Looting and arson? You shouldn’t be surprised
contribution by Ruhi Khan
Now that the violence has stopped and the streets are safe, we should ask ourselves – was it really so shocking?
Looting and property destruction have always been a part of rioting. Looting is a mass recruiter and maintains the momentum of the riots. Looters are often called the foot soldiers of a riot. In either case it wouldn’t generate much interest in the issue in the media, political circles or among the general public.
Arson too has often been a part of riots.
continue reading… »
Why isn’t more of our media industry held in mutuals?
The debate on media plurality recognises that who owns newspapers matters, but says little about how they’re owned; the regulation debate recognises that media need to be held to account but is focussed on external control, with little conception of the potential for greater internal accountability.
But what if our media were owned differently, where journalists, executives and boards accountable for their actions to empowered readers and staff? What if media could be co-operative?
One of neo-liberalism’s greatest tricks has been to persuade the world that the politics of ownership don’t exist, drawing a veil over how power flows from control.
Watch: Robinhood tax crash bankers’ bash
Last week, the Robinhood Tax Campaign gate-crashed the annual ‘Square Mile summer party’.
At the party they interviewed bankers bragging about everything being back to business as usual and the government being able to do little to control the industry.
And, rather unsurprisingly, many bankers spend the night gambling and admiring Ferrari cars on display.
Watch
The Square Mile reported after:
The mood at this year’s bash was described by Sky News as “more sober than previous events”, and there was unquestionably less drunkenness on show and a distinct lack of nudity. However when six guests were asked whether they were having a good time, three replied, “what was the question?”, two kissed the questioner and one fell over.
Some things never change.
‘Get rich or die tryin’ – do youths have the right to complain?
contribution by Ella
Although the ‘mindless thuggery’ of this week was swiftly condemned by not only those in authority, but parents, teachers, neighbours and peers of the rioters themselves – subsequent theories tell us that this was an act of ‘consumerist greed’ and extreme hooliganism by our hooded, knife wielding generation.
Evidently, the youth of today are dissatisfied. They claim they are entirely dismissed by those in power; they are simply an ‘underclass’, devoid of hope of future.
However unlike the generations before us, of the sixties, seventies and eighties, young people today have a louder voice than ever.
continue reading… »
#somethingniceforashraf raises more than £22k
One of the most sickening scenes in the riots in London was the video of Ashraf Haziq, a Malaysian student, being mugged by rioters who pretended to help him.
In response, the “Do Something Nice for Ashraf” website was set up by people who were disgusted by the shameful way that he was treated, to raise money to do something nice for him.
This appeal has now closed, having raised more than £22,000 which is, as the organisers say, “a cracking effort from everyone”.
Do Something Nice for Ashraf is one of the main online efforts to help victims of the riots. You can donate to others, including the House of Reeves furniture store, Aaron Biber and Siva Kandiah.
The #UKriots should not be used to clamp down on political protest
The government is treading a dangerous path of legislation. David Cameron said on Tuesday that the use of baton rounds by the police has been authorised. Contingency plans have also been made for the use of water cannons.
He also steps into dangerous territory by suggesting that social media must be regulated in order to prevent future such incidents.
Such plans also open up huge potential problems for the future of legitimate protests and freedom of speech.
continue reading… »
Who to blame for riots? Play right-wing bingo!
Dear readers,
As you know it’s a tough life being a right-wing commentator when you have to deal with political correctness, complete political domination by liberal elites, and an oppressive media where literally nothing can be discussed unless first cleared by eco-feminazis and Diversity Officers.
This fearless breed of truth-tellers are always at hand to explain how the left is to blame for the latest atrocity, from terriorist attacks in Norway to burning buses in London. Nothing will escape their sharp gaze.
To help you digest the forests of newspaper comment, I’ve compiled a quick list of commentators and their definitive answer to what caused the riots across the UK.
1. Max Hastings: Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of amoral, uneducated, welfare dependent, brutalised youngsters
Reasons:
- Liberal dogma
- No threat of capital punishment or deportation to Australia:
[The underclass'] frustrations and passions were kept at bay by force and draconian legal sanctions, foremost among them capital punishment and transportation to the colonies.
Today, those at the bottom of society behave no better than their forebears, but the welfare state has relieved them from hunger and real want.
