Bad timing, no? On the very day that Clapham was brought to a terrified standstill by feral youths breaking into shops and assaulting police – with others filming the whole thing on their phones – the Mayor and the Met Commissioner were busy at the Foreign Office. They were telling British ambassadors, including Sir Christian Turner, Britain’s ambassador to Washington, “to challenge the disinformation, misinformation and lies” on the internet about London”. The Mayor declared: “I recognise there is a perception around the globe about London being unsafe. Of course, one crime is one crime too many, but people are spreading false propaganda about city because it serves their interests.”
Well if Sir Christopher were rash enough to raise the matter with President Trump just now (except his mind may be elsewhere), there’d be an easy riposte. The rampaging teenagers in Clapham are not propaganda, not in the eye of the beholder, not just negative thinking. It was a real phenomenon…teenagers running amok, with those not actually terrifying shopkeepers and passers by engaged in putting the whole thing on social media.
Indeed, as we know, the whole thing was orchestrated on social media, and police seem to have infiltrated some of those accounts. When the reckoning comes, the role of social media platforms will be scrutinised because they were indispensable for disseminating the open invitation to young people to steam through Clapham.
In 2024 when there was public disorder, the police crackdown was instant and draconian. That’s what we want now
The whole thing was presaged by disorder on Saturday but police seem not to have been sufficiently alarmed to ensure that the mob was despatched in short order four days later as soon as trouble started. Police warned some shopkeepers that trouble might be in store…but what we want, surely, is for the problem to be nipped in the bud. So, not for shops to close, but for violent youths to be detained and charged and, in the case of minors, their parents hauled in before the police to account for them.
Let me spell this out. In 2024 when violent disorder of a very different kind was evident as a result of social media scares, the police crackdown was instant and draconian. That’s what we want now. If there’s a repeat of the steaming disorder anywhere in London this weekend, then the Met Commissioner won’t have to deal with urbane UK ambassadors to tell them how brilliantly the Met is doing, but politicians demanding his head.
Young people are not fearful of police or indeed authority of any kind
Many people found themselves agreeing vigorously with Kemi Badenoch when she declared that “children smashing up shops in broad daylight, stealing and even filming themselves doing it as if it were a game, is a much bigger problem than is being recognised - this is a total collapse of consequences”. Precisely. Young people are not fearful of police or indeed authority of any kind, and they should be. They may have got away with other, more minor offences without paying a price, in which case a sense of impunity is inevitable. That sense of impunity must end now.
Mrs Badenoch, who comes from Nigeria, put her finger on the racial aspect of the rioting when she observed, “To those making snide comments about race or black kids - you do not see scenes like this in Lagos or Nairobi. Not because the children there are different, but because actions have consequences. There are clear boundaries. Parents, communities, and the authorities do not wring their hands or look the other way.
“Here, we have created a culture where too many young people believe they can do what they like and nothing will happen. That is the problem.”
So, we wait eagerly to see arrests following Tuesday’s escapades by way of punishment and deterrence. Teenagers of both sexes who assault police officers should not get away with the offence, for their own sake as well as ours. I dislike the widespread use of by police of facial recognition technology, not least because it is a cost saving measure to save on real human policing, but since we’ve got it, it must be used to identify even those who, terrifyingly, used Balaclavas to mask their faces.
Satan finds mischief for idle hands
Later, when the charges have been made and the judicial process is under way, we can go onto thinking about the larger problem of disaffected young people who seem bent on proving the old dictum that Satan finds mischief for idle hands. More youth clubs, more job opportunities, would help, and it goes without saying – doesn’t it? – that parents must be held accountable for their young. And maybe police can start to take normal, everyday shoplifting – at record levels right now – seriously, because right now, they don’t.
But meanwhile, London isn’t congratulating itself on its low crime rate; it’s angry about public disorder carried on by teenage mobs. Over to you, Sir Sadiq. And you, Sir Mark.
