London Riots

My eldest couldn't get home tonight in Hackney because of trouble breaking out there, so she rang to say she's staying at her partners place in New Cross just to let me know so I wouldn't be worried, now I'm seeing reports of violence in Lewisham, Deptford and Peckham right where she just took refuge.

Lunacy.  This could be a long night.

Praying for her safety, JB.  Hopefull, sanity will resume soon.

mike_mccue


What started it?

The police shot a resident of Tottenham last week whilst on a bust and it's escalated from that with a lot of disaffected kids going on an opportunistic crime spree, looting and burning.  Basically a flash point triggering some underlying social malaise.  The madness is the fact they are trashing their own neighbourhoods.

Well, that's how it is looking anyhow.

http://www.guardian.co.uk...riots-third-night-live

It's happening all over... here in the US we have flash mobs robbing stores, and beating people up for fun because of their skin color (in Wisconsin)

It will continue to escalate in my opinion..... but damn.....I hope I'm wrong.

bad situation indeed.  I pray your daughter and mate and friends are safe, JB.

And as usual, you've put it way more interestingly than anyone else, Jon.  :)

I also trust your daughter's OK.  I was wondering how this was affecting you all (forumites) over there. 

 My prayers that she gets home safely Jon, I've been reading about this today and have been worried you guys might be near some of this.

My thoughts have been with all the Londoners. Its awful. Nothing can justify what is going on there. I hope it is ended soon.

Hey Jonbouy!

Crazy times my friend and I hope everything is fine at her place as well.

I've sent messages to my UK friends, hoping that they are ok now that the riots starts spreading to other cities as well, and I hope all is well with UK residents on this forum as well.

Jonbouy


Jonesey.

She's fine, she spent the night in New Cross which is in between Deptford, Lewisham and Peckham areas.

I'm presuming she got to work OK but she won't know until she gets back to Hackney this evening whether her place has been dmaged or looted.

This ain't an angry protest to further some cause, this is kids wanting a bit more of the consumerism they get rammed down their throat daily and reckoning on being entitled to helping themselves to a piece of it.

Kind of a brat attack.  Thing is they are messing up their own back yard as well as peoples lives and livelihoods.

Sounds like good news then. Thank God for that.

Seems like the trouble here, Liverpool & elsewhere are simply copycat attacks, and as far as Bristol is concerned, it was all centred in the usual areas of Stokes Croft & St Pauls.

mike_mccue

Jonbouy


Jonesey.

She's fine, she spent the night in New Cross which is in between Deptford, Lewisham and Peckham areas.

I'm presuming she got to work OK but she won't know until she gets back to Hackney this evening whether her place has been dmaged or looted.

This ain't an angry protest to further some cause, this is kids wanting a bit more of the consumerism they get rammed down their throat daily and reckoning on being entitled to helping themselves to a piece of it.

Kind of a brat attack.  Thing is they are messing up their own back yard as well as peoples lives and livelihoods.

It can all all come to a crashing halt if their mums will just pull the plug on the *mobile* accounts.

It will end as fast as a party fizzles when my redneck neighbors figure out they just ran out of bullets.

Just as long as they don't end up causing something to really kick off about meantime, I think too their own apathy eventually will be the calming force.

 
Jon - I'm so happy that your daughter is OK , and that all is well when she gets home.
 
 
I was listening to the wireless (5Live) late last night and they were talking to a guy who sits on some committee or other that discusses police procedure and tactics and how these should be implemented and deployed in just the sort of situation we see happening at the moment.
 
As an 'insider' he made some very interesting points. The first of these seemed to acknowledge that the police weren't really prepared for the sheer scale of the disturbances, in particular the dispersed nature of them. With recent protests, he mentioned that various techniques (including the much reported 'kettling') were very useful in containing and controlling single or very localised gatherings, but in the scenes we see happening at the moment, these methods are totally ineffective because of the more diffuse and mobile nature of the unrest.
 
He also made the point that the rioters were actually more organised than previously thought, and that it is very likely that a lot of the attacks and looting is highly co-ordinated, both in respect of the high value shops and businesses being targeted, and more importantly in the deliberate plan of diluting the police's effectiveness in being able to respond to each event.
 
He added that the use of social networking sites (mainly Twitter) and the widespread ownership of internet accessible mobile phones among the rioters led him to suggest that the perpetrators were, at the moment at least, actually far more organised and co-ordinated than the police.
 
He mentioned that there might also be the nagging thought in the back of each decision-maker in the police chain of command of the consequences of implementing more pro-active responses to the violence. He expressed a genuine belief that the 'Health & Safety' aspect of "needlessly" endangering officers' lives was definitely at the forefront of police strategy at the moment.
 
He was asked how he thought the situation could be brought back under control and he admitted that the authorities would certainly be discussing the possibility of deploying the Army.
 
The thought of gun-carrying members of the armed forces patrolling our city streets would be an absolute last resort though. What sort of message would that send out about the capabilities of the Thin Blue Line? And more worryingly, even if the rioting was quelled, what would then happen once the military had eventually been withdrawn.
 
Frightening times indeed.
 
 
 

I'm praying for everyone's safety and hoping things settle down quickly. 

The most frightening aspect about all this for me, is that the perpetrators appear to be doing it 'just because they can'. There's no political or social protest going on here. A radio interview at lunchtime with 2 teenage girls drinking wine outside the shop they'd looted was particularly depressing. To paraphrase;

''It's the governments fault, the police's fault, and we're just showing the rich people (sic) with businesses that we can do what we want''

I can imagine how 'rich' is the owner of the small party/fancy dress shop I saw ablaze on TV.

What we have is third generation idle, children growing up in households where no-one in the family has ever worked, or is likely too, coupled with an unaccountable sense of entitlement and an utter lack of any sense of right or wrong.

I thought the early/mid '80's riots were bad, but this is just beyond comprehension.

What we have is third generation idle

Is this real?  I hear about it commonly and yet, I think I must live a really sheltered life because I've never come across it in actual reality or known anyone truly in that situation.

My parents worked, theirs did too when they weren't fighting a war, my kids work.  Me personally I've worked constantly until a few years ago, as well as owning several businesses, and now I'm currently on disability and I go through a pretty exhaustive tribunal every 6 months or so for them to satisfy themselves that I'm not swinging the lead, regardless of my doctors opinion, medical records and hospital notes.  If I wasn't ill surely it would be even tougher than that still to get benefits long term.

I get sneered at more and more these days by people, as the good arch-bishop recently pointed out "by those seduced by the language of the deserving and undeserving poor" who have probably put less in the pot over the years than I have and I still try to contribute to society more than I take regardless of my physical condition.

Regardless, unwaged or not, what kind of conditioning is that says it is OK to trash somebodies livelihood, smash up the neighbourhood or rob people blind.  It's not a mentality that I think I'd recognize even had circumstances been so bad that my family were unable to get work for the last 50 years.

This is just childish brat behaviour from kids that need their heads banging together.  Parents need to re-embrace the idea that THEY are responsible for their children rather than placating them with consumer goods that keep them conveniently out of eye-sight and expecting schools and the authorities to do the job of parenting, otherwise get a pet or some house plants to look after instead.