I couldn’t disagree more strongly Dave. This entire rebuttal hinges on the following sentence:

“But coming from a party with a distinguished track record in deliberately engineering mass unemployment as a weapon of class warfare, the ‘stand on your own two feet’ message is automatically suspect”

There’s little merit in slugging out the accuracy of that charge Dave – I’d dispute it and I’m sure you’d argue your case well but the point here is it’s this charge and this charge only that leads you to question the value of Cameron’s speech. You acknowledge elsewhere that his remarks are ‘reasonable’ and that he’s advancing ‘indisputably good things’ and you haven’t actually taken issue with the substance of anything he’s said.

All that’s offered up in opposition is a rather extreme interpretation of his parties policies from 20+ years ago (when he was barely out of school) and a completely baseless suggestion of a subtext.

If that’s as strong as the rebuttals get I’m sure Cameron will be a happy man….

A Tory having a ‘vision of society’?
Surely there’s no such thing as society? (c) Margaret Hilda Milk-Snatcher

David Cameron, and his crazy 500-year-old views on disability, drive me absolutely mad! Would be better if you didn’t get me started…

Hmm, I dunno there’s plenty to criticise legitimately in his speech, Liam.

“That welfare dependency is so bad, half the adults are on out of work benefits.”

Is it welfare dependency that is the problem? Cameron in his speech keeps on about this, as if it is the benefit system that is the only reason for keeping people down…not a downturn in the economy and not a lack of jobs. He does this consistently throughout the speech…picking a subject and then linking it to something not necessarily related.

“That social breakdown is so bad, Channel 4’s Dispatches documentary on knife crime found kids here talking about being stabbed as if it was no worse than grazing your knee.”

Again, this is like saying paedophilia is endemic because they found a couple of blokes that said they’d love to get with an 11 year old. Utterly devoid of any substantive link.

“And you don’t need to come to Glasgow East to know that the casualisation of carrying a knife, and the horrific crime that goes with it is now keeping mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters awake at night in London, in Leeds, in Manchester, in Bristol. ”

Uh…Bristol, as far as I’m aware, has seen maybe one knife attack in the last 6 months. I’m struggling to remember if it was even in the last 6 months. This is one of several examples of simply blowing things out of proportion. Oh, and it flies in the face of the fact that knife crime is not on the rise.

“making doctors answer to patients”

How? It’s all very well to say you’re going to scrap targets etc, the same way Boris claimed he would bring transparency back to London. Saying and doing are two different things, especially when you give no examples or solid policies.

The rest of his speech seems to say (and I paraphrase) “If we find you with a knife we’ll shove you in prison, don’t pass go…we’ll then spend money rehabilitating you which is, of course, going to be harder considering you’ve now been properly introduced in to a criminal world and to grow cynical and influenced by other criminals.”

It says “We will make schools more competative, not because we have any proof that it will work but because we believe privatised competition is in everyones best interests, especially our treasury” (again paraphrase)

It says “Fuck you if you think you can’t work. Bad back? We’ll find something you can do sitting down, but you *will* work for your benefits one way or another.” (again paraphrase)

He continues to say “Marriage and the traditional family is where our power base is and we think that being in one is the panacea to all of societies ills, so stop being so bloody different” (again paraphrase)

In a part of the speech he says “In order to avoid injury to people’s feelings, in order to avoid appearing judgemental, we have failed to say what needs to be said. ”

Yet this is a guy that at the start has tried to blame all of the scottish health problems on the NHS and being stabbed! So much for saying what needs to be said and not caring about peoples feelings.

“That is why children are growing up without boundaries, thinking they can do as they please”

Quantified? Of course not, it’s the peddling as always of a line that so many people seem to want us to believe. That children are somehow more unruly than they were several decades ago, or that they are more unruly than those older generations of children would have been if they weren’t frequently beaten and abused in to submission by society.

“Saying to parents, your responsibility and your commitment matters, so we will give a tax break for marriage and end the couple penalty.”

So the tories readily accept that you cannot raise a child adequately without being a parental unit, specifically a married one as if that makes a difference.

“Saying to head teachers you are responsible and if you want enforceable home school contracts and the freedom to exclude you can have it and we will judge you on your results.”

Tories ignore that bad behaviour appears to have been dropping, and where is this idea that head teachers can’t exclude coming from, except from the usual annecdotal examples?

“Saying to police officers you are responsible and the targets and bureaucracy are going but you must account to an elected individual who will want answers if you fail.”

Wicked, some guy in a suit will sit there and question police who will say they haven’t the resources. Elected individual will go back and say “Well there are failings but they aren’t their fault”. Oh, and the Tories will have scrapped much of the way to tell how to adequately resource or to trim the fat. Brilliant. I don’t disagree the police system is managed in a bullshit way, but there are already systems for people getting answers if police officers fail, same as any other disciplinary process.

“Saying to business, if you take responsibility you can help change culture and we will help you with deregulation and tax cuts – but in the long run they depend on the steps you take to help tackle the costs of social failure that have driven your costs up and up.”

What wishy, washy, bullshit. “tackle the costs of social failure”? “help change culture”? How? this doesn’t exactly go to show the Tories as being on top of their policies does it? It certainly doesn’t lend itself towards the “telling it as it is” ethos.

