London was very quiet last night thanks to the 16,000 police on the street. Oddly enough most of the riots started elsewhere in the country. I have to say I blame the 24 hour coverage the riots got on the news channels, watching the streets all day for something to kick off. People watch that and think, "That's a good idea!" and decide to riot themselves. You have to bear in mind that many of these people are non-too-bright kids who probably think rioting is "cool!" and are following the crowd rather than doing it off their own back.
Essex had some troubles but our police handled it pretty well. Basildon shopping centre had its windows broken and someone started a fire but no looting took place as the police were waiting for them. I think it was only a matter of time before some thickos in Basildon decided to copy-cat the riots in London like other places in the UK quite obviously have.
It's a bloody mess and, like I said before, it makes me feel ashamed to be a young Briton at the moment. None of the images look real when they are shown on the TV or in the papers. I just feel so sad about it. It was rather like what people were saying on the news last night - people don't riot if they're happy, and I'm not surprised by these riots happening because people are angry with the police and the government at the moment. Obviously there is no excuse but the point is that it's gone beyond even that now.
Now it's just thick kids trying it on - and I can't help but notice and remark that David Cameron has failed to address that annoying remark that he made while in opposition, "Broken Britain." He blathered on about while in opposition but does nothing to help the under-classes. Instead he cuts their youth centres more than they were already cut (To my shame Labour ignored the under-class while they were in power too, and it was Thatcher who widened their poverty when the Tories were in power in the 80s) and basically left these kids to the mercy of the peer pressure of gangs and their arse-useless parents.
Studies have shown that when these teenagers have somewhere to go, have people willing to talk to them and help them, and give them something to care about, they have more respect for other people and society. This is something that most of us learn from our parents, who teach us our morals. These children have been dragged up and, when people cry about "where are their parents?" the fact is that their parents are just as rotten as them and don't care that their twelve-year-old is roaming the streets in a pack at midnight looting shops.
It's too late to help the parents but you can still help the younger kids. The elder kids are lost too because soon they will be parents themselves and breed more inconciderate rats who have no respect for other people and society. Unless you put money into helping the less privilaged in this country then you will never get through to them. Many of these kids have since been rounded up (as have a couple of greedy adults who were, I feel, probably leading the riots - as one of them was a graphic designer and few others graduates) and many of them have pleaded guilty to their crimes. I don't think it was greed that fuelled those kids, but simply just the desire to smash up society.
I suppose the best thing you can do is send them to prison and try a reach them while they are away from the poisonous homes they come from. Then once they leave prison, they need somewhere else to go. They need something to care about because sending them to prison isn't going to make a difference to them. To us, it would be a horrible reduction of rights and freedom. To them, it's just a thing they have to go through.
These people - some of them are just greedy tryers who saw something on the TV and thought it would be a good idea - but this whole thing started because a man from the under-class (a possible drug-dealer and carrier of an illegal weapon, if the police are to be believed) was shot dead despite having not fired on police or even, it might possibly be, presented himself as a threat. He was allegedly in a taxi when he was approached by the police. It is a hazy issue but you can see why the under-class turned out to protest...
Because that's what it started out as. A protest.
One thing that did make me giggle was that some of the people looting thought that the police releasing images from the CCTV cameras was against their human rights. *scoff* Babies, when you go out in the streets people can see you. The CCTV cameras are there to catch you at your thuggry... and they always catch you out in the end no matter how many hoodies you wear. I'm pretty left-wing but I'm starting to think France had a point with the law against concealing your face in public areas. If we had a law like that, would nearly as many rioters turned out to steal knowing how many CCTV camreas are around the UK?
Ken Livingstone seems to be the only person making sense. How did we end up with BoJo as Mayor? Yes, he said that we need more police - but hindsight is a wonderful thing. It is the government's fault that they did not anticipate these riots (as everyone KNEW it would happen eventually, they did) and foolishly decided to cut the police force. BoJo is good at hindsight just as much as he's good at getting respect by going against the government. But Ken is right - if he had been Major of London, this might have been dealt with better. Not least because he has more experience with the city's management. Moreover he never listened to party politics like Boris does, and then decide to change his mind once it all goes tits up.
Those hard working people whose shops were destroyed have been let down by a weak system wich has just been getting weaker and weaker over the last thirty years. Like Ken said, the under-class have been left ignored thanks to the death of industry in this country, have nowhere they can get a job regardless of their qualifications when they leave school and now they have no self-respect, nor do they have respect for others.
It's all a mess but its time the parties talked about generating PROPER jobs for everyone, because these are the kids who were NEVER going to do A-levels or degrees or skilled-work like apprenticeships. They are your factory workers, they are your coal miners, they are your primary and secondary work forces who have been patted down and down following the cut of these industries in the 1980s. I'm pro-Europe but I don't think that the EU helped either as France and Germany, it has to be said, are in coohoots against the UK. Story does that they wanted all industry to be wiped out in the UK and for us (and Ireland) to be "service" countries.
Well, sod that! We need to give the under-classes something to do other that live miserably, lose self-respect, lose respect for others and leave off the dole because no proper employer in this climate would ever employ them. They just need to be taken on to do some sort of work - but even the working classes and the middle classes can't find work at the moment.
This country is a mess and I don't see it recovering anymore. We're, for lack of a better word, f-worded. I'm starting to think about plotting an escape route... but it'll be many years before I ever have money to pack up and go somewhere else. I used to think my country was such a good place to live. I still do -- but not in the form it is now. The political system we have here is just destroying the country as we are forced to shift between Labour, Tory, Labour, Tory over and over again and no willingness to tackle the serious issues. Just the Tories cutting everything and destroying the public sector, and then Labour trying to funnel money into it and patch it up again, and then the Tories cut it again.
Cameron is right - this country is sick but it isn't just because these kids happen to be bad. They are the result of 30 years where people have grown-up with no prospects and no place in society, and hence, no respect for defending society from events like this. Britain is sick and these kids are just the rash its come out in.
Sorry for this rant. I'm just a little upset at how far this rioting has gone.
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Three young men have been killed in a hit and run during the riots last night in Birmingham. A car just came out and hit these poor guys. They were only twenty-year-olds, my own age, and then a car just sped around the corner and hit them. They say it might not be connected but it's hard to believe it isn't.
God, this is making the rest of this country feel so at a loss. I just want it all to end soon.
On a lighter note, at least the violence hasn't kicked off that close to where I am at the moment. Basildon is the only place there have been problems from the sound of it but I'm going to check it out anyway. I swear though if they attack Lakeside that'll be the sky falling in on our heads. If they start kicking-off in Grays, then I'll start to get a little freaked.
