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

[Nomada]

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).

I'm in an area affected and I'm scared but I still agree with them too. A lot of us are so scared of rioters or terrorism and so on that we'd allow the government to take away our civil rights bit by bit. Now, I'm damn sure that the rioters out there are out for themselves at the moment, at least they are in my bit of the UK but there may come a day when people might legitimately need to take to the streets to make themselves heard but are unable to do so because of that errosion of liberties. I honestly think that we should all think very carefully before we allow anything as extreme as martial law to be imposed as a knee jerk reaction.

[Nomada]

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.

I do have to agree.

[Nomada]

Loads of jobs around here

Smug much? How incredibly insensitive of you. So I suppose my unemployed partner should abandon his elderly mother to move to Lincolnshire? Doesn't family mean anything? It's not a picnic living on benefits you know, do you understand how much it saps your confidence? How hard it can be to get by? Think first before opening mouth please!

[Nomada]

Whats wrong with minimum wage or less ............It's called starting at the bottom

It's called being cold and hungry

[MKG]

It worries me a little that there seems to be a strange undercurrent - the government will insidiously take away our civil rights unless the riots are allowed to go ahead??????

I'm sorry - I really am and I pray that no-one will take this personally - but that's absolute b*****ks. For goodness sake, the government will apply EVERYONE's human rights in the face of the rioters. This is normal. This is how it should be. That's what governments do. That's what they're for.

Headline: Government protects population from violent rioters. Population objects.

Where does this paranoia arise? British governments are meek things which tend to do, on the whole, what people want. General election results sort of prove that. And there's no difference between the parties unless it's inside someone's head. This particular government, provided by a Conservative party with a long-standing tradition of rolling back the state but an equally long-standing one of giving you the right to starve on the streets (that's true freedom for you) is indistinguishable from Harold Wilson's Labour government -a roll-the-state forward organisation if ever there was one. Tony Blair's election manifesto was indistinguishable from that of Edward Heath. Party politics is never what it appears to be except in the heads of political diehards. It was a Labour government which postulated the biggest incursion ever on personal privacy by insisting upon identity cards and a merged national database. Thank goodness that British governments never actually understood why that couldn't work.

I fail to understand why anyone should accept that dealing appropriately with violent (proved), thieving (proved), arsonists (proved) should be equated with the loss of civil liberties. It's just plain daft. Which particular civil liberties would we lose? The right to riot? The right to scare the living daylights out of Nomada? The right to deprive small businesspeople of their livelihoods? The right to ram cars into people and so kill them? The right to beat someone to the ground and rob them? The right to steal something on the grounds that A. N. Other has one and you don't? The right to scare someone out of their home, babe in arms, and immediately loot the place? The right to burn down any place if you can't work out how to get your boot through the window? The right to insult everyone's intelligence by insisting that all of those things are, somehow, justifiable?

Bloody unreasonable of any government to want to stop that lot, isn't it?

Mike

EDIT @ Susie ... "And I know how naff that last sentence sounds, so everybody please feel free to quote it as an example of dreadful half-cocked champagne socialism but please quote this disclaimer as well so I look as if I have some self-awareness"

Didn't sound naff at all, Susie - your concerns are natural and your points well made. I actually agree with you, but I'm certainly not going to be told I have to by people who think they have some kind of monopoly on knowledge of current social problems.

[pelmetman]

Loads of jobs around here

Smug much? How incredibly insensitive of you. So I suppose my unemployed partner should abandon his elderly mother to move to Lincolnshire? Doesn't family mean anything? It's not a picnic living on benefits you know, do you understand how much it saps your confidence? How hard it can be to get by? Think first before opening mouth please!

SMUG .........Read practical .......I was born in London, and have moved all over the place....Why?......For work ............Unlike many who leave school today with nothing....Just as I did......I soon realized no one owed me a living, if I wanted to improve my life I would have to do it myself ..................Unfortunately many people today think its someone else's job to improve their lives
Your partner might be surprised to find that most of us have an elderly parent still, and given the choice of being with my family or providing for them, then I prefer to provide

Maybe its an age thing, I was born when the benefit system wasn't so generous

[zaxdog]

Hi Nomada, I live on a wee island called Lismore off the west coast of Scotland.

Pelmetman I have to agree. My OH works from home and when I was made redundant on the Isle of lewis and there were no jobs available we packed up and moved down here. Even though we live on the island I commute to work every weekday by ferry as that is where the jobs are and it can be a white knuckle ride in the winter

[southeast-isher]

There have been some people in this country who shouldn't have had children and some of their parent's shouldn't have had children as they just simply aren't equipped for parenting and all that comes with it. I appreciate that selective breeding is a very rocky road to go down but i believe this to be true.

[southeast-isher]

And some of these kids are seriously misguided targetting people who they believe to be rich and priveleged when actually they're just people who worked, yeah worked, to earn money to pay for the bits and pieces they have instead of relied on benefits.

[MKG]

Rain stopped play, I think.

Mike

[bonniethomas06]

Oh blimey, I am a bit nervous to start entering this debate, and am still figuring out where I stand, but...

I think we may be transposing our fairly intelligent philosophy about the political landscape in this country onto people who really only took advantage of an opportunity to get free stuff - if you have a look at some of the facebook messages that went about, it was generally along the lines of 'Footlocker on X street has just had it's windows smashed in, head down there and get yourself some new trainers!'. Somehow I don't think they were doing it to make a political statement about the distribution of wealth, subconsciously or otherwise?

As evidenced by the fact that in one shop, looters were trying on the jeans before taking them away! Is there a complex political signal to be gleaned from the careful consideration of an inside leg measurement?

