be anything at all, with half
the chance. But today I am going to change the world.
Something’s world. The cat avoids me. The cat
knows I am a genius, and has hidden itself.

I pour the goldfish down the bog. I pull the chain.
I see that it is good. The budgie is panicking.
Once a fortnight, I walk the two miles into town
for signing on. They don’t appreciate my autograph.

There is nothing left to kill. I dial the radio
and tell the man he’s talking to a superstar.
He cuts me off. I get our bread-knife and go out.
The pavements glitter suddenly. I touch your arm.

Emphasis mine. Today’s youth find themselves locked out of the political system by a generation of greedy boomers; hence are “ignored.” Some (many?) go to school and find much irrelevant - Shakespeare is, “another language,” and life-skills are firmly off the curriculum. Without those skills, and on the verge of a recession sparked by 29 years of economic vandalism, employment for some very much becomes a choice between shovelling shit for a wage barely worth itself, or leaving an empty “autograph,” at the JobCentre. And that leaves nothing to do; so the streets become, “grey with boredom.” In those circumstances, are we really surprised that that some turn to gangs and crime? The system, economic and social, abandoned them - so they’ve little incentive to work within it.

Youth crime is a complex issue, and needs a complex approach. Simply removing poems which address it from the curriculum won’t help at all; a problem won’t go away because you resolutely ignore it. Teenagers, after all, probably know far more about their own world than adults - so changing the school curriculum to avoid that world won’t help them avoid it. If you want to educate someone out of a habit, then you need to educate them in the first place. And does this really look like that?

Well, compared to this fellow.

It takes quite a dire situation for any Prime Minister to look like he’s in a worse spot than Gordon, but when there’s a strong chance that a court might not only turf you out of power but also close down your party and lock you away then you’ve just about managed it. As I mentioned in this post a defeat for vigorous Islamists actually might not be so great for Turkey: the secularists are largely a pack of vicious nationalists who’ll imprison those who write content condemning Turkey’s history. Which, for a nation which once committed genocide, is a pretty deranged restriction.

If the likely prospect of this party being either shamed or outlawed outright occurs then the secularist nationalists will doubtless profit. This would be an outcome that would lead to further Turkish isolation from Europe and most likely scupper its chances of joining the EU (at least for a decade or so). Whether this is beneficial for the Europeans or not is questionable. For the time being, though, perhaps our own Prime Minister can take heart in knowing that he is not in the most dire position possible. He’ll be shamed, but is far more likely to end up in an interview on the BBC explaining his take on the Tory landslide and its reasons for occurring than banged up in a cell.

There are, however, a few members of government over here that I wouldn’t mind seeing locked up.

Remember one of Boris’ key points during the election campaign? He said he’d increase police presence on the streets in an attempt to tackle petty crime. And yet today, the Mayor announced swinging cuts of £12 million - including to the police, a move likely to reduce numbers. Tories on the Assembly defended the move thus:

“I understand the number of people employed by the met are at record levels and yet we still have problems with crime in London.

“We need to challenge the perception that has grown up in recent years that the solution is to just buy more and more people and to spend more and more money because that has not borne fruit in the past” (Richard Biggs AM)

Let’s cut that down - there have been more police on the streets for a short period as part of an attempt to tackle what everyone agrees is a deep-rooted problem. So, naturally, we should give up?

Increased police numbers won’t eradicate crime in London. Nor do they present a long term solution; they’re merely a sticking plaster over problems with deep socio-economic roots that need to be addressed. But, surely, they’re a necessary sticking plaster, to a certain extent? A cut in a force devised to protect the citizen during an attempt to tackle crime seems somewhat perverse. Especially when that attempt to tackle crime rather misses the point, and is largely based in police presence on the streets.

So much for increased spending on youth crime, then.

