DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived post-Murdoch era

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/7/8/1310117598325/Prime-minster-David-Camer-007.jpg

stoked for the madness

awes

didn't want the charlie gilmour sentence to get lost in the shuffle

also: bombardier trains, dismantling the welfare state, etc.

booming title

we had a chance...to make a change for the better...

CANNESED was genius, tracer

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/7/14/1310666410929/Martin-Rowson-15.07.2011-001.jpg

Yeah, in a supposedly left-wing paper, sexist shit like that. ^^^^ "Grow some balls." I can't even...

she's standing on a stack of newspapers because women are short

*curtseys*

Gilmour kid reminds me of someone...

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/54089000/jpg/_54089114_jex_1108940_de27-1.jpg

lol
also xp to a whole other thread but, y'huh, psyched for more caek scoops. i don't really understand journalistic practices on this kind of thing - isn't it the kind of thing that a la ryan giggs' marriage, should be being flagrantly discussed piecemeal on twitte?

Who is that? Surely not the pol. editor of The Economist?
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_gaEMaD0eILw/SmdzkuLxN4I/AAAAAAAABco/MxkQrqWT44I/s400/512__DAW9227090722.jpg

murdoch meeting the dowlers this a'noon...anonymous tipoff

from me i mean

Dowlers, please surreptitiously tape the meeting.

Sometimes I wonder how anyone over 25 takes Laurie Penny seriously.[NB: the cenotaph incident wasn't what he was jailed for]

True but...

Passing sentence, Judge Nicholas Price QC accepted that Gilmour's behaviour at the Cenotaph did not form part of the violent disorder, but accused him of disrespect to the war dead.

Seems v. harsh - does he have any previous?

friend of a friend who has a brother in the know just let me know that police have opened an investigation into r brooks' involvement in maddie abduction, also got me google plus invites

None. Dumbfuck judge, my taxpayer friends and I really don't want to hear your opinion on matters outside the actual charge. Hope they appeal. xp

Fair point. Judge had no cause to mention cenotaph at all.

The judge gave another student 12 months last week for throwing a stick.

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/9128855.Talented_student_jailed_over_riot/

Judicial appointments
Senior Circuit Judge Appointment - Price QC

11 July 2011

The Lord Chancellor, the Right Honourable Kenneth Clarke QC MP has appointed His Honour Judge Nicholas Peter Lees Price QC to be a Senior Circuit Judge, Resident Judge based at Kingston Crown Court Centre effect from Monday 11 July 2011.

hmmn

They're charged with 'violent disorder' rather than criminal damage, which means the penalties are much more severe. Being part of a large group and being in a public place are aggravating factors.

The whole area of the law is extremely controversial as you're not really being judged on the acts you carried out but the wider context of the event. Someone got five years, a while back, for throwing stones at police during a 'riot'.

i see that martin rowson still hasn't mastered the felt tip

3.47pm: Breaking: David Cameron hosted Andy Coulson at Chequers this spring after his resignation in January ... More details soon ...

He was calling him his friend a week ago

don't forget The Official Newscorp/UK end of season finale/Rebekah Brooks did 9/11 thread

probably not going to keep murdoch and uk politics completely separate (am i right?!?!), but started another thread because the newscorp stuff going international and it was drowning out good honest tory scum news.

OK, to repost (which is disappointing) I notice that this thread has managed to spend even less time on the defense review than the mainstream media. Do people really have nothing to say? (I spent my afternoon with journos and people waiting to lose their jobs) It's another tory attack on Scotland, but this time it leaves British armed forces in an impossible position.

As a lily-livered pacifist type, I'm not entirely unhappy that cuts are being made in defence spending, but yes, this whole thing sounds like it has fucked an entire community over. DOn't seem to be any real plans for creating new jobs there.

I come from an air force family btw and spent my childhood on various bases, so I appreciated what a huge thing this is for the people that live there.

Yeah, me too - I've lived my whole life on or near RAF bases (and I'm a lily-livered pacifist too, though I've recently decided on certain revolutionary exceptions). But Fox even referred to the SNP's (very unlikely to succeed) threat of independence as a reason for the decision. He's punishing communities for how they vote.

Hadn't caught that aspect of it, but Fox has always been a huge cock.

Should say best wishes to you and yours dowd, dunno what you do but I hope yr okay.

It's kinda up in the air at the mo, but cheers.

i had thought the scots wanted uk armed forces off their patch??

Doubtless some of them do - the minority who support independence. But no-one in communities around these bases wants them to go. We should have found another of Ewen MacGregor's siblings to protect Leuchars, as they (thankfully) did Lossiemouth.

Quite sad about this. I worked at Leuchars for 8 years and had a great time, still know a few people there and hope things will work out ok for them.

Brooks's husband Charlie says bag belonged to him not Rebekah. Spokesman says: "A cleaner thought it was rubbish and put it in the bin.

What cleaner throws a computer in a bin? loool

scotland hates tories, tories hate us. this will never change.

also the nats don't want rid of the brit armed forces, salmond campaigned against this iirc.

