London 2011
London 1981
British Prime Minister 1981
British Prime Minister 2011
The rioting in London is, of course, inexcusable and definitely rather worrying. It is possibly not that surprizing either. There is often an angry atmosphere on the streets of Britain these days and it isn’t all the fault of government. However, we now have a Conservative administration again as we did in the bad old days of the 1980s and the country has not felt as divided since the days of Margaret Thatcher. Anger and resentment at inequality bubbles under for only so long and then if the face of authority is perceived to be an uncaring one, then trouble will break out. This has happened before.
I hope the present administration will take note.
I think this has gone very quickly from protest to organised crime. The sad thing is that the serious issues will get overtaken by the rioting.
There do seem to be some significant issues abut policing (why try to arrest somebody in a cab? It doesn't seem the most convenient place – unless there is more to the story), but the riots may mask those issues.
The vast majority of people in those areas will be law-abiding and decent, but that too will get forgotten.
Sad times indeed. Like Thatcher's government, the Coalition may throw money at the problem (although that seems a bit unlikely) but will they deal with the root causes? I doubt it.
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