NFR - Riots in North London

[JBH]

Well, I recognize the need to blow off steam here, and I recognize that -- inevitably -- this steam comes in the form of "them and us" and a fairly clear indication of just who the "them" is. What I'm also seeing is that I must have had horrible parents and parenting myself, seeing as how I am -- evidently -- the only FofF poster who EVER ran the streets at night, who EVER got into fights while doing so, and who EVER caused a bit of damage to property in the process. Everyone who has ever gotten into a bit of a rumble knows that whether it remained small or blew into something requiring a lot of poliice intervention wasn't down to the choice of any one individual involved. These things tend to blow up.

Either I must be the only "us" who has ever so transgressed in his youth, or perhaps I'm actually a "them."

Please, y'all continue to blow off steam -- even those who evidently prefer an England manned at night by fully armed police with "shoot-to-kill" guidance. I'm going to give this thread a permanent rest. There's just only so much hate I can put up with.

Here's hoping that none of you is negatively affected by this senseless lawlessness, and that it ends soon. I'm gone.

There is trangressing as you put it and total mindless lawless looting and rioting, if you have been involved in the later then you like the youths over the past few nights are a waste of skin.

Having a ruck is part of growing up, setting buildings on fire, looting shops and scaring Old people sensless is totally unacceptable

So which were you an adolesant youth or a total thug?

[mccscratch]

Well, I recognize the need to blow off steam here, and I recognize that -- inevitably -- this steam comes in the form of "them and us" and a fairly clear indication of just who the "them" is. What I'm also seeing is that I must have had horrible parents and parenting myself, seeing as how I am -- evidently -- the only FofF poster who EVER ran the streets at night, who EVER got into fights while doing so, and who EVER caused a bit of damage to property in the process. Everyone who has ever gotten into a bit of a rumble knows that whether it remained small or blew into something requiring a lot of poliice intervention wasn't down to the choice of any one individual involved. These things tend to blow up.

Either I must be the only "us" who has ever so transgressed in his youth, or perhaps I'm actually a "them."

Please, y'all continue to blow off steam -- even those who evidently prefer an England manned at night by fully armed police with "shoot-to-kill" guidance. I'm going to give this thread a permanent rest. There's just only so much hate I can put up with.

Here's hoping that none of you is negatively affected by this senseless lawlessness, and that it ends soon. I'm gone.

HD... I am certain that plenty of us were involved in late night mischief in our day but I really doubt that anyone on here ever fire-bombed someone's little shop in our very own communities or just busted through the window and willingly stole $100s to $1000s of dollars worth of goods... Intelligent and involved parents rarely have children that do major crimes like this...

I fully agree that a good bit of this is, "my mate is doing it and I can't be the only sissy of the bunch" but I can guarantee that my parents would have been unbearably ashamed of me whereas it seems that the parents of these kids could care less...

[ImperialWhite]

@JBH
@mccscratch

HatterDon clearly isn't arguing that it's OK what these kids are doing. He's saying that as idiotic youngsters (i.e. most of us young people) most people tend to do stupid things and let events get carried away from us. Because they're young and stupid. I'm sure we can all sympathise with this (not with rioting, but with doing wrong things that we later regret).

For that reason, he argues, it wouldn't be a very nice world we lived in if to prevent youngsters doing silly things, we were to live in a police state in which a para-military police shot transgressors on sight. A world with execution without trial, basically. That's what he's saying.

(I wouldn't want to put words in his mouth, but I'm also sure he'd argue that it wouldn't be a very nice world to live in if the crimes of youth were punishable by death).

[JBH]

@JBH
@mccscratch

HatterDon clearly isn't arguing that it's OK what these kids are doing. He's saying that as idiotic youngsters (i.e. most of us young people) most people tend to do stupid things and let events get carried away from us. Because they're young and stupid. I'm sure we can all sympathise with this (not with rioting, but with doing wrong things that we later regret).

For that reason, he argues, it wouldn't be a very nice world we lived in if to prevent youngsters doing silly things, we were to live in a police state in which a para-military police shot transgressors on sight. A world with execution without trial, basically. That's what he's saying.

(I wouldn't want to put words in his mouth, but I'm also sure he'd argue that it wouldn't be a very nice world to live in if the crimes of youth were punishable by death).

Yes but there is being stupid and being dangerous, these wankers are the later and the fact that they are a bunch of thickies doesn't make them poor misguided youths their actions over the past few nights make them criminals who need a serious jolt of reality prehaps the way forward is to bring back Borstals? or would that also be against their human rights.

