A political one....

I have had one of those talks today at work where an external consultant comes in to remind us of our duties as directors, Approved Persons (a financial services thing) etc. It’s quite amusing to see some of the newer members of the team blanch a little if they are getting the spiel for the first time. They now realise they are in a place where it’s not the “company” that takes the blame if something goes wrong, it’s them. But you run the business; you help decide its strategy and you take the key operational decisions. Responsibility comes with the territory. Doesn't it?

Most UK governments have been keen to stress personal responsibility for as long as I can remember. I don’t think I have lived through a truly socialist government – I am not sure what the Wilson/Callaghan 1974 / 79 administrations would have been like had they not been so horribly in debt. But everything I recall has been the State as (at best) a limited safety-net; not really seen as something that would look after people of my generation.

The impression we are given is that the current government has been at the more extreme end of this spectrum. It has looked for the individual to look after him or herself, says Mr Osborne, on the grounds that the government cannot afford it. And, although this grates with me, because I have always felt that looking after the disadvantaged is the most important thing a government should do, I see their point as arguable - we are in a financial mess.

And then I heard yesterday’s announcement from Mr Cameron that “money is no object” when dealing with the floods. I am very grateful that I am not in a flood-prone area, and have a lot of sympathy with those who are, but doesn't this astonishing comment strip away the facade of affordability? 

Home-owning middle-class people (more likely to vote Tory I guess) who are probably insured anyway, get the blank cheque, whilst the screw is tightened on lower income disadvantaged individuals (who probably won’t vote, but won’t vote Tory anyway). 

This says everything about the ideological background to much of what is being done. It does seem that there is an underlying “deserving v undeserving” logic to what we are now seeing. And I can say no more than it makes me ashamed to be British.

Oh, and the Daily Mail should refer to the reply given in Arkell v Pressdram as well.

Is Britain Sick?

This week's riots in London have proved a profound surprise to most people, except perhaps Darcus Howe. It took fully 25 minutes before the opinions on what must be done started to surface. Within four days a historian specialising in the Tudors was quoting Enoch Powell and causing apoplexy in the chattering classes.

Clearly where we have been going wrong all these years is in trying to let politicians and qualified individuals spend millions of pounds failing to solve a problem that is so simple some talking head on Newsnight can solve it in half an hour.

Lesson One - unless you equate David Cameron with Darth Vader you need to accept he, and all the politicians before him are trying to do what they think is right.

Politicians love success - and the easiest success - the "low-hanging fruit" comes from the easy things to fix. If it was easy, we wouldn't be having this problem.

Lesson Two - various people all have to take some responsibility for this to a certain extent.

NOTHING as far as I am concerned excuses the behaviour of the rioters themselves and some of them will sadly have their lives ruined by prison, conviction, eviction etc. This is a great shame when we are talking about teenagers, but it was obvious the State would come down on the ones who got caught like a ton of bricks.

Where the blame must start to be spread around is in looking at why this happened.

Did those who rioted know they were breaking the law? Probably not much debate about that.

Did they think that a hood and mask gave them Harry Potter-style invisibility? Perhaps - but in the most surveilled society in the world you'd have to assume some people are going to get caught.

Regardless though, if they knew it was illegal, why did they behave in that way? This is the thread I have seen emerging in society - of action without regard for its consequences.

Lives are taken for mobile phones, people are stabbed for being disrespectful. Shops are torched and looted. Most of the time someone - and usually someone young, is caught and convicted.

So the blame we as a society bear is for allowing a situation where people put so little value on life and property that they behave this way. Not just value on other people's property, value on their own lives, that they would make their future prospects much worse for a free new phone.

We have failed - as parents (we are top of the list), as educators (because whilst it's not easy, we simply haven't got through to a wide range of kids), as politicians (14 years of injecting money into the system has done nothing) and as a society in general.

As the dust settles, let's not jump to conclusions and solutions. Short term fixes may cure the symptoms, but we have got to diagnose the root causes and fix those if it is to work long-term. Look at LA, look at Paris - if there are answers they aren't quick and easy ones, and anybody expecting them is extremely naive.