Add to that how many of these young people feel such animosity towards the police. I teach in a ‘nice’ CofE secondary school, and I’ve tried asking classes of 14-15 year olds how many of them have been stopped & searched by the police – and it’s almost all the boys within any particular class. That makes them angry, and it makes me angry too. These are on the whole decent kids, and they feel victimised. The response this weekend is definitely not justified by any of that, but it does go part of the way to explaining where so much of their aggression comes from.

The oppressed around the world are rioting, the police which is riddled with corruption have killed someone they claim by mistake. Anyone remember the story where two detectives were caught on camera collecting a £50,000 debt on behalf of a drug dealer? If these people are educationless materialistic then who made them that way? Who are their role models? premiership footballers/rapists. Perhaps the rioters suspected that those shops contained Weapons of mass destruction and entered in a pre-emptive attempt to stop the threat?

A fair assessment, Craig, for someone who started out not to judge. But your appraisal is spot on from where I am looking (far from London).

This I came across
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6466430.ece
Is it true?

Diane Abbott is apeaking of the looters. She is being deliberately obtuse when she says she doesn’t understand why the police allowed it to go on for so long. Of course they did. It fits the ConDems’ agenda.
.
She thinks the worst effects will be on those who looted. They will have a criminal record and they won’t be allowed to enter America. I would think that was a plus.
.
The killing of Mark Duggan has some similarities to that of Jean Charles. We shall see what Ms Rachel Cerfontyne, commissioner with the highly esteemed NOT Independent Police Complaints Commission which is investigating Mr Duggan’s death comes up with. She said yesterday that ‘the 29-year-old had not been “assassinated in an execution style” and that there was “misinformation” about the death on Thursday.
.
“The distress that Mr Duggan’s family are in the midst of is understandable, but the violence and disorder we have witnessed over the last 24 hours can never be acceptable,” she added.’
.
How has she been able to make that statement so quickly?
.
Diane Abbott Wikipedia
Controversy
.
The education of Abbott’s son
.
The decision in 2003 to send her son to the private City of London School, which she herself described as “indefensible” and “intellectually incoherent”, caused controversy and criticism.[26][27][28][29] This issue was discussed in the media during Abbott’s 2010 bid to become leader of the Labour Party and Andrew Neil questioned her on the issue on This Week.[30]
.
Her son became involved, contacting a radio phone-in to say that his mother was only following his own wishes: “She’s not a hypocrite, she just put what I wanted first,” he told LBC. He added that he had wanted to go private rather than attend a local state school in Ms Abbott’s Hackney constituency. [31]
.
Failure to declare earnings
.
In 2004, following a complaint made by Andrew Rosindell MP, Abbott was investigated by the Committee on Standards and Privileges regarding payment she had received from the BBC. They found she had failed to declare earnings of £17,300 on the Register of Members’ Interests which had been received for appearances on the television programme This Week. The Committee upheld the complaint and required Abbott to apologise to the House.[32]
.
Doing nicely thank you.
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/diane_abbott/hackney_north_and_stoke_newington#register

Who spoke these words and when.

At an educational conference not long ago, one head teacher spoke about ‘the seemingly planned intention of eroding all forces of authority’, while another said ‘we know that the enemies of law and order would love to see the schools brought down, as far as their moral influence and prestige are concerned’. What those head teachers were describing is what millions of people believe they are watching, helpless and not so much unregarded as positively derided: the deliberate dismantling of the frontiers of decency, morality and respect, with a view to producing far-reaching and indeterminate alterations in society itself. They do not believe that these and other phenomena, such as the spread of drugs or the undermining of the universities, are simply reflections of a change taking place spontaneously and generally. They believe that intention is at work, and that it is the intention of a small and elusive but powerful minority. What they do not understand is that they, the majority, seem to find themselves without voice or representation in the face of a prospect which appals them.

@Mary did Abbott pay tax on those earnings?

The arson and looting is not justified, full stop.

.
Too right. Look at this aptly named “twitpic” of a guy posing with the stuff he nicked:
.
http://twitpic.com/62m6nx

Mary: She thinks the worst effects will be on those who looted. They will have a criminal record and they won’t be allowed to enter America. I would think that was a plus.

.
Mary, having a criminal record is not a plus. And while prejudice may gull you into thinking that being banned from going to the US is a plus, there are plenty of those such as Tariq Ramadan who beg to differ. And exactly how does allowing looting and rioting go on help the ConDem agenda? Don’t you think that plenty of ConDems are going to be perceived as incompetent?

http://globalciviliansforpeace.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/harlem-millions.jpg?w=400&h=517

“These riots are not an isolated phenomenon; but together with the excesses of the banks and the collapse of public services, are all part of a much wider malaise as the capitalist engine has stalled in a vast mesh of corruption and croneyism.”
.
Bollocks Mr Murray; it wasn’t ‘croneyism’, or capitalism, that taught these people in the schools; it was the Marxist-Feminists, whose agenda was to destroy the culture of Britain.
.
@ Larry Levin, The ‘elusive but powerful minority’ would probably be the Fabian society, that effectively controls the unions that dominate the public sector ‘services’; plus their influence in the mass media, such as the BBC.