[Logicalman]

I think I would be shorting London insurance companies right now. There the ones ultimately going to be responsible for the damage and theft to these storefronts, burnt up autos, and damaged buildings. Can you imagine how much theyre going to end up paying out? Just hope the small shops were able to stay current with their premiums beforehand.

And in the intermediate term, once things get back to normal, whos going to be buying goods in these areas? There going to be a steep drop in demand. Hopefully the shop owners are able to keep afloat for a few months after this.

Actually, I believe the bill will be sent to The Bill.

It's a Victorian law that deals with riots - if the police things get out of control, they pay for it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/insurance/8690876/UK-riots-insurers-will-pay-claims-then-recover-money-from-the-police.html

UK riots: insurers 'will pay claims then recover money from the police'
Britain's police forces could face a bill for tens of millions of pounds from insurance companies because property was damaged in the rioting while the "police effectively failed to keep law and order".

Grahame Trudgill, the head of corporate affairs for the British Insurance Brokers' Association (Biba), said insurance companies had the right to reclaim the money under the Riot Damages Act of 1886.

Unfortunately they didn't actually tell the whole story .. as this act was amended by the Police Act 1964, which appears to indicate the the local council would be considered the 'Compensation Authority' in cases where ' in relation to a district for which the police authority is a committee of the council of a county or borough, that council;' Thus, it may indicate that where the local council is the Police Authority committee, which I believe is the case in some boroughs, then the money might be coming out of their coffers.

In either case, whether the initial point of payment is supposed to be the Police Authority or the district Receiver, it is the taxpayers that will be made to pay.

[LordNelson]

Well, I recognize the need to blow off steam here, and I recognize that -- inevitably -- this steam comes in the form of "them and us" and a fairly clear indication of just who the "them" is. What I'm also seeing is that I must have had horrible parents and parenting myself, seeing as how I am -- evidently -- the only FofF poster who EVER ran the streets at night, who EVER got into fights while doing so, and who EVER caused a bit of damage to property in the process. Everyone who has ever gotten into a bit of a rumble knows that whether it remained small or blew into something requiring a lot of poliice intervention wasn't down to the choice of any one individual involved. These things tend to blow up.

Either I must be the only "us" who has ever so transgressed in his youth, or perhaps I'm actually a "them."

Please, y'all continue to blow off steam -- even those who evidently prefer an England manned at night by fully armed police with "shoot-to-kill" guidance. I'm going to give this thread a permanent rest. There's just only so much hate I can put up with.

Here's hoping that none of you is negatively affected by this senseless lawlessness, and that it ends soon. I'm gone.

I think this article sums up best the difference between the young & dumb HD of yesteryear and the yobs of today:

Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of amoral, uneducated, welfare dependent, brutalised youngsters

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2024284/UK-riots-2011-Liberal-dogma-spawned-generation-brutalised-youths.html

[jarv]

I am in Mr. Hatter's camp. Enough is enough. I have to say however, that it wasn't just a ruck back in the day, nor was it thickies. Back in the 60s the mods v rockers, some really nasty stuff went on. Seaside towns smashed and boarded up. Running battles with police etc. I and many of my friends were there. Today, those same mates run their own businesses and work at regular jobs.(The film, quadrophenia, based in Brighton on a bank holiday week-end, I was there :028:) Now if you add the fact that life was good and we had nothing to complain about, brings what we did into perspective compared to kids today who have no future.

We really did do it for no good reason whatsoever. OK, we didn't loot but we stole a lot of stuff form shops. What's the difference.

So, that's my last input on this one.,  Apart from one thing. I also went to Grovesnor square on Sunday to throw stuff at the yanks, chanting hey LBJ how many kids you kill today. Sorry, American Fof posters! 075.gif

[Lighthouse]

What's the difference? Mods and Rockers were gangs who hated each other. Violence, like football violence was nasty. But few wanted their parents to find out and few thought being arrested was a badge of honour. Few gangs stole from their own community on this scale and few burnt down buildings and killed people for protecting their stuff. Or helped people only to mug them.

Sorry I believe that people are stupid and sub human who did this. Poorly educated or too protected? When I was a kid, a knife was drawn at me at school. People around laughed at the kid with the knife. It was a cowards weapon. The kid with the knife was shamed. Now these people make excuses and complain of being poor. They can afford bikes and phones and Blackberry thingies and Sky.

However much we pretend these people are not that different. The fact is they are.

