Cameron sets out his stall

alistair

remember the bullingdon club and their antics?

Gilesebop

The problem is self discipline. Many parents don't have much of it, schools don't teach it and we wonder why we have so many teenagers and twenty somethings out their ripping off shops. Trainee layers and primary teaching assistants (who are meant to be role models).

Over the last decade people have been informed of their rights which has come to mean their entitlements. They expect to be given, with no effort on their part. Its your right to have what you want now. You don't really have to work to get what you want. The state will pay you off. Its got to stop.

The fact these yobs have been quoted that they are getting back at 'the rich'. Hilarious to hear one of the few shops in Clapham not touched was a Waterstones. Books....how do they work then?

Pete

"This will add to the talk that Number 10 is keen to see Bratton brought in to run the Met."

So appoint him this afternoon if he still wants the job - what's he waiting for? Why all the coded messages?

Ed P

It was agood speech and I hope he means to carry out his promises and not be diverted by ooman 'rites nonsense from the opposition. But, as ever, he has taken a more statist approach, when some understanding and commitment to local democracy would have been welcome.

Cynic

"This is not about poverty, it’s about culture ..." So why not take this golden opportunity to admit that the multiculti experiment has spectacularly failed? Gangsta culture is not the equal of a law-abiding culture, neither is a culture of entitlements of the same value to the nation as the Protestant ethic. Alas, the Heir to Blair still doesn't appear to get it.

Chris

Well done, alistair, you've effortlessly lowered the bar for your fellow lefties.

FvH

Wow the Speccie really are toeing the No. 10 line!!
Yet another marvellous speech by our well spoken PM that will achieve absolutely zilch
Increase overseas aid, decrease police numbers, don't leave the ECHR
And yet the Speccie is not challenging
What has been said behind closed doors??

Newbritannia

Alistair and all the other self-righteous morons posting about "the Bullingdon Club" - no I do not remember it. Do you? To draw comparison is a fatuous waste of time and, besides, do you have any hard evidence at all (excepting left wing press clippings) that DC ever damaged a restaurant?

Dennis Churchill

Just as Blair was first a barrister looking to put the best case for policies rather than actually believing in them so Cameron is a PR man who will spin his way out of trouble. Neither they nor the rest of our political class actually solve problems because their background does not include solving problems.
The BBC has instructed its staff to stop referring to the riots and looting as occurring in the UK because this offends the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish.
Now I wonder why England ,which up to a generation ago was one of the most stable and peaceable countries in the world, is now suffering so much disorder in its cities? What could be different about the population make up of English cities that is different from the other countries of the UK and has happened in the last generation or so?

Ken

And you approve do you, of his retrograde idea for controlling the social media and interfering with Blackberry communication channels?
The man's as much of an authoritarian as Bliar and Brown.
Where his focus ought to be was fully set out for him by Melanie Phillips in her Mail column today.

Rhoda Klapp

So, let me sum up. We are going to bring in a law about face coverings. Don't they have to catch the guy first? If they do, what does the extra power give them. If they don't, what use is it?

We are going to look at disabling social media. I do not agree with government powers over this, it could be used opprssively by 'a future government' if not this lot. Better to monitor it, or maybe even spoof calls to a riot to where the cops are..

We need some seppo cop boss. If we really do not have anybody in the whole of UK police who can head the met, the more immediate action should be to close down Bramshill and purge the officer classes of all the unworthy. And close ACPO while you are at it. A wide-ranging enquiry into UK policing wouldn't hurt, if it could be done properly, not like a Tony Blair/Humphrey Appleby stitchup.

The debate in parliament struck me as absolutely fatuous. What a bunch of goshbites. What a bunch of hypocrites. Now at last they are keen on law and order.

TGF UKIP

A splendid piece in today's Telegraph by John McTiernan which none of the Cameron house mag gang are likely to refer to for obvious reasons:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/8693544/Our-political-leaders-seem-to-be-paralysed-by-crises.html

Tulkinghorn

Yes but the culture that breeds this originates in poverty

2trueblue

In 160minutes Liebore had only one line, it is all the fault of the cuts! As Cameron said Liebore suffer from 'intellectual idleness'. They are certainly a vacuous bunch at present. I was disappointed that no one in the coalition had the courage to name the cause, Blairs children. No aspiration, no inspiration, and no education. This did not come about overnight, it happened because under Liebore we had a culture that encouraged momentary glorification to be what would fulfil.

Slim Jim

Well, he can employ Genghis Khan to be the new Met Police Commissioner, but it won't make much difference unless there are major amendments (or repeals) of existing laws, paricularly human rights law. The political class have hamstrung themselves for now, but at least they are starting to look at the right issues. Do you think they will ever be able to join them up (e.g. unemployment, immigration, education and criminal justice, etc.)?

Jan Cosgrove

Funny, if its not about cuts etc, that this happens just now .....

Out-of-touch, no mandate, trashing work people like me have been doing for years in the 'little society', spouting predictable phrases, coup-by-coalition.

On their watch. 5 dead.

Richard

TGF UKIP,

The piece by John McTiernan that you admire has critical things to say about both Right and Left:

'The connecting thread is that Left and Right have accepted not merely market mechanisms, but the market’s ultimate mastery. For more than 30 years, politicians have told industries, communities and voters that you can’t buck the system. In doing so, they have internalised their own advice, and ended up enslaved by these new gods themselves.'

