"In respect of knife and gun gangs, the laws need to be significantly toughened. There needs to be an intensive police focus on these groups. The ringleaders need to be identified and taken out of circulation; if very young, as some are, put in secure accommodation. The black community - the vast majority of whom in these communities are decent, law-abiding people horrified at what is happening - need to be mobilised in denunciation of this gang culture that is killing innocent young black kids. But we won't stop this by pretending it isn't young black kids doing it."
Is the answer
a) Nick Griffin
b) Nigel Farage
c) Tony Blair
d) Enoch Powell
e) Trevor Phillips
Click HERE to find out.
That was the same T Blair who has systematically removed powers from the police to deal with exactly this sort of crime.
ReplyDeleteNo wonder the inner city youth are laughing at the rest of "society".
Spot on, Ed. Anyone that thinks that Labour are part of the solution needs their head examined.
ReplyDeleteI'm no natural defender of Blair, but it sounds like a fairly reasonable and carefully argued point to me. And I'm not sure it's true that a Tory coming out with the same thing would have been slated - only if they'd phrased it more clumsily or provocatively. This is a tricky area where any point of view you express can quickly have you denounced as a racist or an anything-goes liberal. We should avoid playing that game, but I think the tone of your article unfortunately has the effect of encouraging it.
ReplyDeleteIf course a Tory saying this would have been slated by all those on theleft who always use the bigh stock of racism to try to beat the Conservatives with at every opportunity. Mind you it doesn't help that the Tory leadership are so very willing to go along with this nonsense.
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, the friends of the kid who was stabbed in Hammersmith apparently robbed the local flower shop to build their shrine. Two wrongs make a right these days?
ReplyDeleteThe one person who definitely did not say it was Dave Cameron - Is this good or bad?????
ReplyDeleteTony Blair. That said he does ignore white on white violence, in poorer areas which whilst currently not as bad, is still a problem.
ReplyDelete'In respect of'..'significantly'.. 'focus'..'need to be'.. 'taken out'..' mobilised'.. 'kids'..'doing it'..
ReplyDeleteNot a Professor of Classics then; or even a competent user of rhetoric.
There is nothing wrong with owning or carrying weapons , the problem is with the people carrying them , bring back the birch and the death penalty for these gang banging little fuckwits , see how cool they are bent over in public ,pants arount their ankles being caned in front of a jeering crowd , that or dancing on the end of a rope.
ReplyDeleteThat will stop all this savagery not a free ipod and a hug off David Cameron.
Must be Blair. Only he would say "kids".
ReplyDeleteWas it Blair ..could have been Trevor Phillips
ReplyDeleteSeems OK to me. And Blair does comment on other permutations of violence and trouble as he finds them. Don't have to worry so much about being called racist because Labour don't have a legion of colonel blimps, mad poets, blacked up candidates, fash fellow travellers etc etc. And also far better representation at all levels.
ReplyDelete'Living near the frontline' Suss in the moss etc
This problem has been imported into this country over the last fifty years.
ReplyDeleteIf this had come from a Tory, it probably would have been slated.... but only because Tories are so stupidly prone to expressing it more in the tones of the Hitch above, rather than the measured words of Blair.
ReplyDeleteEngaging brain before opening mouth on sensitive subjects like this tends to help.
Seems OK to me.
ReplyDeleteThere's nothing unreasonable about what he said, but it's a bit rich of him to now start saying "we are going to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime" because for ten years he has been legislating against the police and their freedom of action in this situation whilst banging on about terrorism and generally trying to scare us into submission.
I wrongly guessed Nigel Garage...
ReplyDeleteI don't think anybody disputes that these crimes are 'black on black' - indeed Operation Trident is a police unit specifically focussing on black-on-black gun crime. So I don't see that anybody could or would be described as racist for making those remarks. The implication that this is the sort of thing that only a Griffin, Powell or Farage would say is bizarre.
ReplyDeleteThe simple way to reduce stabbings is to get rid of Labour.
ReplyDeleteThen perhaps the Tories will have the self-confidence not just to stop passing more silly laws like Blair has done, but actually repeal most of them.
I agree with the Hitch: carrying a weapon should be completely legal. That way crookes would be less likely to use them on law abiding people because they would be less sure that those people couldn't defend themselves.
Contrary to popular belief gun ownership was only made illegal in this country in 1919 when the Liberal (surely not? - ed) Government feared a revolution by (presumably right wing) returning soldiers with weapons to spare. This was the beginning of a slipperly slope that led to decent people not being allowed to shoot in secure clubs but it's fine for criminals to shoot or stab people when ever they fancy it appears.
Blair and the rest of his so called socialists have got to stop paying good money to wastes of space like Lee Jasper and the other 'advisers' scattered around the place and and stop providing 'rap' and 'deejay' lessons for young black people. Is that all anyone thinks they are good for? everytime there's an inittiative announced, camera cut to 'yoot' club and some black kids mumbling incoherent rubbish. But it applies to all young people, give them proper education, discipline and above all hope, that at the end of it all they'll be able to get a job, afford a house and raise a family - this country is sinking slowly and no one seems to actually want to do anything about it, well nothing practical any way. Baroness Scotland should shut up if she's nothing useful to say as should anyone else who thinks just mnentioning Operation trident is a magic spell for the better.
ReplyDeleteIain, are you going the way of most TV programmes?
ReplyDeleteIs this daily "who said this" question soon going to turn into a if you think A) Tony Blair call 0901 123456789; or for B) Gordon Brown call 0901 etc... I will leave it for others to insert the question!
Blair might have said it to look hard. It will however come to absolutly nothing, as is usual when he actually says things that are true.
ReplyDeleteWe are all aware that Blair is at his strongest when he lies.
Scary Biscuit: I think the fear of armed returning soldiers in 1919 was that they would form soviets.
ReplyDeleteDid Patrick Mercer say it, before David Cameron sacked him ?
ReplyDeleteIt's too late for Blair to start coming out with this hot air now.
ReplyDeleteNew Labour's imposition of immigration on a massive scale along with "multi-culturalism" has led to large parts of Britain being Balkanised.
Strong measures are necessary if this problem to be remedied.
Another lefty finally wakes up.
ReplyDelete"Don't have to worry so much about being called racist because Labour don't have a legion of colonel blimps, mad poets, blacked up candidates, fash fellow travellers etc etc"
ReplyDeleteWhat about all those traditional working class Labour supporters switching to the BNP? Racism can be found in the Labour grass roots just as easily as within the Tory grass roots. Labour only manages to escape the racism tag because it is now the party of the liberal-left middle classes.
I think it was about 1994 just before Christmas, the met police had Identified an aircraft that had been Chartered by yardies and their families.
ReplyDeleteplane touches down and government of the day says go back, up jumps the left, wagging the racist stick, just remind me how old their offspring will be today.
Yes, of course it was Blair.
ReplyDeleteWhat's critical to remember is, it's TONY BLAIR who said it. This begs the question: What are the REAL facts?
Anybody have numbers, or are we just taking Bliar's word for it here?
(also, isn't there more than ONE black community in London? What someone from Angola would have in common with someone from Anchorage is beyond me; if you're going to blame a group, have the balls to be specific about which one)
The facts suggest that the problem is not one of race, but of class. a portion of the non-working class aspires to the lifestyle porttrayed by Ice Cube in a number of films - violent drug dealer swigging Crystal from the bottle. It is not about poverty - they could generaly make more money is reality working at MacDonalds. Quite simply, being a gangsta is sounds more interesting to them...
ReplyDeleteHas Blair Secretly joined the Yardies?
ReplyDeleteAuntie Flo'