Yes, he did - he gave a speech n the village hall across the road from my house. The SNP's position was that we've already lost a base, so expecting Scotland to bear 2 of it's 3 bases closed was ridiculous, so both Lossiemouth and Leuchars should stay open.

At least it will be quieter here - the Typhoons are noisy as hell. Now it'll just be rifle drills and the odd helicopter (assuming the vague ideas about an army barracks come to fruition, and even then it'll probably be about five years)

imo the defence review is classic osbornomics, ie unserious. it wasn't a real review: if they don't want the uk to be one of the big clubs, they should make that case, but doing it as part of a defence review *and then launching into a new war* was just derrrrrrrrrrrrp.

Fox kept responding to questions by saying things like 'in order to achieve a regular/reservist proportion similar to the US we have to...' but he never explained why such a ratio was desirable. Of course, it's all about the £££'s, but he should have the guts to say so.

November 2006:

Shadow Olympics minister Hugh Robertson said: "The secretary of state has admitted to a 40% increase.

"She has failed to disclose the true cost of VAT, contingency, building cost inflation and security, much of which was entirely predictable at the time of the bid.

"Today's increase is just a starting point. While the figures remain ambiguous, we can only expect further increases."

July 2011:

The Olympic Delivery Authority has announced 88% of the building programme for London 2012 is now complete.

It has also been announced the anticipated final cost of the project fell by £16m during the last quarter.

This has prompted Sports Minister Hugh Robertson to say for the first time he is "confident" the project will come in under its £9.3bn budget.

He said: "With one year to go construction is 88% complete, ahead of time and under budget."

NHS services opened to competition

FUCK THESE PEOPLE.

Wheelchair services an interesting choice for the first round, given Cameron's been talking about his troubles with them.

Seriously, fuck these guys. They know it's completely buried.

I hear Champneys in Tring treats people in wheelchairs well...

Interesting choice of day to announce this eh?

The Guardian has the Lansley announcement story on page 15, the Independent on page 21, The Times on page 17 and the Daily Mail on page 31. And that's your lot.

iirc this was something that was going to happen. and now it has happened, kind of thing.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100098140/george-osborne-wants-a-single-euro-state/

what does this all mean?

Osborne's lost his (Jonny) marbles?

Dorset County Council is closing 9 of its 34 libraries, with 11 of those left to be run by unpaid volunteers and community groups.

Apparently it's OK because 75 per cent of Dorset residents never set foot inside a library.

Wonder what the percentage of primary school age children is. Oh.

They all vote Tory down there anyway, so fuck 'em, they're getting what they voted for

those primary school age child tory voters are the fuckin worst

Let them take it up with their parents

d-cam is editing the next issue of the big issue o_0 o_0

whose ideas was that? good god

sure that's "editing" and not "selling" ?

get on with running the country into the ground you prick

Yeah, in this current situation, that's bound to be a good idea.

Next up, Harold Shipman opens his own old people's home...

d-cam is editing the next issue of the big issue o_0 o_0

whose ideas was that?

[Big Issue founder, John] Bird revealed in 2010 "My guilty secret is that I’m really a working class Tory. There, I’ve said it. I’d love to be a liberal because they’re the nice people but it’s really hard work – I can’t swallow their gullibility and I think their ideas are stupid. I’d love to be someone who wonders around in a kind of Utopian paradise seeing only the good in everybody but I just can’t. I support capital punishment for a start. I know this will destroy my reputation among middle-class liberals but I’m 64 now and I should be able to breathe a bit. Wearing the corsetry of liberalism means that every now and then you have to take it off."

My guilty secret is that I’m really a working class Tory

Form what i've seen of this guy over the years I wouldn't exactly call that a secret

"working class"

Is that the British meaning of 'liberal' or the American definition?

US I imagine, I assume the sneer used when saying it is the same in any case

Getting people to sell your product without having to worry about if they have enough to pay their mortgages...

Plus, of course, being pure 'profit-share' means the minimum wage doesn't apply, right?

I'm not slagging the whole enterprise, just defining it.

I used to write for the Big Issue in the '90s. I seldom see people buying them with the same enthusiasm today.

Yes, it's only middle-class liberals who wonder around in a kind of Utopian paradise seeing only the good in everybody who seem to buy it these days

The rest of us have taken our corsets off and say "no thanks"

Huhne's a naughty boy then?

Re: RAF Leuchars

Dowd / Billy Dods - please email me at albaba at gmail dot com if you're interested in writing a short blogpost about the closure for this series:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/series/the-cuts-get-personal

... or could put me in touch with someone who might be.

Cheers

Does ilx just not have a norway massarcre thread? Or am I being dense looking at sna?

2011 Oslo/Utoeya Norway attacks

Cheers.

What an amazing old duffer:

A DISTINGUISHED barrister has called on Theresa May to ban “left-wing” marches in Piccadilly after damage to the Ritz at anti-cuts protests earlier this year.

