Interpreting Tony Blair: It's Not My Fault, Honest!

Tony left just in time, before the inevitable outcomes of trashing British culture top-to-bottom revealed themselves in all their viciousness. His final thumb in the eye was to leave the UK in the tender care of Gordon Brown, and Gordon Brown to take the vituperation when all fell apart.

However, with His Legacy threatened by the recent riots, he just had to speak up.

He says, says he, that talk of a general moral decline is wrong-headed. It's simply a problem of--

First, there was a legal system overwhelmed by the nature of the crime committed by these young people, buttressed as it is by gangs and organised crime.

Second, these individuals did not simply have an individual problem. They had a family problem. This is a hard thing to say and I am of course aware that this, too, is a generalisation. But many of these people are from families that are profoundly dysfunctional, operating on completely different terms from the rest of society, middle class or poor.

Most of them are shaping up that way by the time they are in primary school or even in nursery. They then grow up in circumstances where their role models are drug dealers, pimps, people with knives and guns, people who will exploit them and abuse them but with whom they feel a belonging. Hence the gang culture that is so destructive.

This is a phenomenon of the late 20th century. You find it in virtually every developed nation. Breaking it down isn't about general policy or traditional programmes of investment or treatment. The last government should take real pride in the reductions in inequality, the improvement in many inner-city schools and the big fall in overall crime. But none of these reaches this special group.

There it is, ya'll! It's not my fault! The entire essay is an attempt to distract away from the moral and ethical issues of a society that really seems to have lost its way, and the resultant crime in the streets. It's just those dysfunctional families, you know, tsk-tsk. Let's not get into any discussion of good-and-evil here.

Yo! Tony! Lissen' up, bro'!

Screwed-up families and kids are created by people operating in a moral vacuum, where no one dares use the big 'E' word, or the 'S' word ('Sinfulness'), or the 'F' word ('Failure'--as in the failed Welfare State). The families where Mom and Dad stay sober and walk with the kids to the local parish church for Sunday School and choir practice tend to not, repeat not produce gang members. The families that insist the kids do their school work tend to not produce candidates for exclusion from school.

Yet, these are the values ridiculed by the past thirty years of popular culture and official policy. Vice is excused, marriage rates have plummeted, out-of-wedlock birth is now common, and the most famous quote of 10 Downing Street during your term was 'We Don't Do God'.

Indeed, you didn't. And it shows, Tony. It's not just the cities, Tony. OS has friends with kids in good schools in small towns well away from the big cities of the UK, and those students are instructed to always walk at least in pairs, never at night, lest they be set upon by the local hoodie types. And this is in the picture-postcard, bucolic English small towns. It's not just the cities, it's everywhere.

This reminds OS of late 2001 and 2002, when Bill Clinton was at pains to convince us all that it wasn't his fault that Bin Laden ran free while Bill was busily chasing Monica Lewinsky around the Oval Office. There are reports that Osama was offered up to us on a plate, and Bill was too busy thinking with his smaller brain to pay attention.

Tony still has books to sell, a legacy to protect, a seat in Lords to possess, a university chair in his name to be awarded. Let's not connect the dots between his past performance and present outcomes.

That really would be wrong, at least in Tony's moral universe.

The Tale Of Two London Oxfam Shops, Located On The Same Street

Toby Young of The Telegraph conveys the sad news with wry wit:

I got a plaintive email earlier today from Tony Lee, the manager of the Oxfam Music and Audio shop in Ealing that was looted last week. Another Oxfam shop was damaged in the riots – a brick was thrown through a window of one of the shops in Manchester – but this was the only one to be looted, presumably because it sells CDs and DVDs. There’s an Oxfam Book shop on the same street in Ealing and, needless to say, it was completely untouched.

The whole post is a worthy read, and the shop is worthy of any support UK readers may be able to offer.

Simon Marcus: We Learn In Funny Ways

Simon Marcus is one of those quiet London heroes, running a boxing academy in Tottenham and Hackney, focusing on youth in danger of exclusion (or to use the US term, 'expulsion') from school.

His thoughts are eminently worth considering, because they ring so true.

