During the riots that engulfed parts of Britain last summer, one figure stood out for the clarity of his analysis and .jpg)
the credibility of his witness, namely Labour MP, David Lammy (pictured).
Lammy was raised in Tottenham, one of the worst hit areas, and from the age of 12 was raised by his mother alone, a hard-working woman and a devoted member of her church.
At the time Lammy blamed the riots (if such they can be called) on a culture of mass consumerism brought about by untrammelled capitalism, and on the extremely widespread absence of fathers from the lives of the children in the affected areas.
Now Lammy has written a book about the riots, which he began before the riots, because he saw what was coming. Published this week, it is called Out of the Ashes, and to judge from the extracts [1] it is a superb piece of work.
For example, in one extract which he criticises both conservatives and liberals for their attitudes towards single mothers. He criticises conservatives for being too ready to condemn single mothers while liberals are criticised for too ready to think father don’t matter a whit.
He writes: “For traditionalists, single parents were totemic. They chose to ignore the fact that most were abandoned by their partners rather than victims of their own “promiscuity”. As commentators and politicians lambasted the assumed moral failings of single mothers, I came to appreciate the voices who wanted to stand up for people such as my mother – smart, dedicated and deserted by her husband.
“They came overwhelmingly from liberals in the Labour party and beyond, who realised that these women were performing heroics and needed help, not insults.
“The danger is that those same liberals who fought so hard for single mothers now give the impression that fatherlessness does not matter at all. They insist that it is the quality of parenting that matters, that the loss of a father matters only if it means a loss of income.”
There is much more of this kind of stuff. For example, he believes that social conservatives have a point about the family but are too enamored of the market which is often very anti-family life.
Overall, Lammy believes we need to ameliorate some of the worst effects of the market and to repair the family and especially to restore fathers to families. He also believes in the beneficial effects of religion.
On second thoughts let’s not make him British Prime Minister. Let’s make him our Taoiseach.