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I’ve worked all over the place wit, from Derby to Dalston, from Harwich to Hoddesdon, the place I felt most out of my depth ever was Clarence Road, Hackney. It was a terrifying experience even in daylight during a ceasefire. Policing should reflect this fact accordingly. It isn’t profiling, it is reflecting comparative risk. What would be the purpose of having equivalent numbers of police and searches in Henley and Hackney when anyone with a braincell in their head knows there is more risk of getting stuck with a shank on the streets of Hackney?
It isn’t profiling, it isfact
. I’ve been there, seen it, done it. Hackney is ground zero for crime in the area.
The other area to avoid is Prince Regent Lane, off the A13. An absolute ****hole.Canny societies make sure folk are too tired from having to work to live to have the energy, time or interest to go robbing their neighbourhood.
They also don’t have welfare states that build an underclass with time on its hands.
Or which give out the message that if you have a baby, you get given a house and benefits – leading to children begetting children that grow up with no discipline, guidance or work-ethic.
Are those your orphans, widows/single parents, and wayfarers, Grimes ?
You don’t think socialism has anything to do with it too ?
Tell me, why is it, wit, that the workers need low pay to motivate them, but the rich who, as Adam Smith put it, "live off the backs of the poor") need more money? Even obscene bonuses for failure!
Better to be on benefits and do no work (still less for a pittance), than to run a massive corporation such as a bank, bankrupt it, and be given a massive bonus from tax-payers’ money for their honest toil (when they’re away from the golf course), with the full approval of the government! IT’S SOCIALISM FOR THE RICH, you see, WIT! You people are the keenest Socialists of all!
If you people had kept people in work and paid them properly, instead of extending loans to them at usurious rates (must make our profits somehow), this rolling economic depression would not have occurred.
You need to read what Adam Smith had to say about business types -and of course, he’s supposed to be the ultimate economic guru of the right wing. He’d have had them all electronically-tagged:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/23/4046
I think these two little nuggets set the tone rather well, don’t you?
"All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind."
"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." Good old rip-off Britain!
Grimes,
If you go read my first post on page 2 above, and particularly the Stratfor link, you’ll see that got to Adam Smith before you, and attacks the "pinstripe looters" even more than the second post attacks the "hoodie looters".
Both groups are a drain on the honest, working, law-abiding.
The hoodie looters have too much time and energy on their hands because of a welfare state that allows them to eat without having to do a jot. They may be unemployable and that may be their fault – Camus said your life is the sum of the choices you make – but at the end of the day that unemployment becomes everyone’s problem when they get bored and start acting up.
Its not like they rioted because they were planning to go to the library and found it had closed early due to cutbacks.
And its not like they went to rob rich areas – they destroyed their own doorstep.
You can’t solve that kind of attitude by looking to rich / poor – unless you want to reward each of them with a country estate and hope they are less disruptive as idle rich than idle poor.
My question though is why they did it NOW ? Greed is always there. Social deprivation is always there. Why NOW? Not because Duggan got shot before he could pull the trigger on his starting-pistol-converted-to-fire-live-rounds.
I reckon the answer lies with the pinstripe looters and the way the political system continues to treat them compared to the way it treats the hoodie looters.
In the further words of George Friedman:
"….The riots in London are symptomatic of the fact that some elements of society have lost such respect for the elites that they’re prepared to take extreme action.
There is a kind of model you could argue that people are deprived of things so they revolt. But it’s much deeper than that.
Normally, just because you cut benefits, you don’t have these kind of riots.
You had a great deal of criminality in this and that criminality is interesting because when criminality starts to look legitimate to large numbers of people, that’s when you have a social crisis.
I think it’s a mistake to look at what happened in London simply in terms of “well there were social cuts and so that’s why there was a rising.”
That rising couldn’t have occurred if the elites themselves hadn’t appeared to be so corrupted, so compromised, and even one could say, so incompetent.
That was the real issue that we faced there and I think if you simply say that if you do social cuts then people will riot, that’s not empirically true.
It’s when you wind up in a situation where you no longer know who’s in charge nor do you care, that opportunities are created for the criminal class.