“I’ve tried asking classes of 14-15 year olds how many of them have been stopped & searched by the police – and it’s almost all the boys within any particular class”
.
Amanda O’Dell: that is truly shocking. Would I be right in thinking that your school is in a large city and the pupils predominantly black?

The plus was obviously not to be allowed into Yankeeland Angry.
.
Looking at the main register of interests for Diane Abbott, the list of freebies, thousands and thousands of £s for speaking and writing, paid trips to the Caribbean, etc is staggering.
.
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?p=10001
.
She looks greedy too.

Mary wrote: “How has she been able to make that statement so quickly?”
.
Superb question.

There has still been no inquest held into the police murder of Azelle Rodney, who was shot 6 times in North London on 30 April 2005.
.
An inquiry under the toothless Inquiries Act 2005 has been announced, which will be chaired by retired High Court judge, Christopher Holland, however, as happened with the July 7 inquests, the actual start date appears to be very movable…
.
When no proper investigation/justice is accorded to such deaths in the community, people get very annoyed.

Mary: The plus was obviously not to be allowed into Yankeeland Angry
.
I addressed that too and suggested it came from prejudice. You’ve confirmed it.
.
She looks greedy too.

Dianne Abbott looks greedy? Are you an amateur phrenologist too?

Off topic but a second helicopter has ‘crashed’ in Afghanistan killing 32 US military. The Taliban have obviously got hold of some of these http://world.guns.ru/grenade/rus/rpg-27-e.html

’2nd crash kills 33 US Afghan force’
Mon Aug 8, 2011 7:21AM GMT
.
The Taliban claim 33 US soliders have been killed in a second helicopter crash in eatern Afghanitan. (file photo)

A second helicopter belonging to the US-led NATO coalition has crashed in Paktia Province in eastern Afghanistan, killing 33 US forces on board.

Taliban Spokesman Zabihullah Mojahid claimed responsibility for the crash, which occured in Zarmat city on Monday, saying 33 American troops were killed in the downing, a Press TV correspondent reported on Monday.

Separately, another NATO chopper made a hard landing in the same area in eastern Paktia province late Sunday, Afghan witnesses and officials told Press TV.

The US-led NATO forces have cordoned off the scene of the incident, witnesses said.

The incident has reportedly left some casualties, but there are no words yet on the exact number of the killed or injured.

The main cause of the incident is not clear yet.

Meanwhile, the US-led alliance issued a statement and confirmed that the helicopter made an emergency landing. The statement said no one was injured and that it has launched an investigation into the incident.

The incident came in the wake of a similar incident on Saturday, which claimed lives of 31 US forces.

Taliban claimed responsibility for Saturday helicopter crash, but NATO said it has started an investigation into the incident.

AO/MB/HRF

Quite so Craig.
.
The Guardian have updated their article which I posted last night. It includes a timeline.
.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/07/police-attack-london-burns
.
Back to the hedge cutting. Better use of my time than replying to Angry.

The youth of Britain make me proud this weekend, unlike the pathetic adults, who do nothing but mock their own servitude.

Angrysoba is a busy little bee. Sending all Craig’s links to DAaronovitch.
http://twitter.com/#!/angrysoba

That’s an inflammatory statement, LondonBurning. You might like to put out your angst with a pint of London Pride rather than being proud of wanton vandalism and life-threatening riots. Yes, tensions are high, and the truth about what actually happened with the police killing yet needs to be discovered. We had riots in Birmingham which were gang-related and only resolved by communities getting together to air their grievances. I’m not apologising for being with the pathetic adults on this one.

“The arson and looting is not justified, full stop”

Well at least it was only property crime and no-one was killed. Shame the same can’t be said for the events of Thursday. I’m more concerned about the circumstances surrounding the shooting of Mark Duggan than I am about a few laptops and some sportswear.

Yes, the flats above the shops. Fair point. Not good.
.
Confirmatioon of the second helicopter crash now on reuters but, according to the US, no casualties:
.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/08/08/uk-afghanistan-violence-idUKTRE7742XW20110808
.
“Earlier on Monday another NATO helicopter crashed in Paktia province, a volatile area in Afghanistan’s east, but there were no apparent casualties and it appeared there was no enemy activity in the area at the time, ISAF said”

Beautifully judged blog, Mr Murray.

Thank you.

(Mod/jon – well off-topic, deleted)

Isn’t it a bit odd that the police can ‘kettle’ tens of thousands of political demonstrators but are powerless to contain a few dozen rioting youths? Maybe the revolution will be easier than we thought.

