Riots - fools argue the case for doing nothing

There are pretty standard techniques in politics when you don't want anything to happen. One is to seek to widen whatever the issue is until it becomes too broad to be addressed. So, let's link the riots to bankers and MPs expenses or better yet the morals of our entire society. Then argue that unless you fix all of that you can't or shouldn't do anything. This is pretty much Miliband's approach, and that of many commentators on the left, and a few on the right. You see it sounds all grown-up and the voice of wisdom, when in reality it is an abdication of any practical measures. In this case it means having a high-level debate about public morality while dismissing any other measure as 'knee-jerk'. Let's leave our estates under the control of criminal gangs and don't make any practical policing and criminal justice changes while we let the leader writer's pontificate. It's a recipe for people in leafy suburbs or nice detached cottages to feel good about themselves because they aren’t just condemning the criminals who torched our city centres. Of course, while they are off being mature those same inner cities have to deal with criminal thugs who are effectively being protected by the people for whom extended debate is a substitute for action. In fact, these are people who actually hold those who advocate action with contempt.

This approach melds into the second great way to make sure that nothing changes, which is to hold a public enquiry, Miliband's second great idea. So, everything is put on hold until the enquiry reports, which typically takes a year or two. Then the measures that it proposes may or may not be adopted. Meanwhile on the ground nothing changes, which is, of course, what certain people want.

It is one thing for a fool like Miliband to adopt a policy of doing nothing. After all, anything else would mean confronting his own prejudices that families don't matter and that the only issue is how much public money is thrown at a problem. I do find it depressing when those on the right start to ape his language, as if dealing with financial regulation will help the family living next door to a bunch of 'gangstas' on one of our inner-city estates. To those people I simply say that the majority of the public are simply not interested in your hot air and want the primary problems of criminals and gangs dealt with.

If you don't understand that then you need to get out more.