England riots: Broken society is top priority - Cameron

 

David Cameron says a security and a social fightback is needed

David Cameron has promised to prioritise tackling the "broken society" and to review all government policies following last week's riots.

The PM said he would speed up plans to deal with anti-social behaviour and improve parenting and education.
He said he aimed to "turn around the lives of the 120,000 most troubled families" by 2015 and pledged an "all out war" on gang culture.
Labour leader Ed Miliband has renewed calls for a "commission of inquiry".
Mr Cameron described the rioting, looting and arson that spread from London to parts of the East and West Midlands, Merseyside, Bristol, Manchester and Gloucester as "a wake-up call for our country".
He said the "worst of the British people" had been seen during the riots but praised those who had helped clean up shops and defend their homes, as well as the emergency services on the front line.
In a speech in Oxfordshire, he said politicians had been "unwilling for too long to talk about what is right and what is wrong", but such moral neutrality would not "cut it any more" and pledged a social, as well as a security, fightback.
He included children without fathers, schools without discipline and communities without control in a long list of what he believes has gone wrong in parts of the country.
"The broken society is back at the top of my agenda," Mr Cameron said.
He said more police officers were needed on the streets "deterring crime, ready to regroup and crack down at the first sign of trouble".
'Criminal disease' And he argued that those demanding he reverse government plans to cut police funding were "missing the point" - as ministers would cut the bureaucracy that was suffocating forces.
He pledged a "concerted, all out war on gangs and gang culture", which he said was a "major criminal disease that has infected streets and estates across our country".

“Start Quote

The politician's instinct - reach for new legislation, appoint a new adviser, wheel out your old prejudices - will not meet the public's demand for real answers and deep rooted, lasting solutions”

Ed Miliband

 

"Stamping out these gangs should be a new national priority," he said - adding that a cross-government programme would look at "every aspect of this problem".

The PM criticised parents who did not even attend court when their children were faced with rioting charges and said he wanted a "family test" applied to all domestic policies.
"If it hurts families, if it undermines commitment, if it tramples over the values that keep people together, or stops families from being together, then we shouldn't do it."
Plans to improve parenting would be "accelerated, expanded and implemented as quickly as possible", he said, pledging to put "rocket boosters" under work to target "troubled" families.
"I have a clear ambition that within the lifetime of this Parliament we will turn around the lives of the 120,000 most troubled families in the country," he said.
And he said he wanted to push "further, faster" on plans to help schools discipline those who misbehave and reinforce the message that hard work pays off.
Ministers would look at the Human Rights Act and health and safety legislation - saying they had been "twisted" and misrepresented by some in a way that had undermined personal responsibility.
But in a speech at his old school in north London, Mr Miliband warned against knee-jerk gimmicks which have not been thought through.
"The politician's instinct - reach for new legislation, appoint a new adviser, wheel out your old prejudices - will not meet the public's demand for real answers and deep rooted, lasting solutions," he said.
He accused Mr Cameron of "reaching for shallow and superficial answers" when lasting solutions were needed and urged a "national conversation", starting in those areas that were worst affected, about the causes of the riots.
And he accused the government of undermining police forces with "an unseemly attempt by government to take credit for operational decisions that went right and blame the police for those that didn't work out".
Benefits penalty In other developments following last week's riots:

• A 16-year-old boy is being questioned by police on suspicion of murdering Richard Bowes, 68, in Ealing last week. A 22-year-old man also arrested over his death has been bailed
• Joshua Donald, 26, and a 17-year-old boy will appear at Birmingham Crown Court charged with the murders of three men hit by a car during disturbances in the city last week. A third man, Adam King, 23, will also appear at magistrates' court charged with three counts of murder
• Bill Bratton, the former US police chief now advising the government on gangs, has told the Guardian he can bring about "transformational" change in the UK - and reduce crime despite cuts to police budgets
• Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has told the BBC that people convicted of involvement in rioting could lose their benefits even if they do not receive a custodial sentence
• Mayor of London Boris Johnson says he wants courts to have the power to send 11 to 15-year-olds convicted of being involved in riots to pupil referral units
• In Manchester, those convicted of looting or public disorder will be barred from 400 stores in the city centre

Elsewhere on Monday, MPs on the home affairs select committee are expected to hold a private meeting with Acting Metropolitan Police Commissioner Tim Godwin to find out how anti-riot tactics developed and with Sir Hugh Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers.
In recent days, the police and the government have clashed over the handling of the police response.
Home Secretary Theresa May said it was her job to tell the police what the public wanted them to do, as acting Met chief Mr Godwin accused MPs of "inconsistency of guidance".
Over the weekend, extra police patrolled city streets but there were no signs of any unrest. In London and Birmingham, magistrates continued to wade through the latest cases in weekend sittings.