:00:02. > :00:10.it is time for HARDtalk. Cities burning, shops looted, police
:00:10. > :00:13.seemingly overwhelmed. London and a host of other English cities have
:00:13. > :00:18.seen the worst outbreak of street violence in a generation. What
:00:18. > :00:21.prompted these summer riots? How will David Cameron deliver his
:00:21. > :00:30.promised fightback against what he calls sick elements in British
:00:30. > :00:33.society? I am joined by a community youth worker turned conservative
:00:33. > :00:43.politician, Shaun Bailey. A former senior policeman, Peter Power. How
:00:43. > :01:03.
:01:03. > :01:13.deep is this English malaise? Peter Power, Shaun Bailey, welcome to
:01:13. > :01:13.
:01:13. > :01:16.HARDtalk. Shaun Bailey, I will start with you. David Cameron calls
:01:16. > :01:20.what has happened in recent days across England criminality.
:01:20. > :01:30.Criminality pure and simple. Is it as simple as that? Clearly that is
:01:30. > :01:31.
:01:31. > :01:35.true. If you look at the random and sporadic nature of the violence. To
:01:35. > :01:41.say that they are young people who are angry, that is often said. But
:01:41. > :01:48.what has happened has a lot to do with criminality. That does not
:01:48. > :01:51.explain why it is happening now. If it is criminality, why would so
:01:51. > :01:55.many young people decide to act collectively at this particular
:01:55. > :02:04.time? They are not acting collectively. They are acting in
:02:04. > :02:12.small groups. I'm a youth worker, I see the Facebook pages, the Twitter
:02:12. > :02:21.comments, I know what it means for people aged 18 and under. Young
:02:21. > :02:31.adults are making deliberate calculated actions in small groups.
:02:31. > :02:35.
:02:35. > :02:38.It is not as complex as the trouble we had in the 1980s. As a top
:02:38. > :02:41.policeman, you were intimately involved with the police handling
:02:41. > :02:45.of the Brixton riots one generation ago. Is it fundamentally different
:02:45. > :02:52.from that? Yes and no. The more things change the more they stay
:02:52. > :02:54.the same. Some things are different. On the one hand, people are being
:02:55. > :03:04.very naive saying this is nothing more than aggressive late-night
:03:04. > :03:08.shopping with the benefit of not paying for anything. Others are
:03:08. > :03:16.saying, this is an outburst on the basis of being repressed for years.
:03:16. > :03:24.I see no evidence of the latter. The police are giving them a free
:03:24. > :03:27.run. That was apparent on the first night of violence. You see it as an
:03:27. > :03:37.expression of a complete lack of credibility for the British police
:03:37. > :03:38.
:03:38. > :03:41.force? That is part of it to be honest. There was a very long delay.
:03:41. > :03:46.People are being fed up with feeling sorry for police officers.
:03:46. > :03:48.They would rather be proud of them. The lessons from the 80s are not
:03:48. > :03:52.being learned. I want to talk a lot about the
:03:52. > :03:59.lessons. Let's begin with something simple. A discussion about who the
:03:59. > :04:09.rioters, looters, really are. You have worked with a lot of youth in
:04:09. > :04:15.London. Who do you believe these people are? The vast majority of
:04:15. > :04:25.British youth are at home watching the television. What you are seeing
:04:25. > :04:29.
:04:29. > :04:35.here is the result of 20 years of liberal treatment of our youth. We
:04:35. > :04:38.what a family is... Who is responsible for these young people?
:04:38. > :04:43.In Britain, the biggest thing I see going on, shing on, shpolice we can
:04:43. > :04:49.do what we want to do. We are showing the police who is in charge.
:04:49. > :04:52.It is about confronting authority. That is what the youth do. We have
:04:52. > :04:57.centralised abuse so far it has been brought out into the public
:04:57. > :05:07.arena. There are other black community workers, they have a
:05:07. > :05:08.
:05:08. > :05:18.slightly different perspective. One says: There have been warning signs
:05:18. > :05:19.
:05:19. > :05:23.for a long time that something like this could happen. To behave in
:05:23. > :05:26.this manner, young people have to believe they have no stake in their
:05:26. > :05:29.neighbourhood and consequently no stake in the wider society. He is
:05:29. > :05:33.pointing to social problems, poverty, as a driver, as a context
:05:33. > :05:37.in which this is happening? It is not right to talk about this as a
:05:37. > :05:40.black problem. If you look at this, it is a universal problem. There
:05:40. > :05:47.are just as many white people as anyone else. The tensions between
:05:47. > :05:57.the police and the black society are historic. There are communities
:05:57. > :06:02.
