London riots

[Plymouth Gull]

Absolutely crazy, what's going on there at the moment.

Did it all start off because of that shooting, or am I missing something?

[ferrarilover]

You're not missing anything. The feral underclass (I'm SO Daily Mail) are using this as an excuse to subsidise their giro income with some stolen training shoes.

What strikes me is the sheer number of people (both youngsters involved directly, or parents/guardians vicariously involved) who are so willing to cause absolute mayhem and seem to be entirely unaffected by the rule of law.

While I don't wish to join the hysterical masses calling for all sorts of retribution, but I will say that I am all in favour of calling in the military.
The police are clearly miles beyond their capabilities, if for no reason other than a lack of numbers. Get hold of 15000 members of the armed forces, and call on every police officer in the Met/Thames Valley area. This gives 'good' a team of around 60,000 people.
Sounds a lot, but it's 20% fewer people than a full Old Trafford.
That SHOULD be enough to round up or disperse this sea of human scum.

Now, when I am King or Prime Minister or both, I will have the working class sterilised, thus, within 2 generations, making England the green and pleasant land full of people capable of completing the Sunday Times crossword.
It'll be like Midsomer Murders, but without the murders.

Matt.

[stefano]

Absolutely crazy, what's going on there at the moment.

Did it all start off because of that shooting, or am I missing something?

It will probably be said that the shooting of a criminal by the police was the trigger that led to these current riots, but in reality the word 'trigger' should perhaps be substituted for 'excuse'. The 1980's wasn't much different. In 1980 an incident occurred at the Black & White cafe in Bristol resulting in several days of rioting. That did not spread but a year later in Brixton two police officers went to the assistance of a black youth who had been stabbed and were set upon by a crowd who thought that the police were the aggressors. It kicked off with rioting and this time it spread. St Pauls in Bristol went off again followed by Toxteth (Liverpool), Handsworth (Birmingham), Moss Side (Manchester), and many quite small towns where you wouldn't really expect rioting.

These days of course communication between people wanting to 'kick off' is so much easier with twitter, facebook, etc (whatever they may be! ).

1981 saw weeks of rioting which didn't seem to be for any particular cause but certainly did see widescale looting, so in many ways it was just thieving under the cover of the riots.

The political situation was similar. Economic hardship and high unemployment. A Labour government had brought the country to it's knees and in the early days of the new Conservative Government the riots happened.

What is certain is that the police will get the blame for everything. If they go in perceivably too hard they get castigated for provoking the situation, and if they play it more low key they get castigated for allowing it to get out of control.

The easiest job in these situations must be as a journalist. Sit back, take advantage of that major ability hindsight, get a feeling for public opinion, and then slaughter decent men and women with families of their own and high standards of behaviour who actually were there trying to do something.

What decent people should not try to do is excuse the behaviour ... it is criminality not a political protest.

[Glostergull]

You're not missing anything. The feral underclass (I'm SO Daily Mail) are using this as an excuse to subsidise their giro income with some stolen training shoes.

What strikes me is the sheer number of people (both youngsters involved directly, or parents/guardians vicariously involved) who are so willing to cause absolute mayhem and seem to be entirely unaffected by the rule of law.

While I don't wish to join the hysterical masses calling for all sorts of retribution, but I will say that I am all in favour of calling in the military.
The police are clearly miles beyond their capabilities, if for no reason other than a lack of numbers. Get hold of 15000 members of the armed forces, and call on every police officer in the Met/Thames Valley area. This gives 'good' a team of around 60,000 people.
Sounds a lot, but it's 20% fewer people than a full Old Trafford.
That SHOULD be enough to round up or disperse this sea of human scum.

Now, when I am King or Prime Minister or both, I will have the working class sterilised, thus, within 2 generations, making England the green and pleasant land full of people capable of completing the Sunday Times crossword.
It'll be like Midsomer Murders, but without the murders.
Matt.