John Beveridge QC (pictured) co-founder and chairman of amenity group the St James’s Conservation Trust, said such marches attracted “ragtag” protesters who “become violent and urinate all over the place”.

He added: “I have written to the Home Secretary, who has responded in the usual pusillanimous and ambiguous way, that these marches should be sent on routes that don’t take them past Fortnum and Mason and Cartier and the Ritz, that pass ordinary shops that won’t so inflame them. There’s no fun for them in attacking Safeway or Costcutter, but they love beating up the Ritz.

“The Home Secretary should have a bit more political guts and say that this type of march must be diverted elsewhere.”

ahem, safeway haven't existed in the UK for a decade or thereabouts?

Think the 73 year-old barister might be a little out-of-touch.

Personally I want my protesters to be urinating everywhere!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14315442

can't wait for the next series of the thick of it:

Steve Hilton, David Cameron’s enigmatic strategy director, has startled colleagues by proposing the abolition of maternity leave and all consumer rights legislation, as part of an initiative to inject life into Britain’s sluggish economy.Mr Hilton’s crusade against employment legislation also saw him suggest that Mr Cameron just ignore European labour regulations on temporary workers, prompting an exasperated exchange with Jeremy Heywood, Downing Street’s permanent secretary.
“Steve asked why the PM had to obey the law,” said one Whitehall insider of a meeting in March to discuss the government’s growth strategy. “Jeremy had to explain that if David Cameron breaks the law he could be put in prison.”
Mr Hilton is highly admired by Mr Cameron for his original thinking, but the shaven-headed policy guru’s friends admit that three-quarters of his ideas fail to get off the drawing board – to the relief of colleagues.

even the FT raising an eyebrow there.

but they love beating up the Ritz.

If you're blue and you don't know where to go to
Why don't you go where lefties have fits
Beating up the Ritz.

holy shit the thick of it best come back now

That Thick of It special must have been thrown off course so many times in the last 18 months or so. The level of rewriting going on must have been ridiculous.

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/07/blue-labour-conservative-mood

These people are the most appalling cocks.

who? the SWP, Blu Labor or Mandy?

i know what the answer is really :)

'all of them' iirc

Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, who was at Oxford University at the same time as Mrs Mensch, insisted he had only ever witnessed her enjoying a "small glass of sherry".

Presumably the stern, disapproving glare of Jacob Rees-Mogg's nanny ensured that she behaved appropriately when in his vicinity.

class bigotry is a terrible thing so i take no pleasure in wanting to set Jacob Rees-Mogg's tweed suit on fire

"I saw her taking snuff occasionally but what's wrong with that?"

oh jacob she was never gonna share her coke with you ;_;

http://i.imgur.com/cq0UE.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/cq0UE.jpg

tottenham appears to be burning

needs more 'comedians' with pies.

i agree, they are needed, right in the middle of the flames

all of them

the guardian article on it is so (maybe understandably on account of haste &c) weirdly written and sorta funny? it has lots of parts that are like Some were sighted with a television and an electric guitar, and quotes some guy being all 'looks like this is going to get pretty tasty'

http://i.imgur.com/G95ym.jpg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicohogg

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0689dhH0un55L/x610.jpg

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0dAI3PGgaa10N/610x.jpg

RIP Wood Green Shopping City.

80s revival complete then.

Meanwhile:

A government minister has claimed that opposition to proposed planning law reforms is driven by "left-wingers" within pressure groups "picking a fight with the Government".

Organisations like the National Trust and the Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) have spoken out against the planned changes.

The National Trust has signalled its "grave concerns" over the planning reforms, warning that the proposed changes "could lead to unchecked and damaging development in the undesignated countryside on a scale not seen since the 1930s".

And the CPRE has warned that the planning system is "under attack from the Government's planning reforms", which would lead to the protection of precious countryside being "seriously weakened". The reforms are designed to streamline the rules surrounding new developments, cutting the current 1,300 pages of national planning policy to just 52. Councils will be told there should be a "presumption for development".

The CPRE has warned that the changes represent "the biggest shake-up of planning for over 50 years" and will "place the countryside under increasing threat and leave local communities and planning authorities largely powerless in the face of developer pressure".

Asked about opposition to the changes, planning minister Bob Neill told the Daily Telegraph: "This is a carefully choreographed smear campaign by left-wingers based within the national headquarters of pressure groups. This is more about a small number of interest groups trying to justify their own existence, going out of their way by picking a fight with Government."

First that one dude wants to abolish maternity rights, now this guy thinks the National Trust are Marxist insurgents. Shaping up to be one of the great Tory governments.

lol Nick Cohen

haha yeah

events dear boy, events

lol poor nick cohen, i kind of feel for him (but not that much cuz it was a dumb argument to be making in the first place)

like, nothing about this should remotely come as a surprise.

not sure this riot is about the_recession tbf

obvi i can see laurie penny or paul mason saying it is...

not sure this riot is about the_recession tbf

think we can file this one under broken britain

p interested in the backstory about the incident in which the guy got shot; like potentially another roaring PR success for the police?

people are out there fighting to bring about a new socio-political order and you're here quibbling. for shame.

i still don't know what it's ~about~, i wasn't there and there seems to be a lot of...agenda projection going on. but it's not a surprise that kids who don't have much, and who don't have much to do, both of which have been exacerbated of late, and who have been seeing rioting and/or protesting become a possible action, an option to vent their anger (whatever this anger is actually based on), will do this.

