The Riots

I apologise for the rambling nature of this but it's just a number of the thoughts I've had over the last few turbulent days.

The first day when the riots were in London alone I barely noticed. London's a funny place and shit like that happens there. I paid slightly more notice than when it happens in Ulster because it does seem to be part of the culture of that region.

The second day was when it really hit home. This was the day when the country truly did seem to become a lawless, anarchist state. There was a lot of criticism of the Police. Which seemed unfair because it was obvious to anyone with sense and without an agenda that there was no way the police could cope with all the hotspots at once.

I was as furious as everybody else at what i was seeing. People who didn't give a hoot about the community in which they lived taking what they wanted and setting it alight. Particularly as they were attacking small businesses. Which showed the absurdity of those who were trying to claim it was a political riot up. This anger lasted through the night and most of the next day until I heard a woman on Fivelive her name is Camila_Batmanghelidjh. 

She gave a different point of view on the riots and what was happening. She made no effort to excuse the behaviour of the criminals involved the previous night. She just tried to offer an explanation that there is a generation of young men who simply have no hope. Their families who should be their safety net are often the people who put them in most danger and the services that are there are not interested. So you have people with no hope, no networks. And people without hope have nothing to lose and someone with nothing to lose is a dangerous thing.

This is when the rational side of my brain began to re-awaken. I was still angry about the lawlessness that I was seeing. But I also began to see that this anger was pointless if I didn't at least try to understand what was really happening. It goes without saying that she got a barrage of stick from the audience calling her a bleeding heart. I don't know what it is that stops people from understanding that looking for explanations as to what happens is not the same as offering excuses. Surely what separates us from animals is our ability to wonder. it's a bit of a shame if we don't use this capacity.

By this time the true villain of the piece had arrived back to save us all. Our prime minister. There has never been a more sickening sight than watching this jumped up gobshite puffing out his chest and letting us all know how bad he is and how he's gonna set things straight. He has gone out of his way to portray himself as the hero of the hour. Making outrageous claims about how he personally did this and ordered that. Sir Hugh Orde has made it clear that the politicians jetting in made not a jot of difference to the way Police organised their response.

So whose version should we believe ? Sir Hugh Orde. Former Chief Constable of the Northern Ireland Police force. A man who dealt with riots year in and year out for...well years. Or an empty shirt like Cameron...well quite. But worse was to come. Parliament was recalled so all the other strutting peacocks could puff out their chests and fight to be the most comically self righteous. It was a sickening display.

This whole spectacle was made all the worse by the utter spinelessness of Ed Milliband who just tried to out tough cameron. Sod actually saying 'maybe we should think why this is happening'. No if cameron wants to give them two years I think we should give them five years. I really cannot find the words to summon up my utter contempt for the Labour party. At least you know where you are with the Tories. They're eveil and they don't pretend to be anything else.

Today we have reached a new low. With the pathetic Eric Pickles telling us that yobs will be evicted from social housing. He just says they'll have to find private housing and telling them it's their fault. That might just avoid being brain numbingly stupid if you're evicting a single bloke. But in many cases you are going to evicting families. What happens to those children ? It strikes me if you don't want to raise another generation of angry young people making them homeless for the sins of their parents isn't a good starting place.

Now obviously I don't live on the kind of estate where such people live. So it could be argued I don't know what I am talking about. I admit this is a possibility. But the truth is these people will need to go somewhere. Its all very well saying they will have to get private housing but where is that going to be ? Clue it's not going to be in Eric pickles' neighborhood. Its going to be on exactly the same estates where they lost their tenancy. For all that such measures feel right they defy logic.

I feel at the end of this protracted monologue I should have answers. But I don't have any really. The truth is from my job i know there are some people who are beyond helping. All the input in the world will not help them get their life on track. But good services, designed by people who know the area they are working with, do help. They don't help everybody and they won't, in themselves, prevent a riot. What they do give is opportunities for the people who have aspirations within demonised communities.

Those services need to be supported. The government will say there is no money. Which is bullshit because they seem to be able to find money to prop up a broken fiscal system whenever it is needed. Just not the broken society Dave is so fond of talking of.

If you have the time I thoroughly recommend reading this and this they are brilliant