His whole speech is essentially boiled down to this…

“You poor Scottish people, this Labour government has failed you, even though you’re a bunch of fatties (statistically) and it’s your fault, I’m not going to say that only subtly allude to it because I don’t have the conviction to back up what my speech writer has put in front of me. But if we’re going to move forward then we need to do *something* with the NHS, by the way you might get knifed tonight which is Labours problem, and if you all actually get off your arses and do work you might not feel so shit. Of course, like I say, I’m too gutless to actually say that to you directly so I’ll just skirt around that issue. Did I say you’re going to get stabbed? And by the way, stop being so gay, get married like normal people and we’ll give you some money, maybe that way you’ll also not get stabbed, and perhaps then you can keep your little shits in order. But again, I didn’t really say that your kids are awful and it’s your fault as parents, I’d never actually say it to your face. Cheers, vote Tories.”

Hmm, that got long, sorry

As a public service I offer this translation from Toryeze to English:

responsibility = a big boy did it and ran away
social virtue = every man (in his 4×4) for himself
self-discipline = I WANT IT NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW!
respect for others = utter contempt for everyone who isn’t you, with the exception of Saint Margaret of Grantham, remover of milk from the Unworthy
deferring gratification = paying off the prostitutes with your Amex Platinum

Where to start Lee?!

No slight intended but I’m going to ignore the criticisms built on a paraphrase for obvious reasons – criticising a speech based on a subtext you impart with little or no evidence gets us nowhere. As for the rest…

On welfare dependency he isn’t alledging the “benefit system that is the only reason for keeping people down” – simply remarking on the levels of dependency.

Your refutations of his remarks about knife crime run contrary to most people experience not to mention the media storm. Granted media storms shouldn’t be taken at face value but there are a raft of knife-crime related stats that have risen significantly over the last 5-6 years – the one you quote is the overall national figure for deaths from stabbing. What’s more if Cameron is exaggerating here then the PM’s doing likewise with his knife-crime summits. Likewise with your denials that there is rising anti-social behaviour.

The wider reaction here is interesting because almost nobody has been able to take any substantive issue with a word Cameron said on Monday. Some commentators and bloggers have had fun parodying his speech, talking about subtexts, Thatcherism and the rest but on the substance nothing – no serious rebuttal of a word he said. Dave’s post and your response fall into that former categories.

There are criticisms to be made (Freedland in yesterday’s Guardian) and the speech isn’t without contradictions but on the whole it’s been well received (even by natural opponents – see yesterday’s Independent leader) and neither Labour MP’s, liberal / left bloggers nor hostile commentators have been able to land a single meangful blow on the content of the speech.

That outcome can only please Cameron….

“Is it welfare dependency that is the problem? Cameron in his speech keeps on about this, as if it is the benefit system that is the only reason for keeping people down…not a downturn in the economy and not a lack of jobs. He does this consistently throughout the speech…picking a subject and then linking it to something not necessarily related.”

Lee –

Welfare dependency has existed before, during and after nu labour, and is pretty much immune to economic downturns, if you’re already unemployed and on a steady state granted income why would you give a toss about the real economy ? I think even many on the left would concede that statist welfare policies create poverty at least as much as they alleviate it. Welfare may prevent people sinking any lower but it also prevents them from climbing any higher.

I’ve always thought of ‘the welfare state’ as a safety net, you can sink so low but no lower.
To my mind that’s just being civilised.

“Uh…Bristol, as far as I’m aware, has seen maybe one knife attack in the last 6 months. I’m struggling to remember if it was even in the last 6 months. This is one of several examples of simply blowing things out of proportion. Oh, and it flies in the face of the fact that knife crime is not on the rise.”

Someone was kicked to death at the weekend in Kings Street, and around a month ago someone was stabbed to death outside the Park House pub in Bedminster – and there was a stabbing after the St Pauls carnivals the weekend before last (this is only the stuff that gets reported – most knife crime is “black on black” and therefore not PC to report .

Anyone who thinks knife crime isn’t on the rise is either under 15 years old and thinks this is normal, or is mental, or possible both. I’ve lived in and gone out in Bristol for most of my 42 years and it has never been this scary. But maybe not wanting to get stabbed whilst queing for a kebab shows I’m getting things “out of proportion” eh, Lee.

Lee, point 4 is a blog post in itself!

Let’s put the “no such thing as society” in its context shall we?

I think we’ve been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it’s the government’s job to cope with it. ‘I have a problem, I’ll get a grant.’ ‘I’m homeless, the government must house me.’ They’re casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It’s our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There’s no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation.”

Is that so unreasonable?

If BritSwedeGuy’s response is what Cameron is going to get, then I don’t think he’s got too much to worry about.

Is it welfare dependency that is the problem? Cameron in his speech keeps on about this, as if it is the benefit system that is the only reason for keeping people down…not a downturn in the economy and not a lack of jobs.

Yes – dependency (heightened by the high effective marginal tax rates driven by Brown’s lunatic mean tested approach) is the problem.
The economic downturn has only recently begun!

“making doctors answer to patients”

“How? It’s all very well to say you’re going to scrap targets etc, the same way Boris claimed he would bring transparency back to London. Saying and doing are two different things, especially when you give no examples or solid policies.”

Er, by making them accountable to patients, ot at least patient representatives (you know, the people who pay their salaries) rather than some Armani Suited new labour career yes man at a policy unit or some middle class vegetarian BUPA enrolled twat at a focus group.
The GP system worked fine until Nu Lab started pissing about with it – believe me it was easier to see a doctor (i.e not a “Health Care Professional”, a trained, qualified doctor) under Thatcher in the 1980s, and she didn’t even believe in the NHS.

“I’ve always thought of ‘the welfare state’ as a safety net, you can sink so low but no lower. To my mind that’s just being civilised.”

The problem is when the ‘net’ metaphor become too literal – you can sink no further but nor can you rise. The system protects you from complete destitution but makes it inordinately difficult ever to become self-sufficient.

