I don’t think that I have seen anything like the widespread criminality sweeping England, in my lifetime. It may happen in LA or the Paris bainlieus, but not England. Watching it from the sanity of Scotland enhances the feeling of it happening somewhere I don’t know.
It is necessary to be plain about one thing. This is not, in any sense, a legitimate political protest. Nor is it a revolt of the deprived, homeless and starving. Few of those arrested are coming to the attention of the police for a first time. What is happening is that the burgeoning criminal underclass is realising that it is now large enough to defy society if it can concentrate its forces quickly in specific localities.
This is not a race issue. This is the social mileu from which Jade Goody, Amy Winehouse and Wayne Rooney (all of whom have had close associations with people imprisoned for violence) emerged just as much as it is gangs of Somalis and Nigerians – and it is indeed that too. It is a product of a contemptible urban sub-culture driven by a detestation of education and an avid materialism. That its devotees can argue that the corrupt bankers and politicians are morally no better is a perfectly valid point, but no justification.
They are not destroying the homes and livelihoods of politicians and bankers, but of ordinary decent people.
The policing does raise vital questions. The Met has 30,000 officers. Tonight it will have 16,000 out on the street, including reinforcement from elsewhere. Why on earth did it only have 6,000 out last night across the whole of London, when everyone knew what would happen? And why then did they simply watch looters? Senior officers had decreed that the “containment” tactics used to control political demonstrations should be used here. What arrant nonsense. You don’t just cordon off areas in which looters are allowed to loot.
There are root problems in society which have caused this, but the immediate cause is impunity. The criminally minded witnessed that they could loot what they wanted, while the police would merely stand and watch. As a result, more and more joined in and the situation has gone from bad to worse. One thing which has been under-reported is the amount of personal violence that has been used, with people mugged in the streets, cab and bus drivers attacked and people stoned as they ran from burning flats.
I have no problem at all with calling for the deployment of baton rounds, tear gas and water cannon. If nobody has been burnt to death so far, it is a miracle. If the odd looter gets killed by the police by accident by a baton round, I would view that as very sad but something they brought upon themselves. I would not bring in the army at the moment, but the force of society should be brought to bear by the immediate enlistment of any volunteer with no criminal record as a temporary special constable. They should look to enlist tens of thousands.
The resources of civilisation are not exhausted.
Writeon,
Sorry to disagree with you Cameron and Osbourne are not the issue here; half these rioters have never heard their drivel, unless Cameron and Osbourne are on their Facebook or Twitter friends list.
Neither do most of them suffer real inhuman treatment they may be less will of than the elite but that is no excuse for such behaviour.
As for revolution the only change it brings is a to the ruling elite who somehow always end up very rich, stupid or tyrannical and sometime all three.
So, it’s looking like the kid got shot, without opening fire first, and then someone fired a bullet into a police radio after that. Am I summing this all up correctly? It all sounds very odd to me. Why would someone do that? Like it wasn’t all going to come out in the ballistics report? A firearms officer would know procedure and it just doesn’t make much sense.
Over the last thirty years the traditional working-class, for a variety of reasons, has almost vanished. Unfornately, for some, they kept having children, children who are, in reality, and excessive burden on society.
The traditional bourgeois route to social advancement, at least for the gifted few, was through education; now that’s over. Crucially, it’s now the turn of the middle-class to feel the cuts and follow the working-class into oblivion. The question is, will they just passively accept their fate?
Obviously the state is scared stiff that disaffected elements among the educated middle-class, like students, who see their hopes of a lifestyle comparable to their parents vanishing, will ally themselves with the ‘Mob’ as the nation’s economic decline begins to really squeeze the middle class. This is when things become very dangerous. Peasants revolts are rarely successful… but when the masses have an educated and ambitious leadership that could potentially become a rival or new ruling elite… then things become very interesting.
Night Night
@ Craig,
Think you just found the answer for timely and effective change:-
” They are not destroying the homes and livelihoods of politicians and bankers,…”
And when they start doing that…( shit – they may have me on an incitement charge here)
32 people have appeared in court charged with offences such as burglary and criminal damage during the previous riots.Among them were a graphic designer, college students, a youth worker, a university graduate and a man signed up to join the army.
A significant number of those charged were said in court to be of previously good character and had simply been drawn in to the offending.
In one defendant’s case, a lawyer described his client as offending in “a moment of madness”.
I demand to see my lawyer. Sorry Pal, he has been banged up too..
So not all deprived, unemployed, down and out.. what this tell us about our society??
