A short loans shop smashed in. A local dress-maker raided. Fireworks – raided from a newsagents – shot at police.

What struck me first was how young the Peckham rioters were. Was this the most exciting thing that happened since school broke up?

Why was no one here worried that being caught might impact their job prospects? There is no excuse for violence that risks lives and leaves communities scared, but is it a coincidence that these riots are happening in areas with stark unemployment?

Last night the police couldn’t handle it. I called 999 several times, but I was left waiting, and when I did get through they didn’t come for fifteen minutes. A public service that is clearly too stretched to deliver. They did disperse the crowds in Rye Lane once, but one hour later it was full again. Looters started smashing in a sports store and leaving with hangers full of clothes. Crowds cheered.

After running in and out and looting clothes, someone started setting fire to the shirts inside the store. There are families living in the flats above the shops. One man walked through the broken glass and started picking up the burning t-shirts and chucking them out of the store. If he hadn’t the fire would have spread. The fire fighters were not there either.

An older woman started shouting at the kids: This is your home. Don’t you get it? You must feel pretty isolated from your community to destroy your own neighbourhood.

And standing there in the middle of it, I was overwhelmed by how quickly the security of our communities can be challenged. As a councillor my role now is to help our community figure out how to stop this happening again. But you need peace to build an alternative. It is in the aftermath of these riots that we will have to work our hardest.

Our work needs to start this Saturday. Community members in Southwark are organising an event to raise one million pounds for a new community centre. It was important we supported this before the riots; it is even more important now.

I’ll be there with the organiser Jennifer Blake and urge others to do the same. Many communities will now be having similar discussions. Let’s make sure we work together. There has to be an alternative. These are our homes.

The first thing we need is more diversity – and I say that as a white middle class councillor in the heart of Peckham.

Labour has always been able to celebrate the fact that it has a more diverse membership and elected representative base than any other mainstream party, but it needs to do more to engage a wider range of people into politics.

How can Labour do that? One way is to get more members involved with a project I’m launching called “It’s My Area”, which encourages young people from deprived areas to think about standing for local office. The website will then put young people in touch with their local councillors and organises shadowing schemes for them.

The project is most advanced in my hometown of Southwark, which is providing a good model for other areas.

My second point is about campaigning. When I first joined the Labour party just a few years ago, I went through something of a culture shock. In contrast to my community work, my local branch meeting seemed bureaucratic and inward looking. We spent more time on minutes and procedures than on tangible outcomes for the community.

If Labour wants to win, local groups need to focus on tangible issues as well as minutes and voter ID. In five years time it has to be able to answer the question “What did Labour do for the local community?”

How can we encourage this kind of local campaigning? I think Labour should set up small pots of money that local Labour groups can bid for in order to undertake certain community projects of their choosing. That way you can develop some accountability over local campaigns, and back the best ones.

The third point I’d like to raise is about party democracy. I remember talking to one very high profile Lib Dem about why he wouldn’t defect to Labour, even though he was unsatisfied with his party. He said that he couldn’t be a member of any party that didn’t let its members have a proper say over policy.

I think he had a point. Labour members have been right about Iraq, the 10p tax band and many other issues that the leadership acknowledged they got wrong. The Refounding Labour process gives me hope that the new leadership might trust and use members when developing policy rather than suspecting them as a risk. I hope this attitude will continue after the consultation.

The fourth point is very much related: autonomy. The Labour Youth wing needs to be given more powers and space to develop its own policy, even if it disagrees with the top of the party. We cannot expect today’s young people to simply function as a free leafleting resource.

Similarly, I think there should be various campaigns under Labour that are issue-focused and given relative freedom. So if you like Labour but don’t like your local party, you could still join Labour’s campaign on housing or the environment, and still feel you were having a worthwhile influence.

Finally, we need transparency. As we all know, the party process is still completely opaque. I believe Peter Hain is producing a map of how all of our various parts fit together – that’s a good idea. Members Net also needs overhauling.

I know NEC member Johanna Baxter is also doing some phenomenal work going out to visit CLPs across the country to explain how the NEC works, but it is something of an uphill struggle. Figuring out how to put yourself forward as an MP shouldn’t be a cryptic puzzle that only insiders can figure out – it should be publicly known.

I make these points not just out of moral conviction, but because I believe they will also make us a better party with better candidates that will be reflected in greater success at the polls.

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The deadline for Refounding Labour submissions was yesterday.

The policies presented to the squirming politicians and business leaders at a choc-a-bloc Barbican last night were made all the more difficult to avoid because they were decided democratically. Over a thousand of London Citizens’ members were involved in developing the policies, which you can read here.