I was interested in a “man on the street” interview, in a video from the Guardian:
.
“People are really discontented now, all over the place. The rich are having to give back a lot of money, losing a lot of money, and they’re trying to get it back from the poor. So they are squeezing us even more, making us even more discontent. And I think most probably this is could be something that is going to develop and go up and down the country from tonight.”
.
The comfortable and intellectual left have been rightly saying this for years of course. But if the vox pops are becoming of the view that the rich “are trying to get it back from the poor”, then that is quite a development indeed.
.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/video/2011/aug/07/tottenham-riots-david-lammy-mp-responds

Interesting comments interesting article,a s you can see by my name I’m disabled my legs are shot, my spine is damaged and I had a stroke and my doctor said blog , if you blog you will help your brain sadly I was not to bright before my stroke.

We always seem to get the same area which tend to be London and this area has unemployment of nearly 9% which you can add a few points to that for the so calld economically inactive to 15%.

You do have a shooting which now looks more and more as what we use to call Blue on Blue, or one officer shooting another and then everyone else looking around to find the reason for the shooting and all firing.

So why the riots because we are use to the police making out it was not them it was him or him, then coming back saying whoops sorry.

The sad fact this looks more and more like people at the bottom feeling again they are being a tareget because of colour race or in fact youth.

But come on we are in the biggest down turn, the sick the poor the disabled are the tragets for government as the cause of this down turn. And to be honest Blair and his brigade have been telling us about the hard pressed middle class now you have Miliband telling us the poor old squeezed middle class.

What we need now is a party of the people not these three tory parties

http://globalciviliansforpeace.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/harlem-millions.jpg?w=400&h=517

Tens of thousands of nice middle class demonstrators carrying “Not In My Name” placards are one thing, rioting youths are another. I know which would scare the proverbial out of me.
MJ
I live backing on to Hattersley and can assure you the kids in the local school all probably think the same and the place is very, very white.

By the way, here’s Nick Griffin’s contribution to the riot commentary:
.
“Riot footage shows it a joint black/Jewish affair. Now that is strange. Wonders of multi culturalism!”
.
https://twitter.com/#!/nickgriffinmep/status/100135489859895296
.
Unbelievable.
.
Here’s another bit of Alf Garnett-esque wisdom:
.
Nick Griffin MEP
One other thing: while I have no sympathy for black gangsters, I’d only deport them, not use hollow . . .
point bullets on them. Dum dum rounds v Geneva Convention. Met tough in wrong ways.

Wow. Theresa May breaks off her holiday to return to London to meet police chiefs. Now remind me. Who is in charge of the Met at the moment?
London riots: Theresa May to meet police chiefs
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14442935

Jon: just how relevant was Mary’s plug for the Answer Coalition?

“I live backing on to Hattersley and can assure you the kids in the local school all probably think the same and the place is very, very white”
.
And have almost all of them actually been stopped and searched by the police? I’d also like to know whether any of these children are having DNA samples taken.

Silly me. One of them is Cressida Dick, formerly of Operation Trident and of Gold Command, Stockwell and Jean Charles de Menezes fame.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cressida_Dick

@Craig
“Aldi, Lidl, JJB sports” local targets for local riots.
Were you expecting them to hit Harrods, Fortnum and Masons, Harvey Nichols.
Don’t think you will get many of them in Tottenham.

Angrysoba: and you know Nick Griffin’s response to the objections to his racism: “You can’t ever say anything bad about Jews in this culture …”

.
That’s because them Jews control the media. Griffin even wrote a book exposing them called, “Who Are the Mindbenders?”

“LondonBurning
Not quite sure why stealing adidas trousers and laptops would make anyone proud, I really am not.”

Have as go, Craig; try. It may not be easy. Perhaps the looters see these things as tokens of membership in a community which they look at from the outside, like starving kids peering hungrily through a baker’s window?

In a society in which people are constantly being indoctrinated to honour and respect the tokens of wealth, the display of which is designed to remind the poor of their insignificance and impotence; and in which the accepted wisdom is that there is, for the poor man, only one way out, which is to steal, these people are, surely, just doing what the oligarchs (in making) did in Yeltsin’s Russia. Before they began their progress to the House of Lords.

I would love to live in a world in which people did not steal from each other and make a proud display of their plunder. But I don’t. I live in a world in which the weak are constantly being pillaged and bullied by the strong. Who sometimes forget that, when the stars are aligned in certain ways, the weak might find themselves, temporarily, in a position to do unto others as they have been done by, and join the lap top owners club.

Let’s spare each other the Samuel Smiles meets Monty Python nonsense about how working class communities used to be….they were always much as they are now, which is to say, in periods of political reaction, in which class organisations are in a state of (politically hastened) decay, the criminals have more credibility than the socialists. In fact even the religio-masochists have more followers than the social reformers.

If, as seems quite possible, this affair was triggered by the ‘execution’ of a ‘suspect’ then the angry reaction of the community was not just understandable but laudable. They were discharging a duty to protect themselves- and all of us- from similar fates in the future.

And if, as seems probable, the actual violence began with an illegal assault by police personnel on a distraught young woman, it makes far more sense to assume (in the absence of unbiassed enquiry) that those employing the police prefer violent rioting to purposeful peaceful protest, than that the blame in this matter should be attributed to the ‘rioters.’

