Simple and Plain

Home Secretary, Theresa May, wrote in the Mail on Sunday about the “lessons I have learned” about the August riots. She needn’t have bothered.
La May was, I guess, obliged to attend the LSE/Guardian conference ‘Reading the Riots’ last week which demonstrated plenty of evidence of police harassment and deep poverty of opportunity which is fuelling inner city anger. Once unleashed it allowed mass looting and civil disorder to take place.
However, what we discern from Ms May’s sour article is, she only saw looting. She closed her mind entirely to the notion there could have been any provocation which lead to all this theft, burglary and arson, “they were thieving pure and simple.”
Her response to serial discrimination by police stop and search policy described by one interviewee as “causing us hell” was to say coldly, “good.” These glib words are aimed to encourage the police and the panic-stricken commuters of the home counties she is on their side. But a good Home Sec should not take such pleasure in being so divisive. It is facile to just condemn the criminality: she should have the political guts to admit the police can do wrong and their methods do need modifying from time to time. We already know they search proportionately ten times more black youths than white.
Willie Whitelaw listened to Lord Scarman when he reported on Brixton 1981 and exerted his authority on the police to reform their practices. So did Jack Straw with MacPherson. Theresa May’s trite response demonstrates an unwillingness to learn about the daily urban experience of the young and a reticence to consider them of equal human value to others.
Her example of the good things in society such as the “Royal Wedding” showed a certain remoteness. The idea the deprived in the inner cities should look to the aristocracy to gain a sense of national identity and purpose is beyond absurd..




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