Leading Article: Closing ranks against nuisance neighbours

Labour is to get tough with "antisocial behaviour", says Jack Straw. It's further evidence of how far Mr Straw has of late been remaking his political identity as a kind of apostle to the decent folk of the realm - the kind of people, that is, who get annoyed at having their windscreens assaulted by squeegee merchants, who object to litter in the streets and who care about good order in neighbourhoods. As befits his name, Mr Straw has been drawing out populist themes on crime and punishment. In political tactical terms, he has done well. The Tories have found it hard to outflank Labour on law and order, especially when their Home Secretary hard man has been presiding over the mass premature release of convicted criminals. The polls show Labour now scoring higher than the Tories on crime as an issue (although that is in part a consequence of Mr Blair's successful "tough on crime, tough on causes" campaign as Mr Straw's predecessor).

Mr Straw is typical of new Labour in that he is not given to offering an intellectually satisfying account of his position. Instead, he is appealing to the deep concern for propriety and order that is a key element in English identity and, for all the attempts of Tory authoritarians to claim it as their own, was and remains part of Labour's "working-class" heritage. The Tory era has left many people, including many Tory supporters, with a hunger to return to a collective life governed by sturdy rules. Mr Straw has picked up on what might be called the deformations of individualism - typified by the noisy neighbour or the family from hell who make their fellow residents' lives a misery. (It is interesting that Labour has not chosen to use the rhetoric of neighbourliness and good conduct in talking about economic life where, God forbid, it might smack a little too much of that old "ism".)

What he is offering in his new package is justifiable as a means of mobilising the will of the community to deal with individual recalcitrants. The law, he argues, is out of kilter with the way people live, especially in the close quarters of public housing estates. Mr Straw wants the common will to be served more effectively. He cites a mound of evidence from local authority estates showing the extent of the problem of neighbourly nuisance. In effect he is holding it before the noses of middle-class metropolitans - often too willing to see civil liberty tip over into civil anarchy - and defying them to thwart measures that would benefit a lot of ordinary people.

In fact, this is not a class problem. We are talking about behaviour that is more than merely irritating; it is insufficiently outrageous to attract the attention of the police and the punishment of the courts, as the law stands. Examples can be taken from all income levels. Rich people may live further from one another but they can be as obnoxious. They include the bad neighbour who monopolises common space, for example by parking too many cars or bits of cars; the families who cannot or will not prevent their children fromintimidating others; racists; serial late- night party givers. New law is needed to deal with such cases and Mr Straw has, wisely, been paying attention to the practical suggestions for reform coming from local authorities and the police.

Accelerated procedures to secure eviction in cases of anti-social behaviour and the related speed-up in granting possession orders to landlords in cases of intimidation and harassment are well and good. Mr Straw's ideas about better cooperation between police and local authorities are fine, too, though he commits the cardinal offence of blandly proposing a new statutory duty for local authorities as the way forward. The statute book is chock-a-block with injunctions on local action, most of them under- funded: far better to allow local authorities to respond to local situations as they see fit, not according to a national template.

Instead of seeking to define bad neighbourly behaviour in detail, Mr Straw proposes a sort of criminal injunction, the Community Safety Order. It would be available to courts as a remedy for successful prosecutions for existing offences of nuisance, breach of the peace, drug abuse or violence. Under the order members of a family might be subjected to curfew, excluded from a particular area or stopped from approaching people. Breach it and prison could follow.

It is a bold proposal and, in its broad outlines, deserves sympathetic consideration. Parallel proposals to extend "witness protection" to neighbours who fear reprisal need more critical examination. Mr Straw was not altogether able yesterday to dispel fears that he is conjuring up miniature police states, in which the municipal Stasi and/or private detectives on contract to the town hall encourage anonymous informants to tell tales. But there are estates where hard and possibly punitive action may be needed. The key to success is going to be close and trusting relationships between local residents, the police and the local authority - relationships which are going to be helped as local authorities give up their role as providers of housing and services and become regulators, community advocates, guardians of the local collective interest.

Mr Straw believes that a new balance has to be struck between aberrant individualism - people behaving badly in local circumstances, who clearly do not believe there is such a thing as society - and the general interest in good conduct and order. He is right. But, in reframing the law, he must take care. No neighbour is perfect. Intolerance of diversity is as damaging to the collective good of our liberal society as impotence in the face of intolerable behaviour.