All the same it seems a little too organised...

I don't remember this quote. If it was original, it would be refer to either the Toxteth/Brixton riots of the early 80s or Broadwater Farm. Google isn't giving me much joy

gotcha. Enoch Powell. "Rivers of blood" speech
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivers_of_Blood_speech

+Stu Fleming I think it was the run up to her first election so I'm thinking Michael Foot or James Callaghan. I remember it being repeated by somebody like Skinner when the riots and miner's strikes kicked off.

One of the "Shock Horror" stories being repeated by the BBC is that Twitter-Facebook are being used to loosely coordinate the mob. I'm not at all sure it could be called "organised" but there's no doubt that the mob is self-organised by TXTs, mobile phones and twitter. I'm also sure that the mob is learning how to work in an environment of a limited police force and a key part of that is mobility and rapid movement whether on bicycles, scooters or simply running. Note that the root of "Mob" is "Mobility" and dates to 1680s London. 1680–90; short for Latin mōbile vulgus the movable (i.e., changeable, inconstant) common people.

+Stu Fleming Not what I was thinking of. Powell's speech was during Heath's government and about immigration.

I liked this one from Kinnock in 1983:

If Margaret Thatcher wins on Thursday, I warn you not to be ordinary, I warn you not to be young, I warn you not to fall ill, I warn you not to be old.

Bernie Grant? MP for Tottenham?

I hope Cameron is having a fun holiday in his shared Tuscan villa. I bet he wears his tattoo with pride "What would MT have done?" ;)

Hmmm. http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/08/08/how-blackberry-not-twitter-fuelled-the-fire-under-londons-riots/ "BBM is fast, free and private. It’s also created a ‘shadow social network‘ which is invisible to Police snooping."
http://urbanmashup.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/the-unlikely-social-network-fuelling-the-tottenham-riots/

“The top 1% may have the best houses, educations, and lifestyles, but their fate is bound up with how the other 99% per cent live.” I won’t be at all surprised if we see Middle East style uprisings in the West over the next few years as more and more people start to awaken and realise the economic crimes against humanity that have brought about this ‘colossal inequality’ . Indeed this is the only thing the 1% fear.
http://winningbysharing.typepad.com/oaxaca/2011/08/whats-that-coming-over-the-hill-is-it-another-credit-crunch.html

Not if you work in finance. Bbm all recorded for bank and brokerage workers in the UK I think. But then, they aren't likely the ones looting Tottenham

+Leon Benjamin Careful what you wish for!

As long as you have governments that have greed as one of their core values, I am not surprised if then people go out and loot.

That's where we differ then +M Farber. Regardless of government corruption, looting and stealing from other people suffering under the same government makes you a low life who needs to be taken out back and beaten/shot by vigilantes. (and by you, I mean 'one', not you specifically)

+Kevin Dunseath FFS. IMHO, Vigilante justice is no way to run a civilised society. The days of Judge Roy Bean should be long over.

I submit that when people have decided that looting and burning stores and private buildings is an acceptable form of expression or a legitimate outlet for anti-government angst, your society is no longer civilised.

+Kevin Dunseath I have not condoned the violence I simply stated what I think is not helping. If in this country we had vigilantes that shot people in the street (for whatever reason) I would pack my bags and move elsewhere. I cannot stand any type of violence.

+M Farber well truth be told, I'm not in favour of shooting looters either. Beating some little hoodied supposed anarchist helping himself to a free tv set, I'm a big supporter of, however.

"little hoodied supposed anarchist" You gotta love those cliches and stereotypes.

Yes Julian, because the looters and burners are white-haired old women, aren't they. Good lord, man. Enough with the apologies and enabling. The UK nanny state has mollycoddled and removed personal responsibility and divorced people from the consequences of their actions long enough. Does it really need you doing it too?

Sorry? I'm doing what?

