The violent scenes in London in the last few days have been appalling and shocking.  There can be no excuse for the violence and vandalism.  In some cases, this will force the closure of the small businesses that have been targetted.  And the stigma and blight that will fall on some areas of the capital will make it even more difficult for local councils trying to strengthen and build sustainable local economies in the most deprived areas of our city.

The immediate task is, of course, to restore order to our streets.  And as part of this, the Metropolitan Police has started to put on line photographs of those suspected of being involved in some of the disorder and looting.  These hooligans need to be brought to justice.  So, do you know any of these people?

West Norwood

WestNorwood.Image 1: A male in a grey Nike hooded top with red draw strings and the number “87″ on his back. This male is later involved in a burglary.

WestNorwood.Image 2: A group of eight males gathering outside the shop. A distinctive male in a white and red Addidas logo on his chest can be seen.

WestNorwood.Image 3: A group of eight males entering the shop. Note the male in the Stone Island hooded jacket, blue Nike tracksuit bottoms and blue face scarf.

WestNorwood.Image 4: A close up of the “87″ male.

WestNorwood.Image 5: An image of a male joining the group wearing a blue Nike hooded top and red face scarf.

Croydon

Croydon.Image 1 – 21:45hrs 8 August: Two females outside PC World on Purley Way. These females entered the store after it had been broken in to.

Croydon.Image 2 – 21:45:55hrs 8 August: a facial shot of a female in a crowd of other looters outside PC World in Purley Way

Croydon.Image 10 – 21:42:08hrs 8 August: a male outside a jewellers shop in London Road about to enter shop

Croydon.Image 12 – 01:34:23hrs 9 August: a male with grey hooded top and black body warmer about to enter Cash Plus in Thornton Heath

Croydon.Image 13 – 02:47:52hrs on 9 August: a male with black hooded coat entering a jewellers in Church Road, Croydon

Croydon.Image 14 – 02:40:23hrs 9 August: two males stealing from a jewellers in Church Road

Croydon/Image 15 – 02:40:58hrs 9 August: one of the males shown in ‘Image 12′ carrying a large amount of jewellery from the jewellers in Church Road

Croydon.Image 22 – 22:41:52hrs 8 August: a shaven headed male who enters Richer Sounds, South End, Croydon

Croydon.Image 24 – 22:42:20hrs 8 August: two female suspects entering Richer Sounds, South End, Croydon

Croydon.Image 25 – 22:45:26hrs 8 August: a female wearing a vest top who has just carried items from Richer Sounds.

I gather that the Total Politics Blog Awards are now in progress.  I want to make it quite clear that I will not be in the least bit affronted should you chose to vote for this blog by clicking here.

Theresa May is flying back from her holiday for urgent meetings to discuss the response to the London disturbances with senior police officers.
She understands that this is an important part of her role as Home Secretary.
(It of course demonstrates how much confidence she has in Mayor Boris Johnson to get it right in her absence and she must regret leaving Lynne Featherstone in charge of the Home Office for even ten minutes.)
What it also highlights is the decision of George Osborne and David Cameron to stay put on their expensive foreign trips while the world economy goes into meltdown.
She increasingly looks like the next Leader of the Conservative Party…..

The news in the last seventy-two hours takes me back to the 1985:  the Broadwater Farm disturbances and the events that led up to them.  In October 1985, the death of Mrs Jarrett during a police search of her home was followed by a demonstration outside Tottenham Police Station which in turn was followed by violence on the Broadwater Farm estate, during which PC Keith Blakelock was hacked to death.

My immediate response on hearing of the shooting dead by police of Mark Duggan, who at that stage had not been named, was to warn of a “potentially lively community reaction”.  And anyone who remembers vividly as I do the night of 6th October 1985 would have seen yesterday’s demonstration outside the Police Station as a likely trigger for attacks on the police and even for rioting.

