What the hell is going on in the UK?

[Viggen]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14450248

 

 

I am shocked, never expected this from the UK.

I hope all our british members are ok...

 

regards

christian

[Melvadius]

When David Cameron became Prime Minister promising that he would improve on Labour's record a large part of the country didn't think it would take him less than 18 months to have large scale strikes and rioting on the streets - they were wrong

 

More seriously I think most of our regular posting UK members live well away from the trouble spots so should be OK so far. It really depends how much longer the mobs can keep up with their organised looting especially if the police pull their fingers out and round up the relatively small number of agitators who seem to be using facebook and other tweeting media to organise the riots as cover.

[Northern Neil]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14450248

 

I am shocked, never expected this from the UK.

 

...I did. The UK has for decades had a particular problem when it comes to mindless violence. This happened to a lesser degree a few months ago when peaceful protests were hijacked by thugs intent merely on having a good time wrecking as much as they could.

 

Where I live in Lancaster in the North of England I am out of the troubled areas. Nonetheless, Even this quaint, historical market town I live in has its violent undercurrents, and there is no way I would venture out into the town centre on my own after midnight. Students from the local university, theoretically our future teachers, scientists and economists, can regularly be seen drunk, comitting low level vandalism and shouting insults at (usually solitary) individuals who happen to be walking on the same street.

 

Violence at all levels simply seems to be condoned as a fact of life, and particularly the lower level sort (jeering, insults, minor vandalism )seems to be condoned on our media, and even made light of. The most prominent example, of course, being the London 2012 Olympic logo, which was directly inspired by 'Street Graffiti Art' - or put simply, vandalism.

 

Contrast this with my recent experiences walking through Paris and Hamburg, at 02.00, a guitar on my back, without even a suggestion that I would be in danger. This country, if I may use an American idiom, sucks.

Edited August 9, 2011 by Northern Neil

[GhostOfClayton]

Looking back, this sort of thing has been rumbling unstoppably towards us with grim inevitability. Not only financial pressures,. but (more importantly) cuts in services and the social infrastructure have been gradually added, one following another for about a year, and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight. Rightly or wrongly, the perception of the poorer segments of society is that they have had to bare the brunt, with the rich not really affected. Such pressures are always waiting for an outlet, or weak spot, to burst out, and the protest against the shooting of Mark Duggan turned out to be that weak spot.

 

As ever, these events are then taken over by those wishing to spread anarchy and chaos, and fuelled by those seeing an opportunity for risk free aquisition of a big telly.

 

Just as a fire needs heat, oxygen and fuel, a riot needs percieved social injustice (oxygen), elements in society who wish to spark the riot (heat), and those who see benefits once the riots are underway (fuel).

 

I can't help thinking that the dismantling of the country's social infrastructure would have been more palatable if it didn't have a distinct permanence about it - it has gone forever, and I can't see it returning, even in the good times.

Edited August 9, 2011 by GhostOfClayton

[Ursus]

I remember reading "Lord of the Flies" in junior high.

Me: So why are all the boys trapped on the island English?

English teacher: Because English school boys were once considered the epitome of obedience and manners. It makes their descent into savagery seem all the more dramatic.

 

 

Well, I guess those days are over.

 

 

I expect the same thing will happen to us when Social Security expires.

[GhostOfClayton]

I remember reading "Lord of the Flies" in junior high.

 

A thoroughly excellent book.

 

They say that any society is only three meals away from anarchy, and I'm yet to have my lunch! Edgar Rice Burroughs like to use the phrase, "the thin veneer of civilisation" to describe mankind's condition in relation to his more fundamental savage makeup. That veneer is strting to get a little scratched and worn in places.

[Lanista]

Putting it into some sort of socio-political context give it credence than its worth.

 

Thuggery and opportunism, plain and simple - organised on expensive blackberry's, pcs and I-phones, so I doubt its got anything to do with being poor and disaffected.

 

And we're forgetting that rioting is a bit of a laugh. Good fun, smash some stuff up, nick stuff out of Dixons... and not get caught. And stick two fingers up at an impotent police force - clearly, if one of the rioters is hurt or killed, the tactics the police used will be branded "heavy handed" and "inappropriate."

[Melvadius]

I suspect that when Parliament reconvenes to discuss the current problems that various members of the Tory 1922 Committee may well be yelling from the back benches for a return to the good old days of reading the Riot Act

 

From Wikipedia:

 

The Riot Act[1] (1714) (1 Geo.1 St.2 c.5) was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain that authorised local authorities to declare any group of twelve or more people to be unlawfully assembled, and thus have to disperse or face punitive action.

 

Mind you they probably would also have to re-introduce the local Yoemanry out of their foxhunting buddies so they had someone to issue with swords to be used while riding down the local yokels if they failed to disperse. Either that or the police will be 'encouraged' to use their armoured vehicles a bit more ruthlessly against the crowds.