The thread is rightly coming to a natural death. Thanks to the Mods for allowing it to continue and to everybody for not going too over the top with comments. A good debate.

[The Bronsons]

OK, we didn't loot but we stole a lot of stuff form shops. What's the difference.

The difference is that these people are burning buildings to cover the theft of trainers and phones they can't use. People lose their shops. The people in the flats above the shops lose their homes, their possessions, everything.

Like most on here I've had my moments in the past, and as a result I'm usually fairly forgiving. I even consider myself left wing in sympathy. But gangs turning up in cars, filling up buckets with petrol, running guys down in the street and starting fires to draw the police so they can loot a shop somewhere else - that's a different league to gang-on-gang battles at the seaside and a few broken windows.

[finnster01]

I tell you one thing, this has certainly not helped the younger generation.

So I have shut down my London business and taken what was left to the US. But while I was still up and running I always made a point to hire a young lad out of school with no university education and try to give him a career or at least steer him in the right direction. It turned out to work very well for all parties.

If I still had my London business, I am not so sure I would have had continued with that program anymore. Would have had to have a real long think over it.

I don't think they have a clue to how much they have done to destroy what ever little belief I had in our knife wielding youth in the first place. Old England is dying.

[Logicalman]

@JBH
@mccscratch

HatterDon clearly isn't arguing that it's OK what these kids are doing. He's saying that as idiotic youngsters (i.e. most of us young people) most people tend to do stupid things and let events get carried away from us. Because they're young and stupid. I'm sure we can all sympathise with this (not with rioting, but with doing wrong things that we later regret).

For that reason, he argues, it wouldn't be a very nice world we lived in if to prevent youngsters doing silly things, we were to live in a police state in which a para-military police shot transgressors on sight. A world with execution without trial, basically. That's what he's saying.

(I wouldn't want to put words in his mouth, but I'm also sure he'd argue that it wouldn't be a very nice world to live in if the crimes of youth were punishable by death).

Sorry, if that was the message, then it was lost amongst the overstatements made - "even those who evidently prefer an England manned at night by fully armed police with "shoot-to-kill" guidance" is extremely disingenuous to other posters on here that have made very valid points. To even THINK that the Police would be armed in total is not just poor, but total scaremongering. It may not be a very well-known fact but every year the Police federation ask this questions of the Officers in England, and every year, without fail, there is a resounding NO, usually in the 80-90% range. And your assumption of his meaning "the crimes of youth were punishable by death" gives credence to this overstatement, and fantasizing.

I got in plenty of trouble in my youth, fights and minor thefts were rampant where I grew up, but I do not recall ever smashing a shop window, or setting fire to shops or apartments with residents still in them, or taking on the old bill, wearing ski masks to hide my face. And yes, I got my fair beatings from the Police as well. These are the actions of internal terrorism (No overstatement there - look up the meaning), where the local or national population are terrified to take any action for fear of intimidation or violence, and what's actually worse than the terrorism, it's for no better ideals than pure greed. The only statement these yobs wish to make is that they can do and take whatever they want without fear of lilly law doing anything about it, because if a copper was to meter out some deserved punishment, then he sees his pension disappear and faces jail, under the old rule 43 conditions - whilst the miscreants get off with fines they won't pay from their welfare and community service that is never enforced.

So please, don't give me this hardship crap, cos that's what it is. I agree that society has helped in so many ways to contribute to the way these yobbos are, but at the end of the day, perhaps a shoot-to-kill policy would be best, put them out of their own and everyone else's misery, unfortunately (though it won't be done by the CIVILIAN Police Force)

[Logicalman]

I tell you one thing, this has certainly not helped the younger generation.

I don't think they have a clue to how much they have done to destroy what ever little belief I had in our knife wielding youth in the first place. Old England is dying.

Got to be honest Finn, England was poisoned many decades ago (Powell got it right in his infamous speech of '68), it's just taken this long for what's left of it to be ridden with vermin and insects of the kind we see each night hooded and violent, while the decent part of society tries to keep it going. It will take a very string medicine to bring England back to where it truly should be and where the real society deserves to be. Unfortunately we seem to have a number of junior doctors on call that know little about their own moral values and more about their own greed.

[clintclintdeuce]

I tell you one thing, this has certainly not helped the younger generation.

So I have shut down my London business and taken what was left to the US. But while I was still up and running I always made a point to hire a young lad out of school with no university education and try to give him a career or at least steer him in the right direction. It turned out to work very well for all parties.

If I still had my London business, I am not so sure I would have had continued with that program anymore. Would have had to have a real long think over it.