Despite some inevitable wrangling, representatives from all political parties committed to working with London Citizens on these proposals. Greg Hands said the Conservatives would introduce a cap on store card interest rates (although notably, he didn’t say what that cap would actually be) and a representative from the British Bankers Association, who was brought on stage straight after a heart-wrenching personal testimony about debt, was asked if he’d commit to help responsible lending. (He did). Stephen Timms said he’d hold a meeting with London Citizens and the OFT to discuss capping interest rates, and Andrew Altman, CEO of the Olympic Legacy Programme said he’d meeting with London Citizens quarterly to discuss their plans. (Damn I’d love to see officials’ faces when these bigwigs tell them they have to add these dates to their diaries.)

Although London Citizens does get a bit happy clappy at times, it would be pretty arrogant of the left not to think it hasn’t got a lot to learn from this movement. Besides the “stick ‘em on stage and see” tactic, I took away three other lessons:

Be prepared to risk anarchy for democracy. This organisation isn’t afraid to hand highly eccentric people the microphone, to put street dancers on stage or to ask the audience if they endorse their chair. Somehow, it works.

Don’t be afraid to work across groups. London Citizens has got representatives from mosques, unions, churches, race-based organisations and schools. Sure they don’t agree on everything, but they agree on the important stuff.

Don’t be afraid to put morality, art and emotion into politics. It doesn’t water it down – it makes it come alive.

Never have I been so proud of being on the left as when I was listening to you just now. Here are just a few reasons why your simplistic agenda fails to come up to scratch:

1) Life is more complicated than “Small Government Good, Big Government Bad.” The world has moved on from such dogmatic ideology. As Obama said, it’s not the size of the state that matters – it’s what works. If you’ve ever met anyone who’s just come out of prison, been long term unemployed or a young single mum you’ll know that simply withdrawing state support doesn’t work.

To get people back into work, people need confidence, skills and training. These things are expensive. You can’t just stop investing in people and expect them to give something back. And in a recession, the state may need to pay to create jobs for people to go in to whilst the private sector gets itself back on its feet. Shrinking government now is bad economics.

2) You say that you want society to take the place of the state, but you don’t say how you are going to create this revolution. Just roll back the state and hope everyone picks up where it left off..? Compare Cameron’s speech to Brown’s policy packed agenda and he doesn’t just seem like a novice – he looks hollow.

3) A word about incentives. You claim there is a 96 per cent “tax” on certain groups that go back into work. This twist of logic blows Orwell out of the water by counting past benefits as taxes. Sure, there is a work incentive problem, but there are two ways to solve that. The first is to increase working tax credits, as Labour has done, and the second is to cut benefits. Doing the second just plunges people already below the poverty line further down. “Incentive” in David’s dictionary means pulling the plug on the poor. To dress this up as helping the vulnerable, a move which won him a standing ovation, is sickening.

4) You’re a hypocrite on the size of the state. If you think a surge in Afghanistan and an increase in prison building won’t build up this country’s debt, you really are simple. The only difference with spending it on jails and bombs is that it doesn’t reap back the benefits of reinvestment that spending on health and education would.

5) Absolute inequality did increase under Labour. That is undeniably grim. But do you know what, Labour slowed down that growth in inequality massively compared to Thatcher. Just read King’s new book – A Generation of Change, a Lifetime of Difference. It’s got all the facts you need.

6) You’re a hypocrite on benefits. The story you gave of Williams who was forced onto incapacity against his will, is a sad one. But the Tories would perpetuate state enforced dependency in other ways. Theresa May told me this week that the party had no plans to lift the employment ban on asylum seekers, even if the home office fails to process their claims for years. Cameron’s talk here doesn’t come from a brave commitment to genuine values; it comes from the worst kind of political pragmatism.

In short, Cameron, you’re over simplistic agenda is hollow, hypocritical and dangerous. Please do us all a favour, and produce some policies that work, even if – heaven forbid! – they are a bit more complicated.

They invited me to stay with then in their Bolton home, just ten miles away from the conference, to write about family life on the poverty line.

Life on benefits for Yasmin is not a choice; it’s a legal obligation. She is desperate to work, but like all asylum seekers who are waiting to have their claims processed, she is forbidden to do so by the Home Office.

As I write, the signs of relentless cost cutting are scattered all around me. By the kitchen sink there is a small pot of diluted washing up liquid to make it last longer. A small jug sits in the bathroom, helping to make the most of their deliberately shallow baths. She knows about efficiencies.

Living here makes a farce of the Conservative events I’ve been attending. Yesterday I went to a discussion on worklessness, where Theresa May, Shadow Secretary for Work and Pensions, was proselytising about the importance of employment, and the need to “break the dependency culture.”