There’s lots of valid argument around this but the existence of that subtlety means politicians who occasionally question the value of the welfare state aren’t simply being uncivilised. If the price of protecting the majority of welfare recipients in such a way as to let them escape is that a very small number fall through the net completely that’s arguably a more moral (and civilised) position to take.

” “I’m homeless, the government must house me.’ They’re casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It’s our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There’s no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation.” ”

How the hell does anyone in the right mind not think that society has a moral responsibility to house a homeless person. What sane person would actually believe that a homeless person can sort their life out without help from the state? Common sense dictates that it is, at the very least, in societies best interest to help a homeless person because otherwise that person would have no other choice to turn to crime. Those two French students who were murdered, the chief suspect is a homeless person.

That David Cameron would have the audacity to spout shit like this is frankly obscene.

” “They’re casting their problem on society. It’s our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour.” ”

Oh yes, evil homeless people, evil alcoholics, evil drug addicts, evil unemployed. Don’t be fooled by their grand plot to cast themselves on society as poor, needy people, oh no, they actually choose to be homeless, and poor, and have addictions that are killing them, they choose to live of a pitiful amount of state aid. PLEASE!

I’m all for people taking responsibility for their own actions, i’m all for a fall in anti-social behavior, but locking people up where they will learn more crimes and find then find it hard to get a job because of a criminal record is ridiculous. If you heard about that teenager from a deprived area who had top grades but was turned down from a top university (i forget which one) because he had a criminal record, expect to see a hell of a lot more of that under a Cameron government.

” “Saying to parents, your responsibility and your commitment matters, so we will give a tax break for marriage and end the couple penalty.” ”

Another great idea, punish single parents for not being married (they’re statistically likely to already be more hard up than married couples), and let children from single parent families think that their family isn’t as good as their friends family’s because they don’t have a married mum and dad. Great idea.

We’re finally on our way to being a caring, socialist, secular state, and we’re about to let Cameron and his greedy, i-come-before-society, Christian Etonians into government. Brilliant!

Liam:

“On welfare dependency he isn’t alledging the “benefit system that is the only reason for keeping people down” – simply remarking on the levels of dependency.”

Yes he’s crafty isn’t he, never outright saying one thing. his whole speech, as I said above, was built on somehow telling the people of Glasgow they are so unfortunately in a rut with benefits, but then goes on later to say that people make their own mess. Cameron says that if you can work you should be working…except of course if you are the people he is speaking to in which case you must all be perfectly legitimate and I won’t say a nasty thing about you. It’s about as ironic and hypocritical a speech as you can get.

“What’s more if Cameron is exaggerating here then the PM’s doing likewise with his knife-crime summits.”

Yes, he probably is, just like the PM exagerates the need for terror legislation, and probably countless other things. Politicians exagerate what we fear when it is something that is only going to allow them to gain power over the subject. Look at the crime statistics, crime involving a knife has stayed roughly the same since a decade ago. What’s interesting is that the figures for crime involving other “clubbing” type weapons are as high as knives are, yet I don’t see the media outcry over baseball bats.

“Dave’s post and your response fall into that former categories.”

His whole speech was contradictory to itself, and lacked any content. It’s hard to land “hits” on a speech that doesn’t actually say anything, or if it does say something is trying to compare it to something completely unrelated! The only thing he said of any substance was his old line about giving tax breaks to married couples, which has been long ago refuted as absolute nonsense, and his make people work for their benefits, which again has been long ago refuted as nonsense.

Matt:

“Someone was kicked to death at the weekend in Kings Street,”

Not a knife attack then is it? As for your other examples, fair enough, so there’s a few more deaths/attacks with knives. It is still nothing for the majority to worry about, especially (as you say) that most of it is in only a certain segment of society. It’s very typical of politicians to take the context out of how knife crime occurs (in gangs, in very specific areas) and try to apply it nationally. Suddenly you have people in Lyme Regis worried irrationally about a knife crime situation that only really exists in the cities and even the only in specific parts of it.

“Anyone who thinks knife crime isn’t on the rise is either under 15 years old and thinks this is normal, or is mental, or possible both. I’ve lived in and gone out in Bristol for most of my 42 years and it has never been this scary. But maybe not wanting to get stabbed whilst queing for a kebab shows I’m getting things “out of proportion” eh, Lee.”

It’s all about proportion indeed. You’re still more likely to die in your car than be killed through knife crime. I don’t see Cameron standing up complaining about the scourge of cars, or the raft of other issues that the media doesn’t give a fuck about. Knife crime is a fad, as alcopop consumption was before, and as yobs have recently been. Worry more about a car mowing you down while you cross the road after buying your kebab than of someone stabbing you I’d say.

But then I go out in Bristol and I don’t find it scary in the slightest, wonder what the difference is between you and I?

“Welfare may prevent people sinking any lower but it also prevents them from climbing any higher.”

Indeed, no-one’s denying there are issues with the safety net being too comfortable, but the amount of people stuck in that situation are being highly exaggerated by people like Cameron. I don’t think the welfare state has a tendency to cause people to be stuck, that much I can’t agree with. To state, as cjcjc does, that the economy is only just down turning so it must be dependency that is the problem is ludicrous and ignores the situation of employment on a regional and local level as opposed to the wider national figures.

“rather than some Armani Suited new labour career yes man at a policy unit or some middle class vegetarian BUPA enrolled twat at a focus group.”

Yet this is the argument that the Tories are putting forward as to how to save the Police force. Isn’t that just precious?