”That its devotees can argue that the corrupt bankers and politicians are morally no better is a perfectly valid point, but no justification…”
There’s no justification for mugging, but if you walk down a dark alley with £1000 in a plastic bag, you can’t avoid your own share of blame for the probable consequences.
This violence has been brewing for a very long time. Anyone who expresses surprise just hasn’t been paying attention. We do need to have a very strong line taken with people who are no more than cynically criminal looters. But to then forget why this is all happening is to invite it again. This country is as cynically divided – albeit by different factors – as it was when Victoria was on the throne. The criminality of a rich man may not justify the criminality of the man in the street, but one is a culpable mirror image of the other.
My late father used to say “What do you call a man who steals £5?” – the answer was, of course – a thief. “And what do you call a man who steals millions?” The answer was – you probably call him Sir.
In between all the crocodile tears from politicians and senior police officers – there’s little doubt this violence fits in very well indeed with their own cynical agenda.
It’s more understandable now why the police have been holding back when they should have been protecting people and property because it’s quite obvious they knew what had actually happened when Mark Duggan was shot. Does anybody know anything about the circumstances of the shooting of a 26 year old man in Croydon last night, who has just died in hospital from his wounds?
@A Sad Jester – “As for revolution the only change it brings is a to the ruling elite who somehow always end up very rich, stupid or tyrannical and sometime all three.”
Some wise soul once said (accurately IMHO) – When people fight for their liberty, they seldom achieve more than a new master.
What do they expect when they allow rioters to organise their activities on the internet.
http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/7554/fupstreet.jpg
Jaded. Mark Duggan was shot twice, once in the chest and once in the biceps. He died at the scene. Reading between the lines it is feasible that the bullet which pierced his biceps rebounded, or ricocheted, and lodged in another policeman’s radio, though this is speculation. What is known is that the bullet lodged in the police radio was from a police-issue weapon. Hope that clarifies things a little. You’ll get more information on blogs than you will from the police.
John, it just doesn’t sound very feasible to me and we probably won’t get the whole truth.
Writeon,
I agree with everything you’ve just said and in particular,
‘In fact the youngsters are reacting ‘rationally’ and ‘normally’ in a society that’s sick, depraved, degenerate, undemocratic, corrupt and doomed.’
I see the Iranian government is concerned about human rights in the UK.
‘Iran has called on the British police to exercise restraint against people protesting over the killing of a Black man in London.
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast urged the British government to order the police to stop their violent confrontation with the people, IRNA reported in the early hours of Tuesday.
Mehmanparast asked the British government to start dialogue with the protesters and to listen to their demands in order to calm the situation down.
The Iranian official also asked independent human rights organizations to investigate the killing in order to protect the civil rights and civil liberties.’ PressTV
John Goss, good point about the police.
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However it also occurs to me that another reason the police may be holding back somuch is that they have had a great deal of criticism in the last two or three years regarding corruption and also causing unneccessary deaths. It may be that on occasion these deaths were deliberate, or caused by stupidity, but sometimes by error, ie some copper having a bad day. The police are also said to be in bad odour with the government who like to blame them for doing what they do, ie be corrupt.
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Therefore the police are likely to be extremely sensitive about wanting to avoid being seen as making mistakes.
I believe that doctors probably often avoid performing operations which patients need because they are risky. They are scared of being sued, so they go for a risk-free but for the patient unhelpful option.
How about some of you come up with some solutions to the root cause? Namely, that we don’t live in much of a democracy. We aren’t going to get any meaningful solutions from this system.
@Ruth , Iranian government is better tell their friend Bashir to restrain his forces and not to kill peaceful demonstrators! They are just taking the opportunity to tell British government that Iranian are not the only one who abuse Human Rights.. Basically what they are saying is if you keep talking about our human right abuses , then we will talk about your..
It’s a good point, Conjunction. However I’ve spent the last few days commenting against the rioters (I am still against the rioters) and therefore I place myself in favour of the authorities. I accept that individual coppers make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. We’re human. It took five days to rectify these mistakes. That’s the tragedy.
I’m glad to see that since there has been a measured release of information that Mark Duggan did not open fire on the police, London is calming down a bit. Perhaps if that information had been released at the beginning these riots could have been averted. That we will never know.
This problem can be dealt with by two words: “open fire”.
http://news.uk.msn.com/uk/duggan-did-not-fire-at-officers-1
This little titbit that I just read on an msn article made me chuckle:
‘The IPCC said investigations into the circumstances of the shooting are continuing with a CCTV trawl of the area.’
Alrighty!
