10/08/2011 Newsnight Scotland

conditions who, none the less will contribute to the society. Tonight

on Newsnight Scotland: 250 riot police from north of the border are

in Manchester and the Midlands this evening, helping quell what much of

the media are now calling the English - and not the British -

riots. How long will they have to stay there to prevent trouble

flaring up again as soon as they and other police forces leave? And

will anything be done to stop all this happening again? Good evening.

The First Minister, Alex Salmond, was quick to reassure the citizenry

here there are still 17,000 police officers to protect them. Meanwhile

the streets of English cities appear to be quiet tonight, helped

no doubt by a massive police presence in London and lashing rain

further north. Whether this is the end of the matter remains to be

seen but it leaves one large and rather obvious question, why are

thousands of people prepared to engage in wholesale looting the

moment they think they can get away Rioters ruled the streets again

last night. This time it was people in Manchester. Birmingham and West

Brom edge, who cowered as groups of looters talk up City centres. These

are symptoms of a broken society. There are parts of our society

which a broken and sick. When we see children as young as 12 and 13

looting and laughing, when we see the disgusting sight other injured

young man with people pretended to help him while they are robbing him,

it is clear there are things that are badly wrong in asked society.

Who's broken society is it? -- have in at society. London under siege

of violence. TV stations around the world a showing pictures of trouble

and they are describing it as the British riots. The first minister

says that could damage the reputation of Scotland. He has

pointed out it is an English and not a British problem. This view

has been criticised by the opposition who have called him

small-minded at the time of crisis. Some countries like Germany are

advising citizens against travelling to the UK. We have a

huge and important tourist industry. We have the Edinburgh Festival. We

won't know where to think that Scotland is anything but safe. --

we want no one. We need to respond to any eventuality. Grampian police

have sent 250 riot officers down south to help with the unrest was

up no sign of trouble up here for us but can we afford to be

complacent? Two Scottish teenagers are in custody tonight charged with

breach of the police. One is accused of using Facebook to

encourage people to riots. Glasgow has had a gang problem since the

30s. Many social issues blighting the English cities can be found

here as well. Young people in the West of Scotland, from my

experience, are experiencing the same things as some of these

youngsters possibly are in big English towns and cities where they

do feel socially excluded and there is no prospect for jobs, the whole

family perhaps have not worked. They are also exposed to a lot of

peer pressure to engage in recreational violence out on the

streets. The absence of racial tension has been given as a reason

why Scotland has escaped the disorder. The catalyst for the

riots in England was the death of a young black man, Mark Duggan, as he

was arrested by police. This is only part of the story. It is much

more of a sense of almost a lost generation cometh no value, at no

respect for any form of order or authority. We see almost a

reflection of the nature of society we are fast becoming if we do not

address the combination of issues that results in this kind of

anarchy really. It was total chaos. So far tonight there have been no

reports of disorder. Everyone hopes the violence is coming to an end.

Attention is turning to why it started. I'm joined by Professor

Greg Philo from the University of Glasgow, who has done extensive

work on role models for children amongst many other things. Alex

Richardson is the chief executive and founder of the charity,

Gladiator, which works with young people in Easterhouse here in

Glasgow. And in the capital is Dr Hugo Gorringe, an expert in public

order policing from the University of Edinburgh. Alex, I am curious

was do you work with young people. I hope they would not find it

insulting if I say it is the kind of demographic we have seen

involved in some of the trouble down in England. I'll their

differences up here? Do they not have some of the issues that a

leading to this? Are they not as opportunistic? The east end of

Glasgow predominantly has a long history mostly of territorial

problems. Kids cocooned in their own territories, their own gangs.