….I really don’t think that politicians fiddling with their expense accounts is the definitive thing — they always do…
You have to look at the more fundamental issue. People who were supposed to be experts in finance did inexcusably stupid things and also in the process, profited handsomely.
People in the political system who were supposed to hold these people accountable and prevent them from doing these things, failed to do it.
The fundamental thing that legitimizes an elite, the financial elite’s ability to manage money prudently, has been violated in two ways. First, they clearly can’t do it. And secondly they profit from it anyway.
Then politicians’ obligations (a) to stabilize the system and (b) to not let people get away with this, doesn’t happen – you have serious problems.
So I think the problem really starts with the systemic failure of two major elites, not on minor things, not on trivial corruption, but on the fundamental thing that they were hired for.
And the fact that they don’t seem to regard themselves as particularly having failed. is what creates a crisis.
The failure of the financial regulatory system and its failure to clear it up is not the cause, it’s the symptom. No regulatory system works if it is not enforced. No reform is meaningful if it is not going to be enforced.
The crisis is the perception, not that there was no regulation, but that nobody enforced the regulation.
The crisis is not that new regulation is not emerging, it’s that they won’t be enforced anyway.
This is a crisis in virtue — in the virtue of the political leadership, in the virtue of the financial leaders.
There’s expected to be a certain degree of self-restraint and moral probity.
You can’t substitute regulations for that, and you can’t worry about whether or not they’re going to be enforced in the future.
The heart of the matter is that the integrity, the intelligence, the morality of these elites, have now been called into question – empirically because of their failure to operate, but also in the way they operated.
No one at this point is certain that they can resurrect themselves or have new leadership enforced, and this is leading to a deep moral crisis.
It’s not just confined to England, it’s not confined to Europe, it’s not confined to the United States. It’s in China as well, and in other countries.
The issue is: who are these people who are running things, what gives them the right to do so, and if that right does not somehow flow from competence, what does it flow from?
So we have a crisis, not in corruption, but of sheer incompetence and indifference to incompetence. "
RD,
I know what you mean.
Don’t know how far you go back, but there used to be two police stations in Dalston Lane – one by the Clarence Road junction and the other on the uphill bit to Dalston Junction (near the Matalan shooting).
Area has gotten a lot worse since they were both closed.
"The hoodie looters have too much time and energy on their hands because of a welfare state that allows them to eat without having to do a jot. They may be unemployable and that may be their fault."
wit,
I would suggest that many would indeed be unemployable as things are now, but it is not their fault. In fact, the rest of your post goes right to the nub of the matter. They are unworldly, and when they know they are being oppressed by people they instinctively know should be setting standards of behaviour, but are no better than brigands, themselves, they will run riot.
I believe the French word for a riot is "une manifestation" – which, at the very least, surely, has resonances of an "epiphany", at least to our ears. Let’s hope our brigand- leaders accept this particualr epiphany in the spirit in which it was intended. Martin Luther King once said: "… in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard."
Peter Oborne summarised it very succinctly here (it was emailed to me, and I can’t cite the source, so I hope it’s not infringing copyright. He writes for the Daily Mail, but I couldn’t find it on their site):
“But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard.”
Here is Oborne’s article:
___________________________________
David Cameron, Ed Miliband and the entire British political class came together yesterday to denounce the rioters. They were of course right to say that the actions of these looters, arsonists and muggers were abhorrent and criminal, and that the police should be given more support.
But there was also something very phony and hypocritical about all the shock and outrage expressed in parliament. MPs spoke about the week’s dreadful events as if they were nothing to do with them.
I cannot accept that this is the case. Indeed, I believe that the criminality in our streets cannot be dissociated from the moral disintegration in the highest ranks of modern British society. The last two decades have seen a terrifying decline in standards among the British governing elite. It has become acceptable for our politicians to lie and to cheat. An almost universal culture of selfishness and greed has grown up.
It is not just the feral youth of Tottenham who have forgotten they have duties as well as rights. So have the feral rich of Chelsea and Kensington. A few years ago, my wife and I went to a dinner party in a large house in west London. A security guard prowled along the street outside, and there was much talk of the “north-south divide”, which I took literally for a while until I realised that my hosts were facetiously referring to the difference between those who lived north and south of Kensington High Street.