[MKG]

Ooooooh - you might be in trouble now BT

It was purely a misunderstanding brought about by the education system intentionally failing these people because they are members of the underclass. They thought it was new genes they were trying on.

There you are - they were just simple souls attempting to improve themselves.

Mike

[Helsbells]

Phew! What a fantastic debate that is going on here! I applaud it.

After much consideration and careful reading of all the posts I have to say that I agree with MKG.

I was extremely saddened by what was going on, it actually made me shed a few tears, I just thought the whole thing was really really sad. I am not going to pretend that I have an answer or reasons for all this, there are a myriad of reasons, but I can give my point of view based on what I know.

Firstly, I grew up with parents who had very little money. My mum chose to stay at home to look after us kids (4 of us, all under the age of 8 at one point) and my dad worked for a pretty low wage. We had very little, no computer games stations, no designer clothes (clothes from charity shops) a modest amount of toys an undecorated house etc. When we moved into our house which my dad worked hard to pay for, it had no central heating and my dad had to re-wire the electrics. I know what it is like to be cold. We weren't hungry because money was spend on things we needed not on things we wanted. In free time I went to a church youth group and played with my friends.

So my point is, there is plenty for young people out there to do that it not criminal, they have to be creative and come up with things or else their parents need to give them ideas for things to do, however they nor their parents seem to have the capacity for this perhaps partly because they are so used to having their brains filled with stimulation from video games, films, tv, computers etc. They are not able to come up with things to do.

In terms of being poor, I don't agree with this, the people who "rioted" found out about it through twitter and facebook, so clearly the can afford I phones, blackberries, or computers with the internet, it they cannot afford to eat of heat themselves then they should not have mobile phones for a start.

My other point is, I am a secondary school teacher and all children have the same educational opportunities given to them up to the age of 18. They have to take the opportunities and choose to use them to their advantage. Many pupils in my school do not appreciate the value of the free education that they are being given. I am not saying that the education system is perfect but it is there and it can help people to change their life prospects if they choose to use it and make the most of it.

I am sorry that my points are not very cohesive or eloquent, but I feel strongly that I am in no way to blame for people who act in this way, they are making bad choices and not taking responsibility.

[MKG]

Don't do yourself down, Helsbells - i think that was remarkably eloquent (and not just because you agree with me ). I was also brought up in a "no money to speak of" environment (but a tad earlier than you, I suspect). My mother, who now gets on my nerves on a regular basis, had to cope with a husband doing a runner - but she managed for several years to provide food, warmth, home, etc. for two very young children and not once did she resort to passing that situation off onto other people. She didn't steal, she didn't riot - she just got on with what she saw as what she had to do. The recent tendency to insist on ripping society in general off to cure perceived poverty problems is, in my view, spitting in the face of people like her.

You said it - responsibility. I sometimes feel that's a dirty word these days.

Mike

[grahamhobbs]

......................... but I'm certainly not going to be told I have to by people who think they have some kind of monopoly on knowledge of current social problems.

Unfortunately MKG the way you present your opinions you appear to be trying to do exactly that to others and it seems you think the more strident and emphatic you make your opinions the more we will understand.

I don't think anyone has disputed the mindless vandalism/theft. etc, that the perpetrators should be punished or that you or anyone here is to blame for what happened. What I think is a number of contributors have tried to do, is analyse the context and reasons why this has occured. This is not the first time in history that people have rioted and looted, but it is a first in this country for a long time. We therefore need to investigate and understand why it happened.

Now even if you hold that they are mindless criminals, opportunists, scum, vandals, whatever, you still have to answer, why now? The Tory government desperately wants to avoid this question; criminals pure and simple, with hints of mis-education of the youth and a broken society under 15 years of Labour rule. (Labour equally stupidly hints at the cuts as the reason).

Pelmetman, we are of the generation that was brought up to work, that work maketh a man. But we grew up at a time when the economy was good, there was lots of jobs, there were opportunities, if you wanted you could push the door and it opened. Many working class families prospered and got on. I have lived and worked in London all my life, it has changed dramatically, from being a massive industrial town with strong communities, the communities have been ripped apart, there is no industry (the last vestiges in the East End have been wiped out by the Olympic park), you in the main either work in the city or in low paid unskilled work (there's been a massive increase in the rich employing servants), with no way out. I see the kids around me, they've got to be exceptional to push the door open and for young black guys especially the door must be slammed in their face every day.

Much has been made about how the kids are unpolitical, just stupid criminals and people have pointed to the two young girls that thought it 'a laugh'. I read what they actually said today and they didn't really know if it was a conservative government but quite they clearly said what was happening was against the rich. Now I wouldn't pretend that this was a coherent polical view, let alone manifesto, but however immature, it does hint at an answer to my question, why now.

I believe the West is in terminal decline, the financial system is cracking up, the working class and large sections of the middle class in the west are redundant, their jobs have been exported to south-east asia. We are now a nuisance and we will see (further)steady declines in our living standards. I believe those already at the bottom, especially the youth, sense this and are starting to fight back, albeit mindlessly at first.

As for punishment, I heard that a looter was given a £100 fine but because he had been locked up for 26 hours already, he was let off this. Now is that stupid or not, but then I think the state has no great interest in trying to extract more, the jails are full and it'll cost more money than they can get out of them. I beleive anti-social behaviour should be punished, but the emphasis should be in repaying the victim not the state. It was the Normans in occuping the country that introduced the notion that fines should be paid to the them, the state not compensation to the victim.