There are, of course, many parallels with 26 years ago, but also many differences.  In 1985 police-community relations were appalling – even before the riot.  They are nothing like as bad now, but nonetheless could no doubt be better.  Unemployment in Tottenham is not as bad as it was in 1985, but is still the highest in London and the eighth worst rate in the UK.  Tottenham continues to be a vibrant community with much strength in its diversity, but there is still a sense of hopelessness amongst many young people. 

What is depressing is that having spent twelve years of my life as Council Leader trying to kickstart regeneration in Tottenham and Wood Green the need for sustainable economic development remains as acute as it did in the late 1980s.

The irresponsible violence and looting last night can never be acceptable or condoned , but one of its consequences is that many of the businesses affected will have been destroyed by what has happened and others will be damaged by the blight and stigma that may now fall on the area. 

The most important immediate task is to lessen the tension and to address the rumours that are swirling about the death of Mark Duggan.   The Independent Police Complaints Commission could make a big contribution to this.  One of the problems with this sort of dreadful incident is that often the investigation is shrouded in total secrecy and in the absence of hard information unsubstantiated stories or even malicious misinformation spread like wildfire – this is particularly so now in the age of Twitter.  I understand that the IPCC are shortly due to make some sort of public statement.  I hope they will be as open as possible and commit to providing regular briefings about the state of their investigation.  As soon as they are able to confirm or otherwise, for example, whether a non-police weapon was at the scene or not and whether it was fired or not, the better it will be.

The next urgent task is to get Tottenham and Wood Green functioning again.  The police will obviously have an important job to do in sifting through the debris for evidence (indeed, it still needs to be conclusively established that nobody burnt to death in the fires that swept through buildings).  However, I hope this can be done as quickly as possible so that the clear-up can begin and those businesses that are able to can start to function again.  Haringey Council will no doubt put in significant resources to enable this clean-up to happen but I hope that the Government will undertake to underwrite this work given that the Council is still having to implement swingeing budget reductions as a result of cuts in Government grants.

There will also need to be a review of what lessons need to be learned about the police response to the developing disturbances last night.  Many people in Tottenham and Wood Green felt undefended despite the bravery of the police and fire officers deployed.  Should there have been better intelligence about what was likely to happen?  Should more efforts have been made to monitor the traffic on social media sites?  Indeed, what is a proportionate and appropriate level of such monitoring?  I am sure colleagues on the Metropolitan Police Authority will want to pursue these issues in detail (it is not quite clear who will do this once the Police Authority is abolished once the Government’s Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill gets Royal Assent in September or October).

Finally, some of the underlying causes of what happened need to be addressed.  What is to be done about escalating gun violence in  London (particularly if police resources are to be reduced as part of Government policy)?  When is Tottenham going to see the regeneration it deserves and how are young people in Haringey going to be supported to achieve their true potential?

Along with twelve MPs (six Labour and six Conservative), I have written to David Cameron about Cyprus.

The letter is as follows:

“Nearly four decades after the illegal invasion of Cyprus, Turkish troops continue to occupy approximately 38% of the island’s territory. For 37 years, the world has condemned the occupation and Turkey’s intransigence in efforts to find a solution to reunite Cyprus.

In that same time, apartheid came to an end in South Africa, the USSR disintegrated, the Berlin Wall fell, former eastern bloc countries joined the European Union, and the people’s calls for democracy have triumphed over dictatorship in some Arab countries in the Middle East. During the same period, British troops have been engaged in conflicts around the world, fighting injustice, protecting British sovereignty and safeguarding or seeking to deliver democracy.

Since signing the 1959 Treaty of Guarantee, the United Kingdom has been a guarantor power of the independence and territorial integrity of Cyprus, with the full weight of responsibility that such status entails. But against the backdrop of the UK’s active role in international political progress around the world, the problem of Cyprus remains virtually at a standstill. While successive UK Governments have paid lip service to delivering justice in Cyprus, these same governments have effectively allowed the Cyprus problem to be downgraded as a foreign policy priority. In addition to the Treaty of Guarantee, Cyprus is a member of, and this country’s partner in, the European Union, Council of Europe and the Commonwealth, as well as a country on which Britain maintains sovereign military bases: these facts alone demand the focus and attention of the British Government to help reunite the island.

