What do the following people - Anthony Walker, Richard Whelan and Jean Charles de Menezes - have in common? In life, it seems, nothing. But they have been united in death - victims of crime and terrible misfortune. The first victim, who was black, had the misfortune to be accompanying his girlfriend home on Merseyside when he was axed to death. The second victim, who was white, had the misfortune to be stabbed on a London bus after objecting to a man throwing chips. The third victim, who was Brazilian but apparently mistaken for an Asian, had the misfortune to be shot at point-blank range by the police. Then, most dramatically, come the dozens killed and injured by the bombings of 7 July, and all those traumatised by the attempted bombings of 21 July.

The only link - but the crucial link - between these people is that they are, like many others who have suffered before them, the victims of a brutalised society.

To provide context to the harrowing events of last month, some facts are called for. According to the latest British Crime Survey, violent crime across the country has fallen by 11 per cent, a figure the Home Secretary naturally describes as "encouraging". Separate recorded crime statistics published by the Home Office itself show that firearms offences rose in the same 12-month period by 6 per cent, amounting to just under 11,000 gun crimes and 73 deaths. The totals and the trends, no matter which are cited, have only limited value in assessing both the causes of crime and the fear that crime engenders . . . particularly now. The fear of crime is real and growing. This is not quite lawless Britain. But many people think it is, and politicians inevitably seek to provide assurance through simple solutions. "Lock 'em up and throw away the key" has found a new partner in shoot-to-kill.

Nobody, not least London's bus and Tube travellers, has anything but sympathy for the predicament the authorities face. Stop one person too many and cause resentment. Stop one too few and allow carnage. What level of force should the police use? The stun gun or, in the case of Mr de Menezes, the heavy-calibre automatic pistol? These are questions that need not have been asked, but they cannot be fended off as purely "operational issues".

These are political matters. And so - leaving aside Iraq and foreign policy - is the social context of much violence. From the Cantle report, which looked into the riots in Bradford, Oldham and Burnley in 2001, to a long investigation by the Cabinet Office in 2002, there is no shortage of informed research into the links between deprivation, alienation and violent crime. Cantle found a "depth of polarisation" around communities segregated by race and living "a series of parallel lives". He advocated a number of measures, including a wide public debate on the meaning of British citizenship, warning of further violence if action were not taken.

The following year the government's Social Exclusion Unit produced a courageous report on the reasons behind reoffending. It noted that the key was tackling causes such as homelessness, unemployment, drug and alcohol abuse and mental illness. All these, it concluded, were exacerbated by prison. What was striking about the conclusions was not their originality but their clarity - a little too clear for ministers fearful of being seen as "soft". In his column, Darcus Howe (page 22) writes passionately about the emptiness and anger felt by urban youth - black, Asian and white. He blames Thatcherism for most of these ills.

Perhaps only now are the "haves", the majority, beginning to understanding the extent of the polarisation of society and the dangers this has created. This government has made considerable efforts in tackling social exclusion. It talks vigorously of tackling the poverty of expectation and opportunity. Tens of billions of pounds' worth of initiatives is sloshing around the system promising a joined-up approach to communities; Sure Start is among the most successful.

Yet while we might understand why a young man might seek an escape from his humdrum world through a mix of guns and drugs, we seem further away than ever from finding ways of dealing with it. Now we have the terrible spectre of young men seeking glorification through suicide bombing. Before 7 July the authorities had no inkling of the scale of the problem.

Tough on terrorism, tough on the causes of terrorism. Tough on crime, as someone once said, tough on the causes of crime. More's the pity that this telling slogan has yielded so little.

A better class of pout

Next she will have a walk-on part in Footballers' Wives. Or perhaps Celebrity Love Island or Big Brother. The route to celebrity for our royals lite is, it seems, no different than for our sportsmen, models and girls and boys about town. Pose once and pose often seems the likely destiny of 17-year-old Princess Beatrice after her first flattering outing in Tatler . . . all in the name of a popularity that is seductive but transient.

They have been here before, these blue bloods. The Queen Mum was not shy in coming forward with pictures of her kids for Fleet Street. That was then. What the "Tiggerishly friendly" teenager has not been told is that the Eurotrash mags and our tabloids will now declare open season on her.

That, in turn, gives rise to the question: who needs posh when there's Posh? The stiff upper lip that once defined our monarchy has become the glossy upper pout.

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