Tough Mat. You Can't. I am going to be King and Prime minister all in one. an agenda that will be revolutionary will be introduced. Public flogging for all these neanderthals. Kick em out of thier houses and give em to the homeless who's houses have been burnt down by these morons and if the parents complain them jail em after all they brung em up.
We go on soo much about imigration yet a lot of these yoofs are our own. I would kick em out first after a good dose of their own medicine. make em face up to what they have done. They make me soooo angry I feel like a good rant.
I will introduce nashunal service for all yoofs and if they msibehave then they stay n longer even if they have to go to Afgahnistan. I would even think of leaving out there permenantly. Give stiff sentences for parking too. sods blocking cars in. In fact driving laws will be tightened up to stop driving like idiots. I will take their cars off them especialy if they are orange!!! Give em all to Matt after all he loves Orange cars. We could then take the mick even more. I would make football clubs instantly pay off their bills which hopefully would mean kicking all the clubs heavily in debt out of the league. By my reckoning the Super league would then contain Torquay United and players would stay more than a couple of seasons cos there wouldnt be many places to go. even manu would end up in the Northern Senior league.
Now where did I put my special jacket. wifey just told me to put it back on.
I will be leader. I will rule forever TUFC. I will be imortal oh damn My cocoa has arrived.
Kahn. Lenin, Thatcher, Stalin my freinds where are yoooooooo ooo oo o o !

[Scott Brehaut]

I hope that all our fellow gulls fans in the capital are all safe and well tonight.

Given that the mindless "yoofs" seem intent on violence, send this scum off to fight in war torn areas around the world and bring our troops back home to be with their families.

Truly insane pictures and reports emerging all the time.

[HRG]

The parents of every one under the age of 18 who has been arrested should be sent out to do community service in the areas their little darlings destroyed.

[Glostergull]

We had serious riots in Bristol last night. My wife said the Royal Mail lorries were diverted from normal routes due to so many roads closed off. I also hear that Bristol City's match with Swindon has been postponed due to safety concerns about civil unrest
I wonder what these morons would do if we decided to put them all in one area and then cause them the same trouble and leave them to clean up after. Although I have seen first hand how some of them live and I doubt they would know the difference.
I am continualy fed up with apologists going on TV or pontificating in Newspapers wbout how the little darlings are sooo deprived. They want to see what deprived really means.

[kingsgull]

personally i'd nuked the whole lot of the thugs....

[cambgull]

The whole situation is just ridiculous.

We do have a much bigger worry than these riots though. I try to keep my ear to the ground on these type of matters and have plenty of sources such as people in the EDL and far worse organisations than those. There have been plans for a very long time (mainly since the budget last year) for an uprising from the working class. These are not the kids out on the streets now but people with a purpose, people who have worked their entire lives and are now left with nothing. And lets not forget the racists who want to rid the country of any non-white people.

If they do move forward with what are currently just words, we could very easily have a civil war on our hands. I know this probably sounds quite overreactive but this has been an on-going thing for quite some time now. We are probably mostly a middle-class group on this forum, but there are around 500 people in my town alone who are part of the SNAF (St Neots Action Force) and that is in a town of 30,000 people. Just imagine the size of similar organisations in cities.

[Southampton Gull]

No doubt that organisations like the EDL will try and jump on the bandwagon but from what I've seen it's been streetgangs doing the deed in London. You then get the voyeurs adding to the problem and looking as if they're joining in. Sure there are lots of social problems in our inner city areas but this is just mindless thuggery and unfortunately we have a Police force that are too scared of the recriminations of doing what is actually necessary. If our Police walked around armed as in other countries there wouldn't be any of this rioting going on, imagine these cowards trying to deal with the Italian Police or the Portuguese Police. Thugs only understand one language and that's force.

It's all well and good our Home Secretary commenting that this country is policed by good faith but she isn't the one on the front line, let the Police loose on these rioters and see how quickly it stops.