I don't think they have a clue to how much they have done to destroy what ever little belief I had in our knife wielding youth in the first place. Old England is dying.

Mate, I would do pretty much anything to be able to have the aprroval of the UK govt to work and live in England. I have sent hundreds of resumes over the years, and the closest I can get is my precious 3 days when I come over to see the Super Whites play. What those kids that are rioting have, the chance to live and WORK in London, is something I envy. They dont know what they have, and dont know what theyre throwing away.

[Jimbobob]

Well, I recognize the need to blow off steam here, and I recognize that -- inevitably -- this steam comes in the form of "them and us" and a fairly clear indication of just who the "them" is. What I'm also seeing is that I must have had horrible parents and parenting myself, seeing as how I am -- evidently -- the only FofF poster who EVER ran the streets at night, who EVER got into fights while doing so, and who EVER caused a bit of damage to property in the process. Everyone who has ever gotten into a bit of a rumble knows that whether it remained small or blew into something requiring a lot of poliice intervention wasn't down to the choice of any one individual involved. These things tend to blow up.

Either I must be the only "us" who has ever so transgressed in his youth, or perhaps I'm actually a "them."

Please, y'all continue to blow off steam -- even those who evidently prefer an England manned at night by fully armed police with "shoot-to-kill" guidance. I'm going to give this thread a permanent rest. There's just only so much hate I can put up with.

Here's hoping that none of you is negatively affected by this senseless lawlessness, and that it ends soon. I'm gone.

I think this article sums up best the difference between the young & dumb HD of yesteryear and the yobs of today:

Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of amoral, uneducated, welfare dependent, brutalised youngsters

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2024284/UK-riots-2011-Liberal-dogma-spawned-generation-brutalised-youths.html

Lord Nelson:
Thanks for posting the article. I saw it today and wanted to post the link but not being a native decided against it.
As I have mentioned we are heading down the same path in the states at a very fast rate.

[Burt]

Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of amoral, uneducated, welfare dependent, brutalised youngsters

By Max Hastings

A few weeks after the U.S. city of Detroit was ravaged by 1967 race riots in which 43 people died, I was shown around the wrecked areas by a black  reporter named Joe Strickland. He said: 'Don't you believe all that stuff people here are giving media folk about how sorry they are about what happened. When they talk to each other, they say: "It was a great fire, man!" '

I am sure that is what many of the young rioters, black and white, who have burned and looted in England through the past few shocking nights think today.

It was fun. It made life interesting. It got people to notice them. As a girl looter told a BBC reporter, it showed 'the rich' and the police that 'we can do what we like'.

If you live a normal life of absolute futility, which we can assume most of this week's rioters do, excitement of any kind is welcome. The people who wrecked swathes of property, burned vehicles and terrorised communities have no moral compass to make them susceptible to guilt or shame. Most have no jobs to go to or exams they might pass. They know no family role models, for most live in homes in which the father is unemployed, or from which he has decamped. They are illiterate and innumerate, beyond maybe some dexterity with computer games and BlackBerries. They are essentially wild beasts. I use that phrase advisedly, because it seems appropriate to young people bereft of the discipline that might make them employable; of the conscience that distinguishes between right and wrong. They respond only to instinctive animal impulses — to eat and drink, have sex, seize or destroy the accessible property of others. Their behaviour on the streets resembled that of the polar bear which attacked a Norwegian tourist camp last week. They were doing what came naturally and, unlike the bear, no one even shot them for it. A former London police chief spoke a few years ago about the 'feral children' on his patch — another way of describing the same reality.

The depressing truth is that at the bottom of our society is a layer of young people with no skills, education, values or aspirations. They do not have what most of us would call 'lives': they simply exist.  Nobody has ever dared suggest to them that they need feel any allegiance to anything, least of all Britain or their community. They do not watch royal weddings or notice Test matches or take pride in being Londoners or Scousers or Brummies. Not only do they know nothing of Britain's past, they care nothing for its present. They have their being only in video games and street-fights, casual drug use and crime, sometimes petty, sometimes serious.

The notions of doing a nine-to-five job, marrying and sticking with a wife and kids, taking up DIY or learning to read properly, are beyond their imaginations.

Last week, I met a charity worker who is trying to help a teenage girl in East London to get a life for herself. There is a difficulty, however: 'Her mother wants her to go on the game.' My friend explained: 'It's the money, you know.'

