The British Prime Minister has vowed that rioters will pay for what they’ve done, as he addressed Parliament in the wake of clashes that engulfed the country. What started as a peaceful protest against police shooting a man in North London quickly grew into scenes of bedlam. London-based political analyst Sukrat Chandan believes the core of the problem is the lost generation of youth.
Posts Tagged ‘Footlocker’
LONDON RIOTS: 21st Century Wire’s Patrick Henningsen on Russia Today TV
August 10, 201121st Century Wire
August 10, 2011
Editor Patrick Henningsen speaks to RT News about the London and UK riots this week. “Our leadership need to stop playing politics, Labour vs Conservative, and start paying attention to what is happening on the street.”
The Seeds of Sick Britain Were Sown by Cameron’s Own
August 10, 2011By Giles Dexter
21st Century Wire
August 10, 2011
On Wednesday David Cameron finally admitted what many of us have known for some time: that parts of British society – what has come to be known as the ‘underclass’ – are “not just broken, they’re sick.”
Little does the Prime Minister realise that among youth the word “sick”, like the word “wicked”, now means something uber cool. So doubtless the rioters regard the epithet as a compliment.
It’s just one more example of just how appallingly out of touch the almost exclusively privately educated Tory cabinet are with great swathes of those they rule, but certainly don’t represent. They don’t even speak the same language.
THE IRON LADY: “There is no such thing as society, only individuals”.
The knee jerk reaction of a Conservative government when faced with civil strife has always been authoritarianism, their instinct being to demonise and criminalise. They are the ruling class, sustained by the bourgeoisie and the still deferential poor, and they always fight to defend their own. History has observed that save for exalting the market above all other social instruments, British conservatism isn’t really an ideology, it is a cadre of self-interest, whose overriding priority is the maintenance of its own wealth, position, privilege and power. In the current paradigm we are witnessing, it is safe to say that they are out of touch. And therein lie the seeds of the current malaise.
David Cameron is without a doubt the most intelligent and humane Conservative Prime Minister for half a century, now heading the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government, but we have some way to go before he acknowledges that the seeds of sick Britain were sewn in the 1980’s by his sometime idol, Lady Margaret Thatcher. In a remark that immediately revealed her to be Grantham’s answer to the simpleton Chauncey so brilliantly portrayed by Peter Sellers in ‘Being There’, Margaret Thatcher famously declared that there was “no such thing as society, only individuals”(sic).
Her government, and those of her proteges Messrs Major and Blair, took her at her word and between them – bit by bit, piece by piece, set about dismantling the civic, and very civil society that had evolved in Britain through the Great Reform Acts of the 19th century, Women’s Suffrage, Two World Wars and the founding of the modern Welfare State. Where once we all had a stake, now some are excluded. Until privatisation, each and every hoody and every single mum owned a tiny part of the enterprises that brought water to our taps, gas to our cookers and power to our lights, but no more. Where once we could travel around our capital and our country at modest expense on genuinely public transport, we no longer can. Where once education was free, it no longer is. Where we had public service and a common wealth, now we have only self service and private wealth. In a society shorn of any sense of public probity, where wealth distribution is skewed more strongly in favour of the rich (and more specifically the super rich) than in Victorian times and where money, possessions and celebrity are exalted above all and any other aims in life, is it any wonder that the often parentless, badly educated ‘underclass’ want to grab whatever they can ?
The smash and grab culture so unpleasantly displayed on Britain’s streets the last few nights is the unfortunate but inevitable result of a society that divides people sharply into ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ and where even many of the ‘winners’ have recently been unmasked as criminals of a very unpleasant kind. Of the few looters to be interviewed in the media, the overriding impression they give is that since no one cares about them, why should they care about anyone else ? While not overtly politically motivated, there is a more than dim awareness among most that while some banks are deemed too big fail, their government has no such qualms about watching them disappear down the plughole of society.
The millions that will never be an X-factor winner or play for Manchester United had been happy to spend most of the time hypnotised by the circus, but when that spell is broken, as it now is, the social cohesion based on shared values and principles that once held us together is missing.
UK RIOTS: LOOTERS NOW ISSUING LEAFLETS TO SCARE PEOPLE FROM COMING FORWARD
August 9, 2011BREAKING NEWS
By Patrick Henningsen
21st Century Wire
In London
August 9, 2011 – 3:00PM BST (GMT)
After three days of continuous rioting, looting and violence in pockets of the UK that has already claimed millions in property damage, public service costs and some lives, criminals are now issuing street leaflets discouraging culprits and witnesses from coming forward regarding crimes undertaken by youths.
This is one of a number of disturbing new trends that has reared its ugly head since Saturday night’s initial unrest began in Tottenham North London, which soon turned into “Retail Rioting”, as youths between the ages of 12 and 20 years old took to the streets in search of take-away retail prizes. The result was mass violence, theft and arson not seen before on this scale.
It seems that lawlessness knows no bounds.
- DON’T TALK: Criminal issued leaflets on the streets of London are telling culprits to keep a low profile to avoid detection by authorities.
