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Home Secretary Jacqui Smith in Upper Street with Emily Thornberry |
Well, Home Secretary,
did you drink as a teenager?
Smith launches booze blitz but refuses to reveal her own youthful habits
HOME Secretary Jacqui Smith visited Islington on Wednesday to launch new powers allowing police to seize alcohol from teenagers – but refused to reveal whether she had been an under-age drinker.
Asked by the Tribune if she bought alcohol when young, she said it was unacceptable for groups of young people to drink in public.
Tribune: “Did you do it yourself at all when you were younger?”
Ms Smith: “I didn’t sit in a gang in a play area smashing bottles and generally lead the sort of...”
Tribune: “But you did drink when you were under age?”
Ms Smith: “The point I’m making here is that what is unacceptable. What I’m not going to put up with is young people out and about in the streets causing disruption to communities.”
She spoke while standing outside the Walkabout pub in Upper Street, near the spot where flowers still lie in tribute to 16-year-old Nassirudeen Osawe, stabbed to death in broad daylight two days after Christmas.
She said: “I’m here to see the very good work Emily Thornberry [Islington South Labour MP] has outlined to me, and the local police and the council have been talking about, to make sure Islington is the sort of place where people feel able to come safely and be able to enjoy.”
Accompanied by the MP, and councillors Richard Watt, James Murray and Terry Stacy, she stopped to talk to street wardens and Islington police licensing officers before going on to the Business Design Centre in Angel to launch the new strategy.
She said: “I’m also talking more widely about the things we need to do to make sure people can enjoy a drink, enjoy their communities without young people on the streets with alcohol and some of the trouble that then causes.
“That’s why I’m talking about the police’s powers to actually be able to take drink off young people, the campaign we’ll be running over the next few weeks across the country, and what more we need to do to make sure parents understand.”
She called for parents to take responsibility for children, adding: “We can use parenting contracts more than we have done. If young people are being constantly picked up with drink on the streets that’s leading to disorder, one of the things our research shows is that sometimes kids are actually getting that drink directly from the parents.”
Parents had a responsibility to know where their children were and what they were doing, she added. “If they are finding that difficult we can provide parenting support but in exchange for that we do need to expect parents to take their responsibilities, to help us to intervene with their young people putting themselves in danger let alone others.”
Later, she thanked “those from Islington Council and police who have been leading the charge locally in the battle against alcohol-related crime”.
Ms Thornberry said police needed to be given power to tackle under-age drinking in parks and other public places. She added: “I don’t think I bought alcohol when I was young, because I looked much younger than I actually am.
“It might have been that I drank while I was under 18. That’s one thing but when it becomes entrenched in a sort of gang behaviour and gang culture, when the identity of a group of kids is ‘we will go to this corner and we will drink in public and as a result we will behave in an anti-social way’ that’s another thing.”
Cllr Stacy, Lib Dem deputy council leader, said: “We are delighted with the Home Secretary’s praise. Her choice of Islington for today’s briefing is a vote of confidence in the council’s work.” |
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