“The GP system worked fine until Nu Lab started pissing about with it – believe me it was easier to see a doctor (i.e not a “Health Care Professional”, a trained, qualified doctor) under Thatcher in the 1980s, and she didn’t even believe in the NHS.”

I’m not denying that, and I didn’t say the NHS was perfect or even working as well as Brown wishes to make out, but to simply say that scrapping targets and “making people answerable to patients” as if it’s the solution is just ridiculous. He wants people to vote his party in based on hollow policies and promises. If he was serious about being the next party he’d be taking these key issues and doing more than giving lovely soundbites about them.

@BritSwedeGuy: The welfare state SHOULD be a safety net – but in modern Britain it is more like a hammock.

Deborah Orr has an interesting piece in today’s Independent on the topic of David Cameron’s speech and its implications.

What Cameron is calling for was summed up by John Major when he said that ‘we need to understand a little less and condemn a little more’.

He traces this problem back to the ‘decades-long erosion of responsibility, of social virtue, of self-discipline’, caused by the fact that “We, as a society, have been far too sensitive. In order to avoid injury to people’s feelings, to avoid appearing judgmental…”

Now I am no great fan of Maggie Thatcher, Norman Tebbit and so on, but even I wouldn’t say that their great failing was that they were too sensitive and keen to avoid appearing judgemental or hurting people’s feelings.

It’s also interesting, given that this kind of rhetoric has been used by politicians all over the world for years and years, that Cameron didn’t point to a single example where it has actually succeeded.

It’s also interesting, given that this kind of rhetoric has been used by politicians all over the world for years and years, that Cameron didn’t point to a single example where it has actually succeeded.

Good point. But I don’t think they’re actually trying to make life better. They just want to appeal to those who want politicians to condemn more, and the tabloids…

“It’s all about proportion indeed. You’re still more likely to die in your car than be killed through knife crime. I don’t see Cameron standing up complaining about the scourge of cars, or the raft of other issues that the media doesn’t give a fuck about. Knife crime is a fad, as alcopop consumption was before, and as yobs have recently been. Worry more about a car mowing you down while you cross the road after buying your kebab than of someone stabbing you I’d say.

But then I go out in Bristol and I don’t find it scary in the slightest, wonder what the difference is between you and I?”

But a car accident is just that, an accident. Carrying a knife shows intent to maim, or at least a reckless attitude towards injuring others, not to mention the fact that it’s an indictable offence, whereas “being a car crash” usually isn’t .
I’ve no idea why you find Bristol less scary than me, maybe you’re younger, maybe you don’t have your own kids to worry about, or maybe you carry a knife yourself. I was no angel in my youth, but I knew that 99% of people would do nothing more than give you a bit of a kicking to make their point, not try and put you on a life support machine or a mortuary slab. There were IMHO a lot more fights in the 70s/80s but the use of any kind of weapon was rare and the use of guns unheard of outside organised crime. That simply isn’t true now, and unfortunately you don’t get to choose your attacker, or to be in the right place/wrong time.
And I don’t buy the argument that because it only affects a few people in urban ghettos knife crime is not something middle England should concern itself with, would you adopt that attitude to sex crime or murder ? And most realiable indicators show that crime in general is under reported, especially by the dominant left wing media. The BBC, for example, spends more editorial discussing “climate change” than knife crime.

The greatest irony of Camerons speech is that he doesn’t accept the perversity of his own logic – that he admits the failure of conservative policy, but advocates Conservative party as the means to solve the problems it has caused.

Frankly, I think people should go back to school to learn the difference between morals and ethics.

“It’s also interesting, given that this kind of rhetoric has been used by politicians all over the world for years and years, that Cameron didn’t point to a single example where it has actually succeeded.

Good point. But I don’t think they’re actually trying to make life better. They just want to appeal to those who want politicians to condemn more, and the tabloids…”

Indeed – by contrast the left have many examples of where skinny cappucino & wi fi socialism combining statism with tax and spend ecomonics and liberal social policies have created prosperous and balanced societies filled with contented citizens…………………….

And give it a rest with the “all right wingers read tabloids”, it’s a boring, stereotypical and so very dated cliche.

@ 22 thomas

“Frankly, I think people should go back to school to learn the difference between morals and ethics.”

Spot on.

It’s also interesting, given that this kind of rhetoric has been used by politicians all over the world for years and years, that Cameron didn’t point to a single example where it has actually succeeded”

How is ’success’ defined in that statement?

Don –

“Now I am no great fan of Maggie Thatcher, Norman Tebbit and so on, but even I wouldn’t say that their great failing was that they were too sensitive and keen to avoid appearing judgemental or hurting people’s feelings”

The sarcasm made me smile but it’s a cheap shot – the ‘decades-long erosion’ Cameron refers to predates Thatcher and is probably best understood as a post-war thing and not something that can be laid exclusively at the door of either political tradition.

“Frankly, I think people should go back to school to learn the difference between morals and ethics.”

Seriously, what is the difference? They’re two words which mean exactly the same thing, one deriving from a Latin root and the other from a Greek root.

There are some philosophers who have used one to mean something like “codified systems of right and wrong” and the other to mean “using your conscience to think about right and wrong for yourself”, but this is an artificial distinction, and importantly there’s been no consensus among those philosophers who have done this about which one they should call “ethics” and which one they should call “morals”. That’s basically because there’s no linguistic basis for making the distinction, so it’s entirely arbitrary.

Some of us would say that Labour and Conservative belong to the same tradition.

@27 – the Greek/Latin distinction is vital to understanding the difference. Ethics predicate morals, just as ancient Greece foreshadowed ancient Rome. Do you suggest that they are one and the same?

