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What horrors await Camden in the future?
A CREEPING lawlessness is coming to Camden’s streets.
To an extent it is exemplified by the dreadful assault on the young Camden councillor Russell Eagling on Sunday evening – in what used to be a haven of peace, leafy Well Walk in Hampstead (See page 3)
A gang of seven or eight youngsters attacked him viciously, just for his mobile phone.
Two other councillors have been mugged in recent months.
That apart, street attacks in the borough are becoming more and more common.
Every week our reporters are given details by the police about such assaults.
Annual police statistics may not show this, but strong anecdotal evidence cannot be ignored.
There is also evidence to suggest that reports by the public about street thefts and muggings are not necessarily closely followed up by the police, who are often down on numbers, and put off by the mountain of paperwork each incident creates.
This week one of our reporters was chased by a gang of youths in Camden Town while on an assignment, threatening to stab him.
Our past campaigns for more police presence in such hot spots as Camden Town have to some extent paid off.
But unless there is a borough-wide strategy, heavy policing in one area only ends up driving the gangs into another part of the borough.
Then again, a firmer hand by the police – on its own – won’t solve the problem.
Only a political solution can bring this about. It involves better employment prospects for the jobless youngsters who roam the streets. It means better housing for the countless families who live in overcrowded conditions. It means better sports and recreational facilities for youngsters. It means a culture industry that concentrates less on the trivial and less on empty celebrities paraded as role models.
A local authority cannot provide the solution. Only central government can do that.
But will New Labour or the New Tories be prepared to spend the necessary billions?
New Labour won’t spend a penny on new council housing – the first government to refuse to do this in the past 60 years. Yet, it will pour money on military adventures abroad.
A few yeas ago Doris Lessing wrote a searing dystopian novel about the future, seemingly set in Camden, where rootless, maniacal gangs have taken over the streets, leaving terrified families marooned in their high-rise flats.
Mere sci-fi? No, we are nowhere near that yet – but it could be Camden of the future.
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