UK Riots

[youthful_implants]

This is the first thing I've read, out of all of the news stories, that actually makes sense of whats happening in the UK. What do you guys think?

http://pennyred.blogspot.com/2011/08/pa ... ondon.html

[Lizkins]

just read, interesting and terrifying the whole thing

[lilstormer]

Thanks YI, I think that's an excellent take on the situation.

[quiet roar]

Great piece. Thanks YI.

Gonna be an interesting couple of days.

[thedeadly9]

Could be worse...
Zombie Apocalypse for instance.

[DBoy]

Know a few people in London, will be interesting to hear their takes on it all.

Is Nic there?

[youthful_implants]

Yes he's behind it all.

[deviant]

yeah, he probably wound sone cuntz up on the 'net

[mecka]

Did people from the Onelove forums end up in London or whut

[Hardy]

What is happening doesn't surprise me, but it's still horrid. That blog raises some very valid points, but there is not justification whatsoever for this sort of behaviour. I also wonder how many of these people are just opportunists. It clearly starts out of anger and frustration, but no doubt hundreds of dumb chav kids joined in for "fun".

I'm more surprised that this didn't happen in Ireland or Scotland. I've been expecting those countries to explode for some time.

[nic]

yeh very widespread but also very localised disturbances yesterday. groups of 100-300 mans running around tbh.

smashing started in daylight on Mare St 5 mins walk east from mine. good pics of it here (dont mind teh fact its in vice of all places lol)

http://www.viceland.com/wp/2011/08/the- ... re-street/

by time i was home near Hackney Downs - the police horses were out and car burning in the estate and at the top of park clarence road. nothign at all open and no cars just fuckloads loads of naughty kids on bikes in hoods riding around. mild air of menace - decided not to ride around staring lol. fairly surreal.

I reckon thats the end of it for now tbh. no more shops left in hackney to get into

just a pity the kids were so into stealing sneakers / xboxes / alcohol they forgot to burn banks and gvt buildings gah
it is mostly 'bare' oppurtunism imo - fed by summer holidays / gernal feeling of disaffection / tory / tesco etc.

[Smile on Impact]

Panic on the streets of london
Panic on the streets of birmingham
I wonder to myself
Could life ever be sane again ?
The leeds side-streets that you slip down
I wonder to myself
Hopes may rise on the grasmere
But honey pie, you’re not safe here
So you run down
To the safety of the town
But there’s panic on the streets of carlisle
Dublin, dundee, humberside
I wonder to myself

Burn down the disco
Hang the blessed dj
Because the music that they constantly play
It says nothing to me about my life
Hang the blessed dj
Because the music they constantly play


On the leeds side-streets that you slip down
Or provincial towns you jog ’round
Hang the dj, hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj

[fooishbar]

the library in whitechapel got its window kicked in and the job centre in woolwich apparently got torched. that's got to be some kind of metaphor for something.

(edit: article seems pretty on point.)

[Dub Club Melbourne]

Panic on the streets of london
Panic on the streets of birmingham
I wonder to myself
Could life ever be sane again ?
The leeds side-streets that you slip down
I wonder to myself
Hopes may rise on the grasmere
But honey pie, you’re not safe here
So you run down
To the safety of the town
But there’s panic on the streets of carlisle
Dublin, dundee, humberside
I wonder to myself

Burn down the disco
Hang the blessed dj
Because the music that they constantly play
It says nothing to me about my life
Hang the blessed dj
Because the music they constantly play


On the leeds side-streets that you slip down
Or provincial towns you jog ’round
Hang the dj, hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj

BURN MORRISSEY

[Hardy]

Panic on the streets of london
Panic on the streets of birmingham
I wonder to myself
Could life ever be sane again ?
The leeds side-streets that you slip down
I wonder to myself
Hopes may rise on the grasmere
But honey pie, you’re not safe here
So you run down
To the safety of the town
But there’s panic on the streets of carlisle
Dublin, dundee, humberside
I wonder to myself

Burn down the disco
Hang the blessed dj
Because the music that they constantly play
It says nothing to me about my life
Hang the blessed dj
Because the music they constantly play


On the leeds side-streets that you slip down
Or provincial towns you jog ’round
Hang the dj, hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj
Hang the dj, hang the dj

BURN MORRISSEY

If the rioters burn him down and loot his corpse, i'll forgive every one of them.

