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.
Using tear gas to disperse rioters might be a nice idea in theory but above the streets where much of the rioting was happening people live in flats. They would also get gassed.
So Frazer’s right, shoot the scum.
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I’ve been saying for a long time that the bankers need to be shot but no one’s taking me seriously.
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This country (in fact the West in general) is in desperate need of some real leaders who are taken seriously
“The problem starts with parents not willing or being able to discipline their fxxx-witted offspring. Just ask any school teacher in a deprived area about the culture and attitude that a minority of black kids have; and they think they’re being super-cool!”
Funnily enough, in case you’re interested in facts, very good teachers I know in inner city boroughs will say that the African boys are often the most boisterous at school precisely because their parents are so strict with them at home. None of them have any serious problems with the children they teach.
“This country (in fact the West in general) is in desperate need of some real leaders who are taken seriously”
How about “this country is in desperate need of some elected representatives who take the job they’re paid to do seriously, instead of either being or pandering to right wing knee jerk egoists”?
Reading Frazer talking about ‘shooting the scum’ by which he presumably means children, makes me sick and sad. But of course, he is being funny. Ho ho, what a joker.
@ Technicolour. Sounds like more excuses. What’s your deterent then: Asbo, two weeks in jail?
Fox takes the biscuit and the mickey out of the taxpayers.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2023900/Libya-Liam-Fox-directs-conflict-Spanish-hotel-taxpayers-expense.html
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Sorry Arthur I had not heard of that 70s group.
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Frazer Wash your mouth out.
What you’ve never heard of Arthur Itis and the geriatrics? You should get out more.
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Re: Fox, as I said previously, we need leaders who we can take seriously.
This riot was preditable.BUT I am not condoning it!
Its a universal law , Cause and Effect. Its also the 2nd law of thermodynamics in action.The more you impose law the more you accelerate chaos!!
The bankers and our Con-Dem government are just as guilty of mindless destruction and EVEN MORE DEATH!!
Maybe Gaddaffi should declare the rioters the legitimate UK government and the African Union start a “humanitarian democratic” bombing campaign and send in some military advisors?
If only Cameron could count on the support of the local people like Gaddaffi could,and hand out a million guns to the local citizens, I bet London would becaome as calm as Tripoli is today(DESPITE THE NATO BOMBINGS)
Blame ethnic youth criominality if you want, I believe these are just opportunist crimes! The real riot started thanks to more police corruption and brutality.With 400 police custody deaths and 0 charges ,it could be called self-defence ,because the police and state onviously will not defend you!!
Switzerland has 20% immigration , and “ANARCHIST” Direct democracy style government and its youths ALL HAVE GUNS!! BUT it has the least crime and corruption and the highest European living standards, which tends to suggest its not immigration ,anarchism or the youth that is the REAL PROBLEM!!
IMHO its corrupt “representative democracy” style government aka “elected dictatorship” that is the root cause of all this predictable rioting!
This would never happen in a TRUE direct demoracy!!
Nicely put Cuthulan.
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C’mon Muammar!
Thank you Arthur Itis… are you any relation to an old Edinburgh folk singer that used to play under the name
“Arthur Itis and his crippling joints” 😉
“What’s your deterent then: Asbo, two weeks in jail?”
No; look at the facts. Youth unemployment in Tottenham was running at 55 percent. The JSA is derisory. There are no jobs. The EMA has been scrapped. Young people cannot afford to go on to education. My ‘deterent’ (sic) would be to give them a society which encourages and supports them.
“My ‘deterent’ (sic) would be to give them a society which encourages and supports them.”
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But that takes time. A lot of time. What would you do in the meantime? How would you clear the streets? How would you ensure the safety of others and their property?
Further to Fox’s sunbed lounging –
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Leak of a 70 page Criminal NATO Plan to Occupy Libya
UAE Would Occupy Tripoli in Post-Gadhafi Libya
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25947
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West Prepares New State Radio, Mass Arrest of ‘Fifth Column’ Opponents of Rebel Regime….
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A 70-page plan detailing Western designs for the occupation of post-Gadhafi Libya, and apparently signed off on by the political leadership of the rebel Transitional Council in East Libya has been leaked, and paints a grim picture of the new regime NATO is planning on installing after the war.
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The plan includes keeping large portions of the Gadhafian security apparatus intact, with a number of the leaders of the brutal regime’s crackdown left in position on condition of loyalty to the new, pro-West regime.
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Even more controversial will be the “Tripoli task force,” a 15,000-man force operated by the United Arab Emirates which will, after Gadhafi is out of power, occupy the capital city of Tripoli and conduct mass arrests of Gadhafi’s top supporters.
The arrests won’t stop there, as of course they never do for a regime looking to stifle dissent.
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Indeed the plan also includes discussion of a new state radio network that will broadcast orders to the public to support the new government, and warning anti-Gadhafi factions that haven’t endorsed the new regime to stand down. The assumption in the report is that these factions, termed a “fifth column,” would also be arrested. The new state media will of course be necessitated all the more by the NATO attacks on the existing media.
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The Transitional Council confirmed the authenticity of the report, and while the rebel ambassador to the UAE expressed “regret” that the truth had come out he said it was “important that the general public knows there is an advance plan.” It is a plan that likely won’t sit well with the protesters who were demanding democratic reform, nor those NATO members who acquiesced to the war on the assumption that it was doing something other than swapping brutal regimes in Libya.