:06:02. > :06:06.that have nothing to do with the black community taking part. To say
:06:06. > :06:11.that poverty leads to criminality of this type is wrong. These people
:06:11. > :06:15.have been poor for years. Because of the amount of community groups
:06:15. > :06:18.involved, this mainly is about criminality. That is interesting.
:06:18. > :06:22.Talking about your experience in Brixton, there is no question there
:06:22. > :06:32.was a major race problem in south London during that particular time.
:06:32. > :06:34.
:06:34. > :06:37.That was a generation ago. Many international media organisations
:06:37. > :06:40.are still saying that at heart there is a racial tension problem
:06:41. > :06:50.in London and other big English cities. As a former policeman, do
:06:50. > :06:54.you think that is wrong? It is slightly off-target. Yes, there has
:06:54. > :07:02.been a lot of conflict following the Ian Tomlinson inquiry. The
:07:02. > :07:12.police came out of these inquiries very badly. Institutionally racist.
:07:12. > :07:17.
:07:17. > :07:20.To go back to the question. You have only got to look at the
:07:20. > :07:25.occupation of the people. Most people are employed, it is not a
:07:25. > :07:29.question of property at all. There are university students, there are
:07:29. > :07:39.youth workers, amazingly today we have one person in the court who is
:07:39. > :07:47.
:07:47. > :07:51.a primary-school teacher. What does that tell us? One person I was
:07:51. > :07:54.looking at was convicted and given one day in prison but walked away
:07:54. > :07:57.free because he spent the night in police custody waiting for trial.
:07:57. > :08:00.That is not punishment. Primary school teaches are deeply
:08:00. > :08:10.worrying... I have heard Martin Luther King being mentioned behind
:08:10. > :08:10.
:08:10. > :08:16.this, it is nonsense. Where do we go with this? If one listens to
:08:16. > :08:20.what young people are saying, they often refer to free stuff. There
:08:20. > :08:29.seems to be a materialism and greed about what some people is doing
:08:29. > :08:36.which I have not heard before. you have a look in the 80s, as it
:08:36. > :08:44.came to its conclusion, there was a big social problem. We are looking
:08:44. > :08:54.at the consumerisation of our children. They are breaking into
:08:54. > :08:57.
:08:57. > :09:03.shops because they have the latest technology. I work with the
:09:03. > :09:06.children. I am not responsible for them. That is one of the things
:09:06. > :09:09.wrong in this country. Everything in this country, everyone looks to
:09:09. > :09:19.the government. What is the government going to do about it? I
:09:19. > :09:29.ask what are you going to do about it? We need to talk about who is in
:09:29. > :09:31.
:09:31. > :09:34.charge. Who is responsible? If the parents are not capable of imposing
:09:34. > :09:38.the ethical codes you are pointing towards, either you write these
:09:38. > :09:42.children off, they are permanent danger to society, or you have to
:09:42. > :09:45.come up with different public policies that can turn them around?
:09:45. > :09:52.All of our public policies concentrate on the children not on
:09:52. > :10:00.the family unit. Not on the adults. If your child who is ten years-old
:10:00. > :10:10.or something, it is no longer your concern. We have the biggest youth
:10:10. > :10:18.
:10:18. > :10:22.population in Europe. In prison. We do not educate our children in
:10:22. > :10:26.there. We have the moral right to educate for their own good. We do
:10:26. > :10:30.not. That is the kind of policy that is to change for this country.
:10:30. > :10:34.I want to talk about the policies you think that could change that. I
:10:34. > :10:37.want to talk about language a little bit. David Cameron in his
:10:37. > :10:47.most recent statement said, there are pockets of English, British
:10:47. > :10:51.society, that are sick. He used this word: Sick. What do you think
:10:51. > :11:01.is the use of using a word like this? Talking about whole pockets
:11:01. > :11:03.
:11:03. > :11:07.of Britain as sick. It is a bad thing to use language like this as
:11:07. > :11:10.a political football for some gain. Some of the language coming out is
:11:10. > :11:13.about vigilante groups setting up on the street. Protecting their own
:11:13. > :11:23.properties because they do not believe the police are doing it.
:11:23. > :11:25.
:11:25. > :11:31.Three young men trying to defend their own property in Birmingham.
:11:31. > :11:34.That is very worrying. There is a language and emotion behind that,
:11:34. > :11:38.how much to blame are the media? want to speak about something
:11:38. > :11:47.peculiarly British about the sickness. You talk about the youth
:11:47. > :11:50.you work with. The failure of the parents to inculcate values. Let me
:11:50. > :11:53.read you something from one of Britain's most respected
:11:53. > :12:03.journalists. Talking of the people doing the looting. They are
:12:03. > :12:04.
