UK Riots

There seems to be no real reason for these riots. When thugs are interviewed there’s usually some rambling about how “teenagers are being suppressed” or that “we have nothing to do, the Police don’t respect us”.

No, I think you’ll find you don’t respect the Police… or other people, property etc. This report from The Globe and Mail tries to put some reasoning behind it…

There are some things uniting the London rioters. Almost all are under 20. Police reported that the youngest arrested over the weekend was 11 years old, and that almost all were born in the 1990s.

And most, according to their own accounts in interviews and Facebook postings, come from the same neighbourhoods they are looting and burning: Mostly poor neighbourhoods, thick with public-housing towers and short on employment opportunities.

Whether the thousands of rioters actually did express disillusionment – some did say they were angry at police or the world, but many appeared gleeful or greedy – it is clear that most had nothing else to do with themselves, and no reason to fear or feel responsible for the consequences of their actions.

Why are 11-year-old kids out rioting on a Saturday night anyway? From what I can see, kids who have dropped out of school have, up until fairly recently, had certain things delivered on a plate. They’re now finding that things aren’t so easy in these hard times.

17 per cent of Britain’s youth are classified as “NEETs” – for Not in Employment, Education or Training, in other words high-school dropouts with no prospects of employment – the fourth-highest percentage in the European Union. There are 600,000 people under 25 in Britain who have never had a day of work.

There’s no real “message” here. Kids want stuff, so they put their hoods up and go out to get it. Free. In London these riots will achieve nothing. The Olympics are due to start next year, but that regeneration and money is being jeopardised by idiots running amok, making communities worse, not better. Last night in Birmingham they smash up this sweet shop. It’s a sweet shop. Some of these kids are as young as 11, so this kinda makes sense.

What were those rioters going to do ? Run through the Bull Ring with their free cola cubes?

Personally, and if I’m honest, there’s a bigger problem. The combination of easy-to-obtain benefits and lazy parents mean that a lot of children and teenagers have grown up in a world where everything is simple to obtain. The internet has brought them everything instantly, their phones keep them hooked into “Life 2.0” and their parents just take the easy route – letting them do whatever they want, for an easy life.

Net result ? Some kids with no morals or values. We can blame the parents, but those parents are – for the most part – as bad as the kids. It’s an opening into a terrible world where human nature doesn’t exist, where kids aren’t loved, where they’re stuck in front of the TV, where the internet opens up a different consequence-free virtual world.

These are kids with hoods who start fires in shops underneath flats…