“This is pure criminality” the prime minister said, and his soft face
quivered in rage. “The guilty will be found and punished by the full
force of the law.” Yes, ok. I think the riot was more than criminality.
Suddenly a group of no hopers, people condemned to poverty had
a voice and their voice was violence. For the first time in their life
they had freedom, to break free of the shackles of misery and feel
the invigorating sense of power. Young people doomed to idleness,
living in filthy sub standard estates, now they called the shots.
Masters of the world, what a great time they had even though, they
knew it couldn’t last. This was their great moment to be savoured.
What comes after this is bleakness, a life of day jobs or going in and
out of prisons. They will be middle aged and poor; spawn offspring
who like them are without a future. They will get old poor and poor,
but they will always have the glorious days of August 2011.
The term 'substandard housing' refers to conditions such as inadequate insulation or damp protection, and overcrowding of premises, affecting mainly the elderly and poor with large families. While there is poverty in Britain, at least, there is in all areas of public accommodation adequate sewage and waste disposal facilities, which, unlike slums of the third world, where filth is a problem, exempts it from being described as 'filthy'.
The riots were an exceptional circumstance based on an issue of perceived lack of respect sparked off by a shooting of a young man by the police. The wide prevalence of mobile phones and means of motor transport, scooters and cars, by the youthful rioters, and the targeting of shops and business premises holding hi-tech and fashion goods, and not government offices for benefits or employment, shows the cause to be related to the effects of the riot, as opportunistic for the purposes of looting by an already gadgeted and mobile youth. It has nothing therefore to do with the lack of provision for job opportunities and training that are currently in place for youth in Britain today.
