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.
Completely agree with your words and analysis.
I was struck by the eye-witness account of looters emerging from the Sony warehouse laden with games consoles (one of them hit him in passing, more or less because he was there). Minutes later, the whole place went up in flames. That is exactly the way the Vikings behaved on their raids. They went in quick and hard, raping and killing – then they grabbed all the loot they could carry, and burned the place to the ground on the way out.
Some things don’t change, and it will always be true that (as Robert Heinlein repeatedly observed) man is the most dangerous animal in the known universe. Violence is repressed by a thin veneer of morality, custom, social pressure, and law. Incrasingly we have seen the first three of those being scraped away by advanced thinkers who regard them as antiquated relics. Law, alone, cannot do the job. After all, the have-nots reason, who makes the law? The haves, of course. Hence the sudden widespread appeal of anarchy. If society, civilisation, culture, all lead to the situation we have today – well, they can’t be much use, can they?
‘There is no justification’?
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How can there be justification when there is no visible justice?
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You cannot pass judgement on the actions of anybody who has lived, nay, existed, in institutional injustice.
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And don’ expect rational behaviour from people who’s lives have no sense or purpose.
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I worked with young people below the bottom rung in society who were homeless, addicted to drugs and alcohol, living on benefits with no prospects of work to whom shoplifting and blagging was a career. I worked with them and experienced with them the impossibility of crawling out of the situation.
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Privileged people often say that we live in a society of opportunity and there are no excuses for people not to prosper. Quite simply, those people are idiots because for the inequity of a society with disproportionate wealth at the top to flourish, there has to be a disproportionate level of poverty at the bottom. It’s a simple matter of mathematical balance.
“2.44pm: Boris Johnson says he does not want to hear social and economic justifications for the rioting.
2.43pm: Boris Johnson is speaking in Clapham Junction. His message to the rioters is: “They will face punishments they will bitterly regret.”
The mayor of London is facing a lot of heckling. People are asking where the police were yesterday.”
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guardian
On the topic of the post: Sky News is at present looping a video from YouTube in which an injured man is tended to by a passer-by, the latter of whom then proceeds to steal items out of his back-pack. It is really is a disgrace. But I find that the underclass to which Craig refers have had very good teachers. I agree with him, but he might also have added:
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> There are root problems in society which have caused this, but the immediate cause is
> impunity. The Members of Parliament and the corporations witnessed that they could
> loot what they wanted, while the police would merely stand and watch. As a result,
> more and more capitalist elements joined in and the situation has gone from bad to
> worse.
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Confirmation bias? No; too many concurring examples of systematic dishonesty for that to be likely, in my view at least.
Easy to forget that our present Prime Minister & London Mayor stand as a burning example, one might say, to both would-be rioters & arsonists:
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‘Things got out of hand and we’d had a few drinks. We smashed the place up and Boris set fire to the toilets.’ .
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— David Cameron speaking in 1986.
“Privileged people often say that we live in a society of opportunity and there are no excuses for people not to prosper. Quite simply, those people are idiots because for the inequity of a society with disproportionate wealth at the top to flourish, there has to be a disproportionate level of poverty at the bottom. It’s a simple matter of mathematical balance.”
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This is true.
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We used to have a far more equal distribution of wealth until the wicked witch arrived upon the scene.
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Under New Labour things got even worse. In their wisdom our leaders chose even more inequality.
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In economic terms this kind of violence we’ve seen is part of the cost of the choices we’ve made in politics.
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Simples.
“2.44pm: Boris Johnson says he does not want to hear social and economic justifications for the rioting”
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What did I say earlier?
Dear Mary. To find out who has power in a society find out which group cannot be criticised.
Mary if Larry from St Louis says stuff that is antisemitic do you think the fellow readers/bloggers are intelligent enough to recognize this for themselves do they need a nanny?
Er, have you been living in the same country as me? This is chickenfeed compared to the gangsterism and terrorism of your former employer. Offer us unemployed people 35 hours a week at a decent hourly rate and most crime would disappear. Mot because the white-collar crime of the banksters and the FO torture colluders would remain.
Stop being so middle class.
Incidentally, has anyone seen any journalists asking Cameron et al whether they would consider the disenfranchisement of the burgeoning underclass as a contributing factor to the violence? No surprises that Boris has his fingers in his ears, of course. Anyway, it would be good to see this question asked until a satisfactory response is obtained.
