karlpejera: Gang members show entrepreneurial zeal, says Chuka Umunna

Martes, Hunyo 26, 2012

Gang members show entrepreneurial zeal, says Chuka Umunna

Shadow business secretary says gangs pour energy into building up brands that could be channelled into other activities

Gang members in some areas have an "entrepreneurial zeal" that should be harnessed to provide a "ladder up", the shadow business secretary, Chuka Umunna, will say in a speech.

Talking in Westminster on Tuesday about entrepreneurship and social mobility, Umunna will say gangs in his south London constituency devote enormous energy into building up their brands through music videos, which he believes should be channelled into legitimate businesses.

Umunna, elected as MP for Streatham at the last election, will say he finds brand-building by gang members "shocking and frustrating" because it glamorises criminal behaviour by gangs.

"Make no mistake: at the heart of these gangs' activities are criminality and very serious violence," Umunna says. "As a community we send a clear message: what the gangs do is completely unacceptable, we will root it out and ensure the strong arm of the law is brought down to bear on the perpetrators."

But Umunna, who is chair of the London Gangs Forum, which is tackling gang activity across London, will add: "What frustrates me is this: many of these young people are using skills that if channelled in the right way, would provide them with an alternative route to success.

"And yet, in Lambeth, too much of this entrepreneurial instinct is being channelled into totally the wrong thing. Just imagine what these young gang members could achieve if their energies were redirected.

"Their entrepreneurial zeal, used in a legitimate business setting, could provide them with a ladder up, just as it did for my father.

"Of course the reasons why young people get involved in gangs are complex and varied. We must make legitimate business a more feasible avenue through which our young people can realise their dreams even when all else may have failed them."

Umunna will cite the experience of his father, who arrived in Liverpool from Nigeria by boat in the mid 1960s with no money, to show how entrepreneurship is central to increasing social mobility.

"My father arrived here after a very long journey on a boat from Nigeria in the mid 1960s. When he arrived at Liverpool Docks he had a suitcase and no money. A random stranger lent him the cash to pay for his train fare to London.

"Within 15 years he worked his way up from arriving with nothing to running a very successful import and export business doing trade between Europe and west Africa, selling all manner of goods until his death.

"His story was particular to him but is in many ways an archetypal immigrant story common to families the length and breadth of Britain. A generation created through commerce opportunities that no one else would offer them."

Umunna's father married the daughter of Sir Helenus Milmo QC, an Anglo-Irish high court judge.

Nicholas Watt