How many Youth clubs, how many millions in benefits, how much in educational allowances has Tottenham lost in the past year? How many young people have seen their dreams of University dissolved by the tuition increases? How many have seen their hopes of domestic comfort- their own homes, marriage, steady employment, security within a Full Employment economy- blown away by neo-liberal realities?

As the rich get richer the poor are getting much poorer, absolutely as well as relatively poorer; and, as they get poorer, they become ever more powerless. Nobody listens to them, they have no voices in Parliament, a very large part of society they are regarded as an exotic, sinister swamp beyond the pale, without anything to offer. Deserted by their own political parties, the Trade Unions and Coops, which they built, cuckoos’ nests for others to eat away, the poor are treated shamefully. The Police do what they wish to them. And they have no recourse-the courts are inaccessible, most of the time their neighbours are intimidated and look the other way from flagrant injustices.

No wonder then, that, in certain circumstances there are explosions. There will be many more. They are very ugly but uglier still is the land in which victims have forgotten that they have the capacity to fight back.

You often get looters mingling with genuine protesters, as there are good profits to be had with little risk. Agent provocateurs are also often use to discredit genuine protesters. I suspect there were no agent provocateurs involved here though.

For the record, David Aaronovitch is an irrelevant clown and a complete idiot with very little intelligence. Factual and not abusive at all.

“For the record, David Aaronovitch is an irrelevant clown and a complete idiot with very little intelligence”.

Seconded and carried.

Although I suspect he is not a clown and an idiot, but a rather clever man who knows exactly what he is doing – and moreover, on which side his bread is buttered (with honey and/or treacle on top).

Aaronovitch is brilliant and relevant. Loved his last book.

No, that’s what he thinks, but he really is an irrelevant clown and a complete idiot with very little intelligence. You can trust little Jaded on this one!

Lamby – ‘Aaronovitch is brilliant and relevant. Loved his last book.’

See, what more proof do you want?!

In fact, Aaronovitch does have a practical use. If you want to know what the politically correct, or approved government, line is on any topic whatsoever, you just have to ascertain his opinion. Shazzam! They’re inevitably identical.

Angrysoba, how long ago was Griffin’s book? BNP and EDL support Israel now, don’t they? Did their policy change, or what?
.
Yes, they decided to try PR and hide the skinheads and use a heart logo on their pamphlets. It would be foolish to take the BNP at face value and almost all of their sites are still littered with anti-Semitism, general racism and Zionist conspiracy theories.

Jaded, the rule I apply for offensiveness is whether it is personal or not. You’re not replying to Aaranobitch, you’re criticising a public figure. That differs from making unsupported accusations against people who contribute here.

Larry Because unemployment and hopelessness is a key factor here. Mostly black youngsters have no hope of getting a job here just like those in Harlem. Tottenham is in Haringey, the poorest Borough in London.
.
‘The London borough of Haringey is often described as an outer London borough with inner city problems. Almost 40 per cent of Haringey’s population live in areas that are amongst the most deprived 10 per cent in England.
.
The borough is economically and socially polarised, a consequence of an extensive area of deprivation in the centre and the eastern part of the borough, with more affluent areas in the west. Tottenham is generally the poorest area of Haringey.
.
Another characteristic of Haringey is the transience of a significant proportion of the population, again largely concentrated in the areas of deprivation to the east. Also, a large proportion of minority ethnic communities are concentrated in those parts of the borough where the greatest concentrations of disadvantage are found.
.
Harlem – Poverty and health

‘The neighborhood suffers from unemployment rates higher than the New York average (generally more than twice as high),[76] and high mortality rates as well. In both cases, the numbers for men have been consistently worse than the numbers for women. Unemployment and poverty in the neighborhood resisted private and governmental initiatives to ameliorate them. In the 1960s, uneducated blacks could find jobs more easily than educated ones could, confounding efforts to improve the lives of people who lived in the neighborhood through education.[77] Infant mortality was 124 per thousand in 1928 (twice the rate for whites).[78] By 1940, infant mortality in Harlem was 5% (one black infant in 20 would die), still much higher than white, and the death rate from disease generally was twice that of the rest of New York. Tuberculosis was the main killer, and four times as prevalent among Harlem blacks than among New York’s white population.[78]
.
A 1990 study reported that 15-year-old black women in Harlem had a 65% chance of surviving to age 65, about the same as women in India. Black men in Harlem, on the other hand, had a 37% chance of surviving to age 65, about the same as men in Angola.[79] Infectious diseases and diseases of the circulatory system were to blame, with a variety of contributing factors, including consumption of the deep-fried foods traditional to the South and neighborhood, which may contribute to heart disease.’

“Aaronovitch is brilliant”
.
Brilliant for his sloppy research and his laughably partisan viewpoint. Brilliant therefore at peddling the wrong conspiracy theories. The way he went to town on the one about WMDs in Iraq was quite dazzling.

Oops, typo. AarOnobitch.

