UK businesses say 'never again'

David Soskin on what needs to happen to ensure last week's scenes are never repeated

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It has not been a good summer for British business. With a global financial crisis still raging and UK economic growth unlikely to surpass a paltry 1.5%, we experience riots in our cities, including the capital. Not only were major retail chains targeted, but also scores of small local businesses. Reeves – the family-owned furniture store in Croydon, burned to the ground after 144 years in business – has become for many a vivid symbol of the wanton destruction that has disgraced the entire nation.

It is certainly true that many involved in the mayhem were those who still feel isolated from the rest of society despite years of public spending and one of the most generous welfare systems in the world. It is also true that others were in employment or in higher education: in other words, just like the pop star’s son (a Cambridge undergraduate) who recently desecrated the Cenotaph, they should have known better. And some, most alarmingly, were children as young as nine years old.

From small businesses threatened, attacked or destroyed, the message for the Coalition is clear: never again! Of course, the police must be given far more leeway to deal with rioters and looters without fear of absurd human rights legislation. The Coalition should give the police the powers to use water cannon, rubber bullets and tear gas if they deem it necessary. The custodial sentences meted out on the perpetrators must be long and hard. Michael Howard, the former Conservative Home Secretary, had an excellent saying: ‘if you don’t want do to the time, don’t do the crime’.

Half a century ago, ‘Teddy Boys’ started a riot in Notting Hill attacking black families and their houses. The sentencing of nine white youths each to four years in prison stopped the violence at a stroke. There is a case once again for exemplary sentencing of this kind.

But it is also necessary to unwind much of the so-called progressive thinking that has marred the social fabric of Britain. It is time once again to ensure that the family unit, the core building bloc of a civilised society, receives favourable tax treatment. And after an unrelenting erosion that began in the 1960s, now is the time for parental and school discipline to be restored. No one wants a return to Tom Brown’s Schooldays but there must be a better way to bring children up than allowing them to ignore their parents, assault our teachers with apparent impunity and thumb their noses at the police.

And most importantly a sound basic education and trade skills must be placed at the centre of the effort to ensure that there is no underclass. It is unacceptable that one third of primary school children leave without a proper command of reading, writing and maths. Or that a fifth of secondary school leavers are functionally illiterate, despite a doubling of spending on education since 2000 from £35.8bn to £71bn.

As for further education, there is far much too much emphasis on universities. Many of their courses are useless as employers know only too well. As the boss of Pimlico Plumbers Charlie Mullins put it quite cogently: “For years we have been sold the complete load of bollocks and told that if you want to get on in life and be successful then you have to go to university, and manual work is only for those who aren't clever enough to make it to university. And where did that get us? Thousands of useless courses and hundreds of thousands of students with huge debts and no jobs, that's where”. So let’s now put useful trades at the centre of further education.

The prospects for British business are bleak enough without rioting. Sure we need to stamp out the wanton destruction and make the criminals pay a rich price for their actions. But, long term, the Coalition needs a dramatic rethink about how to repair Britain’s tattered social fabric.