“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.”
Cowardice.
I still can’t come to terms with why they watched while a building was razed to the ground, until other buildings had come into play. There is more to this than meets the eye, especially with knowledge that the second bullet, alledgedly lodging in a police radio, was not from mini-cab as was originally assumed, but from the police weapon that killed the young man.
“A police chief today accused rioters of targeting Birmingham city centre out of greed.”
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“This was not an angry crowd, this was a greedy crowd.”
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/birmingham-rioters-a-greedy-crowd-2334278.html
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Perhaps someone ought to explain to this dimwit that greed and self-interest are fundamental to our system. They’re not bad things. They’re good things.
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Ask the Thatch, if you don’t believe me.
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The other amusing thing is that these clowns, police and politicians etc still seem to think they have any credibility left.
Below is part of an e-mail I sent to various pals about recent events. One thing I have not looked at is whether one vital factor in the riots 30 years back — the systematic harassment of black youth by the police — is still a factor or a major factor today. Darcus Howe reckons it is, but is it?
Please note that these are only preliminary thoughts, and I may well revise them as more information comes in and as I discuss them with other people.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
The fact that a small protest about the police’s killing of a black man (possibly a crook) in Tottenham leads to riots on a scale we have not seen in London for 25 years shows that something has been occurring that is very deep-running and the shooting and protest are only a trigger for the unleashing of this torrent.
Below I’ve outlined some of the factors that I think lurk behind these events, if indirectly or in a mediated way.
Distrust of authority: this is part of the disaggregation of society (I think that this is inevitable in today’s form of capitalism), very little holds society together, old agencies and institutions have declined and rotted with nothing to replace them, many youth see nothing positive in their lives beyond instant gratification and shallow cultural norms and manifestations. A sense of society going nowhere (not sensed in a theoretical or political way, but an almost unconscious feeling of an empty, aimless life). Lumpenisation of many youth, especially the unemployed, poorly-educated: replacement of old social networks by pseudo-solidarity of gangs. Distrust of state authorities and politicians — often justified, but also often takes a negative, anti-social form.
A generalised culture of getting what one wants: the recent celebrity culture in which no-talent types get rich merely by being on the telly. Logic: anyone can have what he or she wants without doing anything.
A generalised culture of disobeying rules and laws: MPs’ expenses, the Murdoch phone-tapping scandal with its involvement of the police and press, and the arrogance of those involved. Logic: they don’t even obey they own laws, so why should I?
Bankers’ bonus culture: people in the finance world getting huge bonuses even when their firms are doing badly and getting bailed out by the state. Logic: you can get what you want regardless of what you do; so if you can’t afford it, you can still nick it.
A culture of violence: British governments (and others too) blithely attack other countries that are not a threat, using all manner of lies to justify their actions. Logic: you can act violently, you can do what you like against other people.
I think that these are some of the factors that have seeped into society, not always consciously, but have made their way deep into people’s consciousness. It’s not exactly that someone looks at, say, British military action in Iraq then later says to himself: ‘Oh, I think I’ll loot the local shops and half-inch a nice telly and some trainers.’ It’s a lot more mediated and indirect than that, but is nonetheless there.
@Tome Welsh,
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Is this Anarchy, or is it chaos?
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I believe as Mr Murray, that these riots lack the coherence of political purpose; therefore it must be chaos.
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The chaos brought about by the micromanagement of decades of left wing pseudo-science, from all avenues of social bureaucracy, from the government, the public media, and social services. The lesson being that you can’t push string; evolution is a damned sight more effective at moulding the human condition, than a bunch of superannuated sixth-formers in positions of power, under the influence of the Frankfurt School of Marxist-Feminism.
How can Craig, a former ambassador for bourgeois criminal ruling class make write such tripe, if those jackbooted thugs who started all this shoot a single rebel on the streets of London this mayhem will spread to your front door. And when it does I will view it as sad but inevitable because you wished it upon yourself.
Larry Levin Id you are suggesting that I am a nanny I would refute that. We are just tired of your namesake. He derails and diverts the discussion and we have had him here for years.
