Blair on the riots

Tony Blair has dropped in to write an article on the social context to the recent riots. It’s insightful, especially as a testament of his failings in government. At the close of his premiership, he says, he’d realised that the acute social problems in Britain’s inner cities were “specific” and could not be solved with “conventional policy”. So much for ‘education, education, education’, Blair’s favoured solution was a mixture of early intervention on a family by family basis to militate against the “profoundly dysfunctional” upbringings these young people endure and a draconian response to antisocial behaviour. Alas, he was forced from office for before implementing the plan.

The present government has adopted Blair’s solution to gangs and gone much further, as you can see by reading our interview with Iain Duncan Smith. But Blair warns that David Cameron’s general prescriptions for curing Britain’s ‘sick society’ are insufficiently specific.