‘We fear the police’: young people share their concerns with Yvette Cooper

Home secretary says predecessors turned their backs' on a generation as she discusses her young futures programme

• Yvette Cooper says today's teenagers have it much, much harder'

Yvette Cooper has had a baptism of fire as home secretary - a national tragedy when three girls were murdered at a Taylor Swift-themed dance club and an ensuing week of race riots fuelled by dangerous misinformation.

It has not been easy, but Cooper has been in waiting for more than a decade to take the home secretary job - in the shadow role and as chair of the powerful home affairs committee - and is not about to waste a moment. In fact, her only complaint about the job so far is that her busy schedule and tight security means she is struggling to get enough exercise - apart from the many flights of stairs to her Home Office desk she must climb each day.