[cambgull]

No doubt that organisations like the EDL will try and jump on the bandwagon but from what I've seen it's been streetgangs doing the deed in London. You then get the voyeurs adding to the problem and looking as if they're joining in. Sure there are lots of social problems in our inner city areas but this is just mindless thuggery and unfortunately we have a Police force that are too scared of the recriminations of doing what is actually necessary. If our Police walked around armed as in other countries there wouldn't be any of this rioting going on, imagine these cowards trying to deal with the Italian Police or the Portuguese Police. Thugs only understand one language and that's force.

It's all well and good our Home Secretary commenting that this country is policed by good faith but she isn't the one on the front line, let the Police loose on these rioters and see how quickly it stops.

I very much doubt the EDL will jump on the bandwagon, for the simple reason of the colour of many of the kids involved for the last 3 days and nights. If anything, they will try and distance themselves from it quite substantially.

I totally agree about the Policing though, force needs to be used on these scum but the police will always be reluctant to do anything after the events of last year where the guy coming home from work was pushed over and subsequently died. What is always forgotten about this case is that he was warned multiple times by Police not to go through that area and still insisted on going through the Police line and try and make his way through the riot. Not that what the Police Officer did was right, but if the guy had used his brain it never would have happened.

The Police will always be fighting fire before they've even got to the problem as bureaucracy will not allow them to get to the root of the problem, they will constantly be pruning the fully grown tree.

Hopefully the extra 10,000 police on the street tonight will allow them to take control of more areas, take it street by street and create a protective area in the middle of London where those who are forced from their homes by fighting and fire can get to a safe area.

[Southampton Gull]

All that will happen is that there will be lots of copycat riots elsewhere. I meant that the EDL will jump on the bandwagon by pointing to the civil unrest, indeed the ethnicity of many of those involved are not likely to ever be supporters of the EDL.

I was in Southampton city centre earlier walking around doing some shopping when I started getting texts from various people saying it was kicking off there. I looked around and saw nothing, no police, no trouble just hundreds of shoppers going about their business. The most aggression I saw was from a cashier who was getting totally wound up by a couple of Polish guys who didn't understand what size 9 shoes were all about so i showed them what size 11 looks like and they left.

We're in for a few more days of the same thing we've seen already, it will only stop if and when the Police get their act together and are given full use of the powers that they do actually have already.

[happytorq]

10,000 extra police isn't very much in a country of 70 million people. The rule of law only works when people believe it should work. As soon as a significant number of people decide otherwise, law and order becomes unenforceable.

I do find it highly depressing that in places like Tunisia and Egypt etc, there was civil disobedience because they wanted to install democracy in the country. A large part of what's happening in the UK seems to be because people want a free Playstation.

Don't overestimate the media's role in all this either - when there was just peaceful protest nobody really gave a toss. Throw in a couple of car fires and a nice picture of riot police and suddenly it becomes way more interesting; it's a vicious cycle in that respect. That are people who feel disaffected, forgotten and uncared-for with unemployment, cuts to public services, that sort of thing, and a government that seems not to care, or even notice.

Pretty sure they've noticed now.

[cambgull]

The biggest problem will be that London have borrowed quite a few Police from other areas to cope with the troubles they are having. What happens if Guildford, Watford (who did have some problems last night), Kingston etc have problems of their own? There are simply not enough Police to go around, especially if it escalates even moreso.

BBC News is quite funny at the moment, just had a big group of people shouting "Where's your broom?" to Boris Johnson. Seems to be a very popular figure, like a ridiculous Mayor Giuliani!

Tonight will be the important night though and a big night for the Police. If they come out in force and take it to the rioters, it will calm down. If they pussy foot their way around and try to solve problems after they've happened, it'll continue.

[cambgull]

That are people who feel disaffected, forgotten and uncared-for with unemployment, cuts to public services, that sort of thing, and a government that seems not to care, or even notice.

Pretty sure they've noticed now.

Couldn't agree more, and these are the people who could cause us quite a lot of trouble because they'll have a reason to do it and will not give up. These kids currently will at least get bored at some point.

EDIT: Possibly the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Hope these girls get turned in for being stupid as well, the bit about the Government being at fault. Genius. They have no idea about the government at all. "Conservatives" "Yeah, whatever, who it is, I dunno".

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