I'm not shedding too many tears for owners of e.g. PC World, but then on the other hand having your already poverty-stricken neighbourhood trashed by looting doesn't sound much fun. All the predictable Twitter schadenfreude is pretty disgusting too.

I'm watching the news right now and the BBC just finished interviewing an excellent youth worker called Symon who pointed out the difference between 'remembering long-ago events' eg Broadwater Farm and the 'collective memory' experienced by the locals. He also explained it all kicked off when a 16-year-old girl got truncheoned by the cops at the vigil held by the dead man's family, which media are trying to bump back to 'rumours'.

Also SMH at the media's use of the term 'community leader' as I've never, ever known it to be applied to a white person.

Recessions in popular memory mean 3 million or more out of work. Britain's unemployment figures have remained low.

ok this is a pretty fuckin' weird statement from cohen. official unemployment is about two and a half million. that's not low, it's scandalous, probably the biggest standing condemnation of british policy-makers and business elite going.

Can't believe Nick Cohen would write fatuous bullshit....

At Wood Green now. Targets were carefully selected for economic value - phones, cosmetics, etc. One exception was Brook Brothers employment agency which had its windows smashed in. Not sure what significance that may have.

what dyou mean? by any of that?

(they 'carefully selected' a shop beneath where one of my fbook friends lives; she was evacuated and the street is still off-limits.)

Apologies if it wasn't clear, i was posting via Blackberry earlier. The shops that were targeted for looting / damage were the ones where people could carry away large amounts of high-value goods relatively easily (Carphone Warehouse, Body Shop, Vision Express, etc). The only notable exception i saw that was pure property damage with no obvious financial motive was Brook Brothers. I'm not sure whether that was a deliberate thing (objecting to the lack of suitable jobs in the area and the attitude of the company in question) or whether it was random. Not a lot else looked random.

well, just cos it's opportunistic doesn't mean people aren't going to have an eye for the main chance.

acc to a sociological paper i read a while back, the only disturbances where you see properly random property damage are drunken post-sports-victory celebrations.

it's sort of hard not to hit your 'target' when the target is 'the political and economic system we live under'

(their data was from US newspapers between the 1960s and 2000s, criteria for 'disturbance' were iirc numbers over a dozen, police presence.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcwUyZ68C0k

Surprising lack of people wanking themselves into a frenzy about how cool it all is, unlike the Bristol riots a couple of months ago. A bit too close to home for the insurrection tourists, perhaps?

I think past a certain level it's difficult to call what is and isn't a "random" act of destruction - what might at the start be targeted can slip way out of control as a kind of chaotic momentum takes hold.

not sure this riot is about the_recession tbf

Pretty sure it doesn't help the situation much. Welcome to Tory Britain, Thatcherkids!

Surprising lack of people wanking themselves into a frenzy about how cool it all is, unlike the Bristol riots a couple of months ago. A bit too close to home for the insurrection tourists, perhaps?

― 50,000 raspberries with the face of Peter Ndlovu (aldo), Sunday, August 7, 2011 12:47 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

jodymcintyre Jody McIntyre
Be inspired by the scenes in #tottenham, and rise up in your own neighbourhood. 100 people in every area = the way we can beat the feds.
14 hours ago

Weirdly, the lead clip Sky was using appeared to show a whole bunch of Orthodox Jewish geezers either running to or from the riot

ugh stfu jody mcintyre

it's not a surprise that kids who don't have much, and who don't have much to do, both of which have been exacerbated of late, and who have been seeing rioting and/or protesting become a possible action, an option to vent their anger (whatever this anger is actually based on), will do this.

this is otm imo - it may not be 'about' the_recession but we are currently in a situation in which protest-becomes-riot has become an available part of the repertoire, and i do think that's related to the_recession and the current govt's economic/social policies and how people have so far reacted to them.

isn't this riot because the police shot someone?

Yes. It's really that simnple. No need to analyse it further. Let's not worry orurselves over it.

the protest was because the police shot someone. the fact that is became a riot might have more complex causation.

the fact that it became a riot, i mean.

well yes. but the more complex causation seems to more to do with how the protest was handled on the ground, rather than s&p downgrading US debt to AA+ or the murdoch stuff.

i'm not watching the uk news at the moment, so this could be bollocks but my impression from reading the papers is this riot would have happened if the shooting was in 2008 or 1997 or whenever. not true?

absolutely not saying it's unimportant by the way. the metropolitan police are the most disgusting savages imo.