[dust]

This is a great article as well. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co ... 33991.html

I've been following this closely from NYC. Not surprisingly there isn't a lot of coverage in American mainstream media and most people at my work don't have much of an understanding of what is going on.

[dust]

This is a great article as well. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co ... 33991.html

I've been following this closely from NYC. Not surprisingly there isn't a lot of coverage in American mainstream media and most people at my work don't have much of an understanding of what is going on.

Good read.

I must admit I haven't really slept since it kicked off...sitting on Reuters, FB, twitter, YouTube at home / work...it's 2.44am now and the posts are coming thru...painting images of places....brixton is like a ghost town and there is no where open to buy food!

Not surprisingly it is the same here G...not many people are aware of the tension in England or how it kicked off in tottenham..

It's all fucking crazy but it was due.

I've got Kito staying with me at the moment from London. She lives in Brixton and is literally scared to go home in a few days. She's been really really upset seeing her neighbourhood get literally destroyed. Puts a whole, much more personal perspective on things.

[fooishbar]

It's all fucking crazy but it was due.

yep.

pretty much everywhere is totally shuttered up and battened down, stuff was mostly open this morning but started shutting after lunch as people started waking up. very quiet in london today but manchester/birmingham/wolves/west bromwich have been in amongst it while half their cops are down here.

you could tell yesterday was going to end badly by the number of people hanging around the streets looking dark, waiting for shit to kick off, no cops to be seen except in the very worst spots. none of that today tho, people out in the sun normally, dead quiet after that, cops everywhere.

[nic]

there were loads of hipsters out in clapton tonight lol
more than normal
badtimes/
lol

think thats it for london tbh
dunno wtf im goign to do at work tomorrow now noghign to watch

[youthful_implants]

Bloke at work, warehouse manager, said to me this morning: "whats going on in the UK then?

me: "yeah its kicking off. Tory government cutting benefits + other austerity measures has led to widespread unhappiness and unrest."

him: "yeah but its just black people innit, should just lock em all up"

me: "erm.. you cant say that because a: its racist and b: it only looks like that because in the UK there is a high proportion of the black community living in abject poverty in the areas affected."

him: "who cares? they're blacks innit. should have sent the army in and shot em"

me: "er, laterz"

[youthful_implants]

ps: glad you london-living peeps are ok Nic and Dan

[witty_pseudonym]

interesting videos. but why do the news readers insist on focusing on the fact that they've rioted themselves - attempting to discredit or something? urgh. that second one is incredibly frustrating to watch. toff biatch. like how she gets a serve!

all incredibly frightening to see, and i suppose this kind of tension can only simmer for so long. it's easy for the rest of the world to shake their heads and tut tut the trouble makers, but years of disaffection and desperation will lead to same thing anywhere. it's hard to comprehend the levels of inequality in what is considered an equitable nation without more first hand experience. hopefully the government wake up and realise that continually punishing the poor with budget cuts and austerity measures will only see this stuff erupt time and time again. in fact, it should be a lesson to governments across the western world.

[Hardy]

I reckon they'll send in the army soon. Which they should. Everyone gets it... you're not happy. Now cut the shit or get a well deserved beatdown.

[JAMESSSS]

They burnt down PIAS UK!

Sucks!

[youthful_implants]

interesting videos. but why do the news readers insist on focusing on the fact that they've rioted themselves - attempting to discredit or something? urgh. that second one is incredibly frustrating to watch. toff biatch. like how she gets a serve!

all incredibly frightening to see, and i suppose this kind of tension can only simmer for so long. it's easy for the rest of the world to shake their heads and tut tut the trouble makers, but years of disaffection and desperation will lead to same thing anywhere. it's hard to comprehend the levels of inequality in what is considered an equitable nation without more first hand experience. hopefully the government wake up and realise that continually punishing the poor with budget cuts and austerity measures will only see this stuff erupt time and time again. in fact, it should be a lesson to governments across the western world.

I agree totally and it will be interesting to see how the government reacts to this in the long term. Yeah they can denounce it all as "criminality", yeah they can round up as many as possible via CCTV or whatever and charge them but it will also raise important enquiry into how the police dealt with it, their strategic implementation, underlying causes etc etc to ensure that it simpy doesn't happen again.