Most of the people in this very expensive street were every bit as deracinated and cut off from the rest of Britain as the young, unemployed men and women who have caused such terrible damage over the last few days. For them, the repellent Financial Times magazine How to Spend It is a bible. I’d guess that few of them bother to pay British tax if they can avoid it, and that fewer still feel the sense of obligation to society that only a few decades ago came naturally to the wealthy and better off.
Yet we celebrate people who live empty lives like this. A few weeks ago, I noticed an item in a newspaper saying that the business tycoon Sir Richard Branson was thinking of moving his headquarters to Switzerland. This move was represented as a potential blow to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, because it meant less tax revenue.
I couldn’t help thinking that in a sane and decent world such a move would be a blow to Sir Richard, not the Chancellor. People would note that a prominent and wealthy businessman was avoiding British tax and think less of him. Instead, he has a knighthood and is widely feted. The same is true of the brilliant retailer Sir Philip Green. Sir Philip’s businesses could never survive but for Britain’s famous social and political stability, our transport system to shift his goods and our schools to educate his workers.
Yet Sir Philip, who a few years ago sent an extraordinary £1 billion dividend offshore, seems to have little intention of paying for much of this. Why does nobody get angry or hold him culpable? I know that he employs expensive tax lawyers and that everything he does is legal, but he surely faces ethical and moral questions just as much as does a young thug who breaks into one of Sir Philip’s shops and steals from it?
Our politicians – standing sanctimoniously on their hind legs in the Commons yesterday – are just as bad. They have shown themselves prepared to ignore common decency and, in some cases, to break the law. David Cameron is happy to have some of the worst offenders in his Cabinet. Take the example of Francis Maude, who is charged with tackling public sector waste – which trade unions say is a euphemism for waging war on low‑paid workers. Yet Mr Maude made tens of thousands of pounds by breaching the spirit, though not the law, surrounding MPs’ allowances.
A great deal has been made over the past few days of the greed of the rioters for consumer goods, not least by Rotherham MP Denis MacShane who accurately remarked, “What the looters wanted was for a few minutes to enter the world of Sloane Street consumption.” This from a man who notoriously claimed £5,900 for eight laptops. Of course, as an MP he obtained these laptops legally through his expenses.
Yesterday, the veteran Labour MP Gerald Kaufman asked the Prime Minister to consider how these rioters can be “reclaimed” by society. Yes, this is indeed the same Gerald Kaufman who submitted a claim for three months’ expenses totalling £14,301.60, which included £8,865 for a Bang & Olufsen television.
Or take the Salford MP Hazel Blears, who has been loudly calling for draconian action against the looters. I find it very hard to make any kind of ethical distinction between Blears’s expense cheating and tax avoidance, and the straight robbery carried out by the looters.
The Prime Minister showed no sign that he understood that something stank about yesterday’s Commons debate. He spoke of morality, but only as something which applies to the very poor: “We will restore a stronger sense of morality and responsibility – in every town, in every street and in every estate.” He appeared not to grasp that this should apply to the rich and powerful as well.
The tragic truth is that Mr Cameron is himself guilty of failing this test. It is scarcely six weeks since he jauntily turned up at the News International summer party, even though the media group was at the time subject to not one but two police investigations. Even more notoriously, he awarded a senior Downing Street job to the former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, even though he knew at the time that Coulson had resigned after criminal acts were committed under his editorship. The Prime Minister excused his wretched judgment by proclaiming that “everybody deserves a second chance”. It was very telling yesterday that he did not talk of second chances as he pledged exemplary punishment for the rioters and looters.
These double standards from Downing Street are symptomatic of widespread double standards at the very top of our society. It should be stressed that most people (including, I know, Telegraph readers) continue to believe in honesty, decency, hard work, and putting back into society at least as much as they take out.
But there are those who do not. Certainly, the so-called feral youth seem oblivious to decency and morality. But so are the venal rich and powerful – too many of our bankers, footballers, wealthy businessmen and politicians.
