London Calling

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

I'm not familiar with the details of the unrest in Bristol.

Then why argue with me about it?

[Provost Harrison]

I partially agree with the comments about welfare being a reason behind the riots, but I think an equally important reason, touched on before, is the "what you gonna do about it?" lairy mentality that the young have these days. Such mentality appears common, and I've observed it as coming out of teachers being unable to handle/discipline unruly kids, parents unable or unwilling to discipline their kids, and police who are hamstrung in being able to prevent petty crimes.

The looting is opportunistic personal gain and greed, the thrill of telling authority to **** off, the enjoyment many get from wanton destruction, all topped off with the feeling that the worst that will happen is a right ticking off and possible finger wagging.

This. Something has to change.

[Cort Haus]

Bugs, I can see I'm going to have to spell this out. You said

I can't see what all the fuss is about.

Well, the fuss might not be about Bristol, it's about London, and possibly Birmingham and Manchester. The thread was initially about London, and all the discussion has been about that. I'm very pleased to hear your apparent eyewitness report that Bristol is no big deal, but maybe that's why no-one is talking about Bristol. I don't know where you get the impression that Bristol has been described as an 'Apocalypse', and I've even less idea why you thought we were discussing it.

[Provost Harrison]

Yeah, the centre of Manchester is not too much fun at the moment. Little f**kers...

[Tupac Shakur]

[Provost Harrison]

Seems rather apt, although you're nowhere near the first to post it

[Tupac Shakur]

Just checked the thread. I was the first person to post it.

[Provost Harrison]

Not on Apolyton. Apolyton is always waaaaay behind

[Cort Haus]

To be fair to Drake, I don't think he's obliged to compete with the entire internet on this one.

[MOBIUS]

I'm still interested in why this is confined to England and not the whole of the UK. It's completely fine here in Cardiff, nice sunny day, business as usual...

I'm visiting England tomorrow, perhaps I should be in fear of my life?

[C0ckney]

there's nothing worth stealing in wales.

[Cort Haus]

I'm still interested in why this is confined to England and not the whole of the UK. It's completely fine here in Cardiff, nice sunny day, business as usual...

NI has had sectarian riots recently as part of the whole annual marching shenanigans. I'm pleased for you that Cardiff has been ok

[Cort Haus]

"I know my rights, you can't touch me"

Going on from Dauphin's point - this was from the comments section of one of the many blogs / live updates in the Guardian over the last few days.

The only difference between what many thousands in Britain have been living in fear with for years and what we're seeing on the streets tonight is scale. These are the kids who beat other kids up in the classroom, throw tables and chairs at staff, and scream "I know my rights, you can't touch me" when anybody intervenes. They file charges for assault when a teacher pulls them off the kid they're beating up; their parents turn up with a gang of people when they find out from their darlings that they've been told off, and threaten to beat the living daylights out of the teacher involved. When I was growing up I lived in what many would call a fairly comfortable estate in a quiet village, yet even we had groups of yobs who lobbed bricks and eggs at the house regularly (and not just my family but many others). When you called the police, there was nothing they could do, and the point is these kids *know* that nobody can do anything. They're fully aware of it, and they love it. They want to smash stuff up because they've been allowed to mug and beat people up for years up and down the country and nothing has been done.

I'm a labour supporter and have been all my life, but labour are just as to blame as the Tories for the kind of problems we're seeing tonight. When initiatives like ASBOs were brought in few were convinced they'd do anything much, and lo and behold these clowns treat them as a badge of honour. The responses by government all demonstrated that government fundamentally didn't understand the motivations of people like this, which are, sadly, in a lot of cases, just to attack, brutalise and harrass others for the sense of power. What people forget when they think this probelm can just be solved by investment (and don't get me wrong I think there are avenues to be pusued here) is that for many doing the robbing and bashing of others, this just serves as a reward. Whether people are conscious of it or not, I think there's an element of the governments of the last two decades or so implicity buying people off from behaving like this in the way some of this investment has been carried out. In the same way the kids throwing chairs and tables and trying to set fire to schools were all too often given 'special measures' which involved time out activities doing fun things (I saw this happen a good deal at my school, and the message to other kids was, if you smash the classroom up for a laugh, you get to chill out for a bit).

These people have been acting like this in towns up and down the country on a smaller scale for years. A few years ago a relative of mine was beaten up in broad daylight by about 20 youths who'd been lobbing waterbombs at his car. He'd asked them to stop. He's now paralysed for life and will never work again (though that hasn't stopped the government taking his disability benefit, of course!). NONE of the kids involved were ever arrested or prosecuted, and we had to really push for the attack to get taken seriously by police. THIS is symptomatic of exactly why we're seeing this lawlessness tonight! People can beat the **** out of you if they feel like it, and nothing's going to be done about it. That's the message we've been sending for decades to these people, and they've learned it very well.

Reaching the heart of the many problems that have caused this and tackling them this late on will be very difficult. I'm very much a leftie, but I do think we need to stop assuming all the time that these people can be reached, or want to be reached, first, and acting second. It's time now for the silent majority of Britain to show in language these people understand that we're sick of our towns and cities being no-go areas after dark, and sick of people being able to be thugs and nothing be done about it. Let's see the police allowed to tackle this violence properly instead of tying their hands so much which is partly why we're seeing what we're seeing writ large across our country.

It's time for the law-abiding to be looked after for once!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2011/aug/09/london-uk-riots-day-four-live

[notyoueither]

Seriously? The police would not do anything when a man was left paralysed?

[BlackCat]

Seriously? The police would not do anything when a man was left paralysed?

Well, they stopped beating him, so why bother ?

Sriusly, the police probably couldn't identify the culrpits and prove it really was them that was responsible.