:12:04. > :12:07.essentially wild beasts. They are the product of a culture that gives
:12:07. > :12:11.them so much they are let off learning how to become human beings.
:12:11. > :12:15.My dogs are better behaved and subscribe to a higher set of values
:12:15. > :12:25.that the young rioters we see on the streets. How do you react to
:12:25. > :12:26.
:12:26. > :12:28.that sort of analysis? If you work with young people, we are so busy...
:12:28. > :12:37.But we should not be dehumanising them, comparem, comparnfavourably
:12:37. > :12:42.to dogs. I would not have used those words, but he is referring to
:12:42. > :12:45.the fact that we have a nation that is split in two parts on these
:12:45. > :12:49.people. The press, who are all over them, and others, who defend them
:12:49. > :12:52.at all costs. We need a middle ground. There is a culture of
:12:52. > :13:02.entitlement. There is a real culture of "I will not get in
:13:02. > :13:12.trouble." There is a culture. The words that my boys are saying...
:13:12. > :13:18.
:13:18. > :13:21.If we are talking about poverty, the poverty we are not talking
:13:21. > :13:24.about is material lack but a poverty of values, ambition and
:13:24. > :13:27.aspiration and the sense that a person can make something of
:13:27. > :13:31.themselves. Absolutely. Why is it so prevalent in this country today?
:13:31. > :13:35.Because we are the most PC nation in the world. We will not say no to
:13:35. > :13:38.anybody. We will not tell people that they are wrong or force them
:13:38. > :13:44.to face the consequences of their actions. And we abdicate power.
:13:44. > :13:49.This is what happens. Those children rioting - and I use the
:13:49. > :13:59.word children - were just showing you that this is what we do.
:13:59. > :14:00.
:14:00. > :14:03.catastrophic mistrust in authority. There is such a disbelief in
:14:03. > :14:12.politicians as well. And you cannot blame people for feeling that way,
:14:12. > :14:15.sometimes. You have already made the case that the police have got
:14:15. > :14:17.to be more aggressive and self confident, that they have to show
:14:17. > :14:20.more leadership and be less restrained. But frankly, the last
:14:21. > :14:24.20 years of policing have time and again throw up problems where the
:14:24. > :14:32.police have been too aggressive and the British public does not seem to
:14:32. > :14:34.like that sort of in-your-face policing. I know what you mean but
:14:35. > :14:44.policing has always been important. Taking reasonable steps. It is a
:14:45. > :14:45.
:14:45. > :14:48.definition of proportionate. One problem is that the police force
:14:48. > :14:51.across the country has a mild version of institutional
:14:51. > :14:54.schizophrenia in the sense that they do not know if they are a
:14:54. > :15:02.police service or a police force. A service sounds better and more
:15:02. > :15:05.politically correct. But as recently as a few months ago, there
:15:05. > :15:15.was an analysis of how many police forces have tested their
:15:15. > :15:21.
:15:21. > :15:24.mobilisation plans. Only half. Suddenly, they are all doing it. We
:15:24. > :15:26.have a problem where we have slipped into the area of social
:15:26. > :15:29.engineering rather than upholding the law. But Britain has been very
:15:29. > :15:33.proud in the past of its community consensus in policing techniques.
:15:33. > :15:35.Now, David Cameron is saying that all bets are off, nothing is off
:15:35. > :15:41.the table. There is discussion about water cannon, plastic bullets
:15:41. > :15:44.and so on. I saw one newspaper opinion poll that suggested that
:15:44. > :15:47.the British public would prefer to see the army on the streets. Is
:15:47. > :15:50.that the direction you want to take? Firstly about the army, the
:15:50. > :15:53.police are a scalpel compared to the army. You cannot bring the
:15:53. > :16:03.soldiers of this country onto the street. That would be a complete
:16:03. > :16:04.
:16:04. > :16:07.disaster. What I would say is that if the police intend to be more
:16:07. > :16:13.robust and self confident in their policing, what they need to address
:16:13. > :16:16.is their communication. The initial incident that sparked these riots
:16:16. > :16:20.could have been avoided by a few words being said by the police
:16:20. > :16:28.instead of that clamping down, not putting anything out. If the police
:16:28. > :16:31.had just said, "Listen, we have had this incident. We are going to
:16:31. > :16:33.suspend these officers until we go through the evidence" We are
:16:33. > :16:37.talking about the opening incident when an individual called Mark
:16:37. > :16:42.Duggan was shot dead by policemen and the family were very upset by
:16:42. > :16:46.the way the police then tried to explain that. And rightly so. They
:16:46. > :16:56.have put a bureaucracy in the middle, the IPCC. It needs to be
:16:56. > :16:57.
