David Cameron called today for greater understanding of hoodie-wearing teenagers in his latest move to reposition the Conservative Party. The Tory leader said young people needed "a lot more love" to avoid being drawn into offending in a new approach derided by Labour as "hug a hoodie". Mr Cameron denied trying to "wind up" Tory traditionalists with his apparent break with John Major's injunction to "condemn a little more and understand a little less". But, in a separate speech tonight, Mr Cameron set out plans to strengthen police in the fight against crime with more conventional Tory pledges like cutting bureaucracy. That was seen as an attempt to reassure those in his party who might have been alarmed by his comments to the Centre for Social Justice earlier today. He told the think tank:
"The hoodie is a response to a problem, not a problem in itself. We - the people in suits - often see hoodies as aggressive, the uniform of a rebel army of young gangsters. But hoodies are more defensive than offensive. They're a way to stay invisible in the street. In a dangerous environment the best thing to do is keep your head down, blend in, don't stand out. For some, the hoodie represents all that's wrong about youth culture in Britain today. For me, adult society's response to the hoodie shows how far we are from finding the long-term answers to put things right. So when you see a child walking down the road, hoodie up, head down, moody, swaggering, dominating the pavement - think what has brought that child to that moment."The comments drew a clear line between Mr Cameron and Tony Blair, who last year supported a ban on hoodies by the Bluewater shopping centre. Mr Cameron acknowledged the need for sanctions like anti-social behaviour orders and curfews but said that he wanted to see them used less and less. He said that it was essential to remain optimistic about young people, and not "just give up in despair".
In his second speech tonight, to the Police Foundation, Mr Cameron pledged to reduce paperwork for officers to allow them to be "crime fighters, not form-writers". Mr Cameron promised to end the recording of stops, introduced on the recommendation of the inquiry into the killing of black teenager Stephen Lawrence. He called for civilian staff to take over more administrative functions to enable officers to concentrate on frontline policing. And he re-affirmed the Tories' commitment to scrapping proposed police force mergers and introducing directly-elected commissioners or sheriffs to increase accountability. He said that a "damaging culture" had infected policing in recent years. "That culture has diluted what should be a single-minded focus for the police. The public wants the police to be crime fighters, not form writers. They want the police to be a force as well as a service."
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