Since Turkey’s invasion in 1974, hundreds of thousands of Cypriots have remained refugees, unable to return to their rightful homes, while their properties have been appropriated and exploited by the unlawful regime in the occupied north. In the last 37 years, tens of thousands of Turkish nationals have been moved to the occupied areas by Turkey, as part of an orchestrated policy to change the island’s demography. What is more, cultural and religious sites in the occupied area have been deliberately desecrated. Ignoring relatives’ desperate pleas to respond on a deeply humanitarian issue, Turkey has stubbornly refused to investigate the fate of hundreds of Cypriot men, women and children who disappeared without trace during its military invasion. On top of all this, Turkey has been allowed to disregard numerous UN Security Council resolutions and the decisions of international courts with complete impunity.

Such a situation raises serious questions about the UK’s own role and responsibilities in this continuing tragedy. It is not only on behalf of the sizeable Cypriot community in the UK that we write to you, but on behalf of all other Britons who believe that their country should work, on the international stage, in order to defend justice and human rights.

We are writing to remind you of the clear and irrefutable responsibilities that the British Government holds with regard to Cyprus. We call upon you, as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, to demand unequivocally that Turkey works sincerely for the reunification of Cyprus and that it fulfils its obligations to the EU in relation to Cyprus. Further, we urge you to use Britain’s diplomatic leverage with the United States of America and through the UN, the EU and NATO to press Turkey to end its unacceptable military occupation of Cyprus and the island’s unlawful and unjust division.

To that end, and as a first step in that direction, we, the undersigned, call upon you to extend an urgent invitation to Cyprus President Demetris Christofias to meet with you, in an official capacity, so that he can inform you on the latest political developments regarding Cyprus and so that you can explore with him ways in which the United Kingdom can actively contribute to efforts to bring to an end this continuing injustice.”

An interesting piece by Darryl Chamberlain in the Scoop at Snipe argues that the time may be coming when there should be greater indepence for London from the rest of the country.  With the devolution settlement being reviewed in Wales and Scotland, why not London as well?  The piece points out:

“A question: why can’t London have a bit of what they’re having? Isn’t it time for us to break away too?

London is a wildly different place to the rest of England, never mind the rest of the UK. We’re more socially liberal than the rest of the country, we live in communities that are far more mixed. We’re less likely to drive, and more likely to spend huge amounts of time stuck on public transport. We’ve more in common with New York or Paris than Newcastle or Portsmouth.  …

In London, we’re different.  …

Look at the two men we’ve elected to run the place. A newt-loving man with a raspy voice who loves winding up American diplomats on one hand, a floppy-haired fop on a bike with a bizarre line in Latin anecdotes on the other.

Both, in their own ways, engaging ambassadors for the capital. And seen as dangerous threats by their own party leaders. Because that is how many in the rest of England see London—as a threat. Read below the line on any comment piece on the possibility of an English parliament, and within the ?rst few comments someone will sound off about how London leeches off the rest of England, takes all the jobs and investment and produces nothing in return.

Yet if London kept the tax revenue earned within its borders—or at least had more control over raising its own budget – we’d be able to make a much better job of running our transport network, for example.

The Tube’s current woes can be traced back to the last government trying to sell off its maintenance — bitterly resisted by Ken Livingstone before he rejoined the Labour Party. He was right, Gordon Brown was wrong – but London had to pick up the bill.

In the old days, Ken used to taunt the Tories with unemployment figures on the roof of the old County Hall. But Labour wouldn?t even give him the power to empty London?s bins, so we still have 33 different recycling policies. And the Conservatives won?t even give Boris Johnson the Royal Parks, so keen is the UK government to hang onto the prestige of chasing dogs out of flower gardens.

So if they don’t trust us, why don’t we just go it alone?”

I have long pointed out the extent to which London subsidises the rest of the UK.  Irrespective of the present incumbent of the Mayor’s office, there is a strong case for London having more autonomy and being able to invest its revenues in its own infrastructure and its people.  And because London is the engine of the UK economy, this would be good for the rest of the country too.