Ruth, that’s classic the Iranian government criticising Britain about human rights’ abuse.
Yes, Jaded, but this was news to me. “A non-police issue handgun, converted from a blank-firing pistol to one that shoots live rounds, was recovered close to the scene of Mr Duggan’s death.” I thought the weapon was recovered from the minicab.
“I have no problem at all with calling for the deployment of baton rounds, tear gas and water cannon. If nobody has been burnt to death so far, it is a miracle. If the odd looter gets killed by the police by accident by a baton round, I would view that as very sad but something they brought upon themselves. I would not bring in the army at the moment, but the force of society should be brought to bear by the immediate enlistment of any volunteer with no criminal record as a temporary special constable. They should look to enlist tens of thousands.”
Whatever else we need, we do not need more stupid comments like this. We have had enough threats of “we’re going to send in the police to do you in” – we do not need more of it.
Craig, I think JT is right. This is over-reaction.
@angrysoba – thanks for the correction to Jade Goody – fixed.
I just posted this on Alternet
As ugly as it is – and its mainly under 16 year olds doing this…its a kind of karma.
The UK is Bombing the Fuck out of Tripoli Every Fucking Night.
I am completely disgusted at both events.
You can’t bomb for peace.
Its now hit Manchester – close to where we currently are.
This is not political in the conventional sense and neither is it racist.
Its the very young dispossessed who have had their hope and future ripped away by us Older Greedy Bastards.
There’s no difference between a kid in Libya, London, Baghdad or New York, except the kid in Libya is probably better educated and has a higher standard of living or did have until WE started dropping bombs on him to steal his oil.
We need to stop doing this or the entire world will catch fire as we descend into hell.
We need to give Children all over the world some hope of a future that gets better rather than worse.
It is us adults who have failed our Children
Incidentally, My Daughter was working till 1:00 am in the morning last night whilst this mayhem was going on. She is trying to earn some money for her final year at University. Her brother brought her home through a partial curfew.
We could see the flames.
Tony
It’s all over-blown and easily dealt with. Media-hype, police-hype. Meanwhile a generation of neglect smoulders.
‘Courtenay, it’s so complex. I’m quite sure a lot of these kids have jumped on the wave so as not to be seen as outside of the circle. I’m sure a lot of them come from good homes and their parents would (will) be appalled if (when) they find out what they (have been) are up to. I’ve been young. I’m supportive of these kids, like you, I would fight for their rights, like you.’ Last night I made this observation. Tonight I learn that of those caught looting one is a university under-graduate, another an armed forces recruit.
3.41pm: Computer hackers have defaced the official website of BlackBerry owner Research In Motion, in a retaliatory attack over the company’s pledge to assist the police investigation into the London riots.
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Our colleague Josh Halliday has more details:
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The Inside BlackBerry blog was hacked into on Tuesday afternoon by a group calling themselves TeamPoison. In a statement posted on the BlackBerry website, the hackers said:
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Dear RIM;
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You Will _NOT_ assist the UK Police because if u do innocent members of the public who were at the wrong place at the wrong time and owned a blackberry will get charged for no reason at all, the Police are looking to arrest as many people as possible to save themselves from embarrassment … if you do assist the police by giving them chat logs, gps locations, customer information & access to peoples BlackBerryMessengers you will regret it, we have access to your database which includes your employees information; e.g – Addresses, Names, Phone Numbers etc. – now if u assist the police, we _WILL_ make this information public and pass it onto rioters…. do you really want a bunch of angry youths on your employees doorsteps? Think about it…. and don’t think that the police will protect your employees, the police can’t protect themselves let alone protect others….. if you make the wrong choice your database will be made public, save yourself the embarrassment and make the right choice. don’t be a puppet..
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p.s – we do not condone in innocent people being attacked in these riots nor do we condone in small businesses being looted, but we are all for the rioters that are engaging in attacks on the police and government…. and before anyone says “the blackberry employees are innocent” no they are not! They are the ones that would be assisting the police.
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The hackers said they defaced the website “in response” to this statement made by RIM on Monday: “We feel for those impacted by the riots in London. We have engaged with the authorities to assist in any way we can.”
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A spokesman for RIM said the firm was looking into the apparent website hack.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2011/aug/09/london-riots-day-four-live-blog#block-30
(ex anton medialens)
I like the euphenism contained within this Blackberry press release.
Headcount reduction = the sack
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/research-in-motion-reports-first-quarter-fiscal-2012-results-revises-full-year-guidance-nasdaq-rimm-1527993.htm