Riots report undermines the Tory diagnosis, but spreads itself too thin

After last August’s riots the debate became quickly polarised. Were socio-economic factors like unemployment to blame, or was it all down to the individual choices of the rioters? David Cameron and other Conservative ministers knew which side of this debate they wanted to be on. They had been taken by surprise by the riots, initially failing to realise how serious things were, but when they got back from their holidays they set out a clear and confident line, brushing off most questions about links to the state of the economy or youth attitudes, and condemning the riots as ‘criminality pure and simple’.

The soundbite was deliberately simplistic; Conservative ministers’ actual views were more complex. They didn’t actually dismiss all discussion of causes or social factors. They were happy to talk about those causes or factors which resonated with the Conservative theme of the ‘broken society’, and which have their effect not by making people more angry or alienated at a particular moment, but by shaping their character — turning them into bad people.