A few days ago I reported on the call for a “general obligation for data security”.

Now comes this report on CBS (thanks to FutureCrimes):

I wonder how many companies and government agencies are equally careless in this country?

It makes leaving a paper on a photocopier seem old hat …..

High-level legal guru, Stewart Room, gave an excellent presentation at last week’s East-West Institute Global Cyber Security Summit.  In it he called for a “general obligation for security”, saying:

“I believe that holders of sensitive data, the controllers of important networks, systems and infrastructures – and their supply chains – should face a clear legal requirement to keep these assets safe and secure. As well as describing the obligation, this general security law should describe the consequences of failure.”

He pointed out that:

“It is naive to think that all relevant actors will do what is necessary to protect these assets without a clear steer from the law. Ignorance, laziness, apathy, short sightedness and greed are all powerful counterweights to enlightened self interest.”

He also highlighted the dangers of simply addressing the problem through the prism of the protection of personal data only.  Intellectual property is currently being leeched from corporate data systems all over the world – an issue repeatedly referred to at the Summit.  Likewise the vulnerability of national infrastructure systems – including power grids and water supplies – is also now increasingly apparent.

He warned that:

“In the UK and most of the rest of Europe the law for security is effectively left to reside in the domain of privacy and data protection law. This is a grave mistake. …  it gives the mistaken impression that the law only sees security as being important in the context of the handling of personal data. Of course, we all know that the substance of security extends much further that this. The impact of this problem is worsened by the fact that far too many people and organisations do not take data protection law seriously. Thus, the law is not properly driving behaviours.”

And there may be unintended consequences:

“This gives effective ownership of the field to people who are the least competent to manage it. I am talking about a small cadre of data protection regulators and bureaucrats, who are so slanted toward privacy that they may unwittingly encumber us with anti-security policies, which could jeopardise the health of cyberspace, our economies and our societies.”

He concluded byasking “what will a general obligation for security look like?”:

“Aside from removing the issue from the privacy and data protection domain and describing the nature of the obligation to secure assets and the penalties that may flow in breach, a general obligation for security will capture:

1. Critical definitions. We need to agree the parameters and make sure that we are all talking the same language.

2. The traditional “cyber crime” subject matter, dealing with the criminalisation and prosecution of unacceptable behaviours of hackers, botnets and others whom attack information and information systems. The interests of law enforcement should be properly served.

3. The role of the private sector cyber security industry, so that innovation in IT solutions can continue. We are totally reliant upon the private sector for security solutions, so we must give it our full support.

4. Intelligence sharing between the public and private sectors and across geographical boundaries.

5. The need for identification measures for people and machines operating in cyberspace. Privacy should not provide a cloak for criminals and anti-social behaviour.

6. The right for people and organisations under cyberattack to take offensive action in their defence. This is probably the most controversial point. But we need to ask ourselves whether it is morally right to tie the hands of those under attack. And we need to be sure that we do not open Pandora’s box.”

Whilst ideally this needs a solution in international law, a good start would be made by legal changes in this country to establish a better and more robust framework, whilst British Ministers argue for European-wide changes via Brussels and press the case through the G8 and G20 fora.

There was a palpable sense of urgency about the need for change at last week’s summit.  I hope it was felt by Francis Maude MP, who is apparently now the Minister in charge of cyber-security, and that he takes it back to his Government colleagues.

I was going to comment on an extremely perceptive review by David Marquand of Vernon Bogdanor’s “The Coalition and the Constitution” which appears on page 8 of the Guardian’s Review section.  But after ten minutes of unsuccessfully trying to find it on www.guardian.co.uk so that I could link to it, the urge has passed…….

Sorry about that.

We have always been told that product placement is a powerful television marketing tool.

If anyone doubts this, the enormous queues stretching into Parliament Square for those wanting to visit Westminster Abbey at £16 per head are the proof. A little bit of in-the-background exposure last Friday – and most of it during day-time television – has had a profound effect ….