At the end of her speech I asked her whether a Tory government would allow asylum seekers to work. She said they had “no plans to change the system at the current time.”

I tried, in three sentences, to explain where I was living and the problems Yasmin and her daughter were facing. About what its like to go to the supermarket, as I had earlier that day, and watch a mother agonising over the choice to buy vegetables or replace a broken pan.

As the audience sat sipping their free wine and nibbling complementary pork pies, I just felt like that desperate heckler that gets everyone’s eyes rolling and tongues tutting.

It goes against everything the Conservatives preach to force the public to pay for benefits for people that are desperate to work. A while ago the Centre for Social Justice put out a report arguing that asylum seekers that hadn’t had their claims processed in six months should be allowed to seek employment.

The Tories are hypocrites for not taking it on. The only reason they don’t is political cowardice and a fear of populist reaction. “On yer bike! (Unless the Sun minds.)”

The situation is getting desperate. This week new legislation came into force reducing single asylum seekers’ benefits to £5 a day.

If the Conservatives had any genuine commitment to letting the able work, they’d let her work. Failing to do so brands them as nothing less than supporters of state-imposed poverty.

The fact that they continue to do it is evidence that psychological manipulation sells. Now that the government has decided to allow product placement in the film and television industry, this problem is only going to get worse.

Childhood has become saturated with junk food advertising. Do you remember the General licking his fingers on the Kentucky Fried Chicken adverts? The sultry Cadbury’s caramel bunny batting her eyelids on purple velvet, or Tony the Frosties tiger with his bright orange They’re Grrrrrrreat! smile?

Unlike most of the cartoons kids watch, the aim of these characters isn’t to offer education or entertainment.

Their intention is to – deep breath – psychologically-manipulate-the-rather-impressionable-childhood-brain-into-persuading-parents-to-buy-things-that-are-incredibly-bad-for-their-health-in-order-to-make-profits-for-corporations-large-enough-to-colonise-airtime-and-public-space.

To be fair, there have been some steps taken to protect children. In 2006, Ofcom banned junk food adverts on children’s channels or during shows that have particular appeal to under 16s. But loopholes and inconsistencies remain. The biggest is that non-broadcast (not on TV or radio) advertising is controlled by nothing other than a voluntary code of conduct regulated by the companies themselves.

Kids might not see junk food adverts during the breaks on TV that could be switched off, but they can’t escape it on the public streets, parks and busses they can’t avoid.

At this point advertising proponents start ringing their hands with two objections. First they complain about liberty – the state can’t just ban things that it thinks are bad for people. But these aren’t just any old people – these are incredibly impressionable, exceptionally little people.

Savvy campaigners aren’t calling for a blanket ban that might stop adults “liberty” to watch adverts, but for a ban on all junk food advertising that specifically targets children across the broadcast and non-broadcast sectors, including product placement.

The second objection is about cost – what about all the extra revenue that advertising brings in from increased sales? Point one, I don’t think that manipulating kids is a particularly legitimate means to make money, and point two, this “extra revenue” gets clawed back in other ways.

Conservative estimates suggest that cutting junk food advertising could save us £1bn a year in health costs (think of all the money involved in treating tooth decay, obesity etc).

Anyone who supports this kind of advertising is effectively arguing for public money to be spent on clearing up the fall out of an activity that boosts the profit of private companies. The left should stand against excessive consumerism of this kind – not just for social well being – but for economic benefit properly understood.

Across the media, Flint was portrayed in starkly sexist terms. She’s “flounced out” of the cabinet in a “hissy fit”, throwing “a stiletto in the heart of government”.

Even the broadsheets’ coverage was irresponsible – the Guardian’s decision to use Flint’s red dress photo shoot to accompany such a grave set of allegations wasn’t just objectifying; it was belittling the serious points she was making.

In today’s Observer, Flint says that Brown “used” women as little more than a “smokescreen”; a “way of making it look like you’ve got a lot of women round the table”. The reality for women in cabinet, she says, is one of “constant pressure” and “negative bullying.”

When James Purnell resigned he was criticised, but he was never accused of living up to “macho” stereotypes in the same way. When a woman makes a serious feminist argument, she shouldn’t be dismissed in a sea of sexist stereotypes, she should be listened to and challenged with the respect shown to her male colleagues.

After the expenses scandal, the public wants to see a politics that is more representative of the people, not less. I worry that the events of the past week will make this less likely. The political female role models we had weren’t exactly inspirational; now they’re also disillusioned, demonised and out of office.

