Tory HQ releases partial quote from shadow public health minister omitting declaration that 'nothing excuses violence'
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Tories accused Diane Abbott of using government cuts as excuse for criminality even though she wrote that 'nothing excuses violence'. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian
Smoke is still billowing from properties across London and already the political recriminations are under way.
Angie Bray, the Tory MP for Ealing and Acton Central, condemned Labour politicians for claiming that the government's spending cuts are to blame for the riots.
In a statement issued this morning by the Conservative party, Bray said:
For senior Labour politicians to use cuts as an excuse for the kind of criminality we have seen over the last few days is unacceptable, irresponsible, and completely wrong. Londoners who have seen their homes and businesses destroyed expect more from local leaders.
Bray seized on a series of statements by Ken Livingstone, who will challenge Boris Johnson in next year's London mayoral contest. Researchers at Tory HQ have been busy transcribing the thoughts of Livingstone since the Tottenham riots on Saturday.
Here is the first of eight quotes from the former London mayor distributed by the Tory press office:
It is the fault of the government because basically, you go all over London, I was up in Tottenham. Tottenham has had a 9 per cent cut nearly in its government grant. The youth centres are closing, people are seeing all the sort of things they used to rely on going.
The remarks by Livingstone on Newsnight on Monday night are pretty clear cut and back up Bray's claim that he is blaming the government for the riots.
But is Bray right to lump Diane Abbott, the shadow public health minister, in with Livingstone? Bray highlighted the (second half of the) final paragraph of a piece by Abbott in Monday's Independent:
...just as with the original riots, parts of the community seem to have been a tinder box waiting to explode. Haringey Council has lost £41m from its budget and has cut youth services by 75 per cent. The abolition of the education maintenance allowance hit Haringey hard, and thousands of young people at college depended on it. Again none of these things are reasons for rioting and looting. But with these and other cuts in jobs and services, it is difficult to see how areas like Tottenham can become less flammable soon.
Bray's decision to criticise Abbott raised eyebrows in Labour circles because the shadow public health minister has gone out of her way to condemn the violence. It is interesting that Bray chose not to quote the first half of the final paragraph of Abbott's piece. This is what Abbott wrote:
As was the case 26 years ago, nothing excuses violence. There is no doubt that all types of mindless thugs latched on to the disturbances. There were also hours of looting at Wood Green and Tottenham Hale, both shopping centres I know well.
So Abbott could not have been clearer: nothing excuses the violence of the last few days. The Daily Mail, which published a piece about left wing politicians who have "cynically sought to make political capital out of the riots", made clear that Abbott should not be criticised. Tim Shipman, the Daily Mail's deputy political editor, wrote:
Black London Labour MPs including Mr Lammy, Diane Abbott and Chuka Umunna distanced themselves from attempts to blame the cuts.
Miss Abbott said: 'Cuts don't turn you into a thief. What we saw was people thieving for hours. Mr Umunna said the violence in London was 'totally opportunistic and utterly unacceptable'.
He added: 'I think we have got to be very careful about seeking to draw general conclusions from a series of events around London to make some kind of historical judgment about what is going on.
The response of Abbott shows that Labour will take a cautious approach as the party deals with the most serious urban rioting since Tony Blair's spoke in 1993 of the need to be "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime". The party has moved on from the days of the Broadwater Farm riots in Tottenham when the late Bernie Grant famously said:
What the police got was a bloody good hiding.
Within two years Grant was elected as the Labour MP for Tottenham.
Ed Miliband, who visited Peckham this morning after cutting short his holiday in Devon, is making clear that his focus is to condemn the criminal behaviour and to offer the police support as they seek to avoid more violence. In the future Labour will no doubt turn its attention to the impact of spending cuts on police numbers and the abolition of the Educational Maintenance Allowance. But no mainstream Labour politician will want to provide any excuse for the violence.
2.30pm UPDATE
After a critical response on Twitter, the Tories have been in touch to say they stand by their press release. A source accused Abbott of trying to "have it both ways" by saying that nothing excuses violence while suggesting that government spending cuts had contributed to the violence in Tottenham.