Don’t see what’s so(!) wrong with a bit of looting from some megacorp myself.

But of course, they should be sacking Parliament and the Metropolitan Police HQ. Maybe when their free M&M’s run out they will.
.
.
I Hope !

Clark. Agreed with the looting against the litte fella.
.
Wouldn’t be surprised however if the criminal gangs we hear about (the ones linked to the corrupt police force) are been encouraged to go after the small holder. But that’s just pure speculation and probably doesn’t cover the city thugs Craig is referring too.

Clark, Angrysoba, it seems that on the Far Right, Zionism is racism against Jews – give’m a country and send’m there. Didn’t some Nazis support that?

.
Well, yes, like the BNP’s “repatriation” policies. Certainly during the expulsion period of Nazi persecution of the Jews they were quite happy to see Jews go to Palestine and during this period many European countries, still struggling after the Depression, didn’t want to take refugees that had been stripped of their property and most of their money.
.
Angrysoba, given your attitude towards religion, how can you even acknowledge a group called “the Jews”? It seems tantamount to accepting a dogma.

.
I don’t think so. I can accept there are other religious and ethnic groupings. I find it odd that you find it odd.

http://gallery.mailchimp.com/7baf55586943c800792f569f5/images/8oct_250.1.jpg
.
October 8: Never more necessary
.
The importance of the Antiwar Assembly on 8 October has been highlighted by recent events in Afghanistan, where an utterly futile and unjustified war is killing more Afghans and invading troops than at any time since the invasion in 2011, and in Libya, where Britain is involved in a war for regime change, which the United Nations has ruled to be illegal. The need to raise the profile of the majority voice in this country that opposes the war policies of our government was never more urgent. The Assembly will also be making the link between the vast expenditure on these war policies and the savage cuts in public services we are told are necessary to pay off the national debt. Afghanistan and Libya are costing around £6bn a year, on top of the £26bn annual defence budget. Maintaining the Trident nuclear missile system costs another £2.2bn a year, and £100bn is planned for its renewal. It’s not hard to do the maths for how the national debt of around £70bn could be paid off without wiping out whole sections of our health, education and social services.
.
Get your friends to pledge
October 8 will mark 10 years of war in Afghanistan, 10 years of the “war on terror”, ten years of torture and attacks on civil liberties, not forgetting the nightmare in Iraq still under occupation. We need October 8 in Trafalgar Square to be on a scale that is too big for the government to ignore. Please encourage your friends, work or study colleagues, your neighbours — everyone you can – to sign the pledge to be there on 8 October.
SIGN HERE: {http://www.antiwarassembly.org/}

Brilliant for his sloppy research and his laughably partisan viewpoint. Brilliant therefore at peddling the wrong conspiracy theories. The way he went to town on the one about WMDs in Iraq was quite dazzling.

.
I’m not sure what “wrong conspiracy theories” you are talking about although I would agree that he does deserve criticism for the WMD thing. Either on the eve or just after the beginning of the Iraq War he published an article saying there were various good reasons to overthrow Saddam Hussein although he personally didn’t think WMDs was the primary reason. However, he acknowledged that WMDs was the issue the Iraq War was fought on and said that should WMDs fail to turn up in Iraq he would never believe another thing the UK and US governments said again. I can’t find any reaction from him from when the search turned up almost nothing at all.

Speaking of Aaronovitch and Atzmon as we were earlier, here’s an article about some “anti-Zionists” including Atzmon “having a laugh”:
.
http://www.thejc.com/comment-and-debate/columnists/52885/anti-zionists-having-a-laugh
.

But Angrysoba, Jewishness isn’t like most ethnic groupings, is it? Essentially, it is defined religiously, by either matrillineal descent or by religious conversion:

.
No, I don’t think that is necessarily so. It’s obviously quite complicated as that Wikipedia page suggests.

“I’m not sure what “wrong conspiracy theories” you are talking about”
.
Not to worry, you got there in the end.

“Would I be right in thinking that your school is in a large city and the pupils predominantly black?”

My school is in London, although not ‘inner city’ – it does have a large population of black students, and they’re definitely the ones that are mostly on the receiving end of stop & search, but it’s not a school with gang problems or particular violence at all.

With regard to the police being caught on the hop, as it were, by these riots, there is strong suspicion that they were planned using Blackberrys. Apparently, something like a third of teens have them! Groups seemed by watchers to be led by one receiving and/or sending messages on them, before they’d regroup at their next target. These “Blackerry Riots” are an exploitation of the disenfranchised, and the youth, by out and out criminals. Yes, economic situation plays a part, as does structural discrimination against the economically challenged. That structural discrimination is present in poor housing, poor education (esp at the primary level – none of our kids should be entering secondary school barely literate, if that) and in financial discrimination – lack of access to resources or loans at a fair rate (think utilities and pre-pay prices, or pay-day loans at extortionate rates, as well as decent banking access).There are manay many other ways in which low income families experience financial discrimination.

