I think I'll.......

[RuthG]

newly enlisted soldier were among some of those arrested apparently. It's not all people on benefits.

Well he's just added himself to the benefits queue. He will be dishonourably discharged after this. And added to the list of the 'great unwashed'.

[noplasticbags]

Nomada - Looks like you're the only one in the thick of it - wishing you a peaceful night.

I'm trying to hold onto my house in a village 10 miles from the city at the moment , and had considered downsizing and moving back into the city. The extra each month on the mortgage to stay out in the sticks looks worth every penny today (won't be saying the same when I can't get the kids to school in the snow...)

[Nomada]

noplastic bags, it's worth every penny. Between the economy, corruption, rising food and energy cost things will only get worse so if you can stay put. Let the kids have a snow day, or week as the case may be!

[zaxdog]

Nomada: hoping you got through the night okay

So glad these things will never happen where I live and hoping that all who are affected by the horrid creatures are safe

[Dr.Syn]

I firmly believe that as many as possible of those "publicity seekers" or "Rioters" or to be more truthful Thieves, Arsonists, Disturbers of the Peace, and Burglars should be identified, arrested and the full weight of the law brought down upon them. They should all be given custodial sentences.

I don't care how full the prisons are they like to be in a mob so there should be no complaints about overcrowding.

Perhaps we should make prison more unpleasant bring back the rock-pile.

[trinder]

I dont care one bit about their 'reasons', there is absolutely no excuse for behaving like this. They shoulod be rounded up and shot! .

Ruth words fail me.
I hope I am hearing a rant of frustrated anger. Or perhaps that would be a new job /post to be created. Vacancy executioner.(local post) salary dependant on skills and experience.

Zaxdog: horrid creatures?

[zaxdog]

Sadly we will never get away with shooting them but the police should be fully backed by the government to give them a really good smacking! Of course we will then hear the whining about broken homes, social ills blah blah blah. Strange how stealing a telly and mugging kids is a blow for social justice

My thoughts are with the poor people in the affected areas still and I hope they and theirs are safe

So glad that will never happen where I live although I believe we are sending reinforcements to the english police.

[ajs88]

im sorry people should be rounded up and shot???

the area in which i live has been devastated to the point that it will take years even a generation to recover, the value of my property has probably decreased, i will no longer be able to benefit from some the amenities that no longer exist and i have also been kept up and even frightened for two nights by helicopters, sirens and shouting from looters going past my bedroom window

but i would never, never say that people should be rounded up and shot and find the mere suggestion horrific and disgusting. these are children committing these acts but we are adults and should behave as such

i pray for the families of the man who was killed by police, the man who was beaten, the three men who were run over and died and all of the victims of the looting and fires. but also for ourselves that we do not allow our values or society to be changed for the worse

[MKG]

You're quite right, AJS - shooting them would merely bring us all down to their level (I still wouldn't mind if they dropped dead of their own volition, though).

But I am going to disagree with your statement that it is children who are committing these acts. Sure, there are children there (and shame on those parents!!) but the majority are between 16 and 22 ish - certainly of the age of criminal responsibility and a lot of them legally adults. I, too, say no to shooting - but they should be rounded up and jailed, and I don't give a hoot about the deleterious effects that may have on their shallow, malformed psyches.

I do agree wholeheartedly that we should not allow our values or society to be changed for the worse - not by us, and certainly not by them.

Mike

[Dr.Syn]

I see that the first sentence has been passed on a "looter" who stole T shirts - ONE DAY IN PRISON. TIME ALREADY SERVED IN CUSTODY - I ASK YOU bet that's taught him a lesson

[that_sarah_girl]

As I said, I don't agree with much of what's happened over the last few days but some of it, if not all of it, is understandable even if it is unpalatable.

I have just been reading elsewhere a blog which does show a differnt light on things:

"In one NBC report, a young man in Tottenham was asked if rioting really achieved anything: "Yes," said the young man. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?" "Two
months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all
blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in
the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you." Eavesdropping
from among the onlookers, I looked around. A dozen TV crews and
newspaper reporters interviewing the young men everywhere ‘’’ There
are communities all over the country that nobody paid attention to
unless there had recently been a riot or a murdered child. Well, they’re
paying attention now"

The trouble is that people just blindly swallow whatever the hell is pumped out by Sky News, the BBC and the major red-top press like the Sun without ever having to try and think for themselves and ask why such activities are going on or where the underlying causes are. There are many issues here and probably not the place to discuss them, but the real truth is certainly a long way from whatever is being portrayed in the media at the current time.