“Carrying a knife shows intent to maim, or at least a reckless attitude towards injuring others”

Utter rubbish that you’ve clearly picked up from recent news. Where is the study that shows people carry knives because they want to use them on someone? It’s too easily forgotten that there are people, such as yourself, worried about knife crime and are somehow oblivious to the irony when they take a knife with them just for protection. The act of carrying a knife is no more a danger to society than carrying a bottle, a hefty stick or a biro. The act of using it as a weapon is the crime.

“But a car accident is just that, an accident.”

For the last few decades over 300 people a year have died because of dangerous or drink driving. Accident or not, and there has to be responsibility taken by those that choose to drink and drive or drive like maniacs, it kills more people every year than knives do yet has never, as far as I’m aware, hit the national headlines.

“I was no angel in my youth, but I knew that 99% of people would do nothing more than give you a bit of a kicking to make their point, not try and put you on a life support machine or a mortuary slab.”

Hmm, well what can we do here but take your word for it? Of course anyone can look back and see happier, rosier times, I think we all do. I personally don’t feel that anyone in the way I act when out and about, where I go, would do anything to try and injure me in the first place. Maybe it’s because you have kids that you’ve become more worried, like you say. I’m not trying to be facetious here or antagonistic, I think it’s genuinely interesting that two people living in the same city have such different perceptions of how safe it is.

“And I don’t buy the argument that because it only affects a few people in urban ghettos knife crime is not something middle England should concern itself with”

That’s not quite what I said. I said that there’s no reason for people to get scared about some direct threat to their safety that doesn’t exist. Stopping knife use, and indeed the bigger question of violence and gangs, is entirely important and becoming more so. That doesn’t mean we should all be scared of knives when we go out, the vast vast majority of us will simply have more chance of being hit by lightning.

“The BBC, for example, spends more editorial discussing “climate change” than knife crime.”

Well it still manages to cover it pretty well, especially when a white kid dies as did in London last week. Knife crime is all over the radio news almost all the time right now (no thanks to Cameron either) and it’s being made a fuss of. It is giving people the perception of a problem that isn’t quite as big as it feels. The channel 4 season gave this impression that knife crime was about to end Britain as we know it, it just completely exaggerates the fact that knife crime is only 7% of all violent crime, which in turn is only a certain percentage of all crime. It ignores that if you’re mugged you’re more likely to be attacked without a knife tha6n with one, it ignores that a significant proportion of knife crime is committed by someone that the victim knows.

You last year had a 24% chance of being a victim of crime, and a 22% chance of being a victim of violent crime. Of that you’re 7% likely to be attacked with a knife. This leaves you with a 0.37% chance of being a victim of a knife attack. And in case that’s still too worrying you only have a 0.26% chance of being in a knife attack and getting injured in any manner. Do any of these statistics matter? I understand that where you live, how old you are, which gender you are, your line of work, will all influence your chances of being exposed to knife crime…but let’s realistically look…these chances are minimal at worst.

Knife crime has stayed steady at about 7% of all crime for the last decade, and crime has dropped over the last decade despite changes to statistics that enable more crimes to be recorded. If anything knife crime has dropped if you look at it this way. And I remind that blunt instrument crime is just as prevalent (and not that much less deadly or serious in terms of injury, 6% vs 7% )

29 – As normally used, they are interchangeable – they mean something like “ways of thinking about right and wrong”. Where they are given distinct meanings, there is no consensus about which should mean what.

So, for example, Paul Ricoeur uses “ethics” to refer to the aim of an accomplished life and “morality” for the articulation of this aim in universal norms. Meanwhile, Zygmunt Bauman uses “ethics” to mean a code of law which prescribes universal norms, and “morality” to mean the exercise of conscience and personal responsibility. Neither is right or wrong – they are just making useful, but arbitrary, distinctions.

25 – Cameron can define ’success’ however he wants, it’s his speech.

Normally, when a politician gives a speech, they use examples of other places where the policy which they support has been tried out to back up the points that they are making. So Labour ministers talk about Sweden when talking about welfare, or Australia when talking about immigration. Cameron talked about America and Australia when he set out his welfare reform proposals, and George Osborne talked about Germany and France when talking about environmental policy today.

There is nothing particularly new in what Cameron is saying, and it’s an approach which has been tried out before, yet he didn’t give examples of how well it has worked in reducing the problems that he has identified. A cynic might argue that there is a reason for this.

26 – “the ‘decades-long erosion’ Cameron refers to predates Thatcher and is probably best understood as a post-war thing”

Either Cameron is saying that it matters that politicians have been ‘morally neutral’ and too sensitive and non-judgemental, or he’s saying that they haven’t. If he’s saying that what politicians say doesn’t make a difference, then it is a really weird speech, “I think we should do this thing differently, even though it won’t achieve anything…the government has failed on this completely irrelevant issue”. If he thinks it does make a difference that politicians have been morally neutral for decades, then that does include Thatcher and co, and hence again is not a very convincing analysis.

The Republican Party, of course, found themselves in this dilemma, that the moral decline of America which they said had caused all these problems had happened largely under Republican Presidents. Their way round it was to claim that the really powerful people in America were the liberal elitists – Hollywood, teachers, feminists, university lecturers, the media.

I guess this could be where Cameron is going with this, that the people who are too sensitive are the BBC, teachers and social workers and so on and that it is they that need to change in order to heal the broken society. But it doesn’t seem like a terribly brilliant political strategy to pick this moment to copy the right wing of the Republican Party, and it is an approach which could hardly have failed more completely in the USA.

@31, not interchangable nor arbitrary, but definitely interrelated and useful to understand in conjunction.