:16:57. > :17:05.looked at. One thing we need to say about bringing in the army is that
:17:05. > :17:08.it is absolute nonsense. Police officers have always had the
:17:08. > :17:18.authority to use baton rounds and so on. And they have not. Apart
:17:18. > :17:19.
:17:19. > :17:22.from Northern Ireland, they have not used it. What we are talking
:17:22. > :17:30.about, what we learnt that Northern Ireland only works when you have
:17:30. > :17:36.fixed points. But when you look at some of the recommendations, that
:17:36. > :17:39.worries me. There is a more general point. There is hysteria in the UK
:17:40. > :17:43.at the moment, a great passion to see security and law and order
:17:43. > :17:46.restored to our streets and that has led to calls for the police to
:17:46. > :17:49.be much more proactive. It has also led David Cameron to say that
:17:49. > :17:53."phoney concerns" about human rights should not get in the way.
:17:53. > :18:00.For years, there have been concerns that Britain is one of the most
:18:00. > :18:03.heavily surveiled societies in the entire world. We have more CCTV
:18:03. > :18:06.cameras than any other society in the world. Do we want to go further
:18:06. > :18:15.down that road? Sometimes we tolerate surveillance on the back
:18:15. > :18:18.of another key threat, which is terrorism. This is different.
:18:18. > :18:22.People all around the world are wondering what has happened to the
:18:22. > :18:32.UK? We are now policed by people who look like Darth Vader from Star
:18:32. > :18:32.
:18:32. > :18:36.Wars. There has been a huge reluctance to do this. But the fear
:18:36. > :18:39.is, and it is real, that so many senior police officers for so long
:18:40. > :18:42.have been signed up to the doctrine that use of force is only a last
:18:42. > :18:45.resort. The proportionate use of force early on - proportionate -
:18:45. > :18:55.can prevent more prolonged trouble. You do not want to spread the
:18:55. > :18:59.
:18:59. > :19:03.message that you are enfeebled. Does that not worry you? You work
:19:03. > :19:07.in some deprived parts of London and if the people you work with it
:19:07. > :19:10.saw that the police had a new remit to use full force not as a last
:19:10. > :19:14.resort but as an intermediate resort, that is going to lead to
:19:14. > :19:16.all sorts of troubles, isn't it? would say that the police leaning
:19:16. > :19:19.back from using aggressive tactics is always a good thing. Because
:19:19. > :19:23.that is what damages communities and their relationship with police
:19:23. > :19:27.in the long-term. But in our current situation, police are
:19:27. > :19:31.trapped. People say that this community is turning in on itself
:19:31. > :19:41.and we expect you to deal with it. So, who do they defend? Who do they
:19:41. > :19:42.
:19:42. > :19:52.go after? There is a balance between private, individual rights
:19:52. > :19:53.
:19:53. > :19:56.and privacies on the one hand and collective security on the other.
:19:57. > :19:59.One final point for you, do you believe it is right that police
:19:59. > :20:01.should assume new powers to intercept the currently encrypted
:20:02. > :20:05.BlackBerry messenger services that so many people appear to have used?
:20:05. > :20:15.Would you be happy with this? Short-term fixes lead to long-term
:20:15. > :20:18.
:20:18. > :20:24.problems. Invading something that in the 21st century we now see as a
:20:24. > :20:28.right has an element of Big Brother that will not be tolerated. Hasty
:20:28. > :20:33.legislation does not work. We need cooler heads now and not snap
:20:33. > :20:43.judgements. This is one of the things that will be discussed by
:20:43. > :20:50.
:20:50. > :20:54.politicians. But front and centre of those discussions will be what
:20:54. > :20:56.you have already alluded to, which is how to inculcate a different set
:20:56. > :20:59.of values, a greater sense of value and responsibility, into young
:20:59. > :21:03.people. You have suggested there were ways public policy could help
:21:03. > :21:07.that process. What are they? We have a young set of children who
:21:07. > :21:11.will be easy to teach. There are older ones who will be more
:21:11. > :21:14.stubborn. And many with a broken families, so we can forget about
:21:14. > :21:22.the parents. I don't think we should. We should force these
:21:22. > :21:32.people to take responsibility. We have a system that from the very
:21:32. > :21:33.
:21:33. > :21:35.top to the very bottom rewards failure. You are a Conservative. I
:21:35. > :21:38.imagine you believe in small government, opposing the nanny
:21:38. > :21:43.state, and here you sit saying that the government in the future has to
:21:43. > :21:46.force parents to moralise and control their children.
