Riots

[Mr Pee]

Whatever the arguments on both sides, ACDK, did you have to ruin my morning with the dreadful Michael Gove? The man who listens to no-one?

Whatever the arguments on both sides, ACDK, did you have to ruin my morning with the dreadful Harriet Harman? The woman who lives in cloud-cuckoo land?

[scottycelt]

David Cameron has now said that water-cannon will now be made available to the police, but at '24-hour notice'!

Whilst many of us will be relieved that this most obvious (and has SHB has correctly observed the most comparatively civilised) of weapons against mob thuggery is now being introduced, surely steps should be made to ensure that water-cannon is made available immediately in all our main cities?

Can't we maybe at least temporarily arrange to borrow such vehicles from our better-equipped friends and neighbours in the EU?

[amateur51]

Whatever the arguments on both sides, ACDK, did you have to ruin my morning with the dreadful Harriet Harman? The woman who lives in cloud-cuckoo land?

You're neighbours then, Mr Pee?

[Mr Pee]

You're neighbours then, Mr Pee?

If Harriet Harman lived next door to me, I'd have moved out years ago. If I'd been burgled with her as a neighbour, I'm sure she'd have pontificated that it was all my fault in the first place.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

what a pity Dave had to cut short the Tuscan sunshine, no wonder he looked peeved mr pee[ved] ...how dare these kids interrupt!

the first three defendants through the court this morning were two employed and one unemployed, of diverse racial character ... the situation takes hold and we social primates go along ....

if i have cancer cells in my body who or what is it that is sick? .... the pockets of society have been pretty well plundered in the last thirty years .... everything that Dave attributed to 'gangs' has been said in one form or another about city bankers, corporate elites, politicians, police - pockets of greedy irresponsible criminals stealing from the injured ... [for much higher stakes in smaller collusions and cabals]


meanwhile the contagion of disorder and the appearance of vigilantes, and in particular the apparent mowing down of three men in Birmingham suggest that things could get much worse ..... much as i would prefer that they didn't .....

it is not ok to preach 'the full force of the law' when the kids are looting, but not when the city is blackmailing the taxpayer, the banks and utility companies [inter alia] are looting their customers, MP's expenses were scandalous, some individuals were trying to point out the depredations of the NI press and the BSkyB deal and being ignored if not actively suppressed.... where was the cry for 'the full force of the law' in those and many other instances .... why just rage at the 'kids'

[Donnie Essen]

....One senior police officer believes that games like "Grand Theft Auto" promote violence. I could hardly believe when I looked at it today how crass it is technically and artistically. Frankly, the thunderbirds were more modern. However, this kind of thing sells in its millions. On one level, it is little different from a western or a war film. On another, it is poles apart. For a start, the killing is as rapid as falling raindrops. Then you have the inner city context. What shall we do today? Go to Next or shoot a few shoppers? You choose. And, of course, it is also interactive and competitive and draws in. People are clearly losing comprehension of the dividing lines between reality and fantasy. We looked at this on "The Verb". Ban it now!

Thank you for the kind words about my posts, man, but I gotta stall ya here. I tell ya, every day I get home from work, I make myself a cup of tea, throw on some Mozart and go rampaging round Liberty City for an hour. Technically crass? The physics of the game are wonderful, as are the graphics. It has an in-depth story too, like most of these games. They can be darn moving too. You follow missions. You can see why your character might do what he does, the pressures that rope him in, the situations he finds himself in and then you have to act in a way you might not really have chosen (the Wild West game, called Red Dead Redemption, quite a stunning work of art, that, but you gotta make your moral choices and it affects the way the game will play out). But you can roam freely and do as you wish too. Personally, I like luring as many cops into the petrol stations and then shooting at the tanks to blow 'em all up. Sometimes I just run around punching people and getting them all to chase me round town. But really there's more to it. For a lot of folk, the free roam, just attacking random computer characters with their limited behavior gets kinda boring and they put it down after. Course, you can go online and there folk will fight each other like in a paintball scenario and use the landscape to create some inventive carnage, but that's a step away from what we're talking about and more interesting and thoughtful.

These games are all 18-rated, played by all kinds of adults into middle age and beyond. Why kids have 'em. Parenting, I guess. I actually got asked how old I was last time I went to buy a GTA game, so checks do happen. I told him 32 and surprised him. He was like 25 and bald. He got fooled by my hair and natural virility.

[scottycelt]

I'm sure the 58 year-old man arrested in Manchester during last night's looting and violence will be delighted to be referred to as a 'kid' ...

[Serial_Apologist]

Then you should be ashamed of yourself.

The only gangsters out there are the likes Mark Duggan, whose shooting was the flimsy excuse on which these riots began.

So Mr Duggan is merely guilty by association in your book of justice, Mr Pee? Up to that point, you were doing so well, too.

The details on Mr Duggan coming out, drip by drop as happens, are another matter altogether. Where precisely in the Gove/Harman Newsnight interview does Ms Harman condone the hoolganism, eh?