An underclass has existed throughout history, which once endured appalling privation. Its spasmodic outbreaks of violence, especially in the early 19th century, frightened the ruling classes. Its frustrations and passions were kept at bay by force and draconian legal sanctions, foremost among them capital punishment and transportation to the colonies.

Today, those at the bottom of society behave no better than their forebears, but the welfare state has relieved them from hunger and real want. When social surveys speak of 'deprivation' and 'poverty', this is entirely relative. Meanwhile, sanctions for wrongdoing have largely vanished.

When Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith recently urged employers to take on more British workers and fewer migrants, he was greeted with a hoarse laugh. Every firm in the land knows that an East European — for instance — will, first, bother to turn up; second, work harder; and third, be better-educated than his or her British counterpart.

Who do we blame for this state of affairs?

Ken Livingstone, contemptible as ever, declares the riots to be a result of the Government's spending cuts. This recalls the remarks of the then leader of Lambeth Council, 'Red Ted' Knight, who said after the 1981 Brixton riots that the police in his borough 'amounted to an army of occupation'. But it will not do for a moment to claim the rioters' behaviour reflects deprived circumstances or police persecution. Of course it is true that few have jobs, learn anything useful at school, live in decent homes, eat meals at regular hours or feel loyalty to anything beyond their local gang.
This is not, however, because they are victims of mistreatment or neglect. It is because it is fantastically hard to help such people, young or old, without imposing a measure of compulsion  which modern society finds  unacceptable. These kids are what they are because nobody makes them be anything different or better.

A key factor in delinquency is lack of effective sanctions to deter it. From an early stage, feral children discover that they can bully fellow pupils at school, shout abuse at people in the streets, urinate outside pubs, hurl litter from car windows, play car radios at deafening volumes, and, indeed, commit casual assaults with only a negligible prospect of facing rebuke, far less retribution.
John Stuart Mill wrote in his great 1859 essay On Liberty: 'The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people.' Yet every day up and down the land, this vital principle of civilised societies is breached with impunity. Anyone who reproaches a child, far less an adult, for discarding rubbish, making a racket, committing vandalism or driving unsociably will receive in return a torrent of obscenities, if not violence.

So who is to blame?

The breakdown of families, the pernicious promotion of single motherhood as a desirable state, the decline of domestic life so that even shared meals are a rarity, have all contributed importantly to the condition of the young underclass. The social engineering industry unites to claim that the conventional template of family life is no longer valid. And what of the schools? I  do not think they can be blamed for the creation of a grotesquely self-indulgent, non-judgmental culture. This has ultimately been sanctioned by Parliament, which refuses to accept, for instance, that children are more likely to prosper with two parents than with one, and that the dependency culture is a tragedy for those who receive something for nothing. The judiciary colludes with social services and infinitely ingenious lawyers to assert the primacy of the rights of the criminal and aggressor over those of law-abiding citizens, especially if a young offender is involved. The police, in recent years, have developed a reputation for ignoring yobbery and bullying, or even for taking the yobs' side against complainants. 'The problem,' said Bill Pitt, the former head of Manchester's Nuisance Strategy Unit, 'is that the law appears to be there to protect the rights of the perpetrator, and does not support the victim.' Police regularly arrest householders who are deemed to have taken 'disproportionate' action to protect themselves and their property from burglars or intruders. The message goes out that criminals have little to fear from 'the feds'. Figures published earlier this month show that a majority of 'lesser' crimes — which include burglary and car theft, and which cause acute distress to their victims — are never investigated, because forces think it so unlikely they will catch the perpetrators.
H
ow do you inculcate values in a child whose only role model is footballer Wayne Rooney — a man who is bereft of the most meagre human graces? How do you persuade children to renounce bad language when they hear little else from stars on the BBC? A teacher, Francis Gilbert, wrote five years ago in his book Yob Nation: 'The public feels it no longer has the right to interfere.' Discussing the difficulties of imposing sanctions for misbehaviour or idleness at school, he described the case of a girl pupil he scolded for missing all her homework deadlines. The youngster's mother, a social worker, telephoned him and said: 'Threatening to throw my daughter off the A-level course because she hasn't done some work is tantamount to psychological abuse, and there is legislation which prevents these sorts of threats. 'I believe you are trying to harm my child's mental well-being, and may well take steps . . . if you are not careful.' That story rings horribly true. It reflects a society in which teachers have been deprived of their traditional right to arbitrate pupils' behaviour. Denied power, most find it hard to sustain respect, never mind control.

