AIBU to ask what you think about Boris' statement that

[joric]

'we need to hear less about the sociological justifications for criminality...'
In answer to him, I would say both yes and no.

Also, were the crowd chanting 'where's your brain' or 'where's your brush' at him?

I know what he means. It's very tempting to draw straight lines between poverty and criminality but we can all point to extremely honest people living on the breadline. However, there is a sociological problem beyond poverty which is infecting London more generally, by which I mean the gang/sub/drug culture that is responsible for so many deaths. That has never been successfully tackled and a good mayor would be looking at places like New York's zero tolerance policies for inspiration.

I agree, I think by 'sociological justifications' he is talking about poverty.
I agree with others that the majority of these actions were fuelled by greed and a complete disregard for authority full stop.
The mindless intent was to cause mayhem and 'for the hell of it'.
They knew that they were not going to be stopped and so they set out to steal and vandalise.
The 'sociological justifications' are complex but poverty? I don't know.

I love boris. He is hilarious. Ithin they wanted to get him cleaning so gave him the brush.

At the moment we just need to stop the bastards. BUT in the long run we need to stop it happening again. To do that, we need to take a long hard look at our country.

I've posted on another thread about this.

Examining any underlying reasons - not least what has failed in social policies over the last 14-20 years to produce a cohort like this - is vital for prevention.

But that's a long term task, and while disturbances are set to continue, is all too easily muddled up with the apologists. It's right to avoid this - it clouds the proper, evidence based debate which we need in slower time.

In the short term, we need to concentrate on getting it stopped. And yes - bringing every single criminal to justice for their actions. We would be storing up more trouble if there were a cohort who committed theft, criminal damage, arson, and beat a 67 year old to within an inch of his life, and did not receive the were consequences.

Bloody Boris. Utterly useless. The kids are all at the police station unrepresented, being video linked to court, getting a 6 month sentence each and dispensed to prison on the double.