Maybe (xp)

i'm not watching the uk news at the moment, so this could be bollocks but my impression from reading the papers is this riot would have happened if the shooting was in 2008 or 1997 or whenever. not true?

no-one has enough facts yet imho. it's not like life on a tottenham estate was rosy in either of those years. but i would maybe venture that the police have become progressive more aggressive and insensitive over time. but so far the only voices i've heard have been from middle-class commentators.

but so far the only voices i've heard have been from middle-class commentators.

Uh, just saw a minister from the local area giving not so much an interview as a tub-thumping sermon to a reporter, his voice getting louder as he went on, I think if I'd opened my window I might have heard his voice

Friends and family of the shooting victim (shot by CO19 cops) went to protest peacefully at the station; they also hoped to 'get some answers'. Altercations began after a 16 year old girl who approached the police was truncheoned by an officer. In my opinion, there will always be flare-ups when police are seen to be violent and dismissive of ordinary people's concerns. Whether these incidents spiral out into actual riots depends on a huge set of circumstances, but the fear and insecurity we're all feeling at the moment must be exponentially worse for people who are poor and judged as worthless by leaders who condescend to them.

that sounds plausible. its the clobbering a teenage girl part -- taking it at face-value -- that has the hallmark of the met.

i don't think it's wise to weigh in on the shooting/demand for answers part.

hatred of the police is a universal constant so i think caek otm up there

^^^the shooting details I'm referencing come from reports published in the Guardian papers - the NE London local newspaper group, not the Grauniad - before last night's events.

Perfect storm of poisonous factors I think. This could easily have happened under Labour's watch but I'm not sure the conditions were as ripe for something to ignite as they are right now.

i think this guardian piece was prescient and important http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jul/29/gang-violence-rises-as-councils-cut-youth-services

my impression from reading the papers is this riot would have happened if the shooting was in 2008 or 1997 or whenever. not true?

have there not been similar police shootings in the past five years? i assumed that there would have been.

The narrative has been that the guy was well respected on the estate and not normally associated with violence. How much of that is true, it's difficult to say, but it seems to have added something to the protests and subsequent rioting.

It's difficult to ignore the economic / social backdrop to the events, and they're likely to get worse over the next couple of years, but there's a danger in romanticising the period between 1997 and 2010. There were progressive steps forward in policing and, to a degree, in job creation, but the whole area has always been poverty-stricken and marginalised. As with 1985, if this is an expression of a broader anger, it's not one that started bubbling up when share prices started to fall.

The narrative has been that the guy was well respected on the estate and not normally associated with violence.

also (according to tha intarnet) he was arrested then executed on the spot, a claim which i am sceptical of but wonder how widespread it is IRL

the zero books contingent is saying that, yes. seems murky as hell to me, which is exactly why it's best to wait for some kind of more or less thorough report... but the same dudes are also saying that you would never be able to trust an official report. i half-agree, but it does leave you in the position of taking sides without having a fucking clue what you're talking about.

RT @GatezArtist: The Enfield loot is a #EpicFail looool man are getting nicked and planking on to of the police cars with handcuffs on

Presumably it's not controversial that riots tend to be about more than their immediate trigger? I mean, if this shooting had happened a couple of years ago perhaps nothing would have happened, but added to cuts and youth unemployment it becomes a trigger. I don't know how you would go about proving this though.

7.35pm: Initial ballistics tests on the bullet that lodged in a police officer's radio when Mark Duggan died on Thursday night show it was a police issue bullet, the Guardian understands.

ruh-roh

Perspective from a local teacher here.

Dum Dum bullets - so named because they were used in the Bengal mutiny of 1857.

Oh my goodness. So she refuses to draw conclusions about the police murdering someone until there is an inquiry, but somehow she manages to know, without speaking to any of them, without even leaving her house, presumably by ESP, that the rioters were entirely "greedy" and "lazy" and not at all "angry."

I feel sorry for her students, to be taught by someone who doesn't seem able to grasp that someone might have direct experience of institutionalised racism without knowing the actual term.

Someone is dead, and her reaction is basically "oh noes, my property values!" Not much sympathy TBH.

heh dumdum bullets are called that cos they were invented at a place called Dum Dum (long after the mutiny)

'police issue' is a bit vague

Dum Dum is right by Kolkata airport! A friend of mine used to spend summers visiting grandparents there.

Also, reading the comments on the Graunblog (I know...) it's ironilol to see the green ink brigade make too much of the text from Duggan to his partner that mentioned he was being 'tailed by Feds'. Apparently use of this jargon makes one a hardened criminal. Apparently these people live in ignorance of widespread young/urban London slang terms.

I'm trying to work out what's going on in Brixton right now, it seems to be mostly smoke and rumours.

There was something earlier about trouble kicking off at the festival (retracted a few minutes later by the same tweeter) but there have been way more sirens than usual screaming up over the hill. Most people just say there's a huge police presence but little else.

Then some joker decided it would be hilarious to post a picture of a burned-out H&M from Wood Green or Enfield or somewhere, and claim it was Brixton H&M and since then there's been nothing but people freaking out, and other people saying it was a mistagged picture and nothing is going on in Brixton, except one arrest at the festival. Someone even posted a picture of themselves standing in the middle of a (deserted) Coldharbour Lane, saying "does this look like a riot?" I suppose this is the problem with social media, that it can spread on the ground reports really quickly, but it can also spread lies and misinformation so quickly.