We are a strange lot, the human race. We learn in funny ways. Once you break a taboo it is gone, once you break a boundary it is gone, if you get away with something and you enjoy it, you do it again. When kids attack teachers, (and it happens thousands of times a year) being sent to the cooling off room is pretty much a reward, a fixed term exclusion often makes no odds either. If a social worker tells a teenage mum the word ‘no’ emotionally damages a child, a message goes out. If an adult admonishes a gang of children for littering and gets a police caution a message goes out. If a father is reported to the police for smacking a child a message goes out. If an adult is arrested for grabbing a child who is stealing, or assaulting another child, a message goes out. If knife criminals receive community sentences, a message goes out. If people tell you about your rights as a child, and never about your responsibilities, a message goes out. If teenage girls are given flats for having babies a message goes out. If the police arrest you fifty times and nothing happens a message goes out.

A great week to all OS's readership. He is grateful for each and every one of you.

Katherine Birbalsingh Weighs In On The London Rioters, And She Deserves To Be Heard!

Her essay is here.

For anyone of OS's readers who have not yet bought and read, and shared Miss Katherine's book, To Miss With Love, now, not tomorrow, is the day to purchase this book and read it cover to cover. It's not long, but you'll have to put it down from time to time to give yourself a moment to recover.

She describes, in detail, the rioters burning portions of London to the ground, and how they became who they are.

Her recent essay gives more insight:

Many of these mindless thugs involved in the riots don’t think more than 10 minutes into the future. They think that stealing trainers is ‘fun’, not even considering that it might be wrong. Many of them are, quite literally, unable to read and write: 17 percent of 15-year-olds are functionally illiterate. If you de-educate an entire generation, if you constantly make excuses for their behaviour, if you never teach them the difference between right and wrong, then chaos is what you reap. These young people are just implementing what they’ve learnt at school!

Teachers can only keep the peace in the classroom because they have established authority. Where there is order in classrooms, children show respect because they have been taught to respect teachers. ONE teacher can therefore command the respect of hundreds of children. It is the same with the police and order in society. The police cannot hope to outnumber the rioters. As a civilised society, we rely on a sense of morality in our people to keep the order. How did the Japanese survive their recent nuclear disaster? They queued quietly for food and help, and waited. They didn’t say ‘ME ME ME’! Do young people wear hoodies in Japan? Do Japanese children question their teacher’s authority? Do Japanese adults defend the appalling behaviour of their youth? NO.

We are an international disgrace. What would happen if the teacher left her classroom and said that she was ‘keeping a close eye on things from her holiday home’? Theresa May, Home Secretary, was the only one of our leaders, whether Conservative or Labour, who returned from holiday immediately when Tottenham exploded. Where were all of our leaders? If even our politicians refuse to take responsibility for their ‘classrooms’, then how can we expect the children to remain in their chairs?

Buy the book, ya'll. Read it. Buy some more copies, and give them to your kinfolks and friends. This lady has something hugely important to say to our time.

A Brave Londoner Faces Down The Rabble In Hackney

Here's the London we know and love. Decency and fearlessness, at the top of her lungs.
God bless her, and preserve the good people of England.

London Riots Overnight, Thoughts And Prayers To Our Friends

The BBC coverage is looping here, and it is shocking.

The police are putting everything they have into controlling as much of the situation as they can. OS is searching Google Maps to see where the chaos is in relation to where his friends in London live and work. Some of it is in perilous proximity.

The reaction of the law-abiding citizens is one of of shock. There is a long tradition of civility in that society, and they seem at a loss to comprehend what has happened before their eyes. And, let's be clear--it's mainly black youths on the streets, taking advantage of the chaos to vent their spleen, and steal whatever isn't nailed down. This is not about politics or poverty--it is about depravity, pure and simple.

It can happen anywhere, and it can happen to us here. However, OS opines that, in many US cities and towns, looters breaking into stores encounter shop owners greeting them with shotguns as they enter. The bandits know it, and that knowledge serves to discourage rioters. It is one reason there was no looting in Nashville following last year's floods. The New Orleans police, by contrast, did all they could to disarm the law-abiding post-Katrina, and then were shocked to find looters at large.

Citizens in the UK are not allowed this means of defense of life and property. They are obliged to flee and wait for the police and fire department to arrive.

It is something to consider again in the UK, and to preserve in the US.

Thoughts and prayers to all ya'll, from your US cousins.