Enfield riots?

[Empusa]

Just seen on Twitter and in a few articles like this, that there are meant to be plans for a riot in Enfield tonight and riot police are in the town centre?

Used to live there, and got family there (luckily a fair distance from the centre), but fucking hell! What the hell is going on?

I live in an area of high unemployment in Gateshead, i got brought up in the same area and i had a lot less then my kids. We were lucky if we got 3 square meals a day. We had crappy clothes. We didnt riot and we didnt expect are mothers to bend over backwards to buy us stuff. We also played out and had 4 channels on the tele which didnt show what is shown today. We had a spectrum with Dizzy on not grand theft auto. Singers didnt parade around in next to nothing singing grafically about sex.

IMO the youth of today have been brought up completely differently to what we were, wether they have been brought up in poverty or wealth.

working 9while5, well it seemed you addressed your comment to me about "nailing your colours to the mast and blaming the black kids".

I wasn't. I didn't even call the rioters thick. I do despise people who don't respect other people's property though, whatever colour they are, and won't apologise for that.

It has absolutely NOTHING to do with race. A thug is a thug. A friend of mine lives near Croydon and she said that there were people of all races participating in the riots.
The problem is that we live in a society where young people have been allowed to get away with disgraceful behaviour in school,at home etc. They therefore have this sense of entitlement .
They don't fear the police, they don't fear their teachers, they don't fear their parents.

this from kungfu - and bumpsoon thanks for the laugh - S.H.I.T.

kungfupannda Tue 09-Aug-11 09:14:23
This isn't political and it has nothing to do with the police shooting. I was in Brixton yesterday trying to get access to my office and there were people gathered all over the place talking about it - people saying they knew some of the people involved. I spoke to a couple of solicitors yesterday who had regular clients who had been arrested. The people smashing up small businesses and burning the homes of low income families are people who have probably never had a political thought cross their minds. They see an opportunity for mob violence and getting one over on the police, and they see an opportunity for profit.

People were turning up in vans to loot electrical stores in Brixton. PC World in Tottenham was emptied and people were selling laptops for a tenner to other rioters in the middle of the carnage. I saw news footage today with a teenager pointing at Debenhams in Clapham and shouting "lets get some watches".

I don't think most of us realised just how far things had slid in terms of social conscience and general values - now we do. Dressing it up with fancy political motives and using it as a chance for a pop at an unpopular government (whichever government you choose to blame) is just masking a real, deep problem in society. It is also a luxury which the people living in the middle of all this carnage simply don't have. People on the streets of Brixton weren't standing around saying "well of course I blame the Libdem policy on xyz issue", I can assure you!

Forehead has it spot on.

The kids who used to behave disgracefully round us were absolutely OUTRAGED if you dared to tell them off for disrespecting you or your property.

If that isn't a sense of entitlement I don't know what is.

Can someone from London answer a question for me please is Beckton affected by this. We are booked to take the dcs up to London for a week staying in the premier inn Beckton. I'm trying to decided weather to go or not but haven't heared Beckton mentioned thanks.

Stay safe everyone

I agree Fanjo. I think some of these people - I hesitate to say kids as plenty were well into their twenties and even beyond - have too much rather than too little. Too many foundations, charities, support workers, social workers, mentors, do gooders, hand wringers and apologists telling them that's it's OK to commit a crime if you've had it tough, if your dad wasn't around, if you live on an estate, if you're skint. It isn't OK. It is never, NEVER OK.

You can take any point in history and find a group of people who are up for a good fight.

If this is political, what exactly is it that the looters are fighting for? "I am taking this laptop from this store because there isn't enough computer access at my local library?"or "If only some inspirational teacher had inspired me I would have known how to apply for a library card" or "I am burning this building as a comment on depleting energy resources".

I agree that being bored and disconnected from society increases the likelihood of violent unrest, but I think this is mob mentality fuelled by mobile phones. They are doing this because it gives them a rush. Perhaps if they had a bit more money, they would have joined the Bullingdon club or if they had been around in the eighties they could have got into football hooliganism.

However the idea that some big amorphous 'them' had the power to make everything better, but failed and this caused the current riots is nuts. Maybe I'm out of touch with youth, but some people appear to be out of touch with what the human beings who make up the government, police, civil service, social services and education system have it in their power to do.

The UK isn't perfect, but was it better when we had work houses, or people were rounded up off the streets to join the navy, or when a third of the population were wiped out by the black death? (Of course, there were riots then too). Are there better countries to live in? Is there some point of niceness we can reach where people who enjoy riots say "OK everything is just lovely, I no longer enjoy having a ruck?".

Political motivation?

Oh yeah, I can see that is apparent from the way they've

• burnt down a furniture shop
• broken into an old ladies home
• smashed up small independent shops
• walked away with loads of loot

It's just a bunch of chav halfwits out to cause trouble.

The same sort who used to stand outside our flat and throw bottles at buildings.
The same sort who smash phone boxes and bus shelters.
The same sort who throw stones at old ladies "for fun".

The difference is, now they've got organised.

