Tory rhetoric after the riots shows the party regards shelter and social security as privileges to be withdrawn, rather than rights
"You're either with us or against us," so said George W Bush. The polarising logic of his war on terror is now being applied in a very different context ? policing London's streets. On Saturday, the Guardian reported on the Met's Operation Connect in Waltham Forest. Officers use intelligence to draw up a hit parade of the horrible ? the borough's most dangerous gangsters ? and then pay them a visit to ask: which side are you on? Suspects who show some interest in realigning with the community are punted towards all sorts of help with housing and finding a job; those who show none are informed they will be pursued to within an inch of their life for every tiny transgression.
Connect draws on experience in Boston and Glasgow, where gangs have also been tackled by presenting their members with a clear fork in the road ? with one path pointing up to the bright hills of rehabilitation, and another descending to the dark vale of damnation through endless surveillance. From Massachusetts to Strathclyde, great things have been achieved by making an offer of support and then defying gangsters to refuse it. Binary morality has its place in confronting carefully targeted individuals, so long as it is clear that they will not offend against it unless they personally transgress the criminal law. After the riots, however, echoes of Dubya's menacing rhetorical contrast have been heard much more widely across the policy front. And it is not only individuals but whole families, even entire communities, which the right reckons have now been revealed as so indelibly wicked that the country can simply forget about the obligations it previously owed them.
David Cameron's talk of evicting rioters from their council homes was one nod in this direction, another more determined gesture came from Iain Duncan Smith, when the welfare secretary suggested rioters could have their benefits stopped. Such proposals are so wrongheaded it is hard to know where to begin. Not, perhaps, with pressingly practical questions about the inevitable recourse to crime after people's livelihooods are entirely cut off. For an even stronger objection is the failure of this underclass-baiting to respect the separateness of persons. What would Mr Cameron say to the good girl who would prospectively be forced from her home because her sister had stolen some trainers? And then there is the supposed trump card of the victim perspective. Why should people who have been robbed or worse in other contexts see their perpetrators escape special punishments devised for rioters? And why should a shopkeeper whose windows were smashed by a young mechanic or student see them punished less severely than an unemployed yob who attacked another store?
The only answer is that the coalition's Tory wing does not believe in rights to shelter or social security, viewing these things instead as privileges to be earned ? or if need be withdrawn by rough justice. No wonder leading Lib Dems aired so much anxiety about a backlash after the riots, and no wonder Labour was reported in yesterday's Observer to be planning to draw attention to the Nasty Party's return to old form. In practice, the dafter suggestions made after the disorder are likely to be dropped because they are impractical. After a discreet interval, they will go the way of Tony Blair's much-hyped march to the cash point, and David Cameron's own hot-headed and now retracted hints about closing down Twitter.
But bad policies that never get anywhere could still augur deeper problems if they indicate the opening of a wider philosophical schism. Nick Clegg's better-late-than-never intervention to defend the Human Rights Act from Tory attack in Friday's Guardian might suggest he may be starting to sense that danger. The point could soon be reached where every self-respecting liberal will want to say to the government: you're either with us or you're against us.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/28/rights-and-wronguns
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