The irony is, of course, that Morrissey is playing the Brixton Academy tonight. If there's one person one would really *love* to see get caught in a massive 80s style riot... no, I can't even think it, it would just be tempting fate. I'm not even going to joke.

Ha! In fact, Coldharbour Lane is actually closed off for a street party after the festival. Didn't stop the helicopters roaring overhead.

Oh my goodness. So she refuses to draw conclusions about the police murdering someone until there is an inquiry, but somehow she manages to know, without speaking to any of them, without even leaving her house, presumably by ESP, that the rioters were entirely "greedy" and "lazy" and not at all "angry."... Someone is dead, and her reaction is basically "oh noes, my property values!" Not much sympathy TBH.

I don't think she's saying that though? She's presenting polarised opinions that surely exist. But yeah there's a weird lack of empathy there - an acknowledgement that some of her young black pupils will be hassled by the police and at the same time playing that down or outright dismissing it. Mutual lack of trust between police and kids on the street is poisonous as hell but it's not as if the police are innocent in all that.

The other strand of the post is more cogent I think - there'll be local, working class people will have lost their jobs as a result of this. Not saying that's more important than someone being shot (and really not wise to speculate on that, we don't know anything), riots damage the community or communities in the area even if the rage is directed elsewhere (at the police, largely).

http://twitpic.com/62lw0t

so it's kicked off in enfield now?

Amid all this, Boris is staying on holiday.

as is d-cam, who just flew his private tennis coach out to italy

there are pro tennis players who can't afford a travelling coach

On one hand WTF BORIS YOUR CITY IS IN FLAMES, on the other, can you imagine anyone less likely to make a meaningful contribution?

http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m3/may2008/0/7/BEA88AA6-CD00-E05E-DC329B3F5CDB68FF.jpg
Just point your hose thingys over there, ok, super.

lol
xp

Waltham Cross now says twitter.

westfield too

Mate just texted me to tell me trouble in Walthamstow High St and to stay indoors. Haven't noticed any noise, maybe it's the other end? There's a bunch of people on the corner of my road and the High St, but that's not unusual

Just saw that selbourne walk was being targeted in e17. Hearing plenty of sirens now at the top of cryPal

TimGatt Tim Gatt
by OwenJones84
Disturbances in Walthamstow. Shop "smashed up" RT @tomwilliamsisme: Police blocking off area around Walthamstow Market twitpic.com/62n3r7
10 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply

Palace sirens have got to be something else surely?

think a lot of this might be bullshit/wishful thinking

just heard something is going on outside parliament http://twitpic.com/hindenburg.jpg

Matt, wind carries the sirens miles and to be honest I hear plenty most nights, just had a couple of bursts of lots though which is unusual. Right now though it's all v quiet, no plane traffic, no helicopters.

Meanwhile David Cameron has gone back to a bar in Tuscany to sort out a misunderstanding about a tip.
http://news.sky.com/home/article/16045391

i guess he's thinking, may as well use this currency as it won't be worth a damn in a week

there are reasons why maybe the PM should not be on holiday right now, but the riot isn't the biggest

http://twitter.com/#!/shobz/status/100353100778438656

http://thewestlondoner.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/breaking-riots-in-enfield-edmonton-brixton/

0017: Update via jc54322 on Twitter, Hemel Hempstead is not on fire.

0208: Yes, the kissing couple picture was from Vancouver, thanks to all pointing it out via Twitter – my fault for not checking it first!

lol http://twitpic.com/62pr98

http://twitpic.com/62pt9a

http://yfrog.com/j19kqz

http://twitpic.com/62m4ox

http://twitpic.com/62q1p0

this is pretty significant now i guess? stratford, edmonton too....someone on twitter says police w/ smgs in streatham

smgs? lol not buying that.

yah that was firsthand but signal to noise pretty lopsided right now....

A
C
A
B

All cops are bastards.

lol

i feel bad for falling asleep through it last night :/

the real root of the riots is not the cuts/coalition etc, its police brutality in the black community, an ongoing issue. so so so fucking weird to see no mention of this in any paper.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/07/tottenham-riot-community-destruction

ok i found one

guess we should get ready for more riots across london and england asap then

xp otm. that's what i was getting at last night. kind of feel like these riots are being appropriated by the ~chattering classes~.

people want to see it as a response to the coalition but its not, or rather it wasnt. most (white) people just arent aware of how deep this issue goes in the black community. they knew there was something dodgy about the shooting so they protested. other people just used it as an opportunity to start something else. im not supporting the riots nor what opportunists did but i dont really know what a more constructive way to deal with it is. fact is this sort of thing explodes periodically and i suppose this weekend was the latest explosion before it bubbles back under again.