You are one of the people on this board who misattributes statements to others, and changes sides at the drop of a top hat: a fine British example of steadfastness in principle.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thank you for the kind words about my posts, man, but I gotta stall ya here. I tell ya, every day I get home from work, I make myself a cup of tea, throw on some Mozart and go rampaging round Liberty City for an hour. Technically crass? The physics of the game are wonderful, as are the graphics. It has an in-depth story too, like most of these games. They can be darn moving too. You follow missions. You can see why your character might do what he does, the pressures that rope him in, the situations he finds himself in and then you have to act in a way you might not really have chosen (the Wild West game, called Red Dead Redemption, quite a stunning work of art, that, but you gotta make your moral choices and it affects the way the game will play out). But you can roam freely and do as you wish too. Personally, I like luring as many cops into the petrol stations and then shooting at the tanks to blow 'em all up. Sometimes I just run around punching people and getting them all to chase me round town. But really there's more to it. For a lot of folk, the free roam, just attacking random computer characters with their limited behavior gets kinda boring and they put it down after. Course, you can go online and there folk will fight each other like in a paintball scenario and use the landscape to create some inventive carnage, but that's a step away from what we're talking about and more interesting and thoughtful.

These games are all 18-rated, played by all kinds of adults into middle age and beyond. Why kids have 'em. Parenting, I guess. I actually got asked how old I was last time I went to buy a GTA game, so checks do happen. I told him 32 and surprised him. He was like 25 and bald. He got fooled by my hair and natural virility.

Yeah well, irony aside, we were all brought up on the John Wayne model of good-and-bad post WW2 and how to survive the embryonic rate-race; cowboys-'n'-injuns was Ok coz they was savages so long as we didn't point; for the next generation it was Dirty Harry. Imperceptible notchings in the escalation ratings imperative, till now.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Whatever the arguments on both sides, ACDK, did you have to ruin my morning with the dreadful Michael Gove? The man who listens to no-one?

Whatever the arguments on both sides, ACDK, did you have to ruin my morning with the dreadful Harriet Harman? The woman who lives in cloud-cuckoo land?

A copycat posting - rather similar to the copycat riots in Manchester, Wolverhampton, Liverpool, Birmingham, Nottingham, West Brom...

[Stillhomewardbound]

I now hereby dub these riots ... "The Retail Riots!"

Usually, looting occurs when rioting has led to a breakdown in law and order following civil protests. So, often around the UK events have proceeded directly to the looting stage.

Cycling through Deptford at about five last night I was stopped at the lights on Deptford Bridge next to a BMW which was stuffed, I kid you not, with looting booty. The driver was clearly was not remotely concerned that he might be stopped by police.

Back to the water canons, the PSNI say they've still not had any request for them and the idea of them being available at 24hrs notice seems more than a little daft. That could well be 24 hrs too late. Their presence on Monday night could have been especially useful in stemming many of the fires.

Personally, I have a notion that the government doesn't care for their use on the mainland because it makes us look like the French. Brutish.

Well, maybe we need to just get over ourselves in that regard.

As the home secretary said, we police by consent. How does that work? Does a mugger come up to you and advise you 'sorry but you're going to get a thump prior to my removing your phone and wallet', such as happened my friend and his boyfriend on Monday night in the Walworth Road (the mugging bit, that is - not the consent opener).

[Chris Newman]

Gove behaves like the part of the ostrich remaining above the ground. He cannot see the folly of HIS policies because he has covered his eyes and as a result twists his body in all directions and shouts rudely out of the largest orifice not hidden in the sand.

This is mirrored by his highly visible and much vaunted policies to save a small part of the national expenditure which have exacerbated the discontent of young people. He lost his rag in that interview because he knows he is responsible for much of the civil disobedience problems that have occurred in the past few months.

In saying this I thoroughly disapprove of the behaviour of rioters now and during the recent student problems and trust that the law will deal with them.

[Anna]

I'm sure the 58 year-old man arrested in Manchester during last night's looting and violence will be delighted to be referred to as a 'kid' ...

If he got arrested then it's his own fault for jumping on the bandwagon. Couple of other items, first showing total disregard or thoughts for anyone else, hope none of them have grandparents who need daycare:

In Leicester last night the 17 seater bus belonging to Age Concern that picks up the elderly and frail for daycare was totally destroyed

Second one evidence of manipulation by professional criminals:

In Manchester, captured on video, Dominic Noonan, one of Manchester's most notorious ‘gangsters’ talking to looters in the city. Plenty of firsthand witnesses in Manchester saying criminals are directing looters towards the shops they want them to steal from.

[Lateralthinking1]

Blimey, there are so many good posts here. Calum, that one at 10.24 must be one of the best things that you have ever written. I don't agree with all of it but could sign up to most of it.

I have never applied for a credit card. I come from the kind of working class-into-lower middle class background where that kind of idea was to be avoided at all cost. We'd have rather missed a few meals than owed unnecessarily.

I also don't have a mobile phone or an i-pad and wouldn't recognise blackberry messenger if it grew and greeted me in my garden. Lives can be lived quite easily without them.

Employment. Here is the truth of it. Croydon. Almost the office centre of the South East. Also lots of cleaning jobs on paper. I applied for 80 jobs between Jan and Jul, got help with the cv, set it all out - 25 years in the civil service, bits and pieces too in insurance and with the NHS, six years as a delegate at the UN, 2:1 (Hons) York University, wide range of interests.

Result - 62 no reply, 17 outright rejection, 1 telephone interview - passed and then an invitation to a face-to-face interview which was withdrawn within two days. The jobs included manager, clerical officer, media sales executive, shop assistant, call centre assistant, leaflet delivery, cleaner. As the job centre said, "look, this one here that you applied for yesterday afternoon with a deadline of a month's time, our system shows that there have already been 42 applications".

[Globaltruth]

...but at least some water-cannon training has now taken place

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtIstIKkBWs