Leaders try to walk a tight line between party expectations and national responsibilities

Cameron blames a deep moral failure while his opponents emphasise social inequalities as Britain’s politicians struggle to hit the right notes about the riots, writes Ariel Zirulnick

BRITISH Prime Minister David Cameron cut parliament’s vacation short to discuss the riots that have rocked London and other English cities in the past week.

He was in the House of Commons for close to three hours. Guardian columnist Julian Glover called it “a parliamentary form of kettling: keep the trouble makers in one place and keep them talking.” (Kettling is a tactic used by the British police to diffuse angry crowds. Officers surround the crowd, allowing people out gradually.)

According to Telegraph political correspondent James Kirkup, Cameron “cast this week’s events as a ‘deep moral failure’: the people responsible have done bad things and should be punished,” he said.

Not only have the rioters been immoral, he said, in many cases so have their parents… The potential consequences of neglect and immorality on this scale have been clear for too long, without enough action being taken. He promised “a more moral Britain, a country where people behave better.”

Here’s Cameron in his own words:

“We need to show the world, which has looked on, frankly, appalled, that the perpetrators of the violence we have seen on our streets are not in any way representative of our country — nor of our young people.

“We need to show them that we will address our broken society, we will restore a… stronger sense of morality and responsibility — in every town, in every street and in every estate.”

The responses by MPs hinted at a stark divide between two prevailing opinions on the cause of the riots. According to the prime minister and many others, a lack of responsibility is to blame. “Young people smashing windows and stealing televisions is not about inequality,” Cameron said. “When you have a deep moral failure you don’t hit it with a wall of money.”

On the other side was Labour leader Ed Miliband and many in his party, who argue there is a link between “inequality and social order” and that the riots are a result of a deep disparity between Britain’s upper and lower classes.

The past week could have been “disastrous” for Cameron, but he managed parliament well, Glover wrote. But those on both sides of the political spectrum need to tread carefully.

Stray too far into condemning what he called “phoney human rights concerns” and Cameron will damage his claim to be a different kind of Tory. Harp on about the possible victimhood of criminals, and Miliband would lose voters to the right. That is why both converged yesterday on the word responsibility. Now they need to define it.

However, others thought that Cameron’s speech was “below par,” like John Harris, another Guardian columnist. He wrote:

“But think about it, and you may agree that [Cameron] has not played the most brilliant of games. He may have been to Croydon, but (as) today’s invitation to visit Tottenham from David Lammy pointed up, he has yet to visit any of the areas of London that have been so ripped apart… . And as his statement proved, he sounds rather wooden and hemmed in: a man dutifully reading a script, as opposed to speaking to and for the country.”

Harris thought that Miliband, while hitting the right notes, had to be careful about taking it too far. “He is in a delicate position, trying to point out that the riots say something about such themes as the ‘take what you can’ aspects of modern Britain and the dearth of ‘hope and aspiration’ in too many parts of the country, without succumbing to the leftie behavioural tic whereby everything is traceable to either Margaret Thatcher or the cuts (or both).”

Cameron’s talk of responsibility is a reiteration of an old theme from his days in opposition that has since faded into the background, Kirkup writes. Reviving that theme is “ambitious” and sets him up for a momentous triumph, or flop.

© Copyright: The Christian Science Monitor