London’s Big Riots: Was the Economy to Blame?
Aug 7th, 2011 | 10 responses
The event: massive riots in London. Those who did the damage: thugs. The reason: some think its the increasingly bleak financial outlook. Reuters reports:
London picked itself up on Sunday from some of the worst violence seen in the British capital for years which politicians and police blamed on criminal thugs but residents attributed to local tensions and anger over rising financial hardship.
Rioters throwing petrol bombs rampaged overnight through an economically deprived district, setting police patrol cars, buildings and a double-decker bus on fire.
Police said 26 officers were injured as rioters bombarded them with missiles and bottles, looted buildings including banks, shops and council offices, and torched three patrol cars near Tottenham police station in north London.
The riots erupted after a street protest over the fatal shooting of a man by armed officers this week turned violent.
Residents said they were forced to flee their homes to escape the trouble as mounted police and riot officers on foot charged the crowd to push rioters back.
As day broke, the Metropolitan Police, which will handle next year’s London Olympic Games in what is expected to be Britain’s biggest peacetime operation, faced questions about how the trouble had been allowed to escalate.
The disturbance was only finally brought under control on Sunday after hours of sporadic clashes. Buildings were still smouldering, bricks littered the roads and burglar alarms continued to ring out.
The Metropolitan police has admitted it “had not anticipated” the extreme violence that saw police attacked and buildings and vehicles set alight during sustained rioting in Tottenham, north London.
As questions were asked about the level of policing, Commander Adrian Hanstock said a peaceful vigil by the family of 29-year-old Mark Duggan, who was fatally shot by officers in the area on Thursday, had been “hijacked by mindless thugs” and that the situation had “escalated out of all proportion”.
Twenty-six police officers suffered injuries, with eight receiving hospital treatment. Two remained in hospital on Sunday. Three members of the public also required medical attention, with two taken to hospital.
Forty-two people have been arrested for offences including violent disorder, burglary and theft following the torching of buildings, two police cars and a bus, and the ransacking and looting of shops in both Tottenham and nearby Wood Green.
The violence followed a demonstration by members of the community outside Tottenham police station to demand “justice” for the family of Duggan, a father of four, who was shot after police stopped the minicab he was driving in.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is investigating the incident, which also saw a police officer shot, the bullet reportedly lodging in his police radio and leaving him with minor injuries.
Hanstock said the death was “extremely regrettable”. He said it was “absolutely tragic that someone has died, but that does not give a criminal minority the right to destroy businesses and people’s livelihoods and steal from their local community”.
“There was no indication that the protest would deteriorate into the levels of criminal and violent disorder that we saw,” he added.
26 police officers were injured in the unrest and 42 people were arrested for offences including violent disorder, burglary and theft following overnight clashes.
Mr Lammy today said the area had had its “heart ripped out” by the rioting and said there may even be fatalities in the burned out buildings, he said.
He said: “A community that was already hurting has now had its heart ripped out.
“The post office, shops, news agents, mobile phone shops, council building that deal with customer complaints, smashed to pieces by mindless, mindless people last night – many of whom are not from Tottenham and had come from afar into this community intent on causing violence.
“What happened here raised huge questions and we need answers, but the response to that is not to loot, to rob…”
More than 40 people have been arrested after rioting saw police attacked, buildings looted and vehicles set alight in Tottenham, north London.
Overnight, 26 officers and three others were hurt in the violence which erupted after a protest over the fatal shooting by police of Mark Duggan on Thursday.
Residents surveyed the damage after homes were looted and shops burnt down.
Tottenham MP David Lammy said: “A community that was already hurting has had its heart ripped out.”
The Metropolitan Police said two officers were still in hospital and three members of the public had been injured.
More than 40 people remain in custody for offences including violent disorder, burglary and theft.
Police said there were still “pockets of criminality” in the area on Sunday morning.
Shops and homes were raided and cash machines ripped out in Tottenham. There were also thefts from shops in nearby Wood Green.
London Fire Brigade received 264 emergency calls late on Saturday and in the early hours of Sunday and attended 49 fires in the Tottenham area.
A spokesman said all the blazes were under control “at the moment”.
On Sunday, police were manning a cordon around the scene of the violence, while residents surveyed the damage to their community.
Labour MP Mr Lammy said: “There are homeless people standing back there.”
“This is an attack on Tottenham, on people, shopkeepers, women, children, now standing homeless.”
10 Responses to “London’s Big Riots: Was the Economy to Blame?”
Wow, first I’ve heard of this. Sounds like people just got angry because this guy was shot by police. If you are unemployed and hungry, what better way to vent your frustrations than to join a crowd of brick throwing “mindless” rioters?
Be prepared for this here as well. It’s happened before, it’ll happen again, there’s no reason it won’t.
Nothing like this happened in the Great Depression, which was worse.
It’s interesting that it happened across the Atlantic. I doubt it can be blamed on the UK austerity, but rather than there’s been a good deal of additional entitlement mentality developed overseas (as we have seen in Greece as well as elsewhere in Europe whenever reform is even hinted at), and large parts of the population that effectively are removed from society — not just the Muslim problem there, with the terrorist threat, but a more general problem, an underclass. Such items should be studied, in case, yes, there is the possibility of something like that happening here, less so, but certainly post-modern, something completely different than the society and behavior we had in the 1930s.
A huge difference between now and the Depression era is expectations. During the Depression, the idea of massive government assistance and income support was new. People didn’t riot demanding it because most people didn’t assume it was the government’s role to ensure individual economic security in the first place.
Now expectations are that the government will not only ensure economic security for individuals, but even prosperity. And many see that as an individual “entitlement,” not something that they should have to do anything at all to earn or pay for. It is the obligation of “the rich” to pay for it (without limit) and accept abuse for the crime of being “rich” at the same time. That’s just how populist class warfare works now — it offers something for nothing and calls upon people to get angry if they don’t get it.
Thus, when they don’t receive everything they expect AND a pony, some of them see themselves as justified in a level of “activism” that can in some cases turn violent. That’s what happened in Greece and now appears to have happened in London. It remains to be seen whether America’s remaining vestiges of individualism can forestall similar events here as some level of austerity is enforced on the United States due to declining investor interest in American debt.
The British underclass is no mystery to the informed, and many have written about it. [chuckle] No, “many” isn’t limited to Charles Murray.
I wonder if the “economy” was suspected when there were riots in France some time ago.
Just heard on the beeb that Europe is buying up bonds in an attempt to stabilize Italy. Apparently Italy was worse than everybody thought. And the debt crisis grows.
Italy wasn’t worse than many of us suspected. Watch Spain, too.
It’s not the economy, nor is it “the cuts” (in expenditures)…
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100099866/blaming-these-riots-on-the-cuts-risks-inflaming-an-already-volatile-situation/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8687487/Tottenham-riot-a-community-blighted-by-drugs-and-gun-crime.html
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100099840/tottenham-riots-the-history-lesson-from-los-angeles-is-that-the-modern-middle-class-wont-tolerate-mob-rule/
Umm yeah, this had nothing to do with the economy…at all. This was a peaceful protest that was mauled by a bunch of hood rats. The situation quickly went out of control and the protester’s control with it.
And yes, DLS is right on here…
“The British underclass is no mystery to the informed”