If we’re going to fix our broken politics, we’ll need to utilise the best talents of our women as well as our men. Neither our government nor our media can afford to reduce them to “window dressing”.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m a big fan of Hope not Hate. In fact, I’m currently sitting in front of several large boxes of their leaflets to deliver around Tower Hamlets and Islington. But I’m worried about the one-sided, overly negative approach we’re taking.

Fellow Hope not Hate campaigners continue to shout accusations of racism outside gatherings of BNP members, and the leaflets I’m set to deliver brand the BNP a “Nazi party”. I might agree with this, but what about our target audience? I’m concerned they’ll just get BNP sympathisers and supporters’ backs up, and push them further from the mainstream.

I understand why the policy of stigmatisation is useful. I understand that if you brand the party as unacceptable, then it’s harder for the BNP to campaign, to build their membership base or to get platforms for the hate they’re spreading. But negative campaigning on its own is not enough, and in some cases it can be counterproductive.

A recent BBC documentary exposed the stereotypical BNP supporter – the disillusioned racist intent on causing trouble – as a myth. Although the party leaders might be out and out racists, we have to be careful that we don’t isolate grassroots BNP members by tarring them with the same brush. Many BNP supporters are active community figures who simply want to make their neighbourhoods cleaner, safer and more cohesive. These are leftist goals, and we should capitalise on that. Rather than stigmatise BNP supporters, we should try to harness their energy and put it to better use.

History informs this debate. In my local campaign area in the East End, a Jewish anti-fascist campaigner in the 1930s – Phil Piratin – argued that engaging with fascists was a better way to combat racism than the left’s traditional policy of zero tolerance. He persuaded local anti-racist campaigners to join the boxing clubs where the fascists played, encouraging them to make friends and challenge their opinions.

It worked, as did his other strategies. When two families who belonged to the British Union of Fascists faced eviction, Piratin convinced his fellow campaigners to stand shoulder to shoulder with them. The families were saved from eviction, and they tore up their fascist membership cards. Perhaps if we engaged with BNP supporters in this way, they’d do the same.

In some areas, this positive engagement is already going on. In Barking and Dagenham for example, members of Hope not Hate are working with young people on the estates where the BNP is active. By providing them with training and activities, they are stopping the spread of boredom and unemployment that the BNP feeds on. We need more of this.

As a committed member of the movement who wants to see it succeed, I think we’re getting the balance between positive and negative campaigning wrong. I’ll still hand out the stigmatizing leaflets, but I want the chance to hand out some more positive alternatives too.

Her story is a natural leftist battle. It’s about the exploitation of power – government officials and agro-chemical industries are blocking adequate regulatory methods despite robust research showing the damage that pesticides can do to human health.

And it’s about justice. Last November the High Court delivered a landmark victory on Georgina’s case, ruling that the government had failed to comply with a European directive designed to protect rural residents from exposure to toxins. The government has appealed that judgement, and Georgina is now fighting another round with support only from her Dad (who does the “postie runs”) and her Mum who does the photocopying. Her inbox is full of stories from other rural dwellers suffering health problems suspected to be brought on by pesticide exposure, but the court battle leaves precious little time for her to connect with them all.

Why does she not have more support from the left?

The left has always suffered from an urban bias. But we cannot let rural fights like these go unsupported. This point is about more than just anti-pesticide and environmental campaigns, important as they are – it’s about connecting with rural causes and communities more generally. Rural poverty and isolation for example, are huge issues in this country and should be natural territory for the left – but we hardly ever mention it. For their sake and ours, leftist organisations need to start connecting with communities in the countryside. It’s time to build a rural-urban alliance.

After it went up, I actually felt rather bad about the cif article. It’s a bit disturbing that the forces I criticise hardest tend to be the ones I most want to succeed. But it wasn’t intended to be an attack; it was meant to be a call to action. The left should have the courage to make the economic case for a fairer society because, ultimately, the argument is ours to win.

Please correct me if I’m missing something, but since the financial crisis the Fabians have produced just one leaflet on green economics possibly being the way forward and written a couple of articles on the crisis. Surely the Fabians’ fantastic network of intellectuals and resources can make a stronger, more coherent case than that? Similarly, Cruddas and Rutherford just published a new e-book in response to the crisis, but it feels vague and confused.

A fiscal stimulus could provide jobs and build public infrastructure and services for the benefit of all – helping private companies increase productivity over the longer term. Income could be raised by taxation on industries that pollute and destroy the environment – taking into account their negative externalities – and bringing in much needed revenue.

An increase in social housing would stop more risky lending and save money on the costly externalities of homeless and poverty that are now on the rise. Making the economic case gives the left credibility – we cannot afford to brush over these arguments because we are uncomfortable with market-speak.