- The “social engineering industry”
- Parliament, judiciary, police
- Wayne Rooney
2. Melanie Phillips: Britain’s liberal intelligentsia has smashed virtually every social value
Reasons:
- The Liberal intellgensia
- Breakdown of family
- Soft-headed social workers
- Harriet Harman (obviously!)
3. Richard Littlejohn: Red sky at night, Tottenham’s alight – as looters liberate everything from trainers to flat-screen TVs
Reasons:
- IKEA
- Mark Duggan
- London’s racial mix
4. Graeme Archer: How do you destroy a London borough?
Reasons
- White liberals who control the media
- The God of Diversity
- People who abhor racism
- Rap music!
Imagine the fun in running a school, whose teachers are barred from disciplining their charges, and where children wear trousers to show off their backsides, and speak in a completely made-up accent based on their idea of how gangsters talk. Fill their heads with a musical subgenre which mixes blatant pornography with violent, egotistical lyrical content. Dismiss anyone who wonders aloud about the effect of this genre as, of course, “racist”, but also deploy those useful liberals again, to write articles and present programmes about how “edgy” it all is. Channel Four will be your most useful ally here: see this summer’s celebration of “street” culture, for an example of how to do it.
- ‘Useful liberals’
- People who keep screaming racism
- Benefits system that hates married couples
- The Labour party
5. Toby Young: How did England’s cities become engulfed in a Lord of the Flies nightmare? Moral relativism is to blame, not gang culture
Reasons
- “Bonds of civilisation” have become weak
- Multiculturalism
- Moral Relativism
- “Progressive Left’s conviction that mankind is essentially good”
6. Nile Gardiner: If British shopkeepers had the right to bear arms, vicious thugs would think twice before looting
Reasons
- Tight gun laws
In contrast in London in 2011, shopkeepers were left at the mercy of feral, brutal thugs acting with impunity across whole swathes of the capital as the police were overwhelmed. If they had the right to bear arms and defend their stores with force, it would have been a very different story, and brutal looters would have met firm resistance.
7. Brendan O’Neill: It isn’t only urban ruffians who smash stuff up – the middle classes are also prone to outbursts of infantile rage
Reasons
- “Modern-day organic types”
Whether or not Mr Thomas is guilty, it is undeniable that other modern-day organic types, those crazily anti-pesticide, super-healthy sections of the middle classes, have it in for fast-food outlets, especially ones that serve up thousands upon thousands of dead birds every day (yum). Whether they’re campaigning against the building of a McDonald’s on their local high street – imagine the smell!
Imagine the riff-raff! – or getting teary-eyed about the evils of the Turkey Twizzler and how it is zapping white-trash children’s brain cells, food snobs are always trying to metaphorically demolish certain food emporiums. If some of them have started taking their demolition desires to a literal level, involving fisticuffs and stuff, it wouldn’t be all that shocking.
- Infantilism
- A powerful sense of victimhood
- “Victim-centred, narcissistic politics of immature rage and therapeutic self-expression”
- People who hate Nando’s
Have I missed out any gems?
Update Doh! I’d under-estimated the range of wingnuttery at the Telegraph. The following have now been added.
8. Damian Thompson: London riots: This is what happens when multiculturalists turn a blind eye to gang culture
Reasons
- Black people
…let’s just focus on one: the way Britain’s educational establishment has cringed helplessly in the face of a gang culture that rejects every tenet of liberal society. It’s violent, it’s sexist, it’s homophobic and it’s racist. But it is broadly tolerated by many people in the black community, which has lost control of its teenage youths.
9. Katharine Birbalsingh: These riots were about race. Why ignore the fact?
Reasons
- Black people
When I saw the photo, it confirmed what I knew instinctively: black youths once again have set London alight.
Some of the black kids I used to teach will tell you that the riots are absolutely justified. A number of adults would agree with them. Everywhere I read that the protest was understandable because “people are very angry”.
I did think about including James Delingpole in this list but 1) he’s utterly irrelevant and 2) he can barely string a coherent sentence together so its difficult to ascertain what he’s blaming.
Update 2: I forgot to include that Paul Bradshaw has done a visual guage of this bingo, which is very nice of him.
BBC ‘selectively editing’ riots footage [updated]
During Tuesday’s edition of Newsnight, hosted by Gavin Esler, one of the studio interviewees accused the BBC of selective editing.
