Sunday, August 21, 2011

Blair's analysis of the riots is quite a good read and a worthy contribution to the debate, but there are some significant flaws to his argument worth flagging up.

In one of the better assessments Blair says of the rioters; "The left says they're victims of social deprivation, the right says they need to take personal responsibility for their actions; both just miss the point."
He is right to highlight that the philosophical divide isn't helpful, and solutions cannot come solely from the left or the right.

The right will fail to deal with the underlying causes - how can they do otherwise but fail? They believe in LESS Government intervention, not more, and it is hard to see how 'too much' Government intervention has brought about the riots....


The left's tendency to view all problems solely through the lens of financial inequality, poverty and deprivation also seems likely to hinder their ability to understand the sociological origins of the disorder. In particular, the Engelsian trait of hatred of the family nuclei may prevent proper interpretation of the dysfunctionality of families that Blair rightly highlights in his article.


However, Blair then states "The key is to understand that they aren't symptomatic of society at large." Well, no, insofar as society at large isn't on a precipice leaning towards rioting, but are they signs of an underlying problem with our society? I fear they are, and I believe many people will share that view.


In making the above statement, and that Britain isn't in the grip of a "moral decline", Blair then goes on to cite his very weak evidence to back it up; "I see young graduates struggling to find work today and persevering against all the odds. I see young people engaged as volunteers in the work I do in Africa, and in inter-faith projects. I meet youngsters who are from highly disadvantaged backgrounds where my Sports Foundation works in the north-east and I would say that today's generation is a) more respectable b) more responsible and c) more hard-working than mine was. "


His evidence is shockingly poor - the kind of thing only a politician would use (rather than an academic), typically when making a stump speech. He's relying on what he has personally come into close contact with; a very narrow sample indeed, and not something he should be depending on to give British society a clean bill of health.


I say to Blair - get out of your comfort zone, live for a while in an area that really suffers from serious youth violence, from anti-social behaviour, from racist division, and then think again. It wouldn't be hard for Blair to find such a place.


Or how about looking at the statistics around crime.... since 1959 we've seen a FOURTEEN fold increase in violent crime. See here for stats.


Now, whilst Blair can make his assessments of society by his measure of those he has come into contact with, so can I, and so can anyone else, and I have to say, having met many people from all walks of life, the prevalence of maltreatment by parents, abuse and suffering inflicted on people as they are children and adults, is shocking. How many people do you know who were abused by a friend or relative, or a random stranger? how many people have been assaulted? how many have mental illness? I have been assaulted, in a completely unprovoked attack, and it wasn't very nice, I can tell you - nor is mental illness, which I do not suffer from, but know many that do/have.

No, Blair's assessment is, like many politicians, sadly limited by his personal inexperience.


The phrase ad hominem is a bane on political argument because it prevents us from taking worthwhile account of someone's own experience and how it may have impacted on the views they express. Blair is an Oxford graduate, was educated at a prestigious public school, and has generally lived a quite sheltered life. Whilst I don't begrudge him, and I am sure there are many from privileged backgrounds who have provided excellent analysis of areas of life unfamiliar to them, Blair's background offers us some insight into what might be a rose-tinted view of British society; has he come face-to-face for a prolonged period with the kind of people from which disorder can arise? I think you need that before you brush aside concerns about our society.


Blair says "The true face of Britain is not the tiny minority that looted, but the large majority that came out afterwards to help clean up." I don't think the 'true face' of Britain can be simplified in such a way, but it is worth bearing in mind that 3,100 people have been arrested so far for involvement in the riots, which is doubtless just a small proportion of the number that were actually involved. Even with the best police work, it seems unlikely that they will have caught the majority of those who participated.


Moreover, the numbers of people that actually went out to clean up were very small. Lots of people agreed with the sentiment, and signed up to Facebook or Twitter groups indicating their views, but how many actually got out and helped?


Blair starts getting better towards the end of the article, but he makes a sweeping and flawed statement here; "However, I would be careful about drawing together the MPs' expenses row, bankers and phone-hackers in all this. We in politics love the grand philosophical common thread and I agree with Ed Miliband on the theme of responsibility.


I became an MP in 1983. Then, MPs were rarely full time, many didn't hold constituency surgeries and there were no rules of any bite governing expenses or political funding. So the idea that MPs today are a work-shy bunch of fraudsters, while back then they were high-minded public servants, is just rubbish: unfair, untrue and unhelpful.Likewise with the boardroom. I agree totally with the criticisms of excess in pay and bonuses. But is this really the first time we have had people engaged in dubious financial practices or embracing greed, not good conduct? If anything, today's corporations are far more attuned to corporate social responsibility, far better in areas like the environment, far more aware of the need to be gender- and race-balanced in recruiting."


The issue here is perception. Blair may well be right in saying not much has changed behaviour wise from MPs, bankers and journalists, but if people perceive them differently that is all that matters.



If crime goes down, but fear of it goes up, people will change behaviour accordingly - they will stop going out late at night in the area they perceive crime to be high. The same rule of perception applies for other issues.


If people perceive bankers and MPs to be behaving far more inappropriately, irresponsibly, and getting away with blue-murder, then yes, people may interpret that as unfair, indicating that not all are equal in the eyes of the law. The expenses scandal hogged the front-pages of the newspapers for months on end, so has the phone-hacking scandal, and the bankers bonuses story keeps on giving to this day; the world is not immune from these actions, they have repercussions, and people perceive a difference, a fall in the standards and norms which people in high office are obliged to follow, those who are meant to be setting an example.



Although we're sadly lacking substantial dialogue with and understanding of the actions of those that took part in the disorder and looting, I thought this video interview with some of those involved was intriguing, at one point one of the men says "and that's who the Government is looking out for, them people up there, that one pocket. They're not thinking about us", as he points to Canary Wharf.

http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/16048584 (noted - the interviewer asks a leading question here by pointing to the skyscraper, but he didn't indicate to the man anything about the Government, that was the man's response of his own accord).

Where I agree with Blair is that the root of this requires family interventions.



Irresponsibility and excessive inequality (not just in monetary terms but treatment by the law enforcement agencies too) are important factors.


But they are factors that ignited the flammable. That those involved in the rioting and looting were willing to engage in such behaviour says things about their particular backgrounds, and it is heartening that Blair, Cameron, and Miliband have all recognised this to some extent. All three have said things about the family, parental responsibility, and dysfunction, and these are themes that should have been long at the top list of priorities for any Government, yet have not been.





Blair says that we shouldn't talk Britain down with the broken society/moral decline rhetoric, as it sends a bad message abroad and damages our reputation. This would be a mistake, for we must openly debate the very real problems we have.

Other commentators have pointed out the opportunity these terrible actions have given, an opportunity to heal long held wounds. I share that view, and believe it is more important that we take that opportunity than worry about reputational effects, which in all probability would be transitory, whereas the problems with our society have an element of permanence about them.







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