1716: Hello and welcome to our rolling news coverage of the London riots.

Perhaps it was my mistake, I had the impression that there was pretty general agreement that the rioters were simply louts motivated largely or wholly by greed and the urge to create chaos and destruction for their own sake for no other reason than their own depraved natures.

You put it so eloquently CF but I thought the thread contained a variety of views. Perhaps you were mistaken after all.

I have just reread the thread to check on my first impression. I find that Barrethunter did, in fact, express the view that there might be some underlying socio-economic causes of the riots, and quite well expressed too. However, perhaps I might be forgiven as BH's was the only voice in the approximately 5 pages of messages, discounting ones discussing such as the merits of the British Health System, which expressed such a view.

Some of us are blood thirsty old dinosaurs on this side of the pond I am afraid CF. My point would be if someone is mugging you or setting fire to your house, you don't care about "underlying socio-economic causes". You may develop a clearer perspective on the matter if you ever have the misfortune to be violently mugged yourself.

I returned from France on the Monday with four cases of remarkably cheap wine and an unhealthy supply of tobacco to observe (from my 15th floor eyrie) plumes of smoke rising from the streets nearby whilst no fewer than three police helicopters hovered overhead (the preferred range of engagement, apparently).

There is a suspicion that the police - brave souls though they undoubtedly are - deliberately stood off, that first Saturday night, to make a point about cuts to their staffing and general funding. The result was a kind of call-to-alms for looters of all ages, races and creeds which spread like a plague of utility-company cold-callers throughout our cities, with some angry and stupid pyromaniacs, and hooligans who couldn't wait for the football season to begin, joining the fray for fun. There were gangs too, aping those in the USA, for whose members this hell was heaven.

Of course it's about poverty and envy and, ultimately, rage at the impotence of us all in the face of a global financial system increasingly out of control. The hilarious hypocrisy of most politicians in trying to deny any socio-economic cause, whilst the years of their craven kow-towing to the purveyors of page 3 tits are exposed and they refuse or are unable to prevent the greed-inspired shorting of our economies, is as unbelievable as the 'justice' in jailing a mother for 'receiving' a pair of looted shorts. It's not just knees these people jerk.

Mind you, the rioters weren't revolutionaries, they were just naughty boys and girls.

Breaking news..Arsene Wenger caught on CCTV in London looting a sports trophy shop!

Hotspur
Breaking news..Arsene Wenger caught on CCTV in London looting a sports trophy shop!

If he really had, he'd have dropped the stolen trophy on the way out!

TEM is of course correct; the underlying reasons for the riots are very complex.

An intellectual academic David Starkey made some very sensible comments but included the words "black gangsta culture" and referred in passing to Enoch Powell's 'Rrivers of Blood' speech.
Of course the liberal elite just heard the words they didn't like and didn't read or understand what he said.
As a result he has been roundly vilified for saying some very sensible and non-racial things.

Until the huge divides at the bottom of society are addressed and the ridiculous money that many in "The London Culture", certain professions and banking earn then it will just continue to fester.
In the same paper some Conservatives who are beginning to sound like 'The Tea Party' are calling for an end to high taxes on the very rich ; instead of making a long overdue attempt to make the tax system more progressive, even handed and fair.

As for the police; if you were alightly armed constable on £30-35K a year, massively outnumbered and lightly armed- an asp, taser and CS spray are little use in riot situations, what do you expect them to do.
They still remember Broadwater Farm when a brave PC was isolated and surrounded and hacked to death in the same neighbourhood!

All very well going out with brooms when its safe, where were they during the riots-Locked safely up in their homes if they had any sense.

English society is in a hell of a mess at the moment.

But if you live in a pleasant leafy middle-class village then the large cities are quite literally a different country; and one that I and many of my neighbours (except those who have to commute to gain their enormous salaries in London) try to avoid going anywhere near.

I was in Philadelphia when the news about the riots in London hit the headlines. A few days before, a gang of young hooligans spread mayhem and looting through the streets of the Olde City, promptly squashed by the police who reinforced several times their forces to protect citizens and tourists.

By coincidence I was interviewing the Police Commissioner and he told us that riots like the ones in London could happen anywhere and in fact happened in on his watch in Chicago and in Los Angeles. If the underlying causes aren't always the same, some or quite a few of the composite elements are: lack of feeling of belonging, division of society in "them" and "us", envy, lack of hope in future, broken families and lack of discipline.

I live in a country where at least 20 million people have to survive with one dollar a day, where the president was forced to fire three ministers for corruption and make deep inquest in four ministries, where 'politician' is a synonym to 'dishonest', where proper medical treatment is for rich and there's no decent provision for the old and disabled.

So, I'm deeply disturbed to see that in countries immensely richer than mine, youngsters that have much better future possibilities than their peers in third world countries are driven to mindless acts of violence seemingly motivated by the same causes our youths would be possibly more justified to invocate.

Of course I don't know the answers, and I'm sincerely sorry for those that were affected in the riots and hope that all members in our spanko family are safe and well.
KJM

As a footnote item to this topic, the youngest offender caught was 11 years old and was in court today for stealing a waste bin from the window of Debenhams store in Romford on August 8th. He was given an 18 month youth rehabilitation order!

Interestingly, this same offender appeared in the same court on August 3rd and was issued with a referral order.

The charges for this case were : Arson, Criminal Damage, and carrying a knife.

The details were that he slashed the seats of a bus, exposing the foam filling, then attempted to set the filling foam on fire. When the driver refused to let him leave the vehicle he threw something at the glass in the bus exit door, shattering the safety glass, then proceeded to kick a hole in the shattered glass to climb through. He attempted to exit the bus in this way whilst it was moving.

Amazing isn't it that only 5 days after this court appearance he is in the thick of a rioting mob!!

Predictably, a leading children's charity has criticised the courts for prosecuting children of this age for "Relatively MINOR Offences" (Barnardo's)

The charity's Chief Executive said "It is both counterproductive and costly to hand out disproportionately punitive sentences for MINOR OFFENCES such as PETTY THEFT , particularly to younger children of 10 or 11"

In counterpoint District Judge John Woolard said when imposing the Youth Rehabilitation Order "You seem to be under the impression that Nobody can stop the way you behave"

What a charming young individual ! I bet we would all love him to become a suitor to our Daughters !!!

HO HUM !!!