Amanda O’Dell, it is outrageous that this sort of sevetiers sus policing still exists and you are right to point to it, some of us call this inherent racialism.
I do not condone the sheer ‘fun of it’ as this kind of slash burning and rioting leaves people without homes,livelyhoods, and futures.

But this sort of policing is undermining every good work that is done elsewhere in the community. I just hope that this guy was not executed just as Azelle.
Agree with Craig, I’ve been in Twyford Down, in Newbury and at many other non violent direct action necessities, anything non violent and the police gets brutal and kinky, watch whilst women are assaulted or they just turn around, seeing nothing.

The met has no more credibility after the recent revellations of corruption and payments for information.

I feel that the Met. should be split up in to four forces, this goliath has grown too far and is too remote from serving the public. Their split loyalties with celebrity culture and/or media/ fraternities of dubious reputation have gone too far now.

What a prospect for next years Olympic splendour in easy to police and control East London. There’ be hordes of young people in civil, charged with policing, next to the 25.000 on daily routines.

Could this be part of a big ransom game to come? Gis money or we’ll riot till the cows come home gov., look man , ma hav no jobs, no prospects, no future and all those reasons of the past.

Wheels that sqeak get oiled, a main stay of british politics, appeasement for a reason.

What is happening in a way reminds me of suicide bombers. In no way I am excusing either group, just an observation/explanation.
There are justified grievances, and these are not addressed. There are feelings of impotence, injustice and rage and the result …..
And please do not tell me, they could demonstrate peacefully, write to their MPs… remember two million people marching against the Iraq war??
There are lessons to learn, sadly it is at the expense those who have lost their home, business, livelihood..

Think of the Watts Riots, 1965 and most riots since; remember the riots in various cities in England during the early 1980s? Everything that can be said about riots has all been said before, many times, esp. by politicians and other public figures. We’ll have carbon copy statements on ‘Question Time’ and ‘Any Questions’: Go back to 1981 or whenever. Let’s try to find out more about the dynamics of this one. Once a riot gets going, it tends to acquire its own momentum, to some extent regardless of the triggers, underlying factors, etc. Looting during riots is nothing new, in fact, it often seems to be central. But obviously, it’s not rocket science to note that during times of economic downturn, job losses, etc. riots tend to be more ferquent and larger, and not confined to specific groups or locations. Summer in the city. One wonders about whether there might be agents provocateur (I can never remember the correct plural!) – probably, historically, they seem to have been around in most situations, you know, like those undercover cops who were revealed/revealed themselves recently, they’re a sort of fixture – but let’s see what comes out on the wires, or rather, through the wire-lessness of cyberspace.

I was wondering about agent provocateurs but they’d only be used if the government could benefit. I think it’s quite clear they could. They’ve fixed student demonstrations with draconian sentences. Students have something to lose but the unemployed with no sight of getting a job don’t. Therefore the government needs to put in place new laws to restrict protest before the real cuts come. These riots provide the excuse just as 7/7 provided the grounds for the restrictions on civil liberties.

I would suggest that a policy of ‘let them riot’, rather than actually needing agents provocateur, is being used if anything sinister is going on. I don’t think these rioters need much encouragement. The last thing I heard on Channel 4 news was about a crowd gathering in Birmingham and it did make me wonder if something bigger is being allowed to happen.

‘“At least it was only property crime”. They burned down people’s homes.’
*
Does that mean it’s fine to burn down shops, offices, cinemas, schools, churches, the parliament buildings?
*
What if all you people who apparently don’t have to earn a living as a shopkeeper, or in the employ of any part of the private sector find your livelihood is terminated by a bunch of moronic, criminal arsonists on a spree? Would that be OK, too?

“What if all you people who apparently don’t have to earn a living as a shopkeeper, or in the employ of any part of the private sector…” Can Speccy.
.
Now that most certainly would not refer to the enterprising South Asian shopkeepers and other businesspersons of every city in Britain, now, would it? They are the backbone of the private sector in this country.
.
The incoming Head of the CBI in Scotland is a woman and an Asian Scot, a double-first for Nosheena Mubarik. Mubarak ho!
.
Britain is a nation of (Asian) shopkeepers! All power to the Cornershop! Gie’s a Brimful of Asha! And Noor Jehan! Rock on, Leicester!

“Now that most certainly would not refer to the enterprising South Asian shopkeepers and other businesspersons of every city in Britain, now, would it?
*
What’s that supposed to mean?
*
That it’s fine to burn down shops, offices, or whatever provided that the proprietors are not Asian?
*
Your Anglophobic racism, SS, is ever more blatant.

No, Alfred, it means that your views are exposed yet again as utterly hypocritical. You say you value private sector business, and so I point out that South Asian British people are almost archetypal entrpreneurs in that very sector at all levels. the head of the CBI in Scotland is now an Asian Scottish woman who, when one speaks with her, sounds as Scottish as Robert Burns, and who runs an excellent cutting-edge high tech business. So, I ask, is this the “genocide” of which you wax lyrical? Your ideas with one another like a row of broken dentures.

