Systemic failure of our ruling elite.

There is neither justification nor excuse for the criminal behaviour being played out across the country.  No room for special pleading.  It is wrong.  An asinine journalist at  the Guardian tried to make a link with the financial cutbacks this government is making to 'explain' the riots and looting. It won't wash.

The reality is that what is happening on the streets is the product of the systemic failure of the Liberal, Labour and Conservative consensus, aided and abetted  (if not led) by Whitehall, to tackle the problems of poverty in this country.  All are to blame for failing to confront the issue.

The people of this nation have been taken for a ride: the level of immigration, the calamity of multi-culturalism, the failure of our education system, the seeming inability to  tackle poverty, the breakdown of communities:  all have contributed to the mess we are in.  The edifice which the Left and their fellow travellers built has come crashing down.

There will be a welter of recrimination.  Nothing will be the same again.  Consensus round the old  order has gone.

It is not as though we have not had warnings.  The problem of feral children is well documented.  Gangs of children have murdered children and adults, many children leave school unable to read or write, areas of deprivation have had huge sums poured into them with little to show.  The breakdown of communities is there for all to see. These problems have been around for a long time and successive governments have failed to make the necessary step-changes to overcome them.

Since I wrote this I have come upon this article:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2024690/UK-riots-2011-Britains-liberal-intelligentsia-smashed-virtually-social-value.html

JK Galbraith spoke of the underclass, not in a pejorative sense, but to describe those in our society who live in poor housing, have low paid work or no job, poor education and poor health. He made the point that governments had the means but not the will to change things.

Early last Sunday morning before the serious criminality started I wrote the following on my blog:

My concern is that far far too many community development/engagement initiatives are only about making the status quo more bearable. To put it bluntly: this is not what we should be doing. We should be finding and implementing solutions to the underlying problems. So far we have failed to achieve this and wasted a lot of money along the way.

Little did I imagine that the failure would be illustrated in such stark fashion so soon after I wrote those words.  I take no comfort from this. 

We need to find radical solutions to the problems - and very quickly.  What we do not need is more of what has gone before.  The old consensus has failed not just those at the bottom of our society, it has failed us all.

Since writing this I came across articles which resonates with my views: See:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8630533/Riots-the-underclass-lashes-out.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8698033/New-Labours-toxic-legacy.html