The prgramme can be viewed online via the BBC iPlayer (available until 16th August). In a debate about why young people have joined the riots in London, student Yohanes Scarlett said:
First of all, I would like to say, earlier, during your newsclip here, you had a recording of a gentleman with a bandana across his face and sunglasses on, and I would like to point out right now right from the beginning that the BBC have cut out his original statement. I was there. He gave an original statement which he wanted the people to hear. It has been cut out, this is a misrepresentation.
Scarlett’s speech begins at about 15 mins 35 seconds on the iPlayer recording. The clip he referred to is at 7 mins 23 seconds.
Chairing the discussion, Gavin Esler immediately asked Yohanes Scarlett what the chap with the bandana said, but Scarlett said he couldn’t remember it by heart and was reluctant to paraphrase. He went to to say that the BBC should play the full clip. “Perhaps we will” replied Esler.
@Magic_Torch: @robertsharp59 @BBCNewsnight Just because they were accused it doesn’t mean it was true #justsaying
There is probably a simple reason why the interview was cut. Reporters have a strict time slot and the subject Liz MacKean was reporting on was very broad. However, it was an edit which a Newsnight interviewee – someone credible enough to be invited into the studio to talk specifically about the concerns of urban youths – thought was an unwarranted.
@Eastmad: @robertsharp59 @GavinEsler agreed – selective editing of people who you know don’t have much of a voice is egregious
Youths without a voice causing violence; youths causing violence because they have no polical voice. This context is important. This is not simply a case of a politician complaining about selective editing (which actually happens very rarely). Politicians have ample opportunity to clarify and expand upon what they say to broadcast journalists, and they are trained to talk in soundbites anyway. This is not true of the underclass, the submerged.
So fairly or unfairly, the BBC’s reporting has been called into question. If rebutting this criticism was in any way difficult, then maybe it would be appropriate for the BBC to shrug off Yohanes Scarlett’s comment, and the news cycle would move on. But in the age of YouTube and iPlayer, there is really no excuse for uploading Liz MacKean’s entire interview with the masked youth.
It only takes a few minutes, and will give those who want it a deeper insight in the psyche of those caused chaos on our streets.
Update 3:45pm, 11 Aug 2011
I’ve just received this response via e-mail from Newsnight’s Deputy Editor, Liz Gibbons:
With reference to your tweets about why we didn’t put the full interview and statement of the man who claimed to have some involvement with rioting on Newsnight on Tuesday night – it is standard televisual journalistic practice to choose clips from interviews in filmed pieces, rather than run interviews in full. This individual asked to make a statement to camera, but also agreed to do an interview in which our reporter was able to ask him some robust questions about why he thought it was justifiable to loot. I am sure you understand that it would be odd for the BBC to allow a statement from someone justifying criminal behaviour to be aired unchallenged, without us asking the individual some robust questions which the public would expect us to ask. We gave this individual no undertaking or promise of any kind that we would run his interview in full or that we would air his statement at all.
I have spoken to the reporter about the content of the statement that the individual made to camera and I am content that there was nothing he said in that pre-prepared statement that was not reflected in the subsequent interview exchange that was aired on the programme. Nor did he claim to represent any group, or organisation, or offer any insight beyond that which was reflected in the interview about why people were committing acts of violent disorder and criminality. You may have noted that Yohannes Scarlett who appeared in the studio, and was present when this interview was filmed, couldn’t actually recall what this individual even said in his pre-prepared statement.
I hope that allays your concerns.
‘Propaganda’ has become an excuse for our failure in Libya
Deborah Haynes, defence editor at the Times, writes these strange words in a piece bemoaning the snafu that is our latest war.
In a war of information and perception, the truth no longer matters. It is all about the message and in Libya, the regime is coming out on top.
(Times, 11th August)
It’s an odd column, listing the following points as presentational problems for Nato and the Libyan rebels:
continue reading… »
When is the right time to talk of the riot ‘root causes’?
The Independent’s leader-writer Ben Chu says Labour should have focused on the “root causes” of the riots; the social conditions described here.
He adds:
the public should be told the truth, whether or not they’re “open” to it
I don’t think it quite works like that. But first, both Mehdi Hasan and I (Mehdi for perhaps different reasons) are sceptical on focusing too much on the ‘root causes’ of these riots.
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