The repercussions however will be real enough, so will the grinning politicians reaping the rewards of such 'swift action' in the face of adversary. So much so in fact I wonder whether some of the disturbances are in fact the work of agent provocateurs.....

Either way we as a class lose.

I have to agree with everything you've said, but unfortunately we're in the minority.

People can't see past "look at all the damage they've caused". Of course some of the behaviour is disgusting and I don't agree with the damage done to people's property and businesses, but it's hardly a coincidence that the last time something like this happened was last time a Tory government came into power...

I've seen people posting on facebook saying things like "don't they have anything better to do?" and the answer is NO! there's no jobs (not one's that pay a decent enough wage to live off anyway), university fees are through the roof, no EMA for college students...there's nothing to live for anymore, people have had enough.

[pelmetman]

Just a quick point about jobs. The kinds of jobs people will not take aren't always to do with work that's 'beneath' them, the problem I've been finding when looking for jobs lately is that they have wages that you just can't live on, either because they are low paid or because they're part time. Some of them take the pi$$. It just about what's practical. You could always do more than one job, but I've done that before and rushing from one job to another and juggling is exhausting. Plus with so many people going after the same job there's no guarantee that you'd get a second job to bring in a livable wage.
.

Loads of jobs around here .........Plenty of people are prepared to travel 1200+ miles to do them from Poland or further.............But I suppose 120 miles would be to far for the work shy to travel from London especially when they have a comfortable life on benefits...........Plus they would get their trainers dirty and possibly break a nail
But there again the local bone idle prefer a life on benefits as well ................

[John Headstrong]

‎"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing." ~Malcolm X

[grahamhobbs]

There are some maps of London drawn around the end of the Victorian era that show the various categories of houses, street by street. The poshest are bright red, then there are shades down to blue for the working class areas and then there are some that are black. These are classified as criminal and violent. These were Victorian no-go areas, where the underclass lived. Read the Victorians writing about the people of the East End of London, they were referred to as sub-human.

I was shocked when I went to America, 30 years ago, to hear a liberal proffessor (for the US, left enough to be considered a communist) refer to people living in the Bronx as animals, animals beyond any way of dealing with or reasoning with.

Now the underclass has returned to this country and I hear people refer to them as vile, scum, should be dead. Of course what these kids are doing is mindless, anti-social, violence, etc, etc. But why are these kids suddenly like this, we need to reflect who re-created this underclass. Why have we gone back to the Victorian model of the super rich, a squeezed middle, and a desperate underclass.

I grew up in south east London in the fifties/early sixties. East Londonal was rough and although there were clear class divisions, it was probably a time when society was the most egalitarian it has ever been. When we left school, everyone got a job and, for boys at least, the prospect of a trade and respect. My mate couldn't read or write but, no problem, he became a butchers improver (apprentice). What a difference today, even with a university degree kids can't get a job and the chances of decent working class kids getting a job, let alone entry into a trade, in many areas is almost impossible.

People have said there are loads of jobs, people come thousands of miles to take them. it reminds me of the big breweries in the East End that had a policy of not employing East Enders, but got people from the country, mainly Suffolk (then a very poor county). They were keener, worked for less but within a generation they were no different, they had realisied that it had got them nowhere. Is that not the same for most poor immigrants that come to this country, they take the lowest paid jobs and that's where they stay, or like most of the Poles they've gone home.

Since the sixties the working class has been gradually destroyed in this country, the rich closing down factories and taking their capital out out to south-east asia and the like where labour has no rights and is therefore cheap. Off the backs of this cheap labour, the rich got super rich, and middle class grew, but it also created an underclass, left with no hope, no future, no way out. These people don't give a damn, mindless vandalism - so what, thieving - so what, destroy - so what.

Now do we go down the road of America, the land of the free, that has way more people in prison than any other country in the world. Do we try to lock them all up or do we struggle to make Britain a more equal and fairer society.

[Susie]

I have got to agree with grahamhobbs and John Headstrong (although, there is no rioting in my area and if there was I don't know how I'd feel. Well I do know, I'd be shit scared. I feel terrible for those of you who are affected).

Also, we have a society which has less and less social mobility and constantly promotes the idea that it doesn't matter if you are a complete waste of space who no-one would look at twice, so long as you have Consumer Stuff and Money, whatever morally questionable or random way you've managed to get it (and the people making money from promoting this are probably people who went to nice schools and old universities). This to people who realistically are never going to be able to get off benefits. It doesn't justify people rioting but it doesn't seem like a wonderful recipe for social cohesion.