According to the Daily Star today Home Secretary Theresa May has criticised the record of the Labour Party in dealing with anti-social behaviour. (http://www.dailystar.co.uk/latestnews/view/155142/May-blames-yob-crime-rise-on-Labour/) In a ‘breaking’ story the Star reported:
“Theresa May has said police retreating from the streets as more than 26 incidents of anti-social behaviour take place every minute is a “damning indictment” of Labour’s failure to get to grips with the issue.
Mrs May spoke out after the chief inspector of constabulary said one such incident was reported to police every 10 seconds…
Mrs May, who signalled the end of the anti-social behaviour order (Asbo) and more emphasis on community involvement earlier this year, told Sky News: “This report is a damning indictment of Labour’s failure to get to grips with anti-social behaviour…
“They spent record amounts of money but achieved nothing,” she said. “
Labours failure to tackle what we now know as anti-social behaviour is rooted in its 13 years of anti-working class policies; from the privatisation of essential services, its failure to expand access to education to the poorest through to the failure to support manufacturing and create good jobs with respectable terms and conditions. Its ruthless persecution of working class youth through ASBO’s widened the gap between disenfranchised youth and the rest of society, as our organisations statement of aims proclaims, Red Youth:
“oppose[s] the victimisation of young people. Anti-Social Behaviour Orders, introduced in 1998, are an essentially arbitrary punishment meted out overwhelmingly to young people. Their principal aim is to put the blame for the state of our communities onto young people.
We are asked to believe that the increasing crime rate, boarded up shops, crack houses, noise pollution and muggings in working-class areas are all the fault of young people with caps and hoodies, rather than being the result of unemployment, lack of investment, and so on. Similarly, stop-and-search powers are used disproportionately against the youth, especially black youth, who are several times more likely to be stopped and searched than whites. We demand, and will fight for, an immediate end to all legislation and police powers that target working-class youth.”
Mrs May knows full well that it was under the last Tory administration that our industries and communities were decimated. Like the Labour government that followed, they are so removed from the lives of ordinary people that they are quite prepared to let our communities go to rot. We must fight back, we must organise, and we must take Marxist understanding to the youth!