London Riots

[Toni Scandella]

Knowing what it's like to be poor?

It's the poor who are being targeted by these mobs of twats in designer clothes out on the piss and the rob. 

Poor people on the estates getting their flats firebombed by chavs who are _only_ out for fun and thieving - who have NO political interest whatsoever but who see an opportunity to go wild for a bit.

It's poor communities that suffer.  Poor communities getting razed to the ground, by people coming in and organising themselves via £400 phones.  It is only about running around robbing shit - see the people getting mugged in amongst the chaos? Those aren't the rich, or authority, or people who deserve a kicking.  They are the poor.

The rioters are preying on the poor, not fighting for the rights of them.

[TordelBack]

Well said, Toni.

[Old Tankie]

Brilliant comments, Toni; completely agree with all of it.  But be careful, you'll have Richmond on here next telling you, you don't know what it's like to be poor.

[James Stacey]

London's chief crown prosecutor Alison Saunders says the Crown Prosecution Service has set up a dedicated team to deal with the prosecution of alleged rioters. "We are working closely with the police and have a team of prosecutors available to provide charging decisions 24/7 as quickly as possible," she says.

Apparently they are some sort of super policeman called 'Judges'

[The Legendary Shark]

Being poor is about more than just having no money. It's about having no job, no self respect, no future, no choices, no education, no encouragement, no assistance and no prospect of it ever getting better.

I don't know what it's like to be homeless or not to have eaten for three days, but I do know what it's like to be poor in an affluent country and it's not a nice place to be in. I can't afford to hop on a bus and go to the local town, for example. I haven't had a holiday for ten years and more. No car. The cheapest food possible. Decorate the flat, buy a new carpet, a new washing machine? Dreams of the rich!

If there was a free telly going, I'd bloody have one and arseholes to the system.

[Goaty]

London's chief crown prosecutor Alison Saunders says the Crown Prosecution Service has set up a dedicated team to deal with the prosecution of alleged rioters. "We are working closely with the police and have a team of prosecutors available to provide charging decisions 24/7 as quickly as possible," she says.

Apparently they are some sort of super policeman called 'Judges'

What is Judges?   

[Robert Frazer]

I don't know what it's like to be homeless or not to have eaten for three days, but I do know what it's like to be poor in an affluent country and it's not a nice place to be in. I can't afford to hop on a bus and go to the local town, for example. I haven't had a holiday for ten years and more. No car. The cheapest food possible. Decorate the flat, buy a new carpet, a new washing machine? Dreams of the rich!

You've got enough spare to buy an internet connection and carp on here though, evidently.

To all those who have been braying pompous sententious cant about how this wanton destruction of people's livelihoods is some sort of "justifiable radical action"... how's this for 'solidarity of the proletariat'?

[Strontium Claw]

The rioters may well be mindless, uneducated thugs out for a spot of opportunistic looting and vandalism
but violence on this scale is inherently political, whether they realise it or not. They're the disenfranchised generation who have been failed by successive governments and left to rot, fester and go feral. There's more than one way to be poor, it's not so much a lack of money but a lack of hope for anything better in their lives; no job and no prospects.
Their only ideology is consumerism, material goods are the only things they value, capitalism has taught them that.

I sympathise with all those who've been affected by the violence and of course I hope the police are able to restore order and arrest and charge those responsible, but that won't solve the problem, it will merely brush it under the carpet.
We need real political, economic and social reform not empty promises.

[The Legendary Shark]

You've got enough spare to buy an internet connection and carp on here though, evidently.

Apologies. I forgot that only people who have money and spend it properly are allowed an opinion. As a peasant, I should know my place and keep my mouth shut, eh?

Should I ditch my TV also? My radio? My collection of 2000ADs? My good pen?

I don't often call people names, but for you I'll make an exception. You're an idiot.

[SuperSurfer]

And let's not forget the breakdown in the family. The fact that it is not uncommon for a woman to have an assortment of kids from different men who leave a trail of kids wherever they pass (the term is 'baby fathers'). So much for them growing up in a stable family environment with a decent male role model.

Everyone is pointing the finger at the government, in some cases with good reason. But some communities need a bit of self-examination and in my opinion should reflect on attitudes (of some) to family, school, work, drugs, role models, gang culture. All sides need to reflect. All aspects have to be looked at. As outsiders it is very difficult to address or discuss some of these issues and a lot of it has to come from within.

On another point, how are so many kids being allowed out on the streets? What shit for brains would allow their little emperors out in the evenings with all this going on?

[mogzilla]

just been watching local news, looks like its kicking off in manchester now...northern contingent be safe...

  i dare say the neds in preston will follow suit,

[mogzilla]

On another point, how are so many kids being allowed out on the streets? What shit for brains would allow their little emperors out in the evenings with all this going on?

the ones who cant be arsed to nick their own plasma tv

[Michaelvk]

This is making ol' South Africa, crime capitol of the world, look almost civilized.. We had 'xenophobic' violence in the townships here about 2 years ago, when locals took out their frustrations on immigrants who had set up shop here, making a fairly honest wage out of their little corner shops. There was looting and a fair share of murders, including the odd necklacing. The excuse was that the immigrants were stealing their jobs. Total bollocks. If they can come from some shithole country and set up a business, then why don't you do so, instead of hanging around all day getting drunk blaming someone else for your own misery? One of the favorite excuses is to blame apartheid, which was abolished in 1990. Ever since then the peoples heroes, the ANC, have been in power. At the end of the day the police went in and they went in HARD. In Africa the soft approach doesn't work.

While the London events may have political roots, as far as I can tell, there's nothing more than old fashioned vandalism at work here. I also doubt these 'people' are all that poor what with organizing themselves via blackberry messenger..

I read how 25 to 30 masked youths layed into a florists with bricks.. I'm with CF on this one.. I'd however also use more tear gas and rubber bullets or drop cluster munitions of pepper..

[Robert Frazer]

You've got enough spare to buy an internet connection and carp on here though, evidently.

Apologies. I forgot that only people who have money and spend it properly are allowed an opinion. As a peasant, I should know my place and keep my mouth shut, eh?

I thought you were supposed to be poor, Shark. There I was, expecting some good ol' Angela's Ashes misery, but this tepid stuff is just a disappointment. For someone on whom life weighs so heavy, you have a television, a radio, a stack of progs and enough self-esteem to make a big noisy show of acting the wounded martyr whenever anyone else presumes to check you in full flow with so much as a cross word.

Peasant? Don't flatter yourself. Peasants actually make a positive contribution to society, which is a sight more than what you're doing now with your witless, dogmatic, floundering attempts to apologise for and encourage the thieves, vandals and abusers that are defacing the streets right now.

[The Legendary Shark]

Sorry. I should have said "cretin."