Basically the fallout will involve a lot of questions being asked about why this happened which can only be a good thing if it leads to reform or pressure on government to make change.

Senseless though the rioting and looting may look, the political implications are wide-ranging.

[DBoy]

Senseless though the rioting and looting may look, the political implications are wide-ranging.

We would hope there will be political implications - but frankly given the current economic circumstances I can hardly imagine social reform that provides better outcomes for disadvantaged communities.
Political parties just don't seem to have the ability to move out of their tired cycles of conservative policy making behaviours. And the only parties that claim to be reformist and reforms towards more conservative ideals, not transformative. The revolution is not going to be led by politicians.

I truly believe it is time corporates step up to the plate in terms of community development. Governments have proven they are incapable shifting the social rot at the bottom end of the spectrum. It is corporates who service our communities who should now be expected to play a role in helping (especially through CR funding programs) provide better opportunities. Having worked in both the NFP and CR areas I can really see a change in understanding the community development by corporates will actually led to better share holder results long term. It is slow in getting the message across - and changing the NFP sector's cynicism towards corporate investment is just as hard - but, as I say, I believe this has the potential to help change the cycles of disadvantage.

[witty_pseudonym]

I truly believe it is time corporates step up to the plate in terms of community development. Governments have proven they are incapable shifting the social rot at the bottom end of the spectrum. It is corporates who service our communities who should now be expected to play a role in helping (especially through CR funding programs) provide better opportunities. Having worked in both the NFP and CR areas I can really see a change in understanding the community development by corporates will actually led to better share holder results long term. It is slow in getting the message across - and changing the NFP sector's cynicism towards corporate investment is just as hard - but, as I say, I believe this has the potential to help change the cycles of disadvantage.

fucking word. in many senses corporates now have more power, money and social clout than governments. just look at the US. well said D.

[Lizkins]

what do you want the corporates to do? every corporate i have worked for does 1 or 2 days volunteer work for every employee every year, and gives hundreds of thousands if not millons to charities and organisations needing assistance


the racism on this is well scary. even the chick i sit next to at work said - oh i heard its in those black areas and thats why its happening.

[mrj]

I truly believe it is time corporates step up to the plate in terms of community development. Governments have proven they are incapable shifting the social rot at the bottom end of the spectrum. It is corporates who service our communities who should now be expected to play a role in helping (especially through CR funding programs) provide better opportunities. Having worked in both the NFP and CR areas I can really see a change in understanding the community development by corporates will actually led to better share holder results long term. It is slow in getting the message across - and changing the NFP sector's cynicism towards corporate investment is just as hard - but, as I say, I believe this has the potential to help change the cycles of disadvantage.

Agreed D.

A great example of this is Andrew Forrest and the work he is doing with Generation One http://generationone.org.au/and the Austalian Employment Covenant http://www.fiftythousandjobs.org.au. The signatories to the covenant are a great example of corporates enacting real and meaningful change in to benefit communities.

[youthful_implants]

I truly believe it is time corporates step up to the plate in terms of community development. Governments have proven they are incapable shifting the social rot at the bottom end of the spectrum. It is corporates who service our communities who should now be expected to play a role in helping (especially through CR funding programs) provide better opportunities. Having worked in both the NFP and CR areas I can really see a change in understanding the community development by corporates will actually led to better share holder results long term. It is slow in getting the message across - and changing the NFP sector's cynicism towards corporate investment is just as hard - but, as I say, I believe this has the potential to help change the cycles of disadvantage.

fucking word. in many senses corporates now have more power, money and social clout than governments. just look at the US. well said D.

Thats all fine and well but corporations usually have their own business agenda that doesn't take into account any poilitical ideology other than making money. The government in the UK already employs hundreds and hundreds of civil servants whose job is to administer policy efficiently and smoothly. The current problems aren't the fault of the administration but of the policy makers.

I know you're talking about NFP but they already do so much of that work anyway.

Large corporations have a history of ignoring human rights and other such simple civil liberties dont they? BP's disregard for such things in places like Africa are a good example. I wouldn't trust a corporation to run my community, thats why we need politics and politicians. Because they're supposed to have ideals. The fact that it's become a watered-down, vaguely left or right of centre affair, essentially driven by polls, is the fault of corporations and business in the first place IMO.

Its unfortunate that corporations are allowed to exert as much influence as they do on politics as it is, I think any more would be frightening in the extreme. Coca Cola in charge of the water supply? No thanks.