‘ideas sit with one another…’

@MJ
All I am saying is hoplessness is not limited to just one ethnic group.
Yes some get it worse than others but the polarisation between rich and poor involves class as well as race.
Don’t know where you live but don’t you have have areas near you where you just know getting on in life is so much harder than others?

@Canspeccy…”What if all you people who apparently don’t have to earn a living as a shopkeeper, or in the employ of any part of the private sector find your livelihood is terminated by a bunch of moronic, criminal arsonists on a spree? Would that be OK, too?”

Bankers and governments could be described in exactly the same way.

When ‘decent’ people get frustrated they write letters to the editor and engage somehow in a socially acceptable manner in the hopes that meaningful changes might result…while the differently heeled moronic,criminal arsonists the ‘decent’ people deal with continue their sprees.

It’s easy for the genteel to be horrified by it all as it’s all well documented in pictures and involves an underclass so used to being despised and spat on it renders them indifferent to your fits of moral outrage.

It’s also pretty useful for ‘authorities’ when ‘decent’ and ‘gentle’ folk are frightened every now and again. It provides an opportunity to step in, reassure and justify their own existence again.

If ‘decent’, ‘clever’ and ‘educated’ people were at all effective at changing things in a meaningful way…then perhaps we wouldn’t be in the gigantic, stinking mess we’re all in?

I bet the people who had their homes burned down were ‘decent’ people too who likely paid their insurance…which they might now discover to be void for ‘acts of god’ or ‘rioting, insurrection and civil unrest’. They’ll get over it…and continue to pay while those who ‘have’, continue to steal more…and those who ‘have not’, try to steal more but far less effectively…as they’re not very good at it in the big scheme of things.

How does one ‘burn down’ a mentality like neo-liberalism then? Any suggestions Canspeccy?

The bankers have looted our economy and people like Fred goodwin walk away with huge payoffs and bonuses. To pay for it Cameron has imposed unprecedented austerity measures on the general population, cutting council services, destroying the job market and pushing further education out of the reach of the masses. Why can they not see that lack of opportunity leads to frustration and frustration boils over into this kind of action. There are greedy opportunists out there trying to grab what they can but you could say the same of the bankers who do so with the protection of the likes of Cameron. Our social system has become more and more polarised over the last 20 years, wealthy children fed through the public school system into elite universities and then into power structure careers while the disenfranchised are coraled in economic ghettos.

What a splendid example of hooligan, delinquent violence David Cameron is giving with the destruction of Libya from the air: destroying infrastructure, private property, shops, schools, hospitals, markets, residential housing; killing civilians, men , women , children and, now, camels. Bombing the beaches even where Tripoli residents go to get away from it all, the bombing, that is.
I didn’t expect my characterisation of Britain as a land of lost, violent souls to be confirmed so dramatically:
http://inthesenewtimes.com/2011/06/20/lost-violent-souls/

Still, we must’nt get lost in philosophical or ideological generalities but, rather, keep a very close eye on these events. These kids are above all, manipulable: is this manipulation just for criminal ends or is there a deeper agenda. Your comparison with the Gordon riots, Craig, suggests you are thinking along these lines.

@ Colin,

Hooligan deliquent violence and the connection to Libya:-

Cameron said this:-

“These are sickening scenes, scenes of people looting, vandalising, thieving, robbing, scenes of people attacking police officers and even attacking fire crews as they’re trying to put out fires. This is criminality, pure and simple, and it has to be confronted and defeated”.

I paraphrase with regard to the criminal bombing over Libya:-

“These are sickening scenes, scenes of people bombiing, destroyiing, setting out to thieve oil for BP, engaging in a plot for robbing, scenes of people attacking the government, and even attacking civilian targets, as they are trying to put out fires and live normal lives. This is criminality, pure and simple, and it has to be confronted and defeated”.

@ All – as stated – it is hypocrisy -some lives are more important than others – some criminality is more excusable than others…

“Mathaba: African Union Should Send Armed Forces to Bomb England to Protect Civilians
Posted: 2011/08/09

British Queen has been in power since almost 100 years and should immediately step down otherwise she must face the consequences or leave to a location that the world community will determine

Because the British police are killing and arresting peaceful protesters who want another regime in power in England, those civilians must be protected by bombing all those other civilians who like the Queen or agree with the parliamentary dictatorship in Westminster.

This logic is 100% correct and valid, given that Britain with NATO is using the exact same logic in Libya.

The protesters in England must seize weapons from the police and central London military barracks, and march on the Houses of Parliament and No. 10 Downing Street and lay siege, arrest all the politicians, hold them prisoner, parade them in front of foreign media, and then torture and execute all the white skinned ones.

This logic is 100% correct and valid, given that Britain with NATO is supporting the same logic in the East of Libya against Blacks.

The world community must react immediately to the violence the British police, military and state security forces of the London dictatorship regime are using on the peaceful British protesters.

