Crimestoppers UK and learnt about the Crimestoppers scheme, he saw it as a good opportunity to get the community involved in crime-fighting. Other areas around the UK also learned of Crimestoppers and took it up around this time but there was no national, co-ordinated approach. In 1985, PC Keith Blakelock was murdered during the riots at the Broadwater Farm Estate in London and the police appealed for information, stating that people knew who had been responsible but were frightened of coming forward. Michael Ashcroft (now Lord Ashcroft, KCMG and Chairman of the Trustees of Crimestoppers), a businessman, offered to provide the police
London: The Biography on the other it has long been resistant to 'planning'; he cites the example of Paris's development under Baron Hausmann as a counterpoint and contrast. Some commentators have focused on Ackroyd's political perspective and how this affects his analysis. In one example, Iain Sinclair argued that his message is fundamentally conservative: "poll-tax riots and uprisings at Broadwater Farm Estate are coeval with the burning of Newgate Prison: they are virtual-reality panoramas from the Museum of London...Subversion may excite for a moment, but it will be crushed." London: The Biography London: The Biography is a 2000 non-fiction book by Peter Ackroyd