What started out as a peaceful demonstration against what has turned out to be a potentially unfair shooting of a father of four by police has turned into a greed-driven robbing fest for the under-classes and a group of greedy thirty-year-olds, it seems, taking advantage of the tragedy in Tottenham. It's now spread to Manchester and Nottingham. London seems quiet due to the heavy police presence but there have been a few fires in Tottenham and Canning Town (which isn't far from my stop on the Jubilee line).
I admit I felt a little scared earlier when I heard a large group of youths running past my window. I doubt they were going to do anything as nothing has kicked off here but it just shows how the bias of the news can scare the living day lights out of people.
There have been a couple of scandals today. Not surprisingly the two least tasteful ones were from the Tories, who first tried to make it look as if Diane Abbot (Probably one of the most liked politicians around and the Labour MP for Hackney, one of the trouble areas) condoned the violence by cutting a part of her speech which (*coughs*) condoned the riots, and then another Tory MP said that the riots couldn't have a political issue for young people by cutting their services, EMA and raising tution fees because "They haven't looted Waterstones." Twat.
I have to say that as usual the BBC reporters are as brave as ever. They seem to have gone out into potentially scary areas where the rioters are roaming through the narrow streets looking for a place to loot where there are no police in Manchester. In Nottingham a police station has been firebombed. It's strange -- it seems that while some rioters seem to genuinely still be targetting the police as a result of the killing of Mark Duggen while most are just taking advantage of the situation.
The police had this coming for a very long time because of their conduct, no one can deny that. However it's just spiraled completely out of control now. People are just taking advantage of a genuine reason to
So why should they respect it? That's what it has come down to. It has literally become a case where people are so unhappy with their lives that the only pleasure they can find is setting fire to and smashing up other people's livelihood. It is a disgrace to this country that this children - yes, children - have been completely abandoned by society. They have rubbish parents, bad schools, light-weight teachers, no chance of getting a degree, no chance of getting a job and earning a living, services have been cut by the government...
It has all become an excuse for the anti-social to take their revenge on high street shops. I don't care about them - they're rich enough already. However it's the ordinary small businesses I feel for. They have lost their livelihood, and it's the police and government's fault because they were all on their holidays, they were all ignoring this problem... and now it's gone too far. It's too late.
You know the image of Nero fiddling while Rome burns. Replace the image with Boris Johnson (who got yelled at by the victims of the riots, and so went off to find a publicity stunt where people were cleaning-up Croydon), George Osborne, David Cameron and Nick Clegg (who got heckled by the victims of the riots when he went out) - playing Guitar Hero next to a burned out bus and looted branch of Primark.