Obviously the small acts of vandalism just weren't enough.

debsr4, you are right, have never met my dad and grew up in poverty. But was told what was right and wrong.

working9 again that is a crock - why do we have so many immigrant workers getting jobs here; why aren't these londoners applying to be pub staff/cleaners etc? my granny was a cleaner, she worked her whole life. i worked in pubs, offices whatever i could get to pay my own way through uni.

it's about having a culture of working to get what you need in life.

great - sirens and choppers overhead again

I think this is going to re ignite the work for your benefits argument. I think people see that these people on the streets have the energy to mobilise themselves to do this but do NOTHING to improve their communities they just take.

This is not about benefits. Most people on benefits are not criminals. This is about being tough on crime.

I'm amazed at the police incompetence in not spotting this coming. Riots occur every few years. If firm and immediate action is not taken they spread.
The always happen in the summer, usually when it is a bit muggy, and a key trigger in the past as this time is a death connected to the police in some way. All this could have been avoided if the police had dealt properly and kindly with the Duggan family immediately after the death and had the foresight and manpower available to quell the initial rioting immediately, making more arrests at the time.

The police are making themselves appear ridiculous when they talk about "respect for authority" because at present there is little about those in authority to have respect for. A better message would be that this action only makes matters worse for their own communities, and that their parents and grandparents will be the ones to suffer whne the shops are closed and move away.

Most of those involved will not be "brought to justice" they seem to have effectively covered their faces and will not be identifiable.

And - Cameron should have come home straight away.

Those involved in the looting etc. have simply behaved in an opportunistic way on the back of a shambolic catalogue of police mistakes.

Do people have to provide a formulation of their particular views on political policies and ideologies for their behaviour to be deemed as politically motivated?
Thats a narrow view of politics.

The fact that there are lots of people across the country who feel complete disdain, anger and have a lack of respect or values is a political issue. What factors make these people 'thugs' or are they just born bad? I feel intense anger towards people who are in the process of destoying the city where I live.

However I'm also angry that as a society there are huge groups of people who have so little to lose that they engage in this behaviour and simply don't care what devastation they cause.

Yeah, it's a crock.

Society is absolutely fine, these are just a few people up for a fight, silly me. Totally irrelevant that the economy is in meltdown and this is when rioting usually happens, we'll all be fine once these criminal thugs are locked up

I am absolutely amazed people actually think this way, that it is not seen as part of a broader political reality but I am not sure that people are clear on what politics is.

Politics

1 [uncountable + singular or plural verb] the activities involved in getting and using power in public life, and being able to influence decisions that affect a country or a society, party politics, local politics
He's thinking of going into politics (= trying to become a Member of Parliament, Congress, etc.)a major figure in British politics
2 [uncountable + singular or plural verb] (disapproving) matters concerned with getting or using power within a particular group or organization
I don't want to get involved in office politics.the internal politics of the legal profession, sexual politics (= concerning relationships of power between the sexes)
3 [plural] a person's political views or beliefs His politics are extreme.
4 [uncountable] = political science, a degree in Politics
5 [singular] a system of political beliefs; a state of political affairs
A politics of the future has to engage with new ideas.

Rioting is about power, it is an attempt to use the power of force and violence within society. That's political. It doesn't have to be party political to be political.

People feel safer feeling this has nothing to do with them and it's the actions of a few and has nothing to do with broader social, economic or political forces at work. Fair enough, I'm not going to convince any of you that it's not just a few randomers who want a new telly any more than you are going to convince me that this has nothing to do with the rest of what's going on in this country and the world. No interest in flogging a dead horse.

Believe me this is not about library closures. From what I just saw the Waterstones by Clapham Junction was barely touched. I doubt many of those involved had a clue about policy or know why David Cameron is.

They are a result of social breakdown but what do you expect after 13 years of Labour rule. People seem to conveniently forget that the cuts are a result of decades of overspending and debt.

Some of those taking part in the riots are deprived, some are not. The thing that they all have in common is that they have no morals or conscience. This was apparent during the student protest when students from all walks of life were involved in wanton vandalism. Think about Charlie Gilmour, a Cambridge undergraduate with a millionaire father. This young man showed blatant disrespect for war heroes and was punished as a result. What did mummy do?
complained that her little Charlie had been made an example of. If that had been my mother, she would have told me that i deserved what i got.
Many of these little shits are doing this because they can. It is as simple as that.

I think the rest of society must unanimously condemn this if we are to have any chance as ever being seen as a majority. We need to show these people that they are not representative of your average decent person. I know it is not about benefits and there are lots of people doing the best they can living on benefits BUT I think all of these thugs who cry boredom etc could use their energies elsewhere. They are fit and well and able to group themselves and for want of better words they do 'get things done' within their own framework. They could easily use this energy to teh good but it is beneath them and there is nothing material in it for them

I live in Glasgow, hundreds of miles away from London, and feel so sorry for the people living amongst the rioting, and the business owners. There was an old man on TV today whose 150-year-old family business has been destroyed. It's chilling to watch these neds just taking what they want.
Police officer on radio five live this morning said it's the same folk his colleagues have been arresting for a few years. He said that those involved have a total lack of discipline, and I agree.

working have a qualification in politics and been involved/employed in non-party political organisations, thanks

these people are scum and what's worse is when they are arrested and charged, decent people will be paying all their legal costs.

Teejwood, that is truly disheartening to read.