2 phone shops... No, just passed a 3rd at Streatham Hill broken into, JD Sports ransacked in central Streatham. Honestly when I went to bed, there were dozens of reports that there wasn't rioting in Brixton so wonder what happened after I went to bed.

teenagers get some free trainers. justice is served!

i think the police being the root of this rings v true. and this is against the backdrop of an erosion of whatever authority the met had over the past few months: violence and thuggery at ground level (tomlinson, smiley culture), corruption at the top (hacking). which maybe played a role in triggering the situation to tip beyond chronic distrust into full-scale rioting?

Well, at least the powers-that-be will be gratified that The Ritz escaped attack in preference to the branch of Aldi. Did someone 'refuse' permission to use The Mall/Picadilly for the protest?

Reports of Walthamstow BHS being set on fire turned out to be wildly exaggerated, I think there was a broken window and the entrance is cordoned off. Barclays bank also had a window put through, but that seems to have been it.

Crowd of hoodies gathered on my street corner around midnight with police vans driving through sporadically, there were sirens going off til at least 3am when I finally managed to fall asleep.

these fucking kids are no anarchists sticking it to the big banking boys, they just want free shit.

why burn/break down M&S in brixton though? unless the kids were trying to get free underwear for their mums and gfs. honestly im surprised at how many areas have been looted (though tbf most of the big chains have enough money to replace their windows etc). bit worried for ppl i know who live in brixton.

That was the quietest riot I ever heard of, I slept right thru it. There's no trail of destruction over Brixton Hill. I would have expected one. (Stolen?) car abandoned on the pavement by Sainsburys tho.

RT @ChrisKeys_11: London's getting mashed cause broke n low life people needed gear. Ladies, ask ur man 4 a receipt if he suddenly gives u a gift #londonriots

xpost - rioters should be more polite, i agree.

starting to think all these tweets are made up by bad itv 'urban crime drama' writers.

(not that one specifically, that one rings true lol)

I don't know if trust in the Met has diminished significantly in the last couple of months in the places that are rioting. It has always been pretty appalling - the widespread idea that the police 'have changed' post-Macpherson might have some truth to it but it's probably overstated and not common currency in a lot of deprived areas.

The danger at the moment is that the organised rioting might spread to other areas with strongly-defined communities. There were apparently reports that Turkish and Kurdish lads were out protecting their shops around Green Lanes last night. The same might happen with Asian-owned businesses in places like Walthamstow.

I think "fuelling" is a poor choice of word, this article makes more sense to me than any of this FIND OUT WHAT THEY DOING ON THE TWITTERZ nonsense John Humphreys was babbling on about on the radio this morning: http://urbanmashup.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/the-unlikely-social-network-fuelling-the-tottenham-riots/

Well, it's the new by-word for 'the population are organising by means out of *our* control'.

Like the RAF could have been all "lol i'm bombing Dresden where U at?"....

There's no trail of destruction over Brixton Hill. I would have expected one. (Stolen?) car abandoned on the pavement by Sainsburys tho.

It's all between Coldharbour Lane and Gresham Road. RIP Footlocker.

Depressing that they had to cancel the Hackney Children's Carnival yesterday because some morons were talking up the opportunity to cause trouble there on Facebook.

Yeah the bus just went thru there. Damage is way overexaggerated, a lot of holes in windows (field day for glaziers vans there right now) but the only serious damage is the torched Footlocker. Nothing lime the scenes in Tottenham. Few anarchy symbols painted on shutters, civilisation as we know it is ended!

HMV Wood Green stripped of everything bar Cher Lloyd's new album:

http://i.imgur.com/0BBjj.jpg

hmv always looks like that or maybe just always feels like that

people want to see it as a response to the coalition but its not, or rather it wasnt.

Who is saying this though? Bit of strawmanning going on here. I only have the news and the internet to judge from here but I'm not seeing much evidence that the anger on the street is directed much higher than the Met at the moment. But recession and cuts are surely contributing factors into making an already volatile situation even more so?

Actually I think that the cuts with the biggest impact haven't happened yet - it's hardly going to help long-term when housing benefit cuts push the poorest people into poorer areas.

god i fucking hate "ghost town"

Good job we have Swagger Jagger instead, eh?

haw

i think it's actually totally appropriate tbh, and also a better song

(nb: i don't think "swagger jagger" is a good song. just better than "ghost town".)

I will not be trolled by lex, I will not be trolled by lex, I will not be trolled by lex…

Malthouse said police would be "unrelenting" in pursuing people who took part in criminal activity over the weekend, adding that they would be "hoovered up" by police in the next few weeks.

He defended Boris Johnson's decision to stay on holiday during the crisis in the capital, saying:

"Should he be reacting to these criminal provocateurs in that way by coming back? I think that is kind of rewarding them.

appropriate cuz cher lloyd (former council house dweller, EMA recipient etc) has been the target of class-based vitriol more than any other current pop star i can think of.

"swagger jagger" at least has some energy, minus the terrible interpolation (and plus a bit more effort in the verses) it'd be a passable post-"pon de floor" clatter. "ghost town" is so dreary and dull and pale and nothingy.