Yeah, Larry L – we have a few special cases here, where permitting free speech on every topic but the one in hand tends to reduce free speech for the majority. The former instance of free speech is usually aggressive, spiteful and lacking in both engagement and good faith. Moderation has cleared up this problem enormously.
“I have no problem at all with calling for the deployment of baton rounds, tear gas and water cannon”
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I do and I’m relieved that Theresa May is speaking in more temperate tones than Craig. These are certainly not legitimate political protests but we surely don’t need the precedent of tear gas and water cannon to be established before the legitimate political protests start in earnest, as they surely will.
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Many of the rioters are wearing masks to hide their identity. But there are more sophisticated wearers of masks. I apologise to Percy Bysshe Shelley for this line paraphrase of one of his great poems.
“I met Murdoch on the stair, he wore a masque like Tony Blair.”
“This is not a race issue.”
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So the fact that the press images show an overwhelming majority of the looters, rioters and arsonists as non-white is just a racist slur against the victimized-by-society immigrant community, is it?
Unless the ConDem Government comes up with some serious ideas that re addresses the balance of opportunities, talks about jobs for those who have none in those areas, there will be no Olypmics.
If the IOC should take the position of asking France to ready its stadia and prepare a plan B, at the last possible moment, so be it. This kettle is boiling over and they can’t just advance with the cavalry, they also must come up with some noises for society, address the mistrust and hate of the police force.
Still think that the Met is too big, too comfortable with itself, it has lost peoples trust and is seen as immune to the law.
Add to that the bullying and mega million deals, financed by gamblers hoping for Godot by playing the lottery, deals that have made Lord Coe and his friends day, and night.
Tonight we will see some brave people defending properties and lives, let us see whether the police will be able to dfistinguish between those defending their property and those who want to cause mayhem and steal.
There are many communities who will soon take this approach, last night saw some Turkish Cypriots defending their restaurant, good on them.
Just out on BBC radio 5: Trouble in West Bromwich 200 youth on the rampage.
“So the fact that the press images show an overwhelming majority of the looters, rioters and arsonists as non-white is just a racist slur against the victimized-by-society immigrant community, is it?”
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Here we go again.
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Oh, and here we go again. This time, West Bromwich apparently.
‘Watching it from the sanity of Scotland enhances the feeling of it happening somewhere I don’t know.’
Your humility does you credit Craig- your last 2 posts on the riots were piss poor but this one is an improvement. Hitherto your writing about the urban riots expressed a bafflement one would expect from Anglo Scot, raised in rural Norfolk, who has spent most of his working life out of the country. I’ll always respect your views on foreign policy Craig, but on matters closer to home your judgment is less sure footed.
‘Frankly the thought of uniformed EDL on the streets scares me far more than the riots’
Where exactly do you live, Old Twat ? This was the scene last night 2 miles away from where I’m writing this-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrHKpjHNpZg&NR=1
The sight of ANY effective uniformed presence round where I live would be welcome at the moment, Old Twat- even if it includes those who sympathize with the EDL when when off duty.
Even Sky News understands what the economic numbers mean:
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http://news.sky.com/home/business/article/16046645
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“Can Economic Factors Explain The Riots?”
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“London is Britain’s most unequal region by far, in terms of the income gap.”
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“they underline the fact that in economic and social terms, London has been a tinderbox for some time.”
Herbie: For many young people in Britain, even Hobnobs, Coke and MaccyDs are out of reach!
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It’s this austerity thing you see, Angry. Benefit cuts, sanctions etc., to pay the banksters’ bonuses.
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Don’t be such a moron, Herbie. The people doing the looting and rioting were people in *gangs*. This wasn’t the “sigh of the oppressed”. Male and female from the ages of 13 or so and up and using Blackberries and iPhones to contact each other. Stealing PSPs out of random people’s backpacks and going into book-keepers to trash the flatscreen monitors.
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Oh, and they didn’t touch Waterstones, for some reason.
Craig:”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.”
You can’t know if it’s been under-reported. Because your only evidence for it happening at all are reports, which may not be reliable in the first place.
who said muslims dont have a sense of humour?
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the iranians have said that the british police should act with restraint.
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500 now arrested
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makes you think as to how the iranian protests were covered in the uk ..
Alright, please keep it civil, AngrySoba and Herbie. Our shouting at each other doesn’t much help with advancing our respective perspectives!