If it is any consolation to David Cameron, the last really big nationwide outbreak of riots was even worse for the prime minister than this lot. This occurred in 1981, when Mrs Thatcher faced maximum danger from her Cabinet colleagues and from public opinion because of the toughness of her economic policies. The riots spread, over three months, from Brixton to Toxteth, Handsworth, Moss Side and other locations whose names are now becoming familiar again. Despite her fierce reputation, Mrs Thatcher did not quite know what to do, veering between a determination to pretend that everything was business as usual, and a desire to clamp down on the violence. The presentational oddity is illustrated by the fact that one night in July she went, against her will, to Anyone for Denis?, the play in which John Wells parodied her husband (‘marvellous farce’, she said through gritted teeth), and then zoomed straight off to Toxteth (Liverpool) to see a riot-affected area for herself. The press questions thrown at her there were more accusatory than they are today. There was a much stronger presumption that ‘cuts’ were responsible for discontent, and much more criticism of the police for being heavy-handed. Although she hated the idea, Mrs Thatcher felt compelled to give in to Michael Heseltine’s pleadings and make him ‘Minister for Merseyside’. He strode up and down the broken streets looking blond and concerned and trying to spend public money.
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This time, there can be no Heseltine equivalent, not least because the biggest trouble is in London, and the metropolis now has no room for more politicians. If there is an equivalent of the Scarman Inquiry into the Brixton riots, it should focus on police under- not over-reaction. Even if it turns out that the police shooting of Mark Duggan was unjustified, there will be no public appetite for any measures which inhibit the police from keeping order. If Mr Cameron chose to review the 30-year process by which the police have been hamstrung in their attempts to keep the peace, he would be overwhelmingly supported. It is vital for him to mastermind the aftermath of such disorder, which Mrs Thatcher, surprisingly, failed to do.
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In Tottenham, which began everything this time, the big previous example is 1985, not 1981. Last weekend’s events suggest that things have not greatly improved since the Broadwater Farm riots there nearly 26 years ago. But what is certainly different is the political language used by the Labour party. In 1985, Bernie Grant, the black Labour leader of Haringey Council and later the Labour MP for Tottenham, made himself notorious by quoting approvingly what he said was the opinion of local youths that ‘the police got a bloody good hiding’ (this was just after the rioters had murdered PC Keith Blakelock and tried to behead him). Such talk was a gift to the Tories. This time, the local MP, David Lammy, also black and also Labour, came on television and condemned the riots. In the 1980s, Mrs Thatcher was much mocked by the posher media for sympathising with ‘those poor shopkeepers’, but the public agreed with her, and feel the same today. Mr Lammy carefully included shopkeepers in his list of innocent victims. In fact, his words were a masterpiece of Blairite ‘triangulation’, since he also found ways of criticising the police, but the difference between the two reactions shows how much Labour has learnt. The only important Labour figure still speaking the Left language of the 1980s is its leading relic, Ken Livingstone. It is lucky for Boris Johnson that Mr Livingstone will be his mayoral rival in the contest next year. Mr Lammy would be a much more formidable opponent.
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This Friday, applications close for the post of Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis. The Home Secretary made sure that the form says that applicants should be British citizens. But I stick to my argument that this should be changed. Bill Bratton, the distinguished former head of police in New York and Los Angeles, is interested in applying. I do not know if he would be the best choice, but I do know that the crisis in policing revealed by the riots and looting shows a desperate need for a public argument about how things should improve. It is time to break the Acpo closed shop.
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Every day, I miss Frank Johnson, the former editor of this paper, who died in 2006. In this month, I miss his annual article demolishing the popular belief that ‘nothing ever happens in August’. The death of Diana and the outbreak of the first world war were prime examples he cited. Now we have the global stock-market panic and the riots to prove Frank even righter. I begin to wonder if there is some subliminal connection between the holiday season and disaster. Could it be that, in an age when most people in the western world can afford foreign holidays, those not taking them feel a rage and envy that cause them to provoke runs on markets, loot trainers from shops or start wars? Newspapers certainly love to protest when politicians are ‘sunning themselves’ abroad and ignoring crises at home. Most of these papers are edited, at this season, by the deputies, since the editors are also sunning themselves. Forcing the principals home is a sort of revenge.
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Have you noticed how people’s funerals now take place longer and longer after their death? Such delay is not permitted in Judaism or Islam, religions which developed under hot suns, but it is now quite common for Christian or godless crem funerals to be held even a month or more after decease. I suppose this is the result of efficient refrigeration. It does, it is true, make it easier for friends and family to get to a funeral if there is more notice. Even so, it seems a bad trend. Death is absolute, and breaks in upon life without consideration of timing (unless you are poor King George V, with your life ‘drawing peacefully to its close’ in order to coincide with the first edition of the Times). The reality of its awful fact should not be postponed.
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