Ethics is more of an internal or subjective view of a universal system, while morality claims external objectivity. The first demands balance, the second assumes neutrality (see the BBC thread).

Aesop wrote fables which exemplified stories for the purpose of illuminating morals, Socrates and Aristotle wrote tractises to create a general understanding of what constitutes good law – “somewhere between nature and the state can happiness be found”.

Each has a place in a good library, but not on the same shelf.

34 – “Aesop wrote fables which exemplified stories for the purpose of illuminating morals, Socrates and Aristotle wrote tractises to create a general understanding of what constitutes good law”

Given that all of these people were Greek, where does your Latin/Greek distinction (one foreshadowing the other, as you said in 29) come in? How could Aesop have written fables which illuminated “morals” if his language didn’t have the word “morals”, but another word which meant something else? Unless, of course, they can mean basically the same thing?

Talk about splitting hairs, what does it matter?

36 – Well, yeah, although I do find it quite interesting. But if someone says “we need to distinguish between ethics and morals”, and there’s no distinction and they can’t demonstrate that there is, it’s worth pointing it out.

Tom, so Aristotle makes Aesop redundant?

You’re a funny guy – you identify the different etymological roots of the two, yet you complain that any difference between the two is insignificant. You then complain that your attribution is irrelevant, before misquoting others to back up your judgement.

You must be another idiot supporter of Cameron.

Lee,

I have no admiration for Dave Cameron or for the Tories but I don’t think his speech was objectionable. What especially irritated me was your post at #4:

““That is why children are growing up without boundaries, thinking they can do as they please” – Quantified? Of course not, it’s the peddling as always of a line that so many people seem to want us to believe. That children are somehow more unruly than they were several decades ago, or that they are more unruly than those older generations of children would have been if they weren’t frequently beaten and abused in to submission by society.”

Yes, ‘Twas ever thus, Nothing to worry about, let’s just sit on our hands.

Unfortunately living memory tells a different story. You can ask anybody who is old enough to remember and if they’re honest they will tell you that thirty years ago, boys did not stab each other to death every week in London over trivial things. People did not end up in hospital, in wheelchairs or in graves if they tried to challenge teenage misconduct in the streets. It never got that far because boys were disciplined by their fathers at home and by their teachers at school. In the streets, preventative policing and foot-patrols meant that delinquents were caught and often stopped at the “breaking-windows stage”. At every turn they would come up against an unyielding adult authority of a kind that is entirely absent from the lives of today’s ferals. Nobody was allowed to think that bad acts went unpunished, and punishment was often hard and to the full. But you prefer to call this ‘abuse’. Sadly most of the politico-media class would agree. And so the poor and the old will remain in their living torment, imprisoned in their houses after dark because we’re just too bloody civilised.

And okay, stabbings may only be a small proportion of total crimes. But in the poorer areas of all our cities gentle law-abiding people have a permanent sense of insecurity wherever they go. You cannot expect them to adjust their fears according to the latest government stats. They rightfully fear lawbreakers because they know that lawbreakers no longer fear the law. The Tories are equally responsible for this disgraceful development because they softened the prison regime and burdened the police with most of the paperwork they pretend to be against today. The fact is Lee, crime and disorder are unbearably high for a large section of the population. It may now have stabilised somewhat but it may also continue along its long-term trend and reach a higher pinnacle.

I would very strongly suggest you read David Fraser’s book ‘A Land Fit for criminals” A review of the book by Theodore Dalrymple can be found here:

http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_3_oh_to_be.html

Bootyboomboom: There’s so much in that review that is crap that it’d be pointless pulling it all apart, but you just have to love his ending:

“Better that they, the right-thinking, should feel pleased with their own rectitude and broadmindedness, than that millions should be freed of their fear of robbery and violence, as in crime-ridden, pre-Giuliani New York.”

This would of course be the same obviously crime-free New York which has crime levels broadly comparable to that of London, but which has roughly the same number of murders as happen in this entire country in a year:

http://www.septicisle.info/2007/03/scum-watch-knife-crime-sun-has-solution.html
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/nycrime.htm
http://www.met.police.uk/crimestatistics/tables/financialyear20042005.htm

‘Septic isle’,

Personally I don’t think New York City is a good model for how our police should operate but in any case your stats on NY show there’s been a sharp turnaround so I can’t really understand your position.

Dalrymple was an inner-city and prison doctor for many years so you should try and articulate a rebbutal before you say he’s full of crap. Here’s one good essay from him about left-wingers in denial of which you seem to be a fine example:

http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_4_oh_to_be.html

And read the actual book if you can. It’s based on 20 years of research. If you read it you would change your’e mind, I’m sure.

“Yes, ‘Twas ever thus, Nothing to worry about, let’s just sit on our hands.”

Didn’t say that, read what I said. I simply believe it is completely irresponsible to make claims and to peddle stories without actually being able to back it up. I’m happy to admit kids are significantly more unruly than they would be without the corporal punishment regimes of the past if someone can actually show me a study that says that’s the case. Otherwise it’s just your usual Daily Mail tripe harping on about yobs.

“It never got that far because boys were disciplined by their fathers at home and by their teachers at school.”

This is all supposition, show me the proof that this is more than rose tinted glasses. I for one will simply say this. Mods and Rockers.

“In the streets, preventative policing and foot-patrols meant that delinquents were caught and often stopped at the “breaking-windows stage”.”

Heh, yep, there was a bobby on every street corner and boys froze at the sound of their whistle. That’s exactly how it was, yep, no crime whatsoever and no delinquency because Britain was a much more ordered and cultured place back then.

“And so the poor and the old will remain in their living torment, imprisoned in their houses after dark because we’re just too bloody civilised.”

