Today the front page headlines are dominated by the election. Today we must decide which surgeon we think can best fix the wounds. Today we must decide which captain is best suited to steer our ship out of troubled waters. Today we find on the inside pages that a 16 Year old boy was stabbed to death in Sydenham South London yesterday and yet another family now grieves through the night.
That makes a total of 10 youth fatalities in London this Year so far and 7 in the last 6 weeks. Let us hold our breath until the next batch of statistics find their way to us from the home Office telling us that crime is falling and in their unique and strangely compelling special language of stakeholders and practitioners put our minds at rest that their strategies are working. They are not.
Damilola would have been 21 on December 7th this Year. Damilola wanted to make the World a better place. We will celebrate his short life on November 27th with a 10th anniversary Memorial concert in his memory. Damilola’s killer will be released before this landmark date. He will have served only 4 Years in youth detention centres. Can we satisfy ourselves that justice has been served? Yet again let us wait for the statistics to wing our way telling us that the justice system is working and that the Ministry of Justice has got everything under control. It has not.
If the Ministry of food was run by Turkeys they would send out statistics showing that the well being of the nation would be greatly enhanced if the staple diet of Xmas dinner was Lamb!
The Damilola Taylor Trust has tried to find solutions by creating unique projects such as the Spirit of London Awards – We believe that the vast majority of our young people are positive and upstanding citizens – In this respect we understand fully what the term “Big Society” means. Obama used the term community more so than Society and we knew what he meant as well.
We live in a far from perfect world but the strength of community and the spirit that emanates from the collective coming together of communities in diversity can mend many ills – The “Big State” that controls Government policy leads, dictates front line spending and manages “the system” is what needs fixing – Not Britain. We are Britain and we are not broken. We just need better leadership to help us find our way out of the TOTAL STATE the big state has put us in.
Use your vote and use your vote well but remember in the end it is you – It is your family – Your local community and your collective spirit that will make things better again – Our new Government must end the oppression of the state and release us from its deathly grip. The old Government Ministers did not mean for knife carriers not to be punished and for murderers to be given light sentences – They were just not strong enough to impose themselves on the people running the SYSTEM. The system is flawed so let’s tear it up and start again.
Tomorrow we might know the name of our new Prime Minister. Tomorrow we will know the name of the 16 Year old boy from Sydenham. Treat both names with the same relevance and never stop seeking the change that only we the people aided by strong Government can find – Collectively.
Gary Trowsdale
DAMILOLA TAYLOR TRUST
