The terrible and revolting scenes of burning and looting in those parts of London and elsewhere with large Afro-Caribbean populations have shown up the terrifying inadequacy of contemporary politicians and police chiefs.

“Covenants without Swords are but Words”

is as true today as when Thomas Hobbes wrote it in The Leviathan in 1651. The surrender to mob violence mirrors the breakdown of discipline in schools and is due essentially to the same liberal moralist philosophy which scorns force as a means of “resolving disputes between people”. This philosophy of words of course enhances the career prospects of the talking, physically weak classes, most obviously females, whose presence in the senior ranks of executive government (with some outstanding exceptions) [1] and the most senior ranks of the police, is undermining people’s personal security [2] and shaming us before the whole world.

Few women, except those who have been attacked, have any concept of the sheer speed of the violence which young six-foot males in their late teens or early twenties are capable of. Deploying 5’4” females in any “physical” role is expensive, politically correct, folly.

An inadequate, out of her depth Home Secretary

Listeners to Teresa May, the British Home Secretary, who is directly in charge of the Metropolitan Police, being interviewed by BBC’s John Humphrys on the “Today Programme” of 9 August will have realised as never before her personal inadequacy for her job and that of the liberal moralist philosophy she believes in.

While photos of people jumping out of the first floor flats on the third night of rioting as flames engulfed the shops below, were being broadcast round the world, May’s answer to Humphrys’s question about using the Army – “in support of the Civil Power” as the official phrase has it – was to say “we are going to sit down and discuss with the police what they need” and “these young people, (i.e. mainly black teenage youths) have got to consider the effects of their actions”.

What liberal moralists like May can’t get their heads round is that these “young people” are extremely pleased with their actions – the best night’s fun they’ve ever had plus truck-loads of looted [3] trainers, mobile phones, clothing and alcohol. The number one “effect of their actions” the public want to see is condign punishment up to and including the limits set by the Public Order Act 1986 (10 years in prison for riot; 5 years for violent disorder; 3 years for affray), by the Theft Acts 1968 and 1978 (7 years), by the Criminal Damage Act 1971 (10 years and if Arson is proved the maximum is Life imprisonment) and by the common law offences of Incitement and Conspiracy, including the use of Twitter (maximums correspond to those for the offences incited).

Theresa May takes a decision

The one actual decision which May has taken, after four days of rioting, is that water cannon will not be used because: “I don’t think anyone wants to see water cannon on the streets of Britain” (sic – she means mainland Britain: they have been very effectively used on mobs in Northern Ireland) because “we have a different culture of policing here”. One wonders what event would lead her to change her mind – fire-bombing the Home Office perhaps?

Race moralism is virtually the religion of many senior policemen who, following the irresponsible Scarman and Macpherson reports of 1981 and 1999, have abandoned the centuries-old practice of upholding impartiality in law enforcement “without fear or favour”. One of the key texts in the new religion is the Association of Chief Police Officers’ 2002 Hate Crime Manual which inter alia says: “Policing that purports (sic) to treat everyone the same is flawed and unjust. It fails to take account of the fact that different people (they mean different races and cultures) have different reactions and different needs” (sic). In ghastly management speak, the manual goes on to say that “failure to understand these needs” (including presumably the urge to burn and loot) “means failure to deliver services appropriate to needs and an inability to protect people irrespective of their background”. This will be read with bitter irony by those having to jump for their lives out of their flats above burning shops.

What should be done now and in the immediate aftermath

Now, today:

1. The maximum force should be used to put down what in essence is an insurrection against lawful authority. Plastic baton rounds and water cannon should be transferred from Northern Ireland to London and the cannon deployed with coloured dye to hose down rioters after one verbal warning to leave the streets – the equivalent of “Reading the Riot Act”.
2. All police leave should be cancelled until the emergency is over. Policemen should be despatched immediately to whatever scene of looting and arson is shown on their CCTV screens. There will be time after control has been achieved to use CCTV to support prosecutions. The dye will help too.
3. The Army should be deployed to protect firemen and their fire engines. Soldiers should be given powers to arrest any person caught in the act of looting, arson, throwing stones.
4. As in Northern Ireland, police with or without local Army support, should form snatch squads to arrest fire-bombers and stone throwers rather than crouching behind shields as petrol bombs and stones are thrown at and behind them.
5. Advice on dispersing street mobs should be obtained from police officers in Northern Ireland.
6. Police officers in the front lines should be paid supplementary “danger money”.

Aftermath

1. Mrs May should be relieved of her job as Home Secretary.
2. The ACPO (2002) manual should be withdrawn as guidance to senior police officers and replaced with a short statement requiring them to maintain order irrespective of race or religious or “community” considerations.
3. The semi-military outfits of base-ball cap, blouson and dungarees adopted by “armed response units” are reminiscent in many eyes of some of the Continental police forces with unsavoury reputations. These outfits alienate people and encourage a “Starsky and Hutch” mentality in some officers. They should be replaced by conventional jackets, trousers and uniform caps.
4. The actual numbers of armed officers sent to “an incident” should be reduced to one or at most two, responsible personally to the police officer in charge. More than a dozen were sent to apprehend Mr Duggan, whose fatal shooting by police last Thursday sparked the rioting. In a turbulent situation, which most gun incidents are, there is a considerable risk of being hit by other police officers spread about (as seems likely to have happened in the Duggan case). The confusion which then ensues, puts innocent civilians as well as police lives at terrible risk.
5. An extension of the definition of “Parental Responsibility” in the 1989 Children Act (extensions 2004) is urgently needed. Parents of children under 18 living with them who allow them to roam the streets after certain times without taking all reasonable measures to stop this, should be liable to prosecution.

   This would complement the existing legal requirement that parents ensure their children attend school unless there is written evidence as to why they should be excused (e.g. sick or taught at home).

6. Stop all immigration for settlement for five years following which the British people should be asked in a referendum how much, if any, immigration they would permit in future.
7. Politicians and journalists should stop propagating the fiction that the native British people like the “diversity” of London and start a process whereby they can feel at home once again in what is their capital city (stopping immigration completely would be a major first step).
8. While it is true that the “devil finds work for idle hands”, it needs to be recognised that those with inadequate command of the English language, little or no sense of punctuality, hyper sensitive reactions to criticism of poor work, unwillingness to stick at something until they get it right, are unlikely to find a job whatever the economic situation. Only schools plus parents can correct this over time, but meanwhile the authorities must stockpile baton rounds, water cannon, coloured dyes, designate anti-riot squads in the inner cities, and come down really hard on any sign of youths gathering with criminal intent – only 12 present together in a threatening manner are needed to constitute a riot under the Public Order Act 1986.

Footnotes

[1] The outstanding exception in modern times is, of course, Margaret Thatcher, but as a realist she knew very well that physical force is the preserve of men.

[2] Tiny female superintendents are fast tracked through the ranks with no obvious qualification for responding properly to these terrifying events.

[3] From English and Asian businesses that is. The small number of Afro-Caribbean business have not been looted or torched apparently.

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