CT: You criticised the Government and said it has "buried its collective head in the sand" over these recent teenage killings. The Prime Minister has denied that they reflect a wider malaise in society. Should we be alarmed by these recent killings?

AC: They are inevitable. Anyone on the ground in urban areas has been aware of the growing knife or, as they call it round here, 'blade' culture, among young people such that fairly normal young people find themselves carrying blades just in self defence. They never plan to use it or intend to use it. But it is a growing thing under the surface.

It is a similar problem with the gun culture, which is much newer of course, but is growing, especially among black boys. It's been growing under the surface. And we are seeing that come out now and people are using them. It is almost inevitable. And what just irritates me is when government ministers say this is an isolated event. They've got their heads in the sand, they are out of touch with reality. It's almost inevitable.

We can't anticipate there will be any change but it will just grow and grow until something gets done about it. And people are becoming increasingly desperate about it - and the fact that the Government has no solutions. They can try and put some more money behind it and put some more coppers on the street. I'm not critical of police, they do a good job. But generally the police turn up after the event to pick up the bodies and try and detect the perpetrators.

CT: So for the people living where these attacks are taking place, these incidents are not a surprise?

AC: No, it's no surprise at all. I have a 16-year-old boy and a 14-year-old boy. They go out on the streets but they are weary about what is going on out there. They are well aware that many youngsters out there are carrying knives and some of them have guns. It's just a fact of life. It doesn't stop them going out but they are very aware of it.

And in many of the schools in the area the kids go off in a gang. They aren't gang kids but they go off in groups when they leave school because they know after school gangs hang out there. So they also become a gang themselves.

It is self-perpetuating. It's a vicious circle and some non-knife youngsters will start carrying knives. They don't want to but that's what they do in self-defence. And then they themselves are carrying knives and they have joined the culture. It is just going on, it's a vicious circle. So for the Government to say they are isolated incidents is just simply spin, trying to deny reality.

CT: Do you think the Government understands that the young people carrying the knives don't want to carry these knives?

AC: I don't think they do understand at all. Some want to carry the knives. For some it is the badge membership of their gang. But the ones I am pointing to are the youngsters who aren't immediately part of a gang and who don't particularly want to identify with a gang but who start moving around in groups and start carrying blades for self-protection and therefore they become a gang, and become an armed gang at that. That's not where they started but that's what they drifted into because of what's happening on the street around them. I think the Government does have an idea about it but I think the Government is denying it. They want to live in a different sort of reality.

CT: If the Government is out of step with reality on the ground, how can it remedy that?

AC: The Government has got to recognise it has run out of solutions and ideas and governments by definition won't do that because they have got their eye on the next general election and think they will have some solution by then. Then we'll get some initiative by Gordon Brown who will throw a few more million at the problem and think that will solve it.

They are hopeless. They won't admit that though, because they are politicians and they think they've got to have another solution but their solution is presumably to chuck a few more million pounds at it and release a press statement but actually it's irrelevant to what's going on.

The best thing the Government can do is step back and acknowledge it has a diminished role in the whole thing and affirm and encourage those that are already out there doing good work - the faith communities. There are other communities doing good work but obviously I talk about the church and the faith community because those are the ones I know about best.

CT: So if money can't solve these problems then what can?

AC: In reality it's the churches that have got the relationships. The churches are on grassroots and the churches are already out there doing things, in your average youth club and things like that. In the east of London we've got thriving churches, out there doing good things with young people and that needs affirming and encouraging.

And we've got to affirm marriage-based families. That isn't being judgemental about single mums; my own wife is divorced. The ideal is not often met but it doesn't stop the church holding up the ideal and saying actually marriage-based family is the right route, for the children's sake, let alone the adults. That gives them a stable and loving background. Neither is that saying that single mums and single dads can't do it. Many of them doing sterling work. But on average, statistics show that marriage provides society as a whole with the best way forward.

Marriage-based family support, fathering and mentoring schemes, and male-focused education, those activities are going on and they should be affirmed and encouraged. At the moment the Government, and the local government as well, they say they like what the faith communities are doing but they want them to sign up to their agenda and the Government's agenda. But that's all the wrong way round.

The Government and the local authorities should sign up to the agenda of the faith groups, the churches, and say yes, you are doing a good job, you are much more in touch with what's going on with the streets than we are, and lets put some money behind it - not to monitor and control but to affirm and encourage

CT: What comes to mind as you say that is the Sexual Orientation Regulations passed last week. Do you fear these kinds of faith-based projects and initiatives are going to be affected by the regulations?

AC: They are absolutely ludicrous. They are trying to put us all in their own secular box and stop people being and doing what they want to do and be. They are anti-social, undemocratic and socially harmful and outrageous. A minority agenda is being pushed down on Catholics and their adoption agencies right the way across the board.

Actually people just need to take no notice and say Government get back in your box, you've ran out of ideas, you don't have any ideas, you don't know what you are doing, and we will get on with what we are doing at the community level.

CT: How do you want the Government to work alongside faith groups then? How do you see this relationship going forward?

AC: I'm actually slightly revolutionary and my view is that they should just turn their backs on the Government and get on with it! We will provide our fathering classes and expand our local youth networks. Of course at the end of the day they will need money. But at the moment the Government is hopeless. By government I don't mean only Tony Blair's Government but just the general local authority. Certainly my own one here in Newham is just tied up to the agenda, and all it wants the faith and voluntary sector community to do is sign up to its agenda. That's upside down, the wrong way round.

CT: So the local authority is hindered from helping the people it should be helping because of party agenda?

AC: Absolutely, and all the rest of it. My word to the church and other faith groups is just get on and do it. Take no notice of the rest and just get on and do it. It is slightly revolutionary but I believe it and if the Government doesn't like it that is their problem. Actually there are kids out there whose lives are being destroyed by what's going on. And if you look at the kids instead of looking at the Government, if you actually have a heart for kids, you will actually get out there and do it for their sake and for the Gospel's sake and not because of what the Government wants you to do.