[huge]

corporations are more than capable of running things. my bro is a community relations supernintendo for rio tinto. they (as much as everyone would love to hate them) do some amazing work for local indigenous communities in FNQ. i know it is not the same situation as in the UK but essentially, a corporation is required to get something back for their good deeds. doing stuff for nothing is not good business.

[Hardy]

corporations are more than capable of running things. my bro is a community relations supernintendo for rio tinto. they (as much as everyone would love to hate them) do some amazing work for local indigenous communities in FNQ. i know it is not the same situation as in the UK but essentially, a corporation is required to get something back for their good deeds. doing stuff for nothing is not good business.

The majority of people still view corporations as big evil faceless entities of death. You'll find in most cases, corporations do a LOT of good for communities.

[youthful_implants]

corporations are more than capable of running things. my bro is a community relations supernintendo for rio tinto. they (as much as everyone would love to hate them) do some amazing work for local indigenous communities in FNQ. i know it is not the same situation as in the UK but essentially, a corporation is required to get something back for their good deeds. doing stuff for nothing is not good business.

The majority of people still view corporations as big evil faceless entities of death. You'll find in most cases, corporations do a LOT of good for communities.

Such as?

I'm not saying they're not capable of it, but usually, its a smoke and mirrors ploy.

They're not obliged to do anthing for anyone, and the only reason they do usually, is to extend their customer base and promote good PR. It's called "good karma coffee" or something, as engineered by Starbucks.

Mostly, AFAIK, big corporations rape vulnerable areas and their populations to their own end. McDonalds promote all the good work they do for schools, sports and local children's hospices on the trays when you buy food in their restaurants. Its so you feel good when contributing to the ridiculous deforestation and destruction they reap elsewhere they dont tell you about.

I don't think corporations are obliged to do anything except practice business within regulatory guidelines defined by government. The problem is all too often they are making policy because they control the resources.

[mrj]

corporations are more than capable of running things. my bro is a community relations supernintendo for rio tinto. they (as much as everyone would love to hate them) do some amazing work for local indigenous communities in FNQ. i know it is not the same situation as in the UK but essentially, a corporation is required to get something back for their good deeds. doing stuff for nothing is not good business.

The majority of people still view corporations as big evil faceless entities of death. You'll find in most cases, corporations do a LOT of good for communities.

Such as?

They're not obliged to do anthing for anyone, and the only reason they do usually, is to extend their customer base and promote good PR. It's called "good karma coffee" or something, as engineered by Starbucks.

Mostly, AFAIK, big corporations rape vulnerable areas and their populations to their own end. McDonalds promote all the good work they do for schools, sports and local children's hospices on the trays when you buy food in their restaurants. Its so you feel good when contributing to the ridiculous deforestation and destruction they reap elsewhere they dont tell you about.

I don't think corporations are obliged to do anything except practice business within regulatory guidelines defined by government. The problem is all too often they are making policy because they control the resources.

A great example of this is Andrew Forrest and the work he is doing with Generation One http://generationone.org.au/and the Austalian Employment Covenant http://www.fiftythousandjobs.org.au. The signatories to the covenant are a great example of corporates enacting real and meaningful change in to benefit communities.

[youthful_implants]

yeah fairy muff. I'm not saying they're all bastards but they're not politically or publicly driven either which makes for less transparency and accountability at the end of the day.

they can say they're saving the planet. it doesn't mean they are.

Like Chevron's current advertising campaign which attempts to "greenwash" people into thinking they're, like, well into the saving the environment or something.



http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-na ... 1faby.html

[DBoy]

You hit the issue on the head YI. At the moment the current system of social services is totally inadequate. Governments do not run the social sector themselves. Essentially they outsource to NFP's to help build community programs to address social issues. Not only do they outsource - they underfund the projects so NFP's are forced to find public and private funding to make up the shortfall. They other major issue with the current system is the time lag to get funding for emerging issues. By the time an issue has been identified it is usually embedded in the social fabric and a cycle of disadvantage has begun. Most programs tend be funded 1, 3 of 5 years and are only bandages to alleviate effects, not well developed long term strategies to reach the issue at the source.