:21:46. > :21:51.government has got to have a reaction that provides a better
:21:51. > :21:54.course to take for your children. Currently, not looking after
:21:54. > :21:57.children has no impact on your life because we will clothe, feed and
:21:57. > :22:03.reprimand any action they take. That needs to be turned around. We
:22:03. > :22:11.do not need a large state to do that. But we do need a better
:22:11. > :22:20.discourse both in the state and in the public. In public, the
:22:20. > :22:24.discourse is very weak and that needs to change. You have consulted
:22:24. > :22:29.on the handling of crises. security of the nation is in
:22:30. > :22:32.question. Boris Johnson has said that specific programme he believes
:22:32. > :22:36.might work might be making mandatory national community
:22:36. > :22:42.service for young people. Do you buy into that? It is a typical
:22:42. > :22:47.Boris Johnson quote. Returning to the point that the security of the
:22:47. > :22:57.country is in question, I do not think that it is. But people have
:22:57. > :22:58.
:22:58. > :23:01.lost their businesses. I had thugs running down my own street in west
:23:01. > :23:05.London and I was calling the police on 999 but they could not answer
:23:05. > :23:09.and they were too busy and I wanted to know where the security of
:23:09. > :23:13.Britain was right then! Taken on a national scale, if you put a pin in
:23:13. > :23:16.a map of the UK and say that this is where the disorder is, in huge
:23:16. > :23:20.amounts of land, there is no disorder at all. Let us hope it
:23:20. > :23:24.stays that way. The UK has certain physiological needs in order to
:23:24. > :23:27.carry on working. We need food and so on. None of that is jeopardised
:23:27. > :23:34.on a grand scale. But the perception is far worse, perhaps.
:23:34. > :23:37.Perception. Let us end by thinking about the international perception
:23:37. > :23:43.of this. Do you think there is something particularly sick about
:23:44. > :23:47.Britain right now? I think that the word sick is a very powerful word
:23:47. > :23:51.and it is a good word. Many people in the world will be astonished at
:23:51. > :23:53.the way we govern ourselves, the way we talk about our children, our
:23:54. > :23:58.families, the way in which we school children, the way in which
:23:58. > :24:02.our judicial system works. Most of the world may have an old-fashioned
:24:02. > :24:05.view of what goes on. They will be surprised by how liberal and PC we
:24:05. > :24:15.have become. Shaun Bailey and Peter Power, thank you both of you for
:24:15. > :24:26.
:24:26. > :24:30.Power, thank you both of you for joining me.
:24:30. > :24:35.The rain in Scotland has been easing off. It has been a very wet
:24:35. > :24:44.couple of days for central and eastern Scotland. It has been a
:24:44. > :24:50.very wet month. Over twice the monthly rainfall already. It has
:24:50. > :24:54.always -- also been a very wet start to the Edinburgh Festival. It
:24:54. > :24:59.is the western side of the UK that was the most of the rain. It could
:24:59. > :25:05.be a bright start for the north- east of Scotland. A cloudy start
:25:05. > :25:11.for the rest of Scotland. Not much rain is falling. It is largely dry
:25:11. > :25:18.in Northern Ireland but rain is waiting in the wings. Rain and
:25:18. > :25:22.drizzle in the south-west of Scotland. It is a gloomy start for
:25:22. > :25:31.Wales and the south-west of England. A lot of low cloud a sitting over
:25:31. > :25:35.the hills. In the south-east of England it is not so gloomy. Skies
:25:35. > :25:40.are brighter. The dry weather extends through the Midlands.
:25:40. > :25:45.Eastern areas of England will see what is left of any sunshine.
:25:45. > :25:50.Further west there is not much sunshine at all. The cloud is
:25:50. > :25:55.thickening and we see rain settling-in in Northern Ireland.
:25:55. > :26:03.Some rain is developing in Wales and western England. Temperatures
:26:03. > :26:13.18-19 degrees. For the cricket, there will be a lot of cloud. Not
:26:13. > :26:16.
:26:16. > :26:21.much rain around. We may get some rain in the evening. We will see
:26:21. > :26:26.rain crossing from west to east as some weather fronts moving from off
:26:26. > :26:33.the Atlantic. There is a lot of cloud around. Some rain Friday
:26:33. > :26:38.night into Saturday morning. 14-15 degrees in the south. The weekend
:26:38. > :26:43.starts off cloudy. The rain will linger across East Anglia and the
:26:43. > :26:52.south-east all morning. Further west it brightens up. We have a few