We do not have the racial mix you have but, nonetheless,

territoriality is just as lethal. The same thing you have his kids at

the bottom end of society who do not have any opportunities

themselves. Worse than that they have no hope of getting

opportunities. The politicians I have noticed quite rightly have

spent a lot of time condemning the riots and all the actions that have

happened down south. Very few answers come back. What is causing

the root problems and how do you solve it? You mentioned the problem

of race. There is a different racial mix. There are certainly a

lot of black kids in London who have been involved. There has been

no suggestion it is a result of racial tension. You think the young

people you deal with think the same Taking the racial -- racial issue

to the side, I think the other issues, people here feel that. That

can manifest. We're trying to create opportunities for young

people so they can life progress and character build and hopefully

become a job ready, if not now, as another date. Have you talked to

any of the kids about what is happening? The kids that we were

quiff are enjoying the opportunities that we are trying to

develop for them. About what is happening? Absolutely. They are

appalled as anybody else. There is always that danger, for every kid

that is causing trouble, the other one is stigmatised in the same way.

You are a young person, you must be a trouble maker. If it was adults,

you would not tar every adult with the same brush. This country, in

the last two or three years, has no sense of itself. One of the things

that was mentioned is one of the possible causes in the term of the

word greed in terms of looting. Greed applies to a lot of levels.

We look at society in last three years, you have seen the bonuses

with the banks, the political scandal with expenses for MPs, just

recently you have seen News International, in terms of phone

hacking. That's all caused by a breed. Is that reasonable, there is

no particular reason to think that someone who is in Clapham necking

and mobile-phone out of a shop because they can and thinking that

this is great fun, is particularly thinking well I am just doing the

same because of the News International scandal or something

like that. It I think there is a disconnection now it between reward

and effort. People are seen to be making piles of money as fast as

they possibly can. That is being shown to us every single day.

Things right tax avoidance and the simple making of money. Do you

think young people involved in this are aware of these? I think the see

a society they are excluded from and where some people have done

incredibly well. If you are living in London you can see fabulous

wealth next two incredible poverty. What has happened in the last 30

years is a free-market society, with a top ten %, top 5%, have

really enriched themselves end extraordinary way. The top 5% have

of four trillion pounds' worth of personal wealth. Dr Hugo Gorringe,

I am interested in you're a prospective it. Partly, who these

people are. If we are thinking about having earnest discussions

about the problems of youth in London, particularly black youth,

it is all about parenting and role models, when you look at the people

who are appearing in the magistrates' court today, you get a

rather different picture. There is a guy who was a teaching assistant

in a school, there was a guy who was a life-saver in a pool at a

health club, there were lots of students, including several white

students, there was a guy who was accused of smashing in a police car,

it turned out here was in the third year of a sports degree at Clapham

College. They are just not, when you see them in court, looking like

their image we have projected on them. Not a toll. I have agreed

with the previous two speakers as well. If we are talking about terms

of social responsibility, then that begins at the top as well. There is

been a long period of people abdicating responsibility. In terms

of the riots and who is taking part in the rioting and looting, I think

we need to differentiate between why these riots were triggered,

what led to them kicking off in the first place, and then those who are

taking part more opportunity is -- more opportunist Italy, because

shops are being trashed, because they are passing by. Studies of

riots, both in the UK and in France, suggest that they tended to be

triggered of where there are populations suffering from forms of

economic deprivation and where there is a history of antipathy

with the police. The trouble with that is that I am coming back to

the people appearing in court, which... The media will peck yet my

teaching assistance -- will pick up the teaching assistants. But maybe

the people who are doing this are not uneducated, maybe the people

doing this are not a literate. would fit in with what we have just

said. That would fit in with them thinking why should the bankers get

all the money? This current generation of youths RN remarkably

good form compared to their predecessors. They are shrewder as

to what is going on. One in four young people is currently

unemployed in this country. When you say they are more aware of

politics and the sort of things that Greg was talking about, what

you mean by that? Back to what I was speaking about earlier, the

powers of society at the top over the last two or three years that

should be the role model to offer hope to people, it is bad enough

when you do not have a job, but if you have no faith in the

opportunity scheme... I understand that you think that is a problem,

but are you telling me that when you go to work with young people in

Easterhouse, that is what they are saying to you? That is what it --

we employ 20 young people, their average to Bela banquette at this

moment in time is �40 billion, if you invested that money into a

three Scotland's -- Scottish cities, every young person would be working.

