Tackling teenage violence is London's 'foremost issue' - councillor

The leader of the Christian Peoples Alliance, Cllr Alan Craig, has said that tackling teenage violence is London's "foremost issue" in 2008.

"We must tell our young people in God's name 'Enough is Enough'," Cllr Craig told mourners at the funeral of 17-year-old Bobby Litambola Bienda on Saturday.

Bobby was beaten to death on the streets of Cllr Craig's Canning Town ward on 17 November.

Cllr Craig was speaking at the request of Bobby's parents to launch the 'Bobby Foundation' in their son's memory.

He said no words could adequately express local people's sorrow about another promising young life cut short, the sixth teenage murder in the Newham area alone this year and one of 27 across London.

Accompanied at the funeral by the two other Christian Peoples Alliance councillors for the ward, Simeon Ademolake and Denise Stafford, Cllr Craig said that everyone's heart went out to the parents and family of Bobby who, by all accounts, was a friendly, music-mad young man at Barking College.

"It's a tragic and pointless waste of the life of a young man with so much to live for."

Supported by the CPA councillors, the family and friends have collected a petition calling for the end of the teenage violence and are planning a protest march in Newham.

Speaking after the funeral, Cllr Craig said that with Greater London Authority elections in May 2008, the Christian Peoples Alliance would make the crisis of teenage violence on London streets the foremost priority for all politicians.

He said these murders were simply the tip of an iceberg.

"We are dramatically failing our young people, especially our young men who are increasingly marginalised by society and left to fend for themselves," said Cllr Craig.

He said government, opinion-formers and society must "act urgently" to affirm the "vital role in society of committed loving families where there is a male father-figure to provide support and a role model for young boys".

They must also work to reverse the "feminisation of schools which downgrades risk-taking, competitiveness and initiative in favour of conformity, safety and emotional intelligence", he said.

He added, "This leads boys to under-perform as to them education becomes unchallenging, 'boring' and 'girly'."

Cllr Craig urged adult society to change the example it is setting to young people in light of the "growing gap between the inner-city poor and the City-bonus rich, the acquisitive dog-eat-dog materialist shopping culture, and the active affirmation of glossy booze-and-drugs celebrity lifestyles.

"If politicians and community leaders don't take action, we can expect teenage murders and teenage alienation to continue to rise - and rise dramatically," said Cllr Craig.