Letters defending Margaret Hodge comments on 2011 riots

Cllr Maureen Worby, cabinet member for social care and health integration, writes:

David Hamilton wildly misses the point in his letter last week, and it would appear he does so deliberately to make political attacks.

There are two main issues Mr Hamilton picks up. One is that apparently it is “more ‘aggressive’” policing that people want to see. That’s not what I hear. What I hear is people asking for a return to neighbourhood policing.

They want to see bobbies on the beat, where they can put a name to their local officer’s face. They want a reassuring police presence which builds trust with the local community and delivers real results in tackling the crimes that affect our communities most.

It is the savage government cuts to policing budgets that mean we don’t have this. From 2010-2019 London lost thousands of police officers and 72 per cent of PCSOs were also cut from our streets.

Secondly Mr Hamilton blames the council for the loss of youth services.

I think Mr Hamilton is in agreement with me that investing in our young people is the best way to ensure they do not get involved in criminality, but also to help those who do stray to feel supported as they chart a new course.

Once again it is necessary to remind Mr Hamilton that cuts from central government mean in every community across the country youth services have faced substantial cuts.

In Barking and Dagenham, government funding for the council has been slashed to around one third of what it was. This has an impact.

But we haven’t given up on our young people: we have great schools, a university at the Old Civic, the amazing Youth Zone in Parsloes Park, whose board I am proud to sit on, and fantastic community-led initiatives supporting our young people in all sorts of ways.

Peculiarly unhelpful analysis

The derelict Westbury Arms pub in Ripple Road was set alight during the rioting (Image: Archant)

Colin Newman, Barking, writes:

David Hamilton has apparently misunderstood Margaret Hodge’s comments made on the 10th anniversary of the rioting in Barking and other places.

She listed some contributing factors/causes that she believes are still in play 10 years after the riots, one of which is “aggressive policing”.

It is quite clear that this was not a comment on how the riots were policed at the time but about ongoing police-community relations.

Hodge’s list of underlying and continuing issues does not purport to be exhaustive, but Mr Hamilton has brushed it all away with his contentious claim that “the only factors that lead [sic] to the riots were a minority of opportunist, criminal scumbags taking advantage of the situation”.

He does not explain what he means by “the situation”, but he appears to mean the riots themselves. Thus (he appears to claim) the factor that led to the riots was people taking advantage of the riots. The riots caused themselves in other words.

A peculiarly unhelpful analysis in 2011, let alone for 10 years on, when any continuing underlying factors need to be addressed to avoid more of the same.

As to his point about the council funding (or not funding) youth services, what he fails to mention is the massive cuts to funding that Barking and Dagenham Council – and many others – have endured for several years.

Was he expecting services to get better as a result, or stay about the same? It is indisputable, surely, that council services will reduce in scale and/or quality when run at a much lower budget. This is not a party political point. There are clearly limits to the scope of doing more with less.

All that said, Mr Hamilton presumably does not think that better youth services will make a difference as – according to him – the lack of them was not a contributing factor to the riots.