Depraved or deprived: What lies behind these riots, and why aren't they happening in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?

[Solopower]

I've been reading the threads on the riots and I wondered if we needed one on the causes.

People's ideas seem to range from thinking the rioters are just opportunistic criminals to socially and culturally disadvantaged youngsters.

But why isn't there any rioting in Scotland, for example, where there are pockets of extreme social deprivation?

Zoe Williams' article on the psychology of looting is worth reading, imo:
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/09/uk-riots-psychology-of-looting?CMP=twt_gu

lifeis- sounds like you had quite a bad time in Aberdeen!

One of the experiences that sticks in my mind in Glasgow is when going from a meal with one group of friends to meeting a second group of friends, I got hopelessly lost in a shall-we-say rough area. A wee group of neds stoped, concerned as "you dinna look like you belang here, are you ok?" On hearing my dilemma, they looked after me, and had a mate bring a car round, then drove me to meet my friends- and even waited until they saw me meet them . To look at them you would have possibly crossed the street, but they were lovely.

Which is not to say they would never nick trainers from JD sports....

Lots of rain in Scotland and Wales tonight so no doubt it will be quiet. Not much rain on the way to England tomorrow - never thought I'd be looking forward to a downpour. I can't stand much more of this crime wave.

Scotland - Midgies- No riots
England - No Midgies - riots

Simples

God bless the midgie - bet that's never been said before!

Seems to me to be too much immigration and not enough jobs so you have a huge population of disaffected youth growing up in enclaves with no concept of the British way of life and suffering from generational unemployment . How to solve the problem is anyones guess I'm sure the last people we should ask are politicians.

This is an excerpt stolen from a friend of mine on FB. I agree wholeheartedly with her statement.

Well I certainly agree with her last sentence, on just about everything!

Rioting isn't really a Scottish 'thing', but there are far, far worse day to day violence in Scotland.

Anti-English abuse is a national sport. When I was at Uni, the English students were regularly beaten up and the verbal vitriol they received on an almost daily basis was vile.

One of the many reasons I will never return with my children.

Bit of a sweeping generalisation there Highlander cos of course EVERYONE in Scotland hates the English

Name and shame the Uni Highlander.

The Scottish Uni I went to actually had more English students than Scottish students (which I realise is bit of a special case) and while there was the occasional bit of trouble between "town" and "gown" - it wasn't to do with nationality.

Dh went to Glasgow Uni and says none of his English friends ever complained about being victimised - n fact, they loved how friendly the city was.

Or have things changed that much in 30 years? :(

"Anti-English abuse is a national sport. When I was at Uni, the English students were regularly beaten up and the verbal vitriol they received on an almost daily basis was vile."

Where on earth did you go to university?? I didn't ever hear of even one English student getting beaten up, and on my course (at a Scottish university) the English students outnumbered the Scots. There was no verbal vitriol either! A bit of banter, perhaps, but from my memory the English students liked to slag off tease us Scots just as much as we did them.

Joolyjoolyjoo
Yes I think the opportunity to loot JD Sports is an opportunity certain types of youngsters across Britain would always jump at. The style for tracksuit bottoms and trainers is one that is shared on both sides of the border!

Would just like to say that I did enjoy my time in Aberdeen, made some great friends there and enjoyed uni. It was just when one of my (rather paranoid) relatives voiced concern about me moving to big scary London as she seemed to be under the impression I had been living in some rural idle up north. It was when I started listing all my more interesting experiences there that I did start to think, is this really normal?! Glasgow always sounds good, I have another friend who can't wait to go back there as she loved her uni years there. From the sound of everyone else's experiences I think I'm more of a natural Lowlander than a Highlander, I didn't head far enough south from Inverness.

prettybird
I take it you went to St Andrews?

lol, if it's so bad here for english students, why did most of my english pals stay? when we all left uni it was the jocks who went en masse to london, not the english. (they stayed and now run every arts organisation in the country... )

I'm beginning to change my mind on this issue. A couple of days ago I wrote a heart-wrending post about class issues, social and economic marginalization, on politicians awarding men at the top of the chain with bonuses out of tax-payer's money thereby keeping the rich rich and the poor poor, the poorest being targeted for cuts while the already wealthy contribue disproportonately less .. it was a bleeding heart post on class issues, stemming from the fact I am working class myself, and so are my brothers..

