Ultimately it is the public, the populace, of the UK who will make the UK prosper and make the UK a better place to live. The State can provide a framework but is not the means by which great free societies are built as is shown by history across the world.
BACKDROP OF INCAPACITY
Leaving economic prosperity aside, the UK needs to recapture honesty, respect for the right thing and for the law and recognise that people have duties, not just rights. The UK policing and justice system has lost its way. The approach to resolve it perhaps has to include empowering and holding responsible the British public. There are insufficient policing resources to deter and solve even serious crime let alone lesser offences. Over 90% of burglaries go unsolved. Of the 1.2 million fraud cases reported in 2025, only a tiny fraction are examined by police. The list goes on. Courts cannot keep up with crime, and prisons are full.
Any coherent and fair society depends on the rules of law, and lack of enforcement renders laws disrespected and useless. Given that sorting all criminal matters begins with the police, there is little point creating more criminal legislation to solve problems. While a bigger and more skilled police force is desirable, other ways are needed to solve social problems, and that means the public assisting.
SOCIAL MEDIA AND OTHER MATTERS
The clamour grows to ban the young, say under 16s, from social media. Using criminal legislation might not work as ways round will be found. But in any event what are police to do if thousands of children ignore the law? For law to have any use, it must be enforced. Would children and parents be arrested, fined, or imprisoned? If police have to enforce it, then there will be grave inconsistency, and precious resource will have to be reallocated from serious crime. Surely a solution is possible using technology to restrict access by children to social media and other bad stuff; for parents to control what and when they watch and participate in; to control the hours they use devices for and other restraints to prevent damage, which is out of control.
Also, the public, especially parents and others caring for children, should surely be held responsible for controlling access to and usage by children of devices. The public must just take responsibility. Government can give guidance, a framework. But Government can also regulate how tech companies abuse the public with their algorithms and be held responsible. A job for Ofcom?
The police and courts need have no role. The recent lessons of bad Covid criminal law are plain where the police should have had no involvement, but the public made responsible instead. In addition, the wasteful consumption of valuable police time is epitomised by the now discredited and random idea of non-crime hate incidents where police were wasted on pointless allegations. Rather, to reduce hate and abuse the public need education and a pan-societal approach across communities.
WATCHING CRIME PROLIFERATE – APATHY AND BLIND EYES
Shoplifting has grown exponentially. The public stand and watch. Local police sometimes try to help shopkeepers, but resources are scarce. And proud shopworkers who challenge criminals who steal from shops are sacked by their employing supermarkets. This needs to go into reverse. The public must condemn shoplifters. Thieves who think there is no victim have lost their moral compass. Theft is not to be tolerated as someone else always pays. The public should condemn it. Just as the theft of dodging fares on public transport should be condemned. Security guards must be trained and empowered to challenge criminals, like shoplifters, and unions must stop telling their member security guards just to watch, not act and just be witnesses! How did we get here? In the recent Golders Green knife attack, a Jewish volunteer security guard, in a community led programme, challenged the criminal assailants, and he was commended and respected, a lesson for all.
At last, the evil of antisemitism is being condemned. Islamists and others who patently are anti-jew are to be seriously condemned and stopped. Protesters who dislike Israel’s actions in Gaza have every right to say so, but not to endorse hate against all Jews. The public and all institutions, all religious leaders, and clerics, Muslim included, can support the UK Jews: that will be real community and public power. And those who incite antisemitism must feel the force of the law: no new laws are needed. And minorities such as Jews being oppressed should be allowed perhaps to employ security guards, such as ex-military SAS, as Jews in London are now doing: but they need ability to deter the violence against Jews. And real power to use appropriate force.
And now authorities are finally acknowledging what the public knew and watched happen – high streets are being taken over by organised crime, in barbers, nail bars, vape shops and mini-marts, to name some generics. And at last special police units are being established to find and close these. But these criminally linked shops only grew up because the public and local authorities were apathetic. They should not have been allowed to proliferate: as ever only when the crisis point is reached is something done.
RESTORING HONESTY AS A VALUE
Is it possible that too many people would cheat or steal or be unmoved by others doing so if they cannot be caught? Even Universities, inconsistently, are allowing students it seems to use Artificial Intelligence to write their essays and other work. This of course damages the student but also allows cheating as if it is ok. Would it therefore be ok today for a student to pay another student to do their homework for them in school too? How is ChatGPT or Claude different? Restoring honesty, not cheating, as a social value needs to be embraced by the public or society will simply become the rule of the jungle. Parents surely once more must be responsible for their wayward teenage children? Additionally, there needs to be clarity of the value of civic duty which of course includes honesty.
It is said that some who work from home pretend to have done hours they have not done? It is said that some people claim benefits when they actually are capable of working but succumb to normal life stresses as if they are disabilities. These things are dishonest and perhaps theft. Only the wider public can restore honesty as the underpinning of how people interact with each other: there needs to be a wide public reflection and discussion, and people need to be responsible for their actions, not wait for the State to change things for them.
Sadly, it is endemic in the media and more generally to say that all politicians lie, as if that is the norm and so exonerates them from doing so. It is probably untrue of most politicians. Rather, every lie by a politician, every uttering of disinformation, needs to be called out as such, criticised and a campaign across society adopted to discredit all such lies and deceit. If leadership can lead, then good values have a chance of resuscitation.
An example of the corrupt political lie and the media calling it out is in the Spectator of 2nd June. Zia Yusuf, senior Reform representative, used the tragic Henry Nowak events to smear the Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch. He portrayed her as a white man hater by quoting sentences she had used out of context. He sought to deceive the public about a lady who has been for years consistently clear that white and black and all lives matter equally. The Spectator denounced Zia Yusuf, evidently a dishonest Reform politician. The media has a pivotal role in not letting lies pass by as if they are normal.
ZERO TOLERANCE
Tolerating free speech is a must, as is tolerating differences of opinion. But the public should have zero tolerance for serious crime. The police must clean up their act and need more support and resources, including specialist skills. But if they cannot enforce a law, a new way must be found or decriminalise the issue and use civic powers. Maybe community service should become a much greater used penalty instead of confinement. Maybe there is a way of public shaming to deter the petty criminal. Maybe discipline should become respected as a value, not dismissed. Maybe parents should control children better.
However it is done, the public must surely embrace and apply higher standards than we do today across the country and hold to account fellow citizens who corrupt society.
See also : – Serious Debate to Replace Political Dystopia
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