Of course, most of them are smart and wealthy enough to make sure that they obey the law. That cannot be said of the sad young men and women, without hope or aspiration, who have caused such mayhem and chaos over the past few days. But the rioters have this defence: they are just following the example set by senior and respected figures in society. Let’s bear in mind that many of the youths in our inner cities have never been trained in decent values. All they have ever known is barbarism. Our politicians and bankers, in sharp contrast, tend to have been to good schools and universities and to have been given every opportunity in life.
Something has gone horribly wrong in Britain. If we are ever to confront the problems which have been exposed in the past week, it is essential to bear in mind that they do not only exist in inner-city housing estates.
The culture of greed and impunity we are witnessing on our TV screens stretches right up into corporate boardrooms and the Cabinet. It embraces the police and large parts of our media. It is not just its damaged youth, but Britain itself that needs a moral reformation."Grimes,
its on his Telegraph blog (which says something about him and/or the Barclay brothers):
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peter … he-bottom/
don’t disagree with the thrust of his argument, though i do disagree with some of his specifics.
someone in a big house in North Kensington living an "empty" life (in his opinion) is not the same as a looter. If it is their money and their life, they are entitled to enjoy it as they please. If Oborne feels that he can make such judgment what if the people who were his hosts make a judgment of what he chose to do with his assets and his life? What gives one lot the right to tell another lot that they should comply to his views if they are living within the law?
also is he saying that Branson should plan his life and business to make sure he maximizes his expenses? Businesses are not charities. If Branson ran it on that basis he would soon be out of business.
the Stratfor article by Goerge Friedman is more on point than Oborne.
there’s a game and there are rules. you can change the game but you can’t have people within the same game running by different rules.
I’m interested why you say things are not the fault of the feral poor ?
so the feral poor have no choice over their actions, whereas the feral rich do have a choice over theirs?
surely every human, however dire their individual situation, has choices about whether to be violent, steal, kill, etc?
otherwise, what’s the point of religion as advocated in your earlier posts ?
surely every human, however dire their individual situation, has choices about whether to be violent, steal, kill, etc?
Exactly Wit,
But that does not mean we need religion.
I don’t see what religion has to do with the Tottenham riots. Have all rioters ticked the box for athiest?
If anything there may well be a big percentage of rioters being "christian". After all, the black community is possibly more God fearing than white.
Those who participated need better role models and teaching of good "morals" from parents. Not from Church or on high.
Value Is EverythingBut they’re not getting it from the parents, are they, and no matter how many time someone says they should be isn’t going to make it happen.
Ginger
i rather doubt you’d find many religious folk, black or otherwise, among the looters.
it was Grimes, not me, who posted on religion and then seemed to suggest the feral poor have no free will to make choices.
still, come on then:
you as an atheist have to persuade the similarly atheist youth down the road (sadly long-term unemployed) why he should not mask-up, join in the lootng, and flog-off his haul a few minutes later for cash to the man with the van around the corner.
what this-world payoff for him not to get involved is your clinching argument ?
But they’re not getting it from the parents, are they, and no matter how many time someone says they should be isn’t going to make it happen.
Although there are of course some good parents who have rioting children, who’ve got in with the wrong people – Parent/s should be given the opportunity and in some cases compulsory parenting classes. The much maligned "Five a day" is a good starting point. Parent/s should also understand the need to set a good example.
We should not just give up on parents by thinking it was inevitable.
Value Is EverythingSome interesting posts from Wit, Grimes, Moehat and Gingertipster.
Not believing in anything does not make you an "atheist". Most of those who would defend atheism, do so after having applied a certain amount of analysis, , studying and intellectual rigour before jettisoning the religous beliefs they were brought up to believe as children. Most of these feral young we refer to amongst the rioters, probably couldn’t spell or define "atheism". Not being taught Christian, Islamic or Jewish faith doesn’t make you an atheist.
Those who have taken the trouble to question the existence of god do not see their conclusion that there is no god as a licence to behave as these rioters have done. I may have mis-interpreted Grimes as believing that it does.
Atheism is not the cause of this rioting or a common defining factor amongst the rioters. (What percentage of the immoral bankers and politicians that have been lambasted on here are atheists? Very few I’d say).
