Blair: Riots Not 'Moral Collapse'

Former British prime minister Tony Blair has weighed in publicly for the first time since riots flared up in London, blasting P.M. David Cameron for blaming the riots on a "slow-motion moral collapse" in British society. Writing in the London Observer, Blair warns that such claims could hurt the country's reputation, though he admits to reacting similarly when 2-year-old Jamie Bulger was murdered in 1993. Still, he has a staunchly different take on the riots than Cameron, who said in a speech on Monday that he was determined to mend the country's "broken society" and a state that has "become literally demoralized." Blair, on the other hand, thinks the current generation that the Labour Party helped build is more respectable, responsible, and hardworking than his own. "I think we are in danger of the wrong analysis leading to the wrong diagnosis, leading to the wrong prescription," he writes, concluding that Britain should deal with the phenomenon without bringing "general policy" into the picture.