UK riots: we need to encourage community responsibility

The recent riots that swept across the UK, were a shock to many people but what were the reasons behind them?

The first question to ask is, why did groups begin looting? The obvious answer must simply be that they stole because they knew they could get away with it. The police were over-stretched and the looters knew it. Once one group of people had looted successfully, then it was inevitable that more would attempt to copy them.

The problem with this analogy though, is that if this was the case, all shops and property would need armed guards at all times, as without protection there would be nothing stopping people from attempting to steal. The thing that stops people doing this on a daily basis, is of course morality.

You may answer that criminals will always try to commit crime and many of them may well lack basic morals, but large groups indulging in criminal activity is much more unusual and this is almost entirely down to our society's moral framework.

Most people are brought up with a vague idea of right and wrong. This is usually enough to prevent them turning to crime (apart from a minority of society), but during the riots these values did not prevent wrong-doing. The looters knew what they were doing was wrong, but they continued nonetheless.

Politicians talk about our society as 'broken' but this is a mistake. This label only serves to label sections of society and condemn them to their likely fate. For example, if you are a teenager growing up in a poor London borough with absent parents your future is already pretty desperate. If you are then put into a box marked 'broken' you could feel that you may as well live up to this label and act as you are expected to, in an irresponsible and selfish manner.

By talking up divisions in society we only serve to deepen them further. Going back to the riots, this has been a problem with the subsequent analysis of its root causes. Everybody is looking for someone to blame, be it the government, black culture (as David Starkey clumsily did so on Newsnight) the collapse of our moral framework or even our consumer culture.

One could argue for example that what bound the looters together was a love of consumerism and a desperate need for branded goods that they could not afford. There may be some truth in this when put against the shops that were targeted. For example, Currys, Foot Locker and JD Sports were all hit hard by looters and all sell expensive, desirable consumer goods.

However, consumerism is not all to blame. To look at it in a positive way, it encourages people to achieve and as a by product earn more money and enjoy a better quality of life. It does of course have negatives, with many poorer people unable to participate in the hoarding of expensive goods. This can provoke jealousy and ultimately criminal activity.

Another suggested reason behind the riots could be family breakdown. In the UK the divorce rate is almost 1/2 and whereas in the past children may have learnt moral standards from their parents, this may not be the case today. However, once again this argument has flaws. More marriages may have lasted in the past, but this is not to say that those families were good influences on their children. These days divorce is more socially acceptable, but as much as politicians deny it, sometimes it happens for the right reasons. It is much better for example for a child to grow up with one parent, than with two parents who hate each other.

The truth is that police inactivity, lack of morals, consumerism and family breakdowns are all reasons behind the riots. Where they all converge, is in a lack of collective responsibility. In truth, this country has not had a true collective responsibility since the second world war. Back then different communities joined together under one banner and for one aim: to win the war. Today we have a rich cultural and socio-economic heritage and often this is to our benefit, but far too often communities fail to integrate with others.

London is a good example of this. In many areas outrageously expensive town-houses sit alongside dilapidated council estates, neither community engaging with each other. This situation is not sustainable in the long-term and something needs to be done about it soon. In a city where there is enormous wealth, the poor should be getting richer over time, but the reality is the opposite, they are getting poorer.

The riots happened not because the poor wanted what the rich had or children from broken homes did not know right from wrong. They happened because people stopped caring about their own communities. The government's plan to toughen up police tactics may work in the short-term but in the long-term politicians need to engage with communities and try to understand why they have lost their identities. The blame game has to stop here.

Should we really be worried about swine flu?

This week has been the week of swine flu. It came from Mexico, spread to the USA and then moved overseas, including to the UK. As I write there are apparently 230 possible cases in the UK alone. A worrying business then?

Well perhaps not. It is not long ago that the world was in panic over the SARS outbreak. I remember getting off a plane at the time and having to fill in reams of paperwork before I could get off the plane. Luckily in this case it soon petered out.

Then there was the widepspread alarm over Bird flu, where we were warned this virus could cover the globe and cause savage destruction. I remember watching the news, where a map was shown plotting the advance of this terrible affliction, but once again it disappeared and was soon forgotten about.

Now it is the turn of swine flu. It is obviously a tragedy that in Mexico, eight people have died, but soldiers die all the time in places like Afghanistan and get little mention on the news. Just because the cause was flu, does this make these deaths more important?

Of course this is an irrational argument, but the "level 5" danger that we are told we are in could alarm people. It should be remembered that only nine people have died so far from the disease and most patients have responded well to treatment.

So the British government's advertisement campaign introduced today, could make things worse. "Catch it, kill it, bin it" is the catchy slogan for stopping germs spreading, but surely stopping your snot hitting people is something most people would do anyway. Do we really need the government to tell us how to sneeze?

The distribution of leaflets is another tool in their armoury. They give information about the virus and how to combat it. This may all be a little pointless. The World Health Organisation have admitted that it is now impossible to contain the outbreak, so why do we need all of this advice?

By giving people too much information, there is a strong risk that people will worry unnecessarily about catching swine flu, and that will not help the situation at all. By trying to help people, the government may well have made things worse.

Another negative for this advertising campaign is the cost. Surely distributing leaflets to every home in the UK and making TV and radio adverts is an expensive operation. At a time when the country is deep in recession, this could appear misguided.

So far there have been 212 confirmed cases of swine flu across the world and nine deaths. Without twenty four hour mass media, one must ask the question; would this be such a big story? Twenty four hour news is generally a good thing, as it gets the news to people fast, but when there is little news to update a story this can cause problems.

Taking the example of swine flu, the news channels have filled their air-time with spurious suggestions from so-called experts about what "might" happen. The word "might" is key here, as nobody really knows what will happen and conjecture is certainly not news.

Of course swine flu may end up killing us all, making the government's leaflets useless, but if most of us survive, will Gordon Brown have saved us from certain armageddon? I think not. Even the politicians can not control our sneezes, however much they would like to.