Reuters/Witney, England


Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday promised a law and order “fightback” and robust action to mend what he called Britain’s broken society after riots and looting last week shocked Britons and tarnished its reputation abroad.
But he faced renewed questions over how far his plans to cut government spending may further alienate the young and the poor.
In a speech full of tough language likely to please his traditional Conservative supporters, Cameron vowed more “no-nonsense policing” and tougher sentencing to tackle gang culture and known troublemakers, and said he would to do more to promote families, boost discipline in schools and encourage hard work.
In north London, where riots began nine days ago, many welcomed his hard line - but young people ushered in to hear his speech in rural Oxford shire doubted it would do much to close a growing gap between rich and poor, or heal troubled communities facing his government’s deep public spending cuts.
“We have been too unwilling for too long to talk about what is right and wrong,” Cameron said in a speech at a youth centre in his mostly affluent constituency of Witney, near Oxford.
More than 2,800 people have been arrested since a protest over a fatal shooting by police on August 4 prompted rioting and looting in the poor London district of Tottenham.
That spread across the capital and sparked violence in other English cities.
Cameron, who returned from holiday abroad last week after days of unrest, is seeking to tap into widespread public anger over the violence.
They came 15 months after he took office at the head of a centre-right coalition committed to cuts in welfare and other spending that critics say will hit the poor.
“I think he’s right,” Nicola Pastore, 26, said as she pushed a pram in Tottenham. “I don’t think the police have enough control. My kids are scared to go to sleep at night.”
Cameron, who faces criticism for plans to cut spending on police and for his management of the crisis, said the riots had been a “wake-up call” for Britain, whose reputation abroad was tarnished by the images of groups rampaging through its cities.
Behind him as he spoke was a graffiti-style mural centred on characters in the kind of hoods and masks worn by many looters.
At Witney Ecumenical Youth Trust, where Cameron gave his speech, young people questioned how spending cuts squared with his plans to deal with social problems, and felt his speech created even more of a sense of ‘them and us’.
Meanwhile opposition Labour leader Ed Miliband said a lack of morality was not confined to a “feral underclass” but was also displayed by risk-taking bankers, legislators who fiddled their expenses and newspaper reporters who hacked telephones for stories - all major topics of debate in Britain in the past couple of years.
“When we talk about the sick behaviour of those without power, let’s also talk about the sick behaviour of those with it,” he said in a speech at his old school in London yesterday.
Cameron heckled by teenage audience
Prime Minister David Cameron’s promise to fix Britain’s “broken society” prompted heckles from a teenage audience in his rural powerbase yesterday, underlining the deep divisions about what caused the country’s worst riots in decades. In speech at a youth club in Witney, Cameron blamed the trouble on a society where fathers abandon families, gangs flout the law and people refuse to take responsibility for their actions. But the young audience was unimpressed, heckling the Conservative leader and pointing the finger at public spending cuts, inequality and higher university fees which they fear will widen the gap between society’s haves and have-nots. “He is blaming everyone but himself,” said Jake Parkinson, 17, unemployed. “The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. I’d love to go to university, but it’s the money that is putting me off.”