I’ve said it before, people “imprisoned” in their own homes are only imprisoned by their own minds. Most youths out on the streets are just being youths. It harks back a few months to this mosquito bullshit where people honestly believe every group of kids is a violent bunch of thugs waiting to kill poor defenceless pensioners. It’s a fallacy, and one that needs challenging.

“The fact is Lee, crime and disorder are unbearably high for a large section of the population. It may now have stabilised somewhat but it may also continue along its long-term trend and reach a higher pinnacle.”

What trend? Aside from the statistics conveniently changing so we can’t accurately compare crime figures from one decade to the next, I’ve argued many times before that crime is pushed up by perfectly normal factors. I’m not saying it’s right, but the higher population densities mean that higher chance of conflict arises and thus higher levels of crime. Want to have a q

You’re very good at reiterating the heart and soul of the pathetic tabloid articles that have been printed over the last few years, you should get some sponsorship from the Sun or something.

My web browser decided to just submit my post… so..

“Want to have a q”

should read “Want to have a quick fix, shave the population levels out of the cities, redistribute the population and see crime fall because the chance of conflict falls. Crime is about many more things in society that how much discipline people have”

Boy oh boy, an essay full of a man telling us how he’s right while the liberals have been wrong and are always wrong. I haven’t read one of those before. Please, you’re going to have do a lot better than that, and the point from New York is that “zero tolerance” which we’re always informed is so wonderful has only succeeded in bringing crime down to levels which are low by American standards but astronomically high by British standards.

However much people insist that crime is rising or disorder is rising continuously, the BCS, which despite its flaws is the best measure we have, says that the potential of becoming a victim of crime is at its lowest since the early 1980s when the survey started. It’s true that we have distinct problems in distinct areas, and it may well take action that some of us who consider ourselves liberal or left-wing object to to sort that out, but going for a one-size fits all solution akin to New York is not going to work except giving a warm fuzzy feeling to those who have demanded it from the beginning.

Incidentally, Nick Davies wrote a long series of articles a few years back who also saw the futility of the criminal justice system, but from the other point of view which you might find interesting and a counter-weight to a land fit for criminals, the arguments for which I certainly have looked into in the past:

http://www.flatearthnews.net/media-falsehoods-and-propaganda/crime

‘Good. Bad. Right. Wrong.’

If anyone wanted to criticise Cameron’s speech, they could start here.

These are categories that DON’T EXIST. People can harp on about knife-crime rises or obesity or whatever – ‘good/bad’ and ‘right/wrong’ doesn’t really have anything to do with that. Situations are never simply about the one or the other – unfortunately, life and people are more complex than that! Cameron’s just trying to get people scared and stirred up in a rather simplistic fashion.

As far as I see it, his speech is doing several things, for several groups of people:

- for the plebeians, it is reeling off a long list of things that inspire fear and/or disgust to feed their emotions and win them over (‘look at me, I am so in touch with you. I know what’s going on on the ground, I’m not an Old Etonian. Honest!’)

It also seems to be a criticism of past Tory behaviour to make people feel like he’s ‘learned from their mistakes’ and presumably also to strengthen his projection of himself as their New Hope, who will bring about change.

THEN

he brings in all the absolutist categories as a way of subtly reassuring the more overtly right-wing Tories that don’t worry, he’s not going to change THAT much! New man with some old ideas, that’s all!

I bet that somebody somewhere will tie ‘moral neutrality’ to ‘political correctness’ at some point. How soon will that be, I wonder?

By the sounds of it, Dave’s major crime is multi-tasking. He’s trying to please everyone, comme d’habitude. Ironic really, because that tends to make you look weak, and he’s going for the ’strong political father’ image, what with his wanton application of moral categories to err, just about everything.

the point from New York is that “zero tolerance” which we’re always informed is so wonderful has only succeeded in bringing crime down to levels which are low by American standards but astronomically high by British standards.

(1) even if you were correct – how about we try to bring about a similar fall as well?

(2) oh – have you actually looked at the stats?

Total NYC crimes against the person reported in 2007: 40,868
Total NYC crimes: 120,944
http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/crime_statistics/cscity.pdf

Total London crimes against the person 12m to March 2008: 218,509
Total London crimes: 862,032
http://www.met.police.uk/crimestatistics/2008/2008_yend.htm
(need to click offences tab at bottom of page)

New York is now a far far safer city than London.

NB for the London stats I am adding robbery and sexual offences in so as to provide a proper comparison versus NYC.
Essentially the figures above are all crime minus burglary and theft.

However the chasm is now so wide between the two cities it doesn’t really matter that much!

I agree, I’m not sure that you’ve made a good comparison between the two cities, though it’s reasonable…and I’m ignoring difference in methodology and whether one is measuring a different aspect of crime or not…but I think it’s got to be obvious that New York is doing things well, especially considering it’s got another million people in its jurisdiction.

The question is how that can be brought down though. By throwing young people in to prison? Young people seem most prone to reoffending, and reoffend more frequently the harsher the punishment against them. Aftercare in this country is a joke for people that have done their time and there is absolutely no priority going on community funding and social projects right now. It’d be interesting to see, other than policing (New York doesn’t really have any more police officers than London does, though I’m not sure how PCSO’s come in to the equation here), what New York has put its money and effort in to doing to solve its problems.

I thought that NYC had twice as many officers as London?

As you say though, Lee, it doesn’t matter whether NYC’s crime rate is higher or lower than London’s – though it does appear to be much lower – it’s the fact that crime has (a) collapsed and (b) actually still falling which is so impressive.

