British Prime Minister David Cameron announced yesterday a sweeping review of government policy to reverse a “slow-motion moral collapse” that he blames for last week’s riots in which five people died.
He also pledged “all-out war” on street gangs as Britain seeks answers to its worst civil disorder for decades, which tarnished the country’s image abroad a year before London hosts the 2012 Olympic Games.
“This has been a wake-up call for our country. Social problems that have been festering for decades have exploded in our face,” Mr Cameron said in a speech at a youth club in his affluent rural constituency in Witney, southern England.
“Do we have the determination to confront the slow-motion moral collapse that has taken place in parts of our country these past few generations?” he asked, against a backdrop of colourful graffiti at the club.
Children as young as 11 joined the four-night frenzy of looting and arson which spread from London to other major English cities including Manchester and Birmingham, leaving dozens of homes and businesses in flames.
The Conservative Premier has flooded the streets with police while more than 2,300 suspects have been arrested, but Mr Cameron said the “security fightback must be matched by a social fightback.”
He said the coalition government – which came to power in May 2010 promising austerity measures to cut a record deficit – would in the coming weeks review “every aspect of our work to mend our broken society.”
A day after he controversially hired US “supercop” Bill Bratton to advise on tackling street gangs, Mr Cameron said there should be a “concerted, all-out war on gangs and gang culture”.
Mr Cameron said the government would look at toughening conditions for those who receive unemployment and other benefits, trying to improve parenting skills and schools in deprived areas.
He said Britain would use its current chairmanship of the Council of Europe to seek to push through changes to the European Convention on Human Rights, saying it had “undermined personal responsibility”.
Addressing calls for the reintroduction of military service, Mr Cameron added that he was introducing a programme of “national citizen service” to get 16-year-olds carrying out voluntary work. In a taste of harsher measures to come, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith separately told the BBC that people convicted of being involved in the riots could lose their welfare handouts even if they do not receive a jail sentence.