But since then I've changed my mind and decided it's just MEN. It does involve powerful men (politicians, developers) fucking over less powerful men, true, but let's be honest here, men have neved needed much of an excuse to pillage and loot. HISTORICALLY we have seen that men ENJOY pillaging, raping and looting and THEY DON'T NEED AN EXCUSE.

This riot was GENDERED.
The Norwegian massacre was GENDERED.

How much more are we going to let men do before women say ENOUGH.

Here is a one-woman face-off against the rioters.

It is GENDERED, and this is one WOMAN who is brave enough to attack these MEN and hold them accountable for what they're doing.

WOmen are poor, women are disenfranchised, women are marginalized and powerless and vulnerable--far more so than men. BUt women don't behave like that.

I also went to uni in Scotland, and didn't see too much anti-English sentiment. I saw anti-annoying-stuck-up-twunt sentiment, but that's pretty common. IME, the Scottish were much much more friendly than the English. I could get away with anything as I am South African and people loved it.

Interesting article sprogger - and I agree with it.

As I said previously on this thread, the gap between poor and wealthy in London is much bigger than in other cities. I never saw the same level of difference when I lived in Scotland - yes you do have schemes next to £500k+ houses, but in London you have council estates in Chelsea next £5mn+ houses with swimming pools in the basement. In some areas it's not uncommon to see porches, ferraris, Bentleys etc., even in the not-traditionally mega wealthy areas (like Chelsea, Mayfair, Kensington, Belgravia), but in more up and coming areas (like Wandsworth. Again, right next to a giant council estate). The other week I was having drinks outside a cafe in Mayfair. The woman at the next table called her maid over - asked her to go home, fetch her a different pair of shoes and come back. NEVER seen anything like that in Scotland.

sakura So those two girls recorded by the BBC saying 'It was fun...'course it was' and swigging their stolen wine at 930 in the morning were just boys putting on falsetto voices? What about these women? And this woman? And this one? And this one? And this one?

Honestly, you do the feminist cause no good by spouting rubbish about how 'it's all the MENZ COZ DAY IZ EVIL INNIT'.

I think it was a male-dominated 'event' to be fair. Though there were plenty of girls and women involved as well, no point pretending otherwise. I heard of mums sending their kids into shops to steal stuff, which is pretty much inexcusable IMO. So I don't think we can say 'women don't behave like that'.

Women are not some pure, perfect angels, and it's not particularly feminist to claim that . We're just people, and some of us unfortunately are unpleasant, greedy and amoral.

i always remember bea campbell talking about having a meeting with tony blair when he first got in, apparently her line was 'so what are we going to do about the males in our society?' before breaking down, really, what is kind of obvious, that the prison population is male, that violent crime is male etc etc etc (not exclusively, but mostly). he apparently went quite pale and ushered her out of the door.

sakura makes a good point, tbh, but it's not one that is easy to listen to. (nor is it fantastically applicable to the looters).

we haven't had conscription in a long while, that normally does for poor males with minimal impulse control. which also rules them out as parents of the future. (actually, in freakanomics again there is a fascinating essay on how roe vs wade helped the crime stats 20 years later). of course that is a hideous truth, but it is a truth. i'm not advocating for war, btw, just noting its effect.

i do think all this stuff is worth talking about. i have mentioned the pupils at Jamie's Dream School a couple of times, they were APPALLINGLY hard to manage, 100% lacking in respect etc but each one of them was pretty adorable in actual fact. but the voices of those daft looter girls did remind me of them, as did the posturing of the rioting boys.

That blogger is talking a bit of crap to be honest. When it says there's no inner-city housing in Scotland that's near to High St shops. Let's take a wee look at Glasgow: Finnieston, the Gorbals, Townhead, Dennistoun, all within fifteen minutes walk of city centre shops.

Also i dont think Alex Salmond was being 'parochial', per se. I think for someone in a position of authority to distance England and Scotland at that point was just being responsible. We needed someone to point out we werent the same country to avoid trouble kicking off here. And enough damage has been done to the UK.

AND the royal wedding 'riot' was more of a party, let's be fair. Nobody was fighting or looting or setting fire to anything, just getting drunk outside.

Greed

true, i mean bless Torcuil's, i don't exactly think he's trod the mean streets. parkhead fort shopping centre, anyone? right slap bang in the east end of glasgow.

I was at Dundee Uni in the early 90's.

Another elephant in the room is that due to the low amounts of sunlight this summer, the Scots are suffering collective SAD and frankly could not be arsed to riot.