Alex Salmond told rioting could break out in Scotland

Published on Wednesday 17 August 2011 16:45

A LEADING crime writer has warned First Minister Alex Salmond against "congratulating himself" that the riots of last week could not happen in Scotland.

Gavin Knight, who wrote his latest book after he was "embedded" with front-line police and anti-gang programmes in Strathclyde, Manchester and London, said there were "high and frightening levels" of violence in Glasgow.

Strathclyde Police have won praise for its mix of tough policing and progressive approach to tackling gang culture.

But Glasgow is still struggling with endemic inter-generational gang violence, Mr Knight said.

"People in the city centre, along Sauchiehall Street can still face attacks and witness gangs attacking each other with machetes and I don't think that's any less frightening than guys in hoodies taking trainers and mobile phones and televisions from shopfronts," he said, ahead of his appearance today at the Edinburgh Book Festival.

The author also described Prime Minister David Cameron's reaction to the riots as a "short-term knee-jerk response" based on muddled thinking.

The reaction to the riots is being hotly debated at the festival's base in Charlotte Square. Yesterday, Baroness Julia Neuberger, senior rabbi of the West London Synagogue, called for a public inquiry into the causes of the violence, saying politicians should not take the "easy option" and blame social media.

Ed Howker, co-author of Jilted Generation, on the economically disenfranchised generation born since 1979, appears there on Sunday. He warned that potential "flashpoints" exist in Scotland, though its policies on school and university education support may have eased the situation until now.

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"So far from gloating about this being an English phenomenon, if I were Alex Salmond I'd be looking at the most deprived areas of Scotland - Shettleston in Glasgow, areas of Inverclyde and Dundee - with an expression of alarm."

He added: "43,000 Scottish children grow up in over-crowded housing. Just as in England, one in five Scottish young people are unemployed."

"In Glasgow, you have these big pitched battles on Sauchiehall Street and bridges on the River Clyde, where gang members come into town and run at each other with machetes and swords," said Mr Knight. "That's been reduced, but those pitched battles, they call it 'recreational violence', they don't have that in England.

"I don't think Alex Salmond should be congratulating himself because there's a lot of violence in Glasgow, it's a different type."

Mr Salmond appears at the book festival tonight. Book festival staff have stressed that he is appearing in a literary rather than political role, chairing an event with the Scottish writer Iain M Banks, interviewing the author of both major fiction and science fiction novels.

Last week the BBC amended its reporting to refer to the "England riots" after the First Minister and his office complained at the media reports of "UK riots".

Mr Salmond said Scotland had a "different society" and social fabric. He said: "Until such time we do have a riot in Scotland, what we are seeing are riots in London and across English cities. It is actually unhelpful to see them inaccurately presented because one of the dangers we face in Scotland is copycat action."

But Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat leaders rounded on him for taking an "embarrassing" and "nationalistic" stance on the riots for "narrow political advantage". Scottish Government officials suggested yesterday that Mr Knight could have "misunderstood" Mr Salmond's comments, which were meant to stop Scotland's tourism industry from suffering from global media coverage of the "UK riots".

"The Scottish Government helped co-ordinate a highly professional response to the rioting south of the Border, ensuring Scotland was as prepared as possible for any copycat disturbances here. Efforts were rightly made to ensure Scotland's international reputation wasn't damaged by the media reports of the rioting."

In Hood Rat, Mr Knight includes a semi-fictional account of the work of Karyn McCluskey. She is co-director of the Violence Reduction Unit set up by Strathclyde Police in 2005, partly based on work carried out with gangs in the US, which aims to mix tough policing with progressive policies.

The Strathclyde work won Mr Cameron's praise last week. But the Prime Minister has since called in the former Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton to advise on Britain's response to the riots.

"His approach is definitely confused," Mr Knight said. "Five years ago he talked about 'hug a hoodie', now he's talking about zero tolerance. In opposition he was talking about Broken Britain, he hasn't talked about that since he came to power. His response is a short-term knee jerk response.

"It's all violence. In Scotland you've got sectarianism, but what you also have in Scotland is this intergenerational attitude to violence, violent fathers, you have a tradition of carrying weapons."

Personal feuds are passed down from father to son, he said, rather than the conspiracy theories fuelling anger against the media or government more commonly seen down South.