McTiernan says that the dominant political consensus moved to the Right on economics as it moved to the Left on social policy, and that both trends are implicated in the present disaster. Are contributors here prepared to accept both sides of this analysis?

Andy Carpark

'We are through the looking glass here. It is fashionable in political circles to talk about the “need for a narrative”. But that’s an evasion. Before you can tell a story, you need to have a point of view.'

Excellently put by John McTernan. According to King of the Narrative and Spawn of Satan, Matthew d'Ancona, politics was not meant to achieve or improve anything. Oh, no. It was just an eternal pantomime to provide amusement, a livelihood and many a jolly good lunch for jesters and courtiers like him.

Derek Pasquill

Great line from the McTernan piece:

"old, cold and on the wrong side of the planet"

Might as well be describing the potage of MPs at Westminster.

2trueblue

Jon Cosgrove you are just part of the problem, disconected, unaware what has been happening in the past and like Liebore intellectually idle and wanting.

Cogito Ergosum

Cameron's speech did not deal with a major issue: that the police do little or nothing to protect the private individual. They protect themselves first, the authorities second, and Joe Public nowhere.

This is the cancer which is causing what Cameron calls our sick society.

Perhaps that nice Mr Bratton would force a rethink.

Nice one Cyril

There is no question Cappucino Dave will have to put public money where his mouth is to maintain law and order in English cities in the short, medium and long term. Currently his 'Big Society' is either yobs running amok or the brushes in the air of the community clear-up activists.
Neither is a vision he had in mind when talking about his 'The Big Society'.
If our PM really does believe that there is an underlying sickness in our British towns & cities then the medicine will not come cheap. Hopefully a fundamental, root and branch review of the symptoms and causes of the current breakdown of law and order will be undertaken. I am not convinced that much will happen once the outcry dies down after living through decades of English football hooligans and lager louts causing mayhem abroad and our city centres resembling war zones on Friday and Saturday nights. The vast majority of us have been happy to live in a society where for most of us the 'underclass' are out of sight and out of mind. It really is a challenge for Government after years of turning a blind eye. It is also a challenge for the fourth estate to engage positively for once to try and change things permanently for the better. It is also a challenge for every single one of us as we all have a responsibility to make good out of the evil and the ashes.

Dennis Churchill

Slim Jim
August 11th, 2011 3:23pm
You are, of course, right.
Fettes Boy and Gold Flogger’s government entrenched laws using treaties, combine this with the values of our judiciary and Cast Iron Dave can’t do much at all.
As for face covering—how long would the police allow a football fan to cover his face?
The emphasis since Macpherson’s report has been on making the police more representative of the population not more effective. It is all very Post Democratic.

Herbert Thornton

The heading to Mr Forsyth's article reads - "Cameron sets out his stall".

That heading is itself misleading. It would be more accurate if it read -

"Cameron sets out to stall".

TrevorsDen

Dear thick one cyril - its not a question of money - the jobs have had billions thrown at them already.

In fact the tory policy is already in place and being acted upon. IDS has already identified the reasons for this mayhem.
What is important is recognising the problem. labour and accociated lefties sneered at the idea of Broken Britain but again cameron ws roight.
it muat pain lefties so to see cameron right and the govt already putting policies in place.

The mayhem exploded because of delayed and insufficient police reaction. The police we must presume knew what is happening on the ground - did they tell labour? or did they think it was not worth bothering.

disenfranchised

@dennis churchill....

because our power elite have been hell-bent on demoralising middle england. the left would add tory to middle england, of course, but be they labour or the coalition, we've all come to realise that the system is geared against the indigenous.
so is anything going to fundamentally change as a result of the riots?
i doubt it. the usual culprits here, like that delusional lot in brussels, are not listening to us, no matter what they're saying at the moment.....

J West

A Nation Ablaze? Why on earth have you shown the whole of the UK & NI in flames. Make no mistake this is an English problem, not one for the Scots, Welsh & Northern Irish. It's funny how the English love to wrap themselves in the terms Britain, British or UK when things aren't going too well for them. It's sickening to see publications and broadcasters so blatantly twist and distort the news. The only folk I saw out on the streets of Edinburgh were the 1000's of Festival goers. Stop this absurd terminology now.

stephen bennetts

Cameron did what he is good at as a PR devotee, he used the right words, sounded tough and gave the impression that he was doing something. However we all know that little will change until and unless the culture of rights is changed.Cameron promised that the Human Rights legislation would be changed , to date he has done nothing, words are cheap and politicians have more than enough of them.

Jolier Veppers

I thought it was a good speech. However, I can't help but feel that this is all it will amount to. By the time he has listened to his coalition partners, been briefed that to implement serious changes to schooling etc will be expensive/upset too many/be difficult/offend xyz etc little actual change will occur.

The PM has an opportunity to stand up and take tough decisions but I fear he really only wants to make the right noises and as such all we will get is more of the drifting ship of government we have had since he took office.

Duncan Reed

Was Sir Peter Tapsell subconsciously channelling the late Kenny Everett: 'Round 'em up... Put 'em in a field... And bomb the bastards! '