[Northern Neil]

 

I expect the same thing will happen to us when Social Security expires.

I do not believe to the same degree, though. Moral values derided in the UK for decades still seem to be quite prevalent in the US.

[Bryaxis Hecatee]

I'm not really surprised by what we see in the UK, which is still much less than what has happened in France in the past but seems more shocking because it's done in "normal looking" streets instead of HLM. I remember that every time I went to the UK and came a bit late to my hotel, be it in Southampton, Oxford or London, I saw lots of youths completely drunk lying in the streets as early as 6PM : a country that let's it's children go so low is a country in which parents don't educate anymore. And uneducated children are worse than anything one may expect, and unoccupied children (schools are currently closed, holliday time...) means bigger crowd of firebrands availlables for trouble and even bigger crowd of followers...

 

Allow me to finish this by a citation of French S-F writter Bernard Lenteric, whose "Nuit des enfants rois" was recently adapted betrayed into a very bad movie called "prodigies".

 

Je crois profond

[Viggen]

Bestselling articles on Amazon UK, are baseball bats, up by 6,541%

http://www.amazon.co...21&linkCode=ur2

 

thats sales page of Amazon UK is scary right now....

[Aurelia]

Rucanor Aluminium Baseball Bat customer review on Amazon UK:

 

This bat is perfectly weighted and will suit any UK shop-owner looking to protect their property.

 

Thanks to the ergonomic handle, one easy swing should be enough to shatter patellas, skulls or any other bone on your targeted looter. Personally, I would recommend also investing in some fingerless gloves for extra grip.

 

What the...??

[Medusa]

Many years ago I used to live and work in London and it has ever been since my second hometown which I love a lot to come back and visit. So needless to say that I'm shocked by what is happening now there although there have always been part of that city which I avoided.

 

It reminds me though strongly to what have happened a few years ago in the "banlieux" of Paris and other French cities.

[caesar novus]

Moral values derided in the UK for decades still seem to be quite prevalent in the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_mob#Legal_incidents sez that violent flash mobbing has been experienced and dealt with in the US and Germany with enforcement and preventative measures. It said in the UK it was addressed by police "urging" to refrain.

[Lex]

Here's my account:

 

There were massive riots in Ealing last night.

Literally metres from where I live a shop was set on fire as well as the floors above, causing the fires to go right through the roof.

The road was barricaded as several cars and bins were on fire in the street and the rioters smashed open the windows of shops, restaurants and pubs as they looted the shops.

 

One of the cars in the distance exploded, sending out streams of white smoke as the rioters cheered.

I overheard one of the rioters saying how they should 'get' a jewelry store and how she wanted them to 'hit' H&M.

They were quite young and mostly wearing hoodies while some were also wearing masks, I'd say over 95% of them where black with some Asians and whites as well.

 

The whole time I was wondering where the police were?

The windows of a pub was getting smashed and the rioters didn't seem worried at all, most were laughing and cheering and having a good time. They where moving from town to town and I saw some of them comparing pictures on their cell phones and one guy telling them how they should have been in Clapham earlier and how 'crazy' it was. It sounded like a lot of stores where looted.

 

Then some of the rioters started yelling to pull-back, to 'fuckin run'.

I also heard someone shout 'gas' as the smoke thickened but I think it was just the smell of the car that exploded. All the rioters moved quickly from the corner and further down the road while some went across the park in the same direction.

 

They pulled back to the bus stop in my road and I began to see the riot police slowly moving into position, mostly armed with small shields and batons while a few on one of the flanks had larger full-length shields. In the background more police were putting out the fires. You could easily see the police even in the distance because they have a glowing blue light near their shoulder.

 

As they moved to the barricaded area in front of the burned shop, they held position in a straight line but did not move forward.

At the same time a bus was getting it's windows smashed in at the bus stop, it had arrived not too long ago, the driver probably not knowing the road was closed off or what was going on.

After a few minutes I heard cheering and the bus was stolen by some of the rioters as they jerkily drove it with it's smashed out windows around the corner into one of the side streets and set it on fire. Apparently they crashed it into a pole.

 

Not long afterwards two cars were set on fire by the bus stop.

The riot police eventually started moving forwards down the street and across the park and took position. They didn't approach the rioters though, after a few minutes the rioters moved down the road towards South Ealing and smashed some more windows in that area.

The riot police kept reminding each other to check behind them to make sure they wouldn't get surrounded from one of the back roads.

 

After a few minutes a fire truck came down the road, followed by another two more. The cars were still on fire though and were only extinguished once the rioters had left the area.

I only saw one person get arrested, a young Asian guy.

 

Overall, the police did not seem to be stopping anything. They were merely trying to regain control of areas that had already been burned, damaged or looted and to stop further chaos.

They were not willing to engage the rioters even though they could see them causing damage.

Edited August 9, 2011 by Lex