Is there a reason for the riots?

(if) police are deliberately letting/let things get this bad/out of control just to prove a fucking point & /or because someone's decided poor areas aren't worth protecting then they're scum.

a) It won't.
b) Grow the fuck up and read my posts properly.

As bad as the misfits behind this, yes.

I mean't it's them that's clueless not you.

and to stop it happening again.

It won't. Exactly.

This is not about a search for justice or a cry of rage, this is about opportunism. If you were here you'd be bloody terrified. And don't fucking swear at me

For sure it's not happening without reason, and i could not particularly give a fuck if
chain stores get looted and police/police vehicles get damaged,
but the sheer recklessness of the arson i find astounding.

They fucking smashed up our oxfam shop, for fucks sake. If that's not greed and wanton violence, I dunno what is.

The opportunism to get something, and IIRC in poor areas there is more crime , so yes it may be opportunistic looting but there are causes to why people will act in this way and if you dismiss it solely as opportunism then you will never address the social inequalities that lead to not only these riots but the low level street crime/burglaries that are prevalent in the less well off areas of our cities.

If you genuinely believe that this is 'just' about opportunisitic youth and you don't even attempt to scratch beneath what the media are telling you and questioning why this is happening then I'm afraid to say you are a bit stupid. At no point have I supported the actions of the rioters or claimed it's not terrifying for people who are experiencing it. What I am doing is suggesting that it isn't and couldn't be as simple as greedy, opportunisitic youth simply kicking off from boredom and fecklessness. I find it hard to believe that anyone could write off the most widespread, violent civil unrest we've seen in our lifetimes as something as simple as that.

No swearing - was that ok?

Yeah - I know

Civil unrest? Don't romanticise it, ffs. This has been enabled by twitter and other networking sites - it's new in that sense but it's no uprising. This is not LA, it's not the Arab Spring, it's not 1969 - it's chaos.

Sorry to see you falling for the leftist hype. Didn't have you down as so impressionable.

Yup. Many of the most painful cuts have been to services that affect young people. Then the media constantly goes on about how horrible kids are, how easy A-levels and GCSEs are, how bad kids are at everything ever. It should be empathy that stops you damaging stuff people have worked hard for, but many people (especially younger ones) need more than that; they need something to lose. For a lot of kids there is no job, money, college place or even reputation for them to lose - why not smash things up and get some freebies? I bet most of the rioters don't have politics in mind, but politics is behind it all in the end.

And I didn't have you down as being quite so stupid. You live and learn eh?

I'm not going to argue with you of all people.

Fine. Your pm's suggest you don't think I should hold an opinion because it isn't happening here. I suggest that you're a bit too close to it to be logical and have no interest in understanding why it happened - you just want to lash out. Have a think about how that feels and consider for a moment if that's how any of the youth who are rioting maybe feel.

dave hill's blog makes some reasonable points

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/davehillblog/2011/aug/08/things-i-believe-about-london-riots

I was caught up in a 'riot' (I didn't see much violence but apparently there was some and we were shut in a shop by the tooled-up riot cops) in LA last week. The cause? A band was meant to play, and didn't.

I keep forgetting thats all cornwall is. Its all so fucking idyllic.

Innit. Nothing more than fields, beaches and tractors.

plus cider & incest.

Quite ...

Why some insist that understanding the situation in those terms means 'condoning setting fire to little old ladies' or whatever, is something I find puzzling.

i think some people are just very upset & angry bernie. it's a fairly explicable reaction to the events of the last few nights tbf.

Do you work for the national trust or something?

i do, but i post here in a personal capacity.

re Cornwall with out the Royal navy and tourists it would be Somali with pasties
A lot of people who have no real stake in society think they can get away with it.
first thing take the street back off the mob looting has got to be made to hurt.
second thing is much harder cutting down the number of people who don't give a shit.

While being constantly shown consumerist porn: you want this, this, this and this. Oh, but some of you can't have it. You, there, you can't have it.

It amuses me when I hear BBC reporters (as I not long ago did) use "explanations" like "it wasn't local youths. It was youths coming into the area. It was just recreational looting".

"Just recreational looting". It's like they don't want to understand what's going on. Of course it's recreational. But if it's "just" recreational, why doesn't it happen every weekend? It's "just" opportunist. Well, of course it's opportunist. But if you think that's an explanation, then you're not trying very hard. That's like looking at one pocketful of watches and not panning out to the whole scene.

Furthermore, to pick up on one point KT makes that won't be discussed by the morons with microphones standing in riot-torn streets: We've had over three decades now of the ravages of "Thatcherite retreads" inflicting their deep and lasting damage on communities. Nobody flies back from Tuscany to address that. No stunned news anchors sit on the sofa gawping like goldfish in incomprehension at the daily effects of that. There is no discussion of how policing might be brought to bear against those crimes.

So what language are people bearing the brunt of that supposed to use to be heard? If the answer they give is loud, confused and ill-directed is it any wonder? The only wonder is that it is so rarely voiced.

Funny enough I've just had that very conversation with my mother on the phone.

There are deep rooted reasons for all this, but there's also elements of people joining in because they see others getting away with it and just want to grab what they can or burn something for the lolz, it's all very mixed up.

Trying to understand what has caused this and why it spread so fast and so wide is important, to do so doesn't mean you are condoning it in anyway whatsoever.

Why "but there's also"?

Exactly. How can it be condoned by anyone? Innocent people's lives being trashed and possibly only a matter of time before someone dies as a result. You can't put out a fire without knowing what caused it.