Police are currently combing through thousands of CCTV still images and video footage in an effort to ‘name and shame’ youths embedded in their urdan communities, and hoping to track down vandals who participated in the mass social unrest which has plagued urban areas in London and other areas of the UK this week.
In response to this, shadowy criminal advocates have printed flyers in an attempt to reassure thousands of culprits not to come forward to police even if their digital portraits are show in the media.
On one level, criminals have exposed to oxymoron of the CCTV camera, in that police do not have the manpower or stable of analysts needed to go through and follow-up on so many CCTV leads.
In a bid to out smart the authorities, the flyer is telling looters to “lay low”, “delete dodgy texts”, “change your haircut” and “be careful who you speak to about what happened”.
501 RIOT: A Hackney youth inspects his big prize after a gang raid on clothing store (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)
This level of organisation, normally reserved for political activists and ideological anarchist activities, is a new trend whereby criminals and looters are employing dissemination of advocacy information for the purpose of protecting participants in one of the worst criminal mass demonstrations in modern UK history.
Similar disturbing revelations will no doubt come to light as this story unfolds in the coming days and weeks.
Already authorities are keen to sequester Twitter account details and Blackberry network server logs for BBM texts, in an attempt to catch those involved in propagating and organising retails raids and arson.
What is almost certain is that the actions of these thousands of youths over the last few days will be used to justify further encroachments on every citizen’s rights and privacy in the name of preventing crime. In addition to this, recent events will also push up the price of goods and services, as businesses will not be allowed to operate licensed premises without addition security features and additional insurance.
And as if the timing could not have been worse, amid austerity measures and state budget cuts, public services are, and will be, overstretched in cost, logistical capacity and manpower in order to deal with social unrest on this scale.
All these negative results of public unrest are of course, a massive “own-goal” on the part of teenaged criminals and unemployed rioters, who are themselves cash-strapped and unemployed, and naturally they will each be dependent on the state for benefits and social security. Indeed, many of those participating in the riots will be queueing up at the DSS Job Centre tomorrow morning in hopes of collecting their free fortnightly government allowance.
Sadly, few of the disaffected youth are likely to be interested in their “society” anymore, much less their futures.
–
ANARCHY IN BRIXTON: COPYCAT RIOTS AND VIOLENCE BREAKS OUT IN SOUTH LONDON
August 8, 2011BREAKING NEWS
By Patrick Henningsen
21st Century Wire
August 8, 2011 – 2:00AM GMT
Less than 24 hours after riots broke in Tottenham, North London last night, a series of random incidents involving local youths snowballed into general riots in Brixton, South London Sunday evening and into Monday morning.
Yesterday Brixton hosted its annual carnival, the Brixton Splash, in its sixth year, an event which saw over 30,000 people in attendance. Shortly after the event finished at 7:00pm GMT, a series of sporadic incidents between local youths and police escalated into pockets of rioting, burning and looting around central Brixton.
BRIXTON: The 1981 riots remain a pivotal event for the area, still considered one of the worst incidents of social unrest in the UK (PHOTO by Kim Aldis).
Following the dispersal of a number of gangs from the downtown area, groups of youths began to fan out into the surrounding area from 11:00PM.
Eyewitness reports put looting and vandalism as far out as neighboring town centre, Streatham High Road, where JD Sports retail outlet was vandalised and looted by gangs of youths.
At 1:ooAM this morning, this reporter witnessed one gang of seven hooded youths attempting to barricade a major egress out of Brixton, on Stockwell Road, pushing rubbish bins into the road in order to stop traffic passing through. The gang proceeded to hurl missiles at passing vehicles and attempt a series of car-jackings on drivers, as well as attacks on other pedestrians who were trying to head away from the violence in central Brixton. We can report that one man was seen beaten and left in the middle of road by the marauding gang as they headed towards Stockwell Station.
Live footage taken of gangs hitting Footlocker store in downtown Brixton.
Footage of Brixton High Street fires and riot police on the scene.
Local resident Michael Martins described the evening’s events, “It was complete anarchy downtown. They were fortunate that there was already a large police presence for the festival. We’ll see tomorrow if this one was as bad as the 1981 and 1985 Brixton Riots. It’s going to set the area back for sure.”
Eyewitness reports from residents described a number of shops and businesses including T-Mobile, Footlocker, Currys electronics on Effra Road and businesses situated along Coldharbour Lane, all of which were looted with some set alight by seemingly unorganised, random mobs of local youths.
Local police were inundated with 999 calls regarding incidents, attacks on passers-by and violence throughout the night, and in many cases the police were unable to attend to emergencies which were happening throughout the area.
Similar outbreaks of violence were reported elsewhere in London tonight, including Enfield, Wood Green, as well as reports of some incidents in London’s West End. Police are blaming “copycats” and “opportunistic” petty criminals for looting and vandalism incidents tonight.
Friday night’s rioting in Tottenham North London began after an armed police officer shot dead a man after stopping a mini-cab. According to police, the victim was a suspect in an Operation Trident investigation.
Stay tuned to 21st Century Wire for further reports on this event.
–
21st Century Wire 