The fires we see raging across England have all been set alight by supporters of the Queen of England, Elizabeth II, and so she has lost all legitimacy by firing on the people and bombing them with the British Air Force — we know this to be a fact because we read it on Twitter and it was reported just now on Mathaba.

This logic is 100% correct and valid, given that the British have used the same logic with respect to Muammar Qadhafi and the terrorist rebels in Libya.

If the Queen does not immediately step down or leave England to some location within Eastern Siberia that could be arranged for her if the African Union Peace and Security Council agrees to it, then foreign intervention will be absolutely necessary in order to protect the peaceful rebels in England against the dictatorship regime of Westminster and its brutal dictator Queen Elizabeth II which family has already been in power for hundreds of years.

The Windsors, the British “Royal Family” have lost their legitimacy and must face the International Criminal Court for the theft of trillions of pounds sterling from the people of England. This writer himself has been a victim, when I was a young man I chained my bicycle to a fence in London in order to prevent it from being stolen by the many thieves of England, and returned to find a terrorist police man standing next to it ready to arrest me for chaining my bike to “royal property.”

The big thief Queen of England has stolen most of the land and property not only in England but in every country member state of the so-called “Commonwealth” which is the opposite of what is claims — it is not a Jamahiriya or Commonwealth, unless all the common wealth belongs to the Queen and her loyalist agents who have simply stolen it from the people. Therefore ALL financial assets of the British must immediately be seized around the world.

Those assets must be used 99.9% to compensate all those nations that have suffered from the imperialism of the British Crown, and the remaining 0.01% should be given to the peaceful rebels which have set fire to various cities across England in order to pour the fire on the fires started by the Loyalists.

This logic and call is 100% valid given that the most wise experts of the world, the Great White British, have used the same logic in Libya and so we know that this must be true and appropriate.

Further, the heroic British people and in particular the Black Africans in England who are taking revenge for the plunder of Africa and the bombing of Libya by the Royal Family of England will be entitled to torture, cut out the hearts of any loyalists, burn them, and rape the women and children, without any sanction from human rights organisations because that is clearly within the norms of a rebellion according to what we have learned this year in Libya.

The Cameron needs to be jailed because he is merely a puppet for the Queen and has been threatening the demonstrators and taking away their rights to demonstrate peacefully for democracy, freedom and human rights in Britain, and for lying to the world calling it the “UK” when it is not a United Kingdom, but a Disunited Queendom (“DQ”) in actual fact, as is known to the entire world and cannot be denied.

The DQ is not a Jamahiriya, nor is it a United Kingdom, so it has lost all legitimacy in the eyes of the world, with its Anglo-Saxons incapable of exercising democracy, so the handful of African rebels who seize Westminster by force of arms must form a Transitional National Council and be recognized by the World Community, meaning all 192 countries of the world minus the 30 countries that are the “international (white) community”, therefore 162 countries in total.

The so called “royal family” needs to me made to understand that it is time to give up their empire and hand it over to a national transitional council, containing members of the British rebels, and face justice. Nothing less will be acceptable to the World Community and there can be no negotiations with the loyalists of the Queen nor the British dictatorship regime which in reality the Queen and her family rules. She must step down immediately.

Mathaba citizen journalists from around the world, including Mathaba Intelligence officers and Mathaba soldiers, must enter Britain illegally into all the zones that are ringed by fire, because those parts of the country we recognize as free, and we do not need visas from the dictatorship regime, and we can send false reports and guide the African missiles to their targets.

It’s time these oppressors are forced to leave the country, after hundreds of years of stealing from and killing their own people and all the wealth of England and the vaults must be confiscated and given to Africans and Asians and Aboriginal Australians in compensation for generations of murder, pillage, rape, abuse and slavery.

African Air Forces must impose a total no-fly zone where no white air craft from Europe or England are allowed to fly, no air craft at all may fly in the no-fly zone which must cover the entire Disunited Queendom, except of course for the African Air Forces which must be allowed to bomb all the civilian infrastructure of England because it was built by the stolen money from Africa, and of course all air fields and government offices must be bombed and destroyed so that no command and control centers are left for the Queen.

Furthermore, missiles must target Buckingham Palace, and all the many properties and homes of the British Royal family and kill them and their children because at all costs we have to kill the Queen of England because she is the most dangerous person in the world as she has been committing terrible atrocities against more than half of the planet, including with her many corporations such as General Electric, as she has refused to step down or leave England.

The City of London must be totally destroyed because it is the wealth center of the British Royal Family and a dictatorship, that does not even submit itself to the rule of law of England and is not even subject to the false parliamentary democracy of England which is in reality a brutal kleptocracy of Queen Elizabeth.

Muammar Qaddafi has ordered the British people to rise up and form revolutionary committees to seize power and form popular conferences and people’s committees so that the masses can finally come to power and live in peaceful democracy for the first time in British history.

All the above is 100% valid and logical as it has been thus endorsed by no less than NATO, Cameron, Sarkozy and Obama in Africa.”

@Larry Levin Enoch Powell Barton Manor 1971. It seems to be a recurring theme.