They would be taking their younger siblings of the street and out of

trouble. It would give it peer learning. Those opportunities do

not exist at the bottom level. I am saying to you is that I

understand you believe that, what I and Queen is whether the young

people in Easterhouse and other areas of Glasgow, are you really

saying they are coming to you with some work out a political analysis

that tells them it is unfair to them because of bankers salaries?

No, what I am saying is that if you have a more increased general

awareness that your predecessors, that can add to the feeling of

hopelessness and despair. Why should I bother to stay on the

straight and narrow? What chance have I got to get somewhere when

other people at higher levels are not showing the same moral

standards? Dr Hugo Gorringe, it's like the changing the subject today

it question of this situation politically and in terms of

policing, we were getting to the stage where this was almost about

the state power. Not in the sense that there was a revolutionary

group wanting to take over society, but poor Boris Johnson's London

administration, the Metropolitan Police, and David Cameron's

government had visibly failed to control the capital city of the

United Kingdom. Presumably, from the point of view of any state, you

cannot allow that to happen. In a democratic society it is very

difficult to police mass disorder on this scale. Public order tactics

are not designed to deal with these numbers of people. We do not have

enough police officers on the streets to contain, arrest order

spares the number of people who have been engaged in these riots.

They have to show that they can do that over the next few days. Yes,

they do. I think they are beginning to do that. The tactical flooding

the streets of London with officers there seems to have had some impact.

Interestingly, tonight there has been a bit of a stand-off in south-

east London between people who were coming out into the streets to

defend their property, there have been allegations that their English

Defence League was there, I do not know if that was true, the police

seem very keen to get them off the streets as well. If you are the

state, having vigilante groups, even though many people would

sympathise with people defending their own property, from the

state's point of view that is almost as dangerous as letters, it

says you have lost control. Yes, it also says that but eats away at

their legitimacy of the police and says they are not in control of the

situation and not able to differentiate between who's doing

what. It was interesting that there was a Guardian article this evening

suggesting that this was not the time for baton rounds and for water

cannon. His argument was about police legitimacy and he said that

if we start using more aggressive forms of policing, if we start

tolerating forms of vigilantism, then we may win the battle in terms

of getting people off the streets but we lose the war because we lose

people's respect and legitimacy. The rebate issue is that

politicians have not grasp that these are small numbers of people.

If you exclude 8 million people, the bottom 10% of our society have

literally less than nothing. They have literally no wealth of any

sort. That is 6 million people. You have got at least 8 million people

who are going nowhere in our society, that is a huge number of

people. What did you mean when you said they were a small number?

number protesting his tiny relative to 80 million. Relative to having

to police and area, it is still several thousand people. Suppose it

becomes 80,000, we are moving towards a division of wealth which

is close to Victorian Britain. When that happened in Victorian Britain

and the had riots, it was two or 300,000 people. You had six cities

under siege in 1831. People burnt down Nottingham Castle, there was

huge disorder. If you exclude a huge number of people... Are you

suggesting this could happen? course it could get worse. If Nick

Clegg suggested there would be riots if the Tories get in, before

the election he said if the Tories get into power there is a real

danger of riots in the streets. want to ask you about the police,

do you think... Do you think that there are feelings towards the

police that you have seen in London, reflected in Glasgow? Is there more

of a bond or more trust? We work closely with community safety. We

do link up from time to time and engage in this and try to break

down barriers. What I would like to touch on is in terms of vigilantism

we saw this in the 60s in Easterhouse growing up. Peons were

trying to break up the gangs. Vigilantism rates start -- starts

up with good causes. In London, right-wing extremist groups

attached themselves to this and it can become a race war. What

happened in Glasgow, it was parents? In the 1960s, you have got

to bear in mind that the housing schemes in Glasgow were built with

no amenities. The boredom led to the formation of the gangs. The

periods stepped in to try to prevent it. It was too late.

have got to leave it there. Thank you all very much indeed. Now, the

front pages for tomorrow. They are all about, as you would expect, no-

one else must die. That is the front page of the times. Hour six