@ Cuthulan No, it’s that old Bavarian Alts Heimer.
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@ Technicolour (shouldn’t that be color?)‘Deterent’ yes I was waiting for someone to spot that, but was obviously too late when I did!
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Again all just excuses I’m afraid (just like Harriet Harman on Newsnight last night) and I along with most people am bored with excuses.
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I agree that we need a society which encourages and supports everyone, not just them. Are we saying that we need a society just like Switzerland (or Germany)?
Is Craig Murray suggesting that we do to our youth, what China did to theirs at Tianamen Square in 1989? Shame on him if he is. I thought he knew better than to give a hysterical, knee jerk reaction to these distressing events that we have seen from the mainstream media.
Maybe Alts was more Jewish than Bavarian!
This argument is getting polarised, which is just another kind of fight.
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YES, the problem is caused by systemic corruption, dishonesty as a way of life and widespread materialism, at ALL levels of society.
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YES, the rioting needs to be forcefully stopped.
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It should never have come to this. Now it has, short-term options are limited, and require force. An announcement of sweeping democratic reform with a commitment to root out corporate/political/media/police collusion and corruption is also needed, but it wouldn’t help fast enough. Of course, only the first of these options will be suggested by the politicians and the corporate media, because only the powerful have a voice.
@Guest – shouldn’t we asking why it hasn’t been done already? The progressive left has been saying this quite consistently since the cuts programme was launched, and of course right throughout the last thirty years.
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Admittedly, we can’t very well say “we told you so”, since progressives in general – imo at any rate – had no idea it was as bad as it now appears. Hopefully the situation will result in some cross-spectrum consensus on the need for decent, publicly delivered education and welfare services.
OK: reinstate the EMA. Cut class sizes. Re-open youth clubs. Provide free bus travel for under 18’s. Stop turning schools into prisons (CCTV cameras, fingerprinting). Provide more time for exercise. Talk to the children. Scrap university fees. Invest in green technology, which provides more jobs. Give these children a chance.
That could all be done pretty quickly. In the meantime, a heavy police presence on the streets where locals and families could be hit seems to be doing the trick.
“Again all just excuses I’m afraid (just like Harriet Harman on Newsnight last night) and I along with most people am bored with excuses.”
You’re bored of excuses but you can’t be bothered to look at the facts. I’d say you were plain bored, like all these older people who seem to take some kind of feral pleasure in turning on the young. I’m afraid, when they’re running the place, that this will come back to bite you.
‘I’m trembling writing this. Where the f#ck is Antifa or someone?!’
Probably drowning in the drivel of their inherent contradictions, Mary.
1.Dalson Turks & Southall Sikhs standing up to marauding looters- good, very good
2.The White working class in Eltham & Enfield standing up to maurading looters- bad, very bad
Meanwhile, up in Brum, the low intensity war between its black & south asian populations that kicked off in Handsworth in 1985, appears to have taken a new turn-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-14471405
Never mind though- at least the mobs looting in Manchester are doing their bit for the multicultral dream, with Anglo Celt scrotes from Harpurhey & Wythenshaw joining up with the black & mixed race wannabe gangstas from Moss Side. Oh the joys, the joys of our vibrant, diverse, at-ease with itself country!
“Oh the joys, the joys of our vibrant, diverse, at-ease with itself country!” – so keenly encouraged and promoted by you, dear Oldmark.
Still, if you don’t know the difference between a group of organised EDL vigilantes and an impromptu alliance of shopkeepers then you are clearly blind. In fact, it’s amazing you can see to type. But how lucky we are that you do.
@ Clark and OldMark – At last some people talking sense!
This article is quite good, and is getting a lot of attention.
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http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/camila-batmanghelidjh-caring-costs-ndash-but-so-do-riots-2333991.html
Technicolour- your demented double standards (and those of the Met) are here for all to see in these pictures, and in the differing police response- warnings against ‘vigilantism’ when English people defend their turf, police silence when Sikhs (who are clearedly armed, unlike the EDL badboys of your puerile imagination) do the same.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2024358/UK-RIOTS-2011-Sikhs-defend-temple-locals-protect-pubs-Britons-defy-rioters.html
I agree Herbie. A good moral story of reform by investing in those normally neglected or banged up.
I came to this site in the hope of finding political enlightenment only to discover what our politicians are really up against.
“demented double standards” – calm down, dear, and try and read what I wrote, instead of what you think I wrote. As for EDl vigilantes; take a look at what my imagination has managed to photoshop: http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/blog/
Clark – ‘Of course, only the first of these options will be suggested by the politicians and the corporate media, because only the powerful have a voice.’
Sure, they will use force rather than change things for the better and lose power. We don’t live in a representative democracy of high standard. In a nutshell, that’s where all our problems stem from. Our M.P.’s don’t represent us at the national level at all. Things are just too bent at the top. How about we all push for a democracy of high standard, then see what problems exist after that? Utopia no, but I bet things will be a lot more rosy! Ideas please?
Well then ‘Arthur Itis’ you have found enlightenment especially in the words of Technicolour – no ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ there.
Technicolour
Your link to Nick Lowles’ website says nothing about last night’s events in Enfield & Eltham, so what point are you trying to make exactly ?
As I’ve said several times before on other threads, you are a one for moving the goalposts when it suits.