Teenagers are dying from our failure to confront London violence
We have abandoned boys to a surreal and terrifying landscape where gang life offers protection A former gangster was returning home after dropping off his daughter at a play date. Suddenly he stiffened. Ahead, three boys in tracksuits and gloves — “Gloves mean a gun,” he explained — bounced up and down outside a fried…
How Top Boys topple down crime’s ladder
Too many prisoners rejoin society with no education, stable housing or job prospects. No surprise that more than half reoffend within a year. I was walking through Soho with a friend, an ex-con from south London now in his 40s. Suddenly what looked like a pile of old clothes rose up from the pavement and hailed…
Drill, the brutal rap that fuels gang murder
‘Drillers’ have turned death into a money-making industry A young man in a grey tracksuit and silver mask looks straight at the camera. He is flanked by others in black anoraks, heads jabbed sideways, moving to the beat. The young man raises his hand and curls it into the shape of a gun. ‘Bang, bang,…
The homeless are not all helpless victims – and their needs are more complex than we admit
The rise in rough sleeping is a complex cocktail of immigration, crime and despair. On the streets of Manchester on a bitterly cold day, I met a teenage couple, in love but on the streets. Both had been in care. His leg was in plaster after a punch up. She was on the way to…
Charity trustees should know when things are going wrong
They Trustees share the same legal obligations as company directors, writes Harriet Sergeant. Whose job is it to regulate the angels? When Kids Company, which helped deprived inner-city children, imploded last year, one of a slew of recent scandals in the charity sector, it became clear that none of the regulatory bodies — the government,…
How to spot a charity snake
How do you know if a charity is changing lives? The government clearly has no idea. How do we judge a charity? Very badly, it turns out. Until The Spectator revealed the full horror of Kids Company in July, not even the press had asked hard questions of the charity or its founder, Camila Batmanghelidjh. The subsequent political…
Kids Company founder Camila Batmanghelidjh: How the world fell for this ‘ultimate matriarch’
To children, MPs and celebrities, Kids Company head Camila Batmanghelidjh seemed every inch the mother-figure. But is she a saint or sinner? Harriet Sergeant, who’s reported on the charity for a nearly decade, explains all. Charismatic, warm and cuddly in bright dazzling clothes, she cut an exotic but nurturing mother figure – as far away…
A genius for seducing the rich: Kids Company founder was expert at convincing wealthy to help vulnerable youngsters, says HARRIET SERGEANT
Nearly a decade has passed since I first met Camila Batmanghelidjh. She was holding a meeting with a dozen businessmen, and I watched astounded as she dazzled them with a lecture about her theories concerning emotional development and violent behaviour in young people. When she excused herself to take a call from one of the…
Kids Company: Did good PR mask deeper failings?
There is no doubt that many of Kids Company’s staff do a heroic job. But to succeed, charities need scrutiny as much as public support. Camila Batmanghelidjh, the flamboyant founder of Kids Company, is stepping down after 20 years as its chief executive. It is a dramatic departure: the Cabinet Office refused to hand over…
The big idea that may redeem Tuggy Tug
Tuggy Tug declared: ‘I can’t wait to get out of this place because I won’t be coming back’. I was standing on a street corner last week with a young man called Tuggy Tug. His face displayed an emotion I had never before associated with this 21-year-old leader of a south London gang during the…
Fixing Broken Britain
Gang members, like those who rioted last week, say that here are only two things will stop another flare-up: jobs and discipline. Last Tuesday, at the height of the riots, I got a telephone call from Mash, an 18-year-old member of a Brixton gang whom I had befriended three years ago. Three of the gang…
These rioters are Tony Blair’s children
Nihilism and disorder have been fostered by the state. On the third day of the London riots I received a telephone call from Mash, a member of a Brixton gang who I befriended three years ago. He was standing outside an electronics shop in Clapham, watching the looting. I could hear shouts, glass breaking but never a police siren. I urged him to go home. ‘Harri…
Prison’s just what a young yob needs: structure and discipline
As Learco Chindamo is about to be released claiming to be reformed, Harriet Sergeant finds jail is also working wonders on her hoodlum friend Tuggy Tug. Chindamo was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Philip Lawrence (Reuters) ‘Hari, I am in prison, call me in a hot minute.” I was standing in a…
Harriet Sergeant: My edgy summer in the ’hood
Summer in the inner city is not complete without a riot. I should know. I started my very own. We were in a sports shop. Everyone I know is in Tuscany or Provence. I am in London enjoying an inner-city summer. And summer in the inner city is a very different affair. Instead of carefree…
The state just won’t let Tuggy go straight
After a former gangster enthused him, a hoodie was ready to reform. Then the system crushed his hopes In a bleak room in a south London hostel, I recently found myself undressing an 18-year-old hoodie. Tuggy Tug, the leader of a south London gang, has been in foster care since the age of eight and…
The state sector’s big evil: it does not sack
It has not been a great week for the state sector. On Friday, Basildon University hospital pleaded guilty to health and safety failings over the death of a severely disabled young man. His mother, Gill Flack, called for bosses to be “held accountable” and demanded “staff sackings”. She might as well have cried for the…
Schools are churning out the unemployable
Eight million adults are ‘economically inactive’ — which means that one in five people of working age do not have a job The latest unemployment figures are a shocker. Eight million adults are “economically inactive”. That means one in five people of working age does not have a job. A new and expanding group, poignantly…
My cure for violent gangs: museums and a night at the theatre
The distinguished social affairs writer has made unusual friends: two teenage hoodies from Brixton I first met Tuggy Tug a year ago. He was one of about a dozen 16-year-old boys gathered outside a chicken takeaway in Brixton, south London. He wore black trainers, a black tracksuit and a black cap beneath the hood. He…
The blunders forcing children at risk to compete for care
Talk is cheap – or, rather, recommendations are. Lord Laming has just issued 58 to transform the “Cinderella” social services that allowed Baby P to die so horrifically. The problem is that not one of these recommendations translates into extra funding. Ed Balls, the children’s secretary, has, according to Solace, the body that represents local…
Sorry, kids, you’re all going to Smoke-and-Mirrors High
The government has stars in its eyes – and it is proving confusing. It has introduced a new A* grade at A-level to help universities distinguish between top candidates. Then, last week, it instructed those same universities to ignore the new grade “for several years”. What has brought about this abrupt change? The government says…
Well, we did pay Matthews to keep having children
Karen Matthews was convicted last week of kidnapping her daughter. The case is important, not because of what she did, horrible though that was, but what she has exposed. She opened our eyes to an underclass that most of us ignored or hoped would just go away. Matthews is the mother of seven children by…
Amid the bust, a boom in polite taxi drivers and cheap builders
So now we have it. Britain is in recession. How is life going to change? Despite the hardship and worry for many of us, there are unexpected benefits. Take taxi rides. The past 10 years have seen them become increasingly fraught. The plethora of Smartie-coloured control buttons, video screens and soothing voices leaves me screaming.…
Ladies, thank heaven for younger men
Men, women keep telling you, are awfully dull. They are pompous. They love strange things like sport and systems. Worst of all, said a stream of newspaper articles recently, they don’t chat. The average woman uses 7,000 words a day, the average man just 2,000. Women are running out of patience with their mate. At…
Harriet Sergeant 