Filed under: Crime
Although I am out of the country on holiday, the shocking murder of Rhys Jones has really brought home just how brutalised and broken our society has become. Since January 2007 there have been 18 murders (shootings and stabbings) of juveniles in Britain. Overseas the perception of Britain is that it has become the new Wild West with the increase of firearm and knife offences reflecting a genuine disregard by criminals of human life. Gang culture that perceives itself to be above the law has been allowed to thrive on our streets due to our pathetic laws and claims that our police are too over stretched to respond to increasing levels of gang related disorder. Social breakdown and violent crime are booming across Britain which off course is a world away from that ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’ vision promised by Labour all those years ago. Although I do not have the answer on how to reverse this trend, it seems clear to me that w e need to end the culture of individuals having ‘rights’ whilst abdicating all forms of responsibility. Parental love and responsibility can help to prevent the making of young criminals, as can a strengthened criminal justice system with deterrents such as automatic jail sentences for the possession of a weapon, along with life sentences (and no exceptions) and capital punishment for the most abhorrent crimes. Young people need boundaries and an understanding of what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. The state can no longer solve the problem of violent crime on its own. Families and individuals have a significant role to play in helping to mend our broken society. They need to recognise that ‘rights’ bring a responsibility to wider society and can help to create the stable communities which we would all like to live in.
Filed under: Uncategorized
According to news reports this morning (all of which are pretty gloomy), the government has said that it will challenge “robustly” the decision to allow the man who knifed the head teacher Philip Lawrence to death to stay in the UK. The decision to allow this man to stay in the UK, was made because to send him back to his country would have violated his ‘human rights’. This ridiculous decision highlights he real incompetence of the Government’s human rights legislation. In essence, the message to the law abiding majority is that under this Government, the human rights of a killer are of more importance that the rights of the victims of crime. This is such a terrible and a depressing case. The Lawrence family must feel utterly devastated by this ridiculous decision. The government must act now to correct this very wrong decision.
Filed under: Broken Society
Having been a blog free zone for the past few weeks (due to day job demands), I have emerged from my business haze just as the UK political scene gears itself up for what could well be an action packed autumn (and yes, I know that it is still apparently summer!). However, amidst all the speculation of a snap election and the daily political spats we read about, I have been waiting patiently to see some ‘inspirational political leadership’ – the type of leadership which is prepared to look beyond the immediate six to twelve months and provide a real vision as to how we can tackle some of the serious problems faced by our country today. Which is why I welcome the signal by David Cameron today to focus on the current social challenges facing Britain and on the problem he describes as our ‘broken society’. With issues of violent crime (just look back to those dreadful murders last week), social breakdown and yobbish behaviour threatening the way we all live our lives, I believe that we need real political courage and leadership to create a vision which leads to lasting change in this area. Recent political decision making (under Labour) has been dominated by short termism, getting a quick headline and generating an instant feel-good factor leading to the impression that the problem has been addressed – not exactly the right way to determine public policy. I believe that David Cameron is more than determined to address the area of social breakdown. The challenge now for the Party will be to outline the long term policy measures which can address this breakdown, whilst articulating a positive vision of the type of society we could all live in if this breakdown ended. Now that to me would be inspirational leadership .
