Paradise Valley

So as far as I know there hasn’t been a single window broken in Sutton Poyntz, nor even a solitary cocktail stirrer looted from the Springhead inn.  Nevertheless, we should be careful to think ourselves separate from these terrible events or safe from their consequences.

There may have been a few packets of sweets, biscuits or a slab of cheese pilfered from the Spar shop but with one of the greatest crimefighters of our generation behind the till, there is little chance of an orgy of looting on the Preston Road.  Woe betide any cutpurse or vagabond who crosses Michael’s path.

In Weymouth there is a significant underclass and plenty of disaffected youth.  We are only ever a few angry words away from a confrontation in the town which half a dozen local coppers would have no chance of preventing.

There is no excuse at all for the appalling criminal behaviour across our country but there is an explanation and we have as much responsibility to put it right as anyone else.

So, order must be restored and justice must be done.  I wish that we had seen such a sense of urgency from the courts concerning dishonest MPs and bankers.  I wish that corrupt, venal, self-serving newspaper editors and policemen had their doors broken in at 6.00am rather than being allowed to attend police stations by appointment.  This unfairness and injustice is at the root of these problems.

I am not soft on the rioters.  I would advocate the boot camp solution.  Yes, the short, sharp shock for say, six months, seems a good idea to me.  Then, before they get too comfortable in the routine, I would put them into properly enforced community service that means real work.  There are miles of drainage ditches in the valley that would break a few backs and spirits before they misbehaved again.  A six or eight acre field, dug and tilled by hand and planted with potatoes, would calm a few cocky scumbags for a week or two.

But what of the feral elite, the members of the cabinet and shadow cabinet, MPs, bankers, media executives and the oligarchy that actually controls our country?  They are the ones truly responsible for this fracture in our society.  They are entirely detached from reality and concerned only for their own selfish ends.

I am a tory (small “t”) and I am ashamed that I had a “Vote Drax” poster on my fence last year.   If the Tory party is out of touch (and Labour and the LibDems) then Drax is on another planet.  He and all our local councillors are indolent, complacent, self-serving and utterly useless.  Drax is literally nowhere to be seen.  Mark my words, the only time he will ever be prominent in local life is next year when the Olympics will bring him to the fore, grasping for every indulgence and media appearance, ingratiating himself with every celebrity and sports hero that he can be photographed alongside.

I was moved to tears by the scenes around Clapham Junction because a few years ago that entrance to Debenhams was even closer to my home than the Spar shop is now.  That made it very, very real to me. What we need now, right across our country, in the villages of Dorset, just as in our cities, is the spirit of community and mutual respect that the dustpan and brush-wielding residents of Clapham brought forth after the riots.

After all the trepidation and concern about camping in the valley, we should celebrate the peaceful holidays that were enjoyed here and seek to be inclusive, in unity, friendly and welcoming to our fellow man.  The solution starts right here, at home.