The new era of Corporate Responsibility goes beyond the 2 days volunteering and foundation funding that Liz refers to. Corporate are beginning to become social citizens in the communities they service. As i say, this is the beginning, we are not doing this well yet, but there is a movement, largely led by social leaders who are still lower in the organisations but are driving bottom up action. My hope is that these social leaders will one day be the CEO's and high level GM's of orgs and bring with them the vision of corporates as positive social actors that I do a lot of advocating for.

What does this vision look like? It means that orgs started realising that by being positive actors in the communities where they operate that are actually able to improve their bottom line. By building positive social action into business agenda you actually improve the reputation of the brand and improve the ability of the communities to use your services.

A great example comes from the sector often considered the worst social players - banks. Banks are now beginning to really take on the worst social predators - pay day lenders. By seeing that they can have a positive influence on those least able to access credit they can shift the perception of the community about 'big bad banks'. While the driver of the action is marketing, and business reputation, the action is actually able to alleviate one of the most significant drivers of debt in the most disadvantaged areas of our community. It is win win.

The same goes for energy companies who have in the past used really negative debt collection methods. Lots of work is being done to educate the sector on more community minded collection techniques that actually result in them being able to collect more of their $ without negatively effecting their reputation or negatively effecting the community.

I can talk on this all day - I have made it my life and since I have really become passionate about it you may have noticed my decline in use of MB (and because we stopped having good convos like this!)

So many other areas we can influence as well. The use of social enterprise providers, creating social purchasing contracts on all deals and other supply chain influence you can have as big business. Improving working conditions and flexible working for employees. In the end, customers will be happier, staff will be happier and the bottom line will tell the tail.

Fact is, it is the only way we are going to get any gains in improving our communities - the government sure can't be trusted to do it.

It is happening and I have loads of case studies to prove it. It might start as marketing YI, but it ends in wins for all.

[DBoy]

errrr, kinda related to UK riots.

[Lizkins]

sorry i shouldn't have just said money and volunteer days.

My firm at the moment (this is on a fairly small scale but quite impacting), is getting 3 women who have been out of work (or never worked a day in their life) due to being abused and hospitalised, drug problems, homeless, seriously ill etc etc to come to our work, and work part-time for 56 hours over 2 months. We will be teaching them how a business works and teaching them skills. We also assist with providing suits for them to wear to work. Helping to get them back into the workforce.

[DBoy]

That fits in their somewhere. From small scale like that to large scale supply chain decision making - it is all stuff that was done very little in the past but becoming more and more like business as usual. Long way to go - but it has more potential to change social circumstance than our broke arse governments do.

[youthful_implants]

You hit the issue on the head YI. At the moment the current system of social services is totally inadequate. Governments do not run the social sector themselves. Essentially they outsource to NFP's to help build community programs to address social issues. Not only do they outsource - they underfund the projects so NFP's are forced to find public and private funding to make up the shortfall. They other major issue with the current system is the time lag to get funding for emerging issues. By the time an issue has been identified it is usually embedded in the social fabric and a cycle of disadvantage has begun. Most programs tend be funded 1, 3 of 5 years and are only bandages to alleviate effects, not well developed long term strategies to reach the issue at the source.

The new era of Corporate Responsibility goes beyond the 2 days volunteering and foundation funding that Liz refers to. Corporate are beginning to become social citizens in the communities they service. As i say, this is the beginning, we are not doing this well yet, but there is a movement, largely led by social leaders who are still lower in the organisations but are driving bottom up action. My hope is that these social leaders will one day be the CEO's and high level GM's of orgs and bring with them the vision of corporates as positive social actors that I do a lot of advocating for.

What does this vision look like? It means that orgs started realising that by being positive actors in the communities where they operate that are actually able to improve their bottom line. By building positive social action into business agenda you actually improve the reputation of the brand and improve the ability of the communities to use your services.

A great example comes from the sector often considered the worst social players - banks. Banks are now beginning to really take on the worst social predators - pay day lenders. By seeing that they can have a positive influence on those least able to access credit they can shift the perception of the community about 'big bad banks'. While the driver of the action is marketing, and business reputation, the action is actually able to alleviate one of the most significant drivers of debt in the most disadvantaged areas of our community. It is win win.

The same goes for energy companies who have in the past used really negative debt collection methods. Lots of work is being done to educate the sector on more community minded collection techniques that actually result in them being able to collect more of their $ without negatively effecting their reputation or negatively effecting the community.

