DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Parents should rein in these teenage looters

In a world where making excuses for criminality is the norm – lack of money, poor education, unemployment – it’s refreshing to hear someone who believes in the old-fashioned idea of personal responsibility.

In today’s Mail, the head of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners calls for a concerted effort to prevent a repeat of last week’s disgraceful Oxford Street looting spree, orchestrated on social media.

Donna Jones says sites such as TikTok must do more to identify and take down posts which incite criminal behaviour, and that police monitoring must also be better.

But the key to long-term prevention, she believes, lies with parents. ‘They need to get a grip of what their children are doing,’ she says. ‘It’s not for the police to instil a sense of right and wrong.’

Looking at the faces of the young people in the Oxford Street flash mob, it was clear many of them thought it was all a great laugh to engage in mass thievery.

The head of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners has called for a concerted effort to prevent a repeat of last week’s disgraceful Oxford Street looting spree

But such reckless stunts have consequences; injuries to innocent people, destruction of property, and indeed a criminal record for some of those involved, which could blight their future prospects.

Ms Jones is right. The young need a code of ethics to live by, and that must include respect for other people and their property.

The police can’t teach it and social media don’t seem interested in anything except increasing traffic and making money. Teachers can help, but the primary responsibility for moral guidance falls, as it always has, on parents.

Third-class treatment

The revelation that our top universities are set to offer more places through clearing to foreign applicants than domestic ones is just the latest slap in the face for British students.

Read Related Also: New Jersey Mom and Beloved Pet Dog Shot and Killed by Ex-Husband in Murder-Suicide: ‘She had a heart of gold’

Face-to-face tuition, having been non-existent during the Covid lockdown, is still limited. Thousands of students are unable to graduate because of a marking boycott by lecturers, as part of their long-running pay dispute.

There has been a sharp rise in students dropping out mid-course, having found the work too difficult or becoming disillusioned with their university experience.

(Stock Photo) The revelation that our top universities are set to offer more places through clearing to foreign applicants than domestic ones is just the latest slap in the face for British students

And while Russell Group vice-chancellors receive an average salary of £400,000 (the highest was £714,000 in 2021/22) plus lavish perks, the average student debt on graduation has climbed to £45,000.

Universities pompously claim to be international businesses as much as seats of learning. What other business would treat so many of its customers so shabbily?

Toll of the tourist tax

The number of flight bookings to London from the US has risen by 17 per cent since 2019, yet the amount of money American tourists spend here has fallen. Conversely, in the smarter shopping streets of France and Spain, US spending almost trebled.

This pattern was replicated by rich tourists from the Gulf States. Their total spending in France and Italy doubled over the same period, while in the UK it fell 17 per cent.

The root cause is not hard to divine. In almost every European country, tourists can buy goods free of purchase taxes. Here they must pay 20 per cent VAT.

At a time when British retail centres from Oxford Street to Edinburgh’s Royal Mile desperately need a post-Covid boost, they are being hit with a perverse and unnecessary tax.

The Treasury claims it will raise up to £2 billion a year. But that’s assuming the tourists keep shopping here, which they clearly aren’t. Why would they if they can buy comparable goods 20 per cent cheaper across the Channel?

It is a mystery that Chancellor Jeremy Hunt can’t comprehend the obvious fact that this tourist tax is self-defeating. When will he finally join up the dots?