(Hat-tip: Tory Troll)

I was awaiting the inevitable legislative response to what has surely reached the stage where it can be described as a cultural phenomenon. As that preamble suggests I was also expecting it to be counter-active and dire, but was this was beyond even my low anticipation. It seems that the government’s approach to dealing with the “Causes of crime” is to turf the poor out of their houses. How exactly they intend to authorise the eviction of those families suspected of potential criminality and where they expect these homeless masses to move to is not made clear, but this is New Labour legislation, no requirement to focus upon the details so long as the headlines look “tough”.

Of course the Tories are no better, law and order being their traditional stomping grounds and all notions of them being civil libertarians being dispelled by this news, which demonstrates how even David Davis, the supposed champion of the freedom-loving right, is happy to see pub land-lords carrying blades for professional purposes locked away.

Not that I am a libertarian, but their position on weaponry is a rare place where almost all are united. The consensus runs roughly as follows: carrying any item is not something worthy of being a crime, it is commiting an act that breaches another’s personal autonomy which is a crime. So someone could own an automated shotgun and still be within the law, within the liberatarian’s ideal world, and the only breach would occur when they fired it at another living being (for some libertarians another living being which had not given consent).

Therefore the only appropriate stance for anyone truly of such an ideology would be to declare that Britain’s laws are not to leniant on weaponry carrying but already far too harsh. Why, we have even outlawed handguns!

The genuine libertarian position is one which we can extract some value from: it is correct that not all carrying weaponry have intent to stab others (although cutting themselves is bad enough) and that we should be wary of any law which demands they serve time and gives the judge no leeway. The victims of any “Crack Down” would be likely to include the innocent along with the would-be guilty.

But seemingly both parties have, as they tend to, embraced the worst of statism and the worst of authoritarianism. Of the two at least Labour seem to have decided upon a course which makes some measure to cutting off the problems at their source. The failure of parents is not always the cause of such crimes, as is so often imagined, but in most cases is doubtless a contributory factor. But although their intention is sound and their approach not without merit the details are, as ever, hazy. Who schedules these lessons? Who performs them? Who identifies the traits of a “Problem Family”? How can we be assured that being amongst the “Disruptive young people” will not be a badge of honour?

A more fundamental problem is the dependence upon a peculiarly fierce form of social liberalism. Even Thatcher begrudgingly added “…And their families” onto the end “There are individuals…” during her “No such thing as society” speech and Brown appears to be sticking to roughly these limits. Social liberalism can accept interaction within the confines of domestic life, as can the vague communitarianism espoused uncertainly by various Conservatives, but beyond this it struggles. So Brown blithely disregarding the rest of society rather conflicts with the copious research which suggests that it is formative peer groups, rather than parents, which shape the individual most substantially.

But disregard he must: bad parenting causes problems, educate parents on how to teach their children not to knife people and they will become good parents. Free lessons in something valuable for those in need. It is, at least, a start.

Cameron meanwhile appears to have adopted the standard Tory response of attempting not to get outflanked by an eager Labour Party and took to the pages of the Metro lately to declare that the problem was owing to society. By this, he went on to explain, he meant that those who stabbed or dealt drugs were simply unaware that they were doing wrong. This could be resolved by voting Conservatives at the next election.

And, of course, slashing benefits. Fucking over the poor unable to find work in a crashing economy is unquestionably the way in which to deal with knife crime largely committed by members of the underclass, you see!

He speaks also, entirely off topic, of obesity. He begins well, stating “There are many reasons – by no means all of their own making – why people have bad diets.” but then follows poorly with: “Their neighbourhood, their school, and the choices their parents make all have a huge impact.” Leaving out entirely the corporate muscle which can make far more profit from flogging sugar filled crud than anything worthwhile.

Best of all though is his sketching of all the undesirables that fill the fears of Daily Mail readers minds: the drug addict, the thuggish young ruffian, the irresponsible parent. Are they alienated? Impoverished? In the case of the former simply craving endorphins that the brain is no longer able to produce?

No, according to Dave:

There’s a simple reason for this. It’s because society has become far too sensitive to their feelings.

Yes, if there’s one thing I’ve noted from anyone encountered by a starving plunger-pusher desperate for junk its empathy.

I preffered the Tories as atomists. At that, at least, they were skilled.