I can talk on this all day - I have made it my life and since I have really become passionate about it you may have noticed my decline in use of MB (and because we stopped having good convos like this!)

So many other areas we can influence as well. The use of social enterprise providers, creating social purchasing contracts on all deals and other supply chain influence you can have as big business. Improving working conditions and flexible working for employees. In the end, customers will be happier, staff will be happier and the bottom line will tell the tail.

Fact is, it is the only way we are going to get any gains in improving our communities - the government sure can't be trusted to do it.

It is happening and I have loads of case studies to prove it. It might start as marketing YI, but it ends in wins for all.

thats really good stuff and I'm happy to hear its something which is driving business practice in a positive way. I hope it can make changes which are long-lasting and beneficial. Ultimately though, that kind of progress still requires some kind of legislative heirarchy to ensure its not abused.

[JAMESSSS]

Even McDonalds does massive amounts of community service.

I'm sure they see it as "good karma coffee" at a base level, but they are still helping.

[Hardy]

Even McDonalds does massive amounts of community service.

I'm sure they see it as "good karma coffee" at a base level, but they are still helping.

It seems the argument put forward by Josh is that it's not helping because it's not altruistic and is for personal gain. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Does it really matter if the end result is the same? If people are helped as a result, does it make it worse that it is not completely selfless? It's the same as people donating money for tax write-offs. Yes, it helps the person donating, but the someone is still helped as a result.

[youthful_implants]

corporations are more than capable of running things. my bro is a community relations supernintendo for rio tinto. they (as much as everyone would love to hate them) do some amazing work for local indigenous communities in FNQ. i know it is not the same situation as in the UK but essentially, a corporation is required to get something back for their good deeds. doing stuff for nothing is not good business.

hey hugh my wife deals with rio tinto all the time, because she works for a shipping broker. she says they're all really nice people, the ones she talks to anyway.

I've met a lot of nice peeps in shipping actually, I'd quite like to get into it.

[elysium]

vigilante mobs taking to streets last night to protect their businesses, communities and families in London. From what I have heard primarily white, working class angry men. People were reporting incidents that had racist overtones. Not good. Most stuff dispersed without incident however.

Peckham burning on Monday night - am going to have to find me a new supermarket.

[andy_hoffman]

Riot fail!

http://failblog.org/2011/08/09/epic-fai ... ting-fail/

[fooishbar]

vigilante mobs taking to streets last night to protect their businesses, communities and families in London. From what I have heard primarily white, working class angry men. People were reporting incidents that had racist overtones. Not good. Most stuff dispersed without incident however.

dudes came down the bottom of brick lane looking to smash shit up ... right as the entire east london mosque came out of evening prayers

run out of whitechapel

[mrj]

vigilante mobs taking to streets last night to protect their businesses, communities and families in London.

not suprised, it was just a matter of time before the non-rioters got fed up and decided to take back their own streets.

this probably doesn't reflect on me very well but I was thinking that yesterday, that if it were me I'd grab my neighbours and friends, tool up and go reclaim my neighbourhood. At least that is what I was thinking. In reality I'd probably just cower inside like a snivelling wuss, secretly hoping the mob would torch my car because mine has so many kms on it.

[aroes]

Would love to know what the general prevalent vibe among the yout is. Whether it's one of uprising against an incompetent government catalysed by the death of another, or one of 'ey bruv let's get more trainers and track jackets while we can and remain hooded in the event we murk a cop'

Guess you just don't know unless you're there

[Hardy]

vigilante mobs taking to streets last night to protect their businesses, communities and families in London.

not suprised, it was just a matter of time before the non-rioters got fed up and decided to take back their own streets.

this probably doesn't reflect on me very well but I was thinking that yesterday, that if it were me I'd grab my neighbours and friends, tool up and go reclaim my neighbourhood. At least that is what I was thinking. In reality I'd probably just cower inside like a snivelling wuss, secretly hoping the mob would torch my car because mine has so many kms on it.

Pretty much exactly what I would do VS what I would WANT to do.

[quiet roar]

just a pity the kids were so into stealing sneakers / xboxes / alcohol they forgot to burn banks and gvt buildings gah
it is mostly 'bare' oppurtunism imo - fed by summer holidays / gernal feeling of disaffection / tory / tesco etc.

Spot on!