Anyway, back to the topic. It is a great pity that the onlineSunday Times
is a pay site. There are some great articles on the riots from 3 different angles today. If you can, read Rod Liddle, Dominic Lawson and Kath Birbalsingh.
Ginger
i rather doubt you’d find many religious folk, black or otherwise, among the looters.
it was Grimes, not me, who posted on religion and then seemed to suggest the feral poor have no free will to make choices.
still, come on then:
you as an atheist have to persuade the similarly atheist youth down the road (sadly long-term unemployed) why he should not mask-up, join in the lootng, and flog-off his haul a few minutes later for cash to the man with the van around the corner.
what this-world payoff for him not to get involved is your clinching argument ?
Realise it was not you Wit who first made the Religeous link, I was just agreeing with your excellent line I quoted, about every human having choices. (Thumbs up)
The rest of my post a general voice towards those who do believe this a predominantly religeous issue. Moral yes, religeous no.
"Do unto others…." has just as much relevance to any Athiest as it does christianity. Although I would not use old language in trying to persuade youth of its merit, particularly athiest youth. It is a message that does not need to come from the Church.
As I said earlier, parenting classes would help and also citizenship classes (and pledges) for youth.
It has been proven from the courts many of these looters are not "poor" or "unemployed". Not that either is an excuse for theft.
Value Is EverythingNot believing in anything does not make you an "atheist". Most of those who would defend atheism,
Eh?If someone does not believe in any religion then surely he/she is atheist?
Even if atheists can not be pigeon-holed on their beliefs in the same way as Catholic, Protestant etc can… he/she is still an atheist. The only atheist who can be pigeon-holed is a Communist. And Communism should be regarded as a "religion" anyway, as Das Kapital tells the follower what to believe.
We’re getting away from the thread subject too much.
Value Is EverythingWithout wanting to go further off topic I suggest that an understanding of what Das Kapital indicates is considered before posters allign it to close to communism.
Could say a lot more but won’t bore contributors with the detail but for anyone interested just look up Das Kapital on wikipedia
yorkiedips
Grimes,
its on his Telegraph blog (which says something about him and/or the Barclay brothers):
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peter … he-bottom/
don’t disagree with the thrust of his argument, though i do disagree with some of his specifics.
someone in a big house in North Kensington living an "empty" life (in his opinion) is not the same as a looter. If it is their money and their life, they are entitled to enjoy it as they please. If Oborne feels that he can make such judgment what if the people who were his hosts make a judgment of what he chose to do with his assets and his life? What gives one lot the right to tell another lot that they should comply to his views if they are living within the law?
also is he saying that Branson should plan his life and business to make sure he maximizes his expenses? Businesses are not charities. If Branson ran it on that basis he would soon be out of business.
the Stratfor article by Goerge Friedman is more on point than Oborne.
there’s a game and there are rules. you can change the game but you can’t have people within the same game running by different rules.
I’m interested why you say things are not the fault of the feral poor ?
so the feral poor have no choice over their actions, whereas the feral rich do have a choice over theirs?
surely every human, however dire their individual situation, has choices about whether to be violent, steal, kill, etc?
otherwise, what’s the point of religion as advocated in your earlier posts ?
wit, I wrote a long screed, but accidentally wiped it. But I think it would be futile my setting you right on the specifics of what I wrote. It’s too labour-intensive online; different face to face.
There happens to be a correlation between economic oppression and violence; not a correspondence. It’s human nature, and should be taken into account by the perpetrators of the oppression, particularly when they also happen to be the very politicians who are supposed to represent their interests, together with those of the rest of the country.
There is also the replacement of the overarching Christian ethos of the early post-war decades with the worship of Mammon, and what are they left with? Envious consumerism and a hatred for greed-heads. A combustible mix when coupled with attacks on the family, the basic, social unit, and a decimated police force.
Why are you reviling the morals of those whom you unthinkingly collude in oppressing through your hostility to the welfare state? In favour of the perpetrators of its remorseless destruction, moreover?
There is street-level violence, which, by its nature, has to be dealt with urgently, and the far greater, athough infinitely respectable, social violence of politicians and their puppeteers -the well-to-do. Mr Big.
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