Lord Bailey: I Could Have Ended up in a Gang Instead of the Army Cadets

Lord Bailey of Paddington speaks to NTD's "British Thought Leaders" programme. NTD

At 12 years old, the Army Cadets was “the only gang” attractive enough to keep Lord Bailey of Paddington out of a street gang.

Having grown up in a council house in one of the poorer parts of London, Shaun Bailey has become a youth worker, charity founder, and a Conservative peer.

According to Lord Bailey, fatherless boys can very easily be swept into gang activities, and male role models, ambition, good friends, mentors, and the Army Cadets, helped him to go in a different direction in life.

“Army Cadets ... was the only gang ... to my 12-year-old self that looked like tough men to counter what was going on in the street,” he told NTD’s “British Thought Leaders” programme.

“Because what was going on in the street is very attractive. Some of the best-looking, best-dressed, well-moneyed people I knew were getting involved in gang activity, and they were offering you a very easy in,” he said.

However, the Army Cadets were “equally strong, equally committed people” whom he found attractive too.

“And looking back, there was a definite competition in my mind, I could have gone one way or the other.”

Lord Bailey said the environment the Army Cadets provided was important to shape him because it “was doing personal development before it became a term.”

“It doesn’t matter how clever you are, how tall, short, fat, thin, black, white, there’s a place for you in a team. And that means you have personal value,” he said.

“And they develop the idea of self, so self-belief, self-control, and self-worth. And they’re what I call transferable attitudes, you bring that into your life.”

He also said army training enables soldiers to be “the most highly trained people on the planet.”

“And you only have to look at what people do once they leave the forces. The companies that go on to set up, the social work they do, the charitable work ... You’re dealing with some very, very committed, sharp, clever individuals and I think the more young people exposed to that the better.”

Growing up without his father, Lord Bailey said his uncles were also “instrumental in controlling some of the testosterone-driven anger that young men have, the ability to be radicalised.”

While the term is mostly associated with political extremism, Lord Bailey was speaking of crimes.

“How do you get a young boy from playing with his little toy cars into dealing drugs and stabbing people? There’s a journey of radicalization,” he said, “and without a man that you trust, respect, and think he’s tough mentally and physically to interfere in that process, it’s much more likely to happen.”

However, the lack of a male role model is “one of the features of growing up as a black boy in London,” he said. “Over 70 percent of black children grow up in a single parent family. That has a financial impact, it also has a leadership impact as well.”

Ambition ‘One of The Greatest Protective Factors’

Lord Bailey also spoke of the importance of ambition, and surrounding himself with those who are supportive of those ambitions.

“I would say to someone, one of the greatest protective Factors against poverty, against being drawn into a life of crime, is ambition,” he said.

“Once you have that idea that you want to do or be something else, I would then say, to be an entrepreneur in its broadest sense.”

By being an entrepreneur, Lord Bailey said he means that “in any situation you’re in, you try to figure out, ‘How can I make this better for me and them? How can we get the most out of what the meagre resources we have?’”

With “a little bit of focus,” it “can be life-changing,” he said.

Having his mother and wife as his “foundation” and “rock,” Lord Bailey also said he was “blessed” to have either “bumped into” or “deliberately sought out” some really good people, who taught him values and helped him figure out what kind of man he wanted to be.

“I often say to young people, ‘If you tell your friends your dreams, and they laugh, they’re not your friends. If you tell your friends your dreams, and they try to figure out a way to help, that are true friends,” he said.

Speaking of his experience in youth work, Lord Bailey said it was about employment, making sure people succeed in school, and making sure people from the black and moroccan community felt like they were British.

“I'd say that situation hasn’t changed,” he said, adding that besides talking to children about their rights, they also need to be taught about responsibilities.

“It’s been my experience that people are at their best when they are advocating for others. So if we can say to our young people, ‘The world doesn’t owe you a living, but we do owe you a chance.’ Then ... I believe they'll rise to that challenge.”

What’s more, keep talking to young people about being victims, either victims of crimes or “systemic racism,” which may inspire them to “fight the system and succeed,” but it may also lead them to give in and become “another statistic,” he said.

To help young people who have historic trauma, “you do need to talk them into realising their own strength,” he said.

“And I think sometimes, in our desperation to help, we don’t always point out to them they do have a future, and we'll help them build that.”

Knife Crimes and Drugs

A member of the Police and Crime Committee of the London Assembly and a former mayoral candidate, Lord Bailey also criticised Sadiq Khan for campaigning to reduce stop and search after becoming mayor.

“On the street, that became, the words were: ‘We’re going to stop and search.’ So what happened was your average gangster armed themselves because they didn’t feel like they were gonna get stopped. And then young people became frayed and armed themselves in response to that. And then the number of weapons on the streets of London skyrocketed as well as the deaths,” he said, blaming the Labour mayor’s stance on stop and search for “two record years of teenage homicide.”

He also hit out at a “two-tier approach to drugs,” saying people who use drugs recreationally are “involved in the single biggest activity that drives criminal activity in London.”

“You may not be a criminal, you may have a very respectable job, but the cocaine you bought, how many people are injured or died to deliver that to your nose? Quite a few,” he said.

“How many young people are suffering from psychosis because of weed? How many young people have been involved in delivering that weed have been bullied, have been trafficked, have been used for county lines so that you can have some weed on a Friday night?' It’s definitely a two-tier thing, a two-tier approach,” he said. 

Lord Bailey also said he doesn’t believe legalising drugs would solve the problems, saying it’s “utter nonsense” that criminal gangs would “become respectable people overnight” once drugs are legalised.

“The single most harmful drug in the world or certainly in Britain is alcohol ... But what’s the difference between Class A drugs or Class B drugs and alcohol? Availability, legalisation,” he said, claiming that legalising drugs, would “destroy communities, particularly poor communities.”