Moving from the facts to anecdotes…until last year I used to travel to NYC frequently for work, approx 50 visits in the past 10 years.
Walk around any part of Manhattan at any time of day or night and you find the police – they are everywhere . Walking on the street. In large groups in the most crowded areas, eg Times Square. Driving around and around every avenue, every street. You really can’t get away from them.

That makes for safer outcomes – as the facts show – and a much safer atmosphere.

Like I say, I’m not sure how PCSO’s boost the figures…we know that’s what Smith and other Home Office ministers have done… but…

London: 31,073 officers
NYC: 37,838 sworn members

Both figures taken from Wikipedia. Proportionately, like for like, this gives NYC 3000 more police than London, given the population figures.

Lee

“Utter rubbish that you’ve clearly picked up from recent news. Where is the study that shows people carry knives because they want to use them on someone?”

If you want an academic answer I suggest you google a psychological phenomena known as “the weapons effect” which proves, empirically, the common sense notion that proximity to a weapon massively increases the chances of it being used.
Your argument is akin to the “we keep nuclear weapons only as a deterrent and for self defence, everyone else keeps them to attack us” doublespeak of the cold war – at what point does “defence” become “offense”. If no one carried a knife, no one would need to carry a knife. And why are the kids so scared anyway, why do they perceive the streets so dangerous that they need to arm thmselves with an offensive weapon ?
If the streets really are that dangerous, why aren’t the police doing something about it ? Politicians and the left telling us “it’s all ok, don’t worry about, boys will be boys/crime is falling (ha fing ha)” just doesn’t cut it. If they’re not that dangerous then why carry a knife if not with the intention of using it.
If you go to any major european City (and I’ve been to most of them) the biggest social difference is that at night you will see old and young, male and female, families, couples, singles, mates, whatever, out enjoying themselves, that doesn’t happen here, why not ?

Matt:

Except that the ‘weapons effect’ has been pretty roundly debunked as a general phenomenon over the years.

The problem with the weapons effect hypothesis was that it was initially identified under artificial laboratory conditions, but numerous subsequent studies have shown that in individuals who lack any history of violent behaviour or and weapons training the instinctive response to a violent situation is to either freeze or run away and not to reach for a weapon, and this becomes more and more marked the closer a test situation approximates a real scenario.

In short, if you’re not prone to violence or trained to deal with violent situations by fighting back then carrying a knife as a self-defence measure in next to useless, because when it comes to the crunch you won’t use it.

For most people, even under conditions of extreme stress or when faced with a serious threat, the best they can manage by way of using a ‘weapon’ is to grab whatever comes to hand and throw it in the hope of scaring off the threat, which is pretty much the same behaviour you’ll see in most primates, but for the more dominant and aggressive males.

Exactly Unity, except psychologically you surely can completely understand why people take a knife with them?

It’s the thought of “Well if I do get attacked at least I’ve got a knife”, despite the fact being that they’re unlikely to use it, that makes people feel more secure where they’re scared.

As I said, Matt, I don’t deny there are places with real problems..I don’t think anywhere in Bristol is one of them by the way…but perspective must be retained.

cjcjc: Of course I’ve looked at the figures, otherwise I wouldn’t have made the point. The ones you provide seem to have a huge disparity with the ones I linked to; whether this is because they cover New York state as a whole rather than just the city I’m not clear.

The fact remains that NYC still has around double the number of murders that London suffers, and seeing as that’s what we’re so exercised about at the moment, I still fail to see how it provides any real initiative on how to lower crime here.

Doh, I knew I missed something out of my earlier reply, Septicisle, cheers for the murder reference. yes, most of the crimes that happen in London appear to be assault and robbery (though you’re significantly more likely to be raped in London than new York).

The interest for me is how these incidents differ in their reporting, is assault and robbery higher in London because there is more of it happening, or because there are more incidents of people complaining/reporting about the same crime which may not happen in NYC? How do the methods differ?

The clue is at the top of the page: Police Department, CITY of New York

Yes – the murder rate is higher
The point though is that is has COLLAPSED – by 78% – since 1990.

Eevn though our rate is lower, I assume we whould also like to see it collapse?

So, if NYC can get its (still higher) murder rate to collapse, perhaps they can teach us something about getting our murder rate to collapse?

Sorry, I wasn’t very clear, bad grammar and all that.

I meant if they have three people robbed in one incident, does that count as one crime or three under NYC stats? I didn’t mean crimes happening outside the city, I meant simply to question what the difference is in measuring crimes.

‘Safety’ is a misleading term in the context of this debate. Occurrence of crime is one thing, the extremity of violence used is quite another.

If it comes down to a choice between knives and guns, I know which I think is worse.

Is NYC the best comparison for London?

“Incidentally, Nick Davies wrote a long series of articles a few years back who also saw the futility of the criminal justice system, but from the other point of view which you might find interesting and a counter-weight to a land fit for criminals, the arguments for which I certainly have looked into in the past:

http://www.flatearthnews.net/media-falsehoods-and-propaganda/crime ”

Septicisle – that is an interesting set of articles but I don’t see anything in there in particular that actually directly opposes the case Theodore Dalrymple is putting across, other than perhaps reinforcing the libertarian line that if you want a low crime rate without a huge prison population, you need to have some tough sentences AND legalise drugs, allowing their price to come down to be affordable for regular users (a combination of right and left policy).

The crux of the argument is that the left think that in order for prison to be effective, it must reform prisoners. That is not true: while it would be nice if they did, the main purpose of prisons (so far as the right is concerned) is to keep criminals away from the general public and thus prevent re-offending and the spread of criminal behaviour to other impressionable people in society.