England riots

[afleitch]

David Lammy was excellent at the weekend. I wonder what Bernie Grant would have said...

[afleitch]

It's times like this that I love the Guardian. After months of commentators gently inciting people 'toriseupagainsttorycutscapitalismnbankas' when people did riot...well they decided to screw their own communities over, smash up Tesco's and steal a Bang and Olufsen. Still came the hand-wringing from the same people, but the comments pages themselves were full of quite harsh heckling of those who Twittered while London Burned.

[afleitch]

These riots are of course just riots; they aren't assaults on Santander or McDonald's that we've seen during May Day riots wrapped up as an expression of some political/anarchist bullsh-t. Instead it's localised; local shops, restaurants, 'cash converters', pawn shops. It's motivated by a desire to loot and generally to piss about. It can all be flogged off in the street or on eBay at a later date. They are rampaging through their own community. Many of these shops are owned by or employ locals. We've had bespoke wedding dresses stolen, people being stripped of their clothes while standing and rioters bursting into a restaurant and demanding customers hand over their posessions.

As for the catalyst; at the end of the day Mark Duggan was essentially a criminal gang leader who was no doubt a 'pillar of the community' because he indirectly helped finance the lifestyles of a number of associates; hence the faux expressions of 'solidarity' in the initial march. We need to recognise that this is a reality in many British cities; criminality provides employment, structure and yes even 'community' for potentially hundreds of people in a small area; if they can make money and personal gain out of looting, why on earth would they give a damn about torching and looting the local shop that employs their next door neighbour?

[afleitch]

On the plus side.

[afleitch]

http://hurryupharry.org/2011/08/09/most-of-the-kids-are-alright/#more-57838

Good article cross posted on Harry's Place

[afleitch]

BBC has a video of the Mayor being heckled in Clapham here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14464139
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Edit: the main complaint - basically - is 'where the f*** were you all last night?'

"We want Labour!"

Like that ever solved anything

[afleitch]

An unintended consequence of this is that the sitting government could now get away with just about anything it wanted; laws on 'reasonable force' to protect property, changes to benefits etc. All this becomes more 'palatable' electorally. Likewise, the 'womble' clean up seems to have got people thinking 'Oh that's what they mean by the Big Society.'

For all the heckling of Boris, Ken on the other-hand couldn't stop 'being Ken' which is not really what people want to hear at the moment.

[afleitch]

There have been complaints of under-reporting of the riots in Liverpool; hopefully this is rectified soon or else that's just going to add another chip on their shoulder.

(ducks)

[afleitch]

(smug)May be speaking too soon, but very interesting to notice what cities/areas didn't riot(/smug)