David cameron

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

From the archives: the Bill Bratton edition

As James Forsyth says today, No10 wants Bill Bratton to not just take charge of the Met but start a revolution in policing. A ‘Stop Bratton’ campaign has duly begun with Sir Hugh Orde, himself a candidate for the job, saying that he’s not sure he wants to “learn about gangs from an area of America that has 400 of them.” But it’s worth noting, though, that Bratton has advised the British government before: in June 2006, at the beginning of John Reid’s tenure at the Home Office. Allister Heath (now editor of CityAM) went to meet him and reported back in The Spectator. His piece is below. ‘You can control

Saturday

David Blackburn

Boris’ long-game strategy

Has the sheen come off BoJo? The question is echoing around some virtual corridors in Westminster this weekend. The Mayor of London was caught off guard by the recent riots and his initial decision to remain en vacances made him look aloof and remote, a sense that grew during his disastrous walkabout in Clapham. Then he joined Labour in calls for cuts in the police budget to be reversed, a decision that reeked on opportunism, superficially at least. The FT’s Jim Pickard has an excellent post on these matters and he reveals that Boris Johnson has been voicing these concerns in private for months and that he has a brace

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Blunt’s flawed rehabilitation programme

The decisions of Crispin Blunt, the prisons’ minister, are hard to fathom. One wonders why-as the Daily Mail reports today — he allowed a man convicted of killing five people to give an unapologetic interview to a magazine. Blunt’s defence is that it wouldn’t have been right for him to stop it. That may be the case but that doesn’t explain his decision to send a press officer to assist with the whole procedure. Rehabilitating prisoners is vital if we are going to tackle crime in this country. But it is hard to see how this kind of thing — or parties in prison — help that noble aim. Rather

David Blackburn

Cameron lands Supercop as police acrimony mounts

Internationally renowned policeman Bill Bratton has agreed to advise the government on how to defeat gang culture. Bratton’s role is not official, but he will arrive for duty in the autumn nonetheless. The former LA police chief has already offered a diagnosis of Britain’s problems. In an interview with the Telegraph, he says that hoodlums have been “emboldened” by timid policing and lenient sentencing. Quite what this means for Ken Clarke’s justice policy, supported by the Liberal Democrats, remains to be seen. But the indications are that the government will bolster its law and order policies. Doubtless a wry smile will have broken across the face of Andy Coulson, who

Friday

Fraser Nelson

Why we need a post-riot inquiry

Today we learnt that David Cameron is looking at the experience of Los Angeles’ recovery from the 1992 riots. The first lesson he should learn is the value of an inquiry, as Ed Miliband suggests. Californian policymakers held an inquiry, and it taught them plenty about the nature of modern poverty, urban unrest — and how to tackle it. Part of the reason that poverty in Britain is so ingrained is because so few politicians look at it in any detail, and even mentioning the word ‘underclass’ solicits squeals of disapproval. We remain aloof. As I argued in the magazine last month, we like harmless sketches about British poverty (Rab

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Time for action

The facts of life are Conservative, as the old phrase has it. The events of the past few days have shown the urgent need for Tory social policies. The case for reforms to the police, welfare and education has been amply demonstrated.  Some in the government appear to get this. But there is also an odd hesitancy about getting on the front foot. As Tim Montgomerie said yesterday, why wasn’t a minister put up for Question Time last night? They could have used the programme to push Cameron’s reform agenda. Equally, why isn’t Cameron setting up an inquiry that will expose how the police have effectively abandoned parts of our

David Blackburn

May intervenes to restore order

Theresa May has banned an EDL march in Telford tomorrow, although the organisation will be allowed into the town to conduct a static demonstration. May has been a hive of hyperactivity since she returned from holiday, and this is yet another example of the government making a decisive gesture to amend for its perceived earlier indifference. It also looks like a strategic decision to contain that other unspoken working class resentment: immigration, and the hint of racial tension that it inspires from time to time. David Cameron was at pains yesterday to insist that the riots were a cultural issue, not a racial issue. He’s right. I’ve spent the last

Thursday

David Blackburn

The scale of IDS’ task

This afternoon’s parliamentary debate touched on the sociological issues that may have inspired the recent looting. Naturally, there are plenty of competing views on the subject, but I bring your attention to Harriet Sergeant’s, which she has expressed in the latest issue of the Spectator. Sergeant has conducted extensive investigations into the teenage gangs in London, acquainting herself with gang members and their way of life. Her observations are intriguing, albeit terrifying. An extended version of her magazine article is available online and I urge you to read it. But here is a short extract: ‘The young men I interviewed had very obviously failed to make the transition to manhood and

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron sets out his stall

David Cameron’s statement to the House of Commons was clear about the circumstances that led to these riots. ‘This is not about poverty, it’s about culture. A culture that glorifies violence, shows disrespect to authority, and says everything about rights but nothing about responsibilities.’ Later in the session, he said ‘you don’t hit moral failure with a wall of money.’ On this, Cameron is surely right. In a respectful atmosphere in the House of Commons, Cameron set out the government’s proposed response to the riots. The major legislative action he set out was a change to the law to allow the police to force people who they suspect of being

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron has the opportunity to lead the nation

The recall of parliament today offers David Cameron the chance to take command of the current situation. The police might have horribly mishandled the situation on the first few nights of the riots and Cameron’s government might have been caught flat-footed by them. But he now has the opportunity to build on the successful policing of the last two nights and his strong statement yesterday and lead the national response to this crisis. The mechanics of a parliamentary statement allow Cameron to set the terms of debate. He also has the huge advantage of simply being the Prime Minister. The nature of his office affords him the opportunity to speak

