Crime

Those of us trapped in Mayor Sadiq Khan’s low traffic neighbourhood scheme are now obedient, resigned. We expect a car journey of under a mile to take 40 minutes. We don’t hope for anything more. On Sunday, around five o’clock, my son and I stuck fast in Dalston Lane, but as we settled down to wait in a mist of carbon monoxide, there was a commotion up ahead. Down the wrong side of the road, horn blaring, lights flashing, came a Mercedes G-wagon, matt black with that handy snorkel up the side, the favourite ride of north London’s gangsters. It was interesting how calm everyone was about it, how unsurprised.

Chris Hargreaves used to be a wellness coach with a promising future in reality television. In 2023, he starred in E4’s Big Celebrity Detox and tried to cleanse Kerry Katona’s soul with piñón blanco seeds. Today, he leads The Shield: a private volunteer police force of hundreds of officers. They plan to begin patrolling Britain’s streets imminently. Hargreaves and his team regard Britain as a place of increasing lawlessness. Many would agree. Shoplifting is at record highs, prosecutions are near record lows and people are asking where the authorities have gone. According to a poll by Merlin Strategy for The Spectator, only around half of British people have spoken to

Moore problems Sir: Many years ago a colleague warned me that I was so impossibly uncool that one day I was bound to become hip. Has this moment arrived? Charles Moore (Notes, 23 August) informs me that there is a ‘currently fashionable conservatism’ which is ‘militantly against Ukraine’. By this he presumably means not regarding Ukraine as a sort of lovely Narnia, full of birdsong, democracy and honesty, which – as it happens – it isn’t. Even so, I wonder where this ‘fashionable conservatism’ is to be found? After more than a decade of suggesting the Ukraine issue is not as simple as many believe, I have – as far

On reflection, a tradition of shelving many desirable goods within ready reach is extraordinary – especially because the premises in which these wares are invitingly presented provide unfettered access to every passerby. By and large, it’s dead easy to pick up one of these desirable objects – or dozens, should forethought ensure the possession of a bag – and walk out. What would possess anyone to organise such elaborate, unprotected arrays of stuff – altruism? Idiocy? A nationwide honour system, that’s what. Urbanites are astonished by unmanned farm stands that leave cartons of eggs for the taking beside a little sign and a jar. Yet offline retail is also dependent

A familiar cliché, which in history has been disproved time and again, is that a police force cannot operate without the consent of the people. Tell that to the residents of what was once East Berlin. But that old canard raises a different problem. Which people are giving the consent? The ones who abide by the law, or the ones who are disposed to breaking it? I wondered about this when I read two stories over the weekend, both of which suggested to me that the police have long since lost the support of that first group of people, that more numerous community, the people who don’t habitually break the

For 15 years The Clink charity has run commercial restaurants in prisons, training inmates to cook and teaching them front-of-house service. It is a vital way of giving offenders a second chance. But many of its operations have been forced to close due to the folly of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). At Styal women’s prison in Wilmslow, Cheshire, The Clink restaurant, which has been running for ten years, cannot continue to operate. Despite plenty of interest from inmates, recent changes to the eligibility criteria have drastically reduced the number of women permitted to work there. ‘Sometimes we are trying to run it with five, possibly only three, women,’ explains

The Cambridge bike bandit emerged. I watched the rough, smiling face of the old man who came slowly from his bungalow and urged me to join him around the back; he didn’t look like a thief. We entered his grassless yard filled with bikes, tyres and tools. ‘This Raleigh, £80,’ he said, withdrawing a creaky frame from the pile. ‘I just changed the tyre. You see? Not heavy. Made in England. Nottingham. You can try a little bit. Try it for ten minutes. I don’t mind.’ A source had told me about the bandit, a man who openly shifted stolen bikes from a suburban Cambridge home, so bad and unpoliced