I'm fed up with politicians

Whilst I'm on a roll, I'd like to say how fed up I am of politicians and politics as a whole. Whatever happened to being voted in to do the best for the country. Now you might not like him, but I admire Ken Livingstone - why I hear you say? The man has balls. I may not agree with everything he believes in but he does an excellent job of being unfettered by political norms.

He personally believed in a congestion charge and everyone else was up in arms. He went ahead because he had a view that it would be better for London, even though the majority was against it. The result has been a reduction in traffic levels and an increase in revenue. There are more busses, more cycle lanes, and generally public transport is getting better in London. According to the Independent,

"At the end of the last decade, London suffered some of the worst congestion levels in Europe. The introduction of the congestion charge had an immediate impact, reducing the amount of traffic in the heart of the capital by about 15 per cent.
About half the drivers who left their cars at home took public transport instead, with the rest getting a lift, using motorbikes or cycles to get to work or avoiding the area altogether. Transport for London (TfL), which administers the scheme, said the overall amount of traffic fell by 21 per cent between 2002 and 2006. The result is that 70,000 fewer vehicles are on the streets every day than before the charge began.
Meanwhile, the number of taxis has risen by 13 per cent, bus and coaches by 25 per cent and bicycles by 49 per cent, confirming significant changes to London's transport patterns over the past five years. TfL says the extension of the charging zone to the West has produced a fall in traffic in the area of between ten and 15 per cent."

My point here is that the man has conviction. He believes in an idea, whether you think it is good or not, and is prepared to run with it and be judged on the outcome.

I wish our country was run like this. There are definitely issues with immigration and violent crime. What does the Goverment do - they launch another initiative targeting the outcome, not the root cause; they tinker with existing policy.

Take teenage crime. The answer is not to bring in tagging or to launch education programmes about the danger of knives and guns. The reason that there are so many problems with unruly teenagers is that they are bored. Plain and simple.

Why are they bored? I believe that a return to the concept of centrally funded youth clubs, a greater emphasis on extra curricular activity, a focus on developing teenage mentors - all of these things would help bring down crime. I witnessed first hand last week five kids in our local branch of Curries. It shuts at 8pm and I was in their looking for a TV. It was almost closing time and they were hanging around looking at DVD's and generally loafing. Every CCTV camera was trained on them and all staff were primed for action. One of them said to the others "I'm bored, let's go hang-out at Tesco."

And therein lies the problem. Whilst we keeping staring at the manifestation of the problem, we miss the problem itself. I'm in sales and I train my team to find the problem. If someone says to me I need X then I want to understand why they need X. They think that the fact they don't have X is the problem. WRONG. X is the solution to a problem they have.

In the same way, the solution to this problem is not to confront the outcome, but to stop it happening in the first place.

Imagine this if you can. You are 15 years old and one of your mates texts you to ask to meet up. They want to hang around outside some late night shop and get some booze. If that is the only alternative to sitting at home watching TV with your parents then you might be interested.

Now imagine if they had a choice. Getting pissed or going indoor climbing, learning to use a recording studio, making a film, hanging out with friends in a sociable and safe atmosphere. When I talk about a youth club above, I don't mean an uncool place where you wouldn'tbe seen dead. I mean a place that offers a better, more fun experience than a bench at Tesco. After all, don't forget that these are kids and underneath the bravado, they all still enjoy a good adventure and doing interesting things with people they like.

How to fund it? Use the National Lottery. Create a national programme designed to put a centre in every major town and large village. The cost will be big no doubt, but what is the cost of youth crime in this country and what price do we put on the life of another teenager.