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

Cameron gets forceful

So far as words matter, David Cameron has just delivered one of the most forceful statements of his political career. It contained all the anger of his address yesterday, but went much further in its diagnosis. “There are pockets of our society that are not only broken, but frankly sick,” he said, adding that, “the one word I would use to sum it up is irresponsibility.” His most memorable line was that, “It is as much a moral problem as it is a political problem.” This was the campaigning Cameron that we have glimpsed only briefly, most notably during his conference speech in 2009. Tim Montgomerie is saying that Cameron

Peter Hoskin

The politics of police cuts

Wow, that was a howitzer of a performance from Boris Johnson on the Today Progamme earlier. And all his shells were aimed at Downing St. Not only did the Mayor of London slander Cameron’s Broken Society thesis, not only did he support Diane Abbott against the jibes of Tory HQ, but he also committed the gravest act of all, given the current climate. He lined up with Labour in attacking the coalition’s police cuts. “This is not a time to think about making substantial cuts in police numbers,” said BoJo. “I think it would be a good thing if the government had another look,” he added, for emphasis.  There’s little

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

Cameron announces that Parliament will be recalled

So far as its tone went, David Cameron’s statement just now was firm and unyielding. He did express his sympathy for the victims of the riots; the emergency services, the shopkeepers, the fearful. But the major emphasis was on bringing the culprits to book. His “clear message” for the perpetrators of this destruction was that “you will feel the full force of the law”. He preceded that by describing their actions as “criminality, pure and simple — and it has to be confronted and defeated”. There were no excuses nor prevarications, and rightly so. As for the content, it seems that the government is eager to keep this a police

Peter Hoskin

The Met is struggling to cope — it needs support

It’s a gloomy sort of morning ritual, posting on the riots of the previous night. I’m sure CoffeeHousers have seen and heard the specifics already: further burning and looting in parts of London such as Ealing, Croydon and Hackney, as well as bursts of violence in Birmingham, Liverpool and elsewhere. Businesses and livelihoods have been obliterated, areas set back years. Among the few mercies is that no-one, so far as we know, has yet been killed as a result. One thing that’s becoming clearer through the smoke is that the Met Police are overrun, unable to properly deal with criminality at hand. The arrest figures tell a story by themselves.

Monday

Peter Hoskin

Cameron to return to London as the riots spread

There we have it: David Cameron is to return to London tonight, and chair a meeting of Cobra in the morning. There was an inevitability to the decision even earlier today, with the news that both Theresa May and Boris Johnson had curtailed their own holidays. But the fact that the riots have spread — starting in Hackney this evening, and erupting even in Birmingham — served to underline the point. It is the right decision, in any case. Cameron’s ability to control the situation may be limited, but his continued absence might only have inflamed things further. There are a lot of people scrabbling around for a grievance to

David Blackburn

Syria and Libya overshadowed by London riots as Boris comes home

President Assad’s tanks are still doing murder on the streets of Syrian, but the dictator’s isolation grows. After weeks of prevarication, several Gulf States have closed ranks against the Syrian regime. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait have all recalled their ambassadors from Damascus, and King Abdullah of Riyadh has led the Arab League’s condemnation of Assad’s ‘death machine’. Better late than never, the international consensus says. Compassion for the oppressed is not a familiar trait among Arabian princelings, but their reticence on this occasion was particularly surprising given that Assad’s Syria is no friend of the Arab League, preferring to side with Iran in most things. Still, today’s diplomatic gestures will add to the

Peter Hoskin

The politics of our discontent

Even by the normal standards of Monday mornings, this one reeks. Just sniff around you. That burning smell, it’s either coming from the global stock markets as they strain against the US downgrade, or from those places in London where the rioting spread last night. Although the destruction in Brixton, Enfield, Walthamstow and Waltham Forest didn’t match up to that on Saturday in Tottenham, it still involved fires, missiles and clashes between rioters and the police. Reading the reports and watching the footage online, looting appears to have been one of the most popular sports of the evening. In terms of the short-term politics — as opposed to the slightly

Sunday

Peter Hoskin

Tottenham smoulders

London has become used to protest recently, but there was still something terrible and unexpected in the images emerging from Tottenham last night. Here we had firebombs, missiles, riot police, burning vehicles, smashed-in shops, looting and other criminality — and it has left eight policemen injured, as well as others in hospital. The cause of the rioting was, apparently, the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan by police on Thursday. The effect was scenes reminiscent of Brixton or Broadwater Farm in the 1980s. There will be fresh attention paid to Tottenham — one of the poorest areas of one of London’s poorest boroughs — by politicians now, and rightly so. But

Wednesday

Matt Cavanagh

Decisions that may come to determine the Coalition’s stewardship of defence

The House of Commons Defence Committee moves at a stately pace. Two weeks back, it gave us its considered view on the British military campaign in southern Afghanistan – a report which might have been quite useful a couple of years ago. Today it has published its verdict on October’s National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review – nine months after their launch, with many of the decisions now irreversible, and with MPs and much of the media on holiday. The headline findings are not surprising, but make for bracing reading nonetheless. They are summarised on the front page of the Telegraph: the SDSR was a rushed exercise,

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

The shifting sands of public opinion on Libya

All of the buccaneering rhetoric has been sucked from the Libyan conflict this week, replaced with words of concession, compromise and caution. A few days ago, it was the news that — contrary to what they might previously have said — the government is prepared to let Gaddafi remain in the country after all. Today, William Hague deploys the same line in an interview with the Times (£), in which he also warns that there are “a lot of problems and even convulsions” to come in northern Africa. As it happens, the depressed mood of our foreign-policymakers reflects the tide of public opinion. Here, for CoffeeHousers’ benefit, are a couple