I never enjoyed school, but, like most children until very recent times, did the work because I knew I would be punished if I did not. It would never have occurred to my parents not to uphold my  teachers' authority. This might have been unfair to some pupils, but it was the way schools functioned for centuries, until the advent of crazy 'pupil rights'. I recently received a letter from a teacher who worked in a county's pupil referral unit, describing appalling difficulties in enforcing discipline. Her only weapon, she said, was the right to mark a disciplinary cross against a child's name for misbehaviour. Having repeatedly and vainly asked a 15-year-old to stop using obscene language, she said: 'Fred, if you use language like that again, I'll give you a cross.' He replied: 'Give me an effing cross, then!' Eventually, she said: 'Fred, you have three crosses now. You must miss your next break.' He answered: 'I'm not missing my break, I'm going for an effing fag!' When she appealed to her manager, he said: 'Well, the boy's got a lot going on at home at  the moment. Don't be too hard  on him.' This is a story repeated daily in schools up and down the land.

A century ago, no child would have dared to use obscene language in class. Today, some use little else. It symbolises their contempt for manners and decency, and is often a foretaste of delinquency.
If a child lacks sufficient respect to address authority figures politely, and faces no penalty for failing to do so, then other forms of abuse — of property and person — come naturally.

So there we have it: a large, amoral, brutalised sub-culture of young British people who lack education because they have no will to learn, and skills which might make them employable. They are too idle to accept work waitressing or doing domestic labour, which is why almost all such jobs are filled by immigrants. They have no code of values to dissuade them from behaving anti-socially or, indeed, criminally, and small chance of being punished if they do so. They have no sense of responsibility for themselves, far less towards others, and look to no future beyond the next meal, sexual encounter or TV football game. They are an absolute deadweight upon society, because they contribute nothing yet cost the taxpayer billions. Liberal opinion holds they are victims, because society has failed to provide them with opportunities to develop their potential. Most of us would say this is nonsense. Rather, they are victims of a perverted social ethos, which elevates personal freedom to an absolute, and denies the underclass the discipline — tough love — which alone might enable some of its members to escape from the swamp of dependency in which they live.

Only education — together with politicians, judges, policemen and teachers with the courage to force feral humans to obey rules the rest of us have accepted all our lives — can provide a way forward and a way out for these people.

They are products of a culture which gives them so much unconditionally that they are let off learning how to become human beings. My dogs are better behaved and subscribe to a higher code of values than the young rioters of Tottenham, Hackney, Clapham and Birmingham. Unless or until those who run Britain introduce incentives for decency and impose penalties for bestiality which are today entirely lacking, there will never be a shortage of young rioters and looters such as those of the past four nights, for whom their monstrous excesses were 'a great fire, man'.

[sipwell]

Lol. I never thought that laughable, distorted Hastings article would make it onto FoF. Using single examples as pars pro toto. LOL I actually take personal offense in the blame on "values", as they completely distort what these values stand for.

Anyway: my blood boils already. Not going to participate in this discussion!

[ron]

Laughable? I think that article identifies exactly the plight that our society is in.

I only hope that the descent into decadence and idleness is not a feature of all societies, as it was for the Romans and others in history. Otherwise the post-industrial age in Britain won't consist of high tech industries and wealth for all....just ignorance and mob law.

[Logicalman]

Laughable? You're 'aving a larf, ain't you?

Though sometimes overstated, the thrust of the article appears spot on, and lays the blame where it needs to be, on society in general and the yobbos themselves in particular. I don't agree with everything that's stated, but it's the closest i've seen thus far dealing with the underlying causes and congratulate Burt on posting it. Thanks, and if anyone else have such articles that argues their authors pov rather than soundbites, or laying blame on institutions alone, then please post them.

[Peabody]

I fully understand and condenm what has occurred over thepast few days. However, why am I not hearing equal condemnation towards the bankers, the insurance companies, who will use every trick in the book to avoid paying out to all the claimants. Yes these thugs were committing robbery but are'nt the banks and insurance companies doing this regularly?

[Logicalman]

I fully understand and condenm what has occurred over thepast few days. However, why am I not hearing equal condemnation towards the bankers, the insurance companies, who will use every trick in the book to avoid paying out to all the claimants. Yes these thugs were committing robbery but are'nt the banks and insurance companies doing this regularly?

I agree there Mr P.
Perhaps a good thing is the PM has just announced they will make good any genuine claims via the Police/Authority process. So, the same way they got the bail out just a few years ago, they might not baulk so much at paying out, because it won't actually cost them a penny in the end.