+Chris Walker Twas ever thus. And watch the power play in the aftermath.
The 'organisation' (what ever that is) may have the match, but they still need the powder keg. Last time around, Brixton, Toxteth, Handsworth, Tottenham, weren't exactly organised but there was some organisation. What's different this time around?

Heard a particularly dark view last night. "They were probably in the pawn shop, stealing back their own stuff". Did you hear the story about people breaking into McDonalds in Tottenham High Road and cooking their own burgers? That one's got to be apocryphal, right?

+Julian Bond You're equating rioting about a police shooting and the subsequent taking advantage of that rioting for looting and out of control antics, with some grand political movement.

This looting and burning isn't a political movement aimed at changing a corrupt government. Hell, it isn't even a political statement. To try and suggest that the root of this is Thatcher, Cameron or whatever is, in my opinion, grandiose nonsense.

If you want to burn police cars and attack institutions of government because you feel oppressed, have at it. Leave private property and citizens alone, make your point and you may have widespread support which changes things. Let a gang of yes, hoodied little f_ckwits run around burning and looting for the fun of it, and you won't.

You want to change things in the UK and you think private property should be on the table? Great- leave mom and pop shops alone, and let's start with confiscating the £8 or £10 billion pounds worth of property the Duke of Westminster owns in downtown London. Let's get rid of primogentiture and the outrageous collection of wealth by the tiniest minority in the UK, much of it land-based which keeps the vast majority of people in crappy flats they don't ever own. So crappy that they go out drinking every night rather than go home, and then start burning sh_t whenever there's the slightest opportunity.

IF that was what this was about, then I'd wholeheartedly agree with +Leon Benjamin . But Tottenham is not Tahrir Square.

I think you've misunderstood what I'm trying to say. I'm not equating rioting with some grand political movement. But I am equating Thatcher-ite and now Cameron-Clegg policy with creating the conditions within which riots will tend to occur. This doesn't seem to be something that has a defined political aim the way the miner's or anti-poll tax demonstrations were although the student fee protests perhaps started like that. Mostly this seems to be un-directed and mis-directed anger about "the way things are". And to some extent, central government policy is responsible for "the way things are". At least that's the lie they keep telling us. If you can't understand and try to ignore the bottom 10%, if you treat the bottom 10% with disdain, if your police force appears both capricious and ineffective in how it handles that bottom 10%, if your policies turn the bottom 10% into 20%, the bottom 10% will eventually turn against everything around them and do something stupid.

Perhaps there is some loose knit organisation behind the riots. Maybe they're doing it for the lolz. But it seems to me that the majority of the people actually doing the damage were kids from deprived areas with no future. So why have they got no future? Why are the areas deprived? How did they all end up that way? Where did all that hate come from? And if you can't blame the government for creating those conditions, who can you blame? And more to the point WTF can you do about it, particularly when the people on the ground trying to do something about it just got their budget cut to nothing?

I don't agree with the rioters. I don't support that kind of violence and stupidity in any way. I don't think it helps anything. I'm just not surprised they end up the way they are.

You've sparked an E-riot Julian!

Oh, the irony is almost too much to bear.
Nick Clegg "warns" of riots if Tories are elected (11Apr10)

Still cant +1 individual comments.. tut tut.

Clarification - I would have +1'd the Nick Clegg link.

So.. the Tories shouldn't have been elected, so that the yob/asbo/entitlement culture could just magically go on, I guess, and everybody would be at home with their nans instead of conducting mass muggings, burning private property, looting and massing and over running the police.

So, the problem isn't people with no respect for authority, no fear of consequences for their actions because generations have been raised in a ridiculous nanny state where nobody is accountable for anything, The problem is that the Tories got elected. Interesting.

Because these gentlemen are clearly reacting to Tory monetary and fiscal policy. Their relieving of this bleeding boy of his personal property isn't the act of a selfish band of laughing hyenas, it's a political statement, innit.

London Riots - Scum steal from injured boy.

Sorry Julian, I'm muting this thread. Off home to Bermondsey!