He defended Fire Chief Marcus Hayes decision to stay on holiday during the bushfires

"Should he be reacting to these flames in that way by coming back? i think that is kind of rewarding them"

Ghost Town is SUPPOSED to be grey and bleak and dreary.

It's not really relevant to what's happening now at any rate.

"Should he be reacting to these criminal provocateurs in that way by coming back? I think that is kind of rewarding them.

staring at this at wondering what mental gymnastics are required to get from the first sentence to the second

why burn/break down M&S in brixton though?

Uh, some of the rioters are a bit dense perhaps?

I'm seeing a lot of Tweets from north London D&B folk about the thievery and looting of the financial class, and how a few trainers and tracksuits are no comparison to socialized banking. None of those tweeters are running around looting, but they've got friends and family with fuck-all but rented walls around them in those areas who believe that if you want to get away with crime the best way is to put on a posh suit and go to work on some trading floor where the coke dealers are also making a killing - and not getting searched every 200 metres for cannabis. Not a single mention of inter-endz issues being behind destruction in particular areas. A commenter from N15 on that Guardian opinion piece pointed out that after he got a good degree, applications for jobs where the Tottenham address was on his CV were unsuccessful or unacknowledged altogether, whereas those sent out c/o a relative's posher address resulted in many many interviews. That is the reality of the situation these kids are facing, even if they do as well as he did.

Had a peek at Inspector Gadget - the cops' blog - and IG is shitting it that the Duggan incident has been 'Stockwelled' by the IPCC's initial reports. He also mentioned that sparseish policing happened because a lot of Home Counties cops didn't answer their phones this weekend to avoid a call-out, as they are passively trying to highlight proposed cuts to the force.

thievery and looting of the financial class Yeah, stick it to Allied Carpets and the local hairdresser. Because who's the real criminal, yeah? The man in a suit, yeah?

(I agree with most of your post but this political defence of straight-up looting is ridiculous)

Um, the M&S in Brixton was NOT burned or broken down? Couple of broken windows, in less bad shape than the shops on Pall Mall during the last big demo.

This just fucks me off, the over-exaggeration of the rioting in Brixton because, basically, loads of people were reporting violence and rioting in Brixton BEFORE IT EVEN HAPPENED. Like, seriously, my twitter timeline was full of people going "look! the H&M in Brixton has been BURNED" and posting pictures of a shop in ENFIELD. And 30 seconds later, confused girls going "LOL, I'm standing at the bus stop by H&M right now, it's fine, WTF?" And making out there was a riot in Brixton when there was a council-sanctioned street festival.

The people who were actually there were reporting that the majority of the tension was coming from over-eager policing of that festival. Seemed like there were a lot more people invested with the *idea* of rioting in Brixton than there ever were actual people, in Brixton, rioting.

starting to think this whole riots on the streets thing is just an attempt to get boris to come back from his holidays, an attention-starved cry for mayoral proximity

Yeah, stick it to Allied Carpets and the local hairdresser. Because who's the real criminal, yeah? The man in a suit, yeah?

It's always the way tho, isn't it?

And if you want to stick it to a high street name that's fucked around with its employees livelihoods whilst the executives and investors get away with their investments, picking on a chain run by Lord Harris is a pretty good one.

The people who were actually there were reporting that the majority of the tension was coming from over-eager policing of that festival. Seemed like there were a lot more people invested with the *idea* of rioting in Brixton than there ever were actual people, in Brixton, rioting.

Was there in the afternoon and actually thought the police presence was a bit on the sparse side given the circumstances. Otoh I'm glad they didn't cancel the event, which I imagine they probably considered.

god i fucking hate "ghost town"

― lex pretend, Monday, 8 August 2011 10:21 (18 minutes ago) Bookmark

*wrestles hand away from keyboard*

I'd agree as far as 'using it to represent the current discord on the street' cliche is concerned.

I'm not endorsing the comments, just acknowledging that they exist! Mostly because it drives me crazy to see middle-class people wondering if these 'youths' are capable of Thoughts About Economics and whatnot. I think we're all reacting in our various ways to constantly being told there's no money by people who are on their way to RAF Northolt to catch their G5 to Davos. Most of those brownfields box stores up by the North Circ where most looting has taken place are there because huge corps get massive, massive tax rebates for building in 'deprived' areas and giving a few low-responsibility MW jobs to 'local people' from 'communities' - did we think those people were too thick to notice?

Also ironilol, but only in passing so let's not leap off and make it a topic, is that all the 'expensive' goods bigots say poor kids covet/are thieving are produced for pennies by Chinese factory slaves.

OH HOORAY, BORIS CAN WHACK ON SOME MORE SUNBLOCK - THERESA MAY COMING BACK FROM HER HOLS.

I think we're all reacting in our various ways to constantly being told there's no money by people who are on their way to RAF Northolt to catch their G5 to Davos.

But... but... We Are All In This Together... surely?

T.May returns from hol

Which, funnily enough, was the one demand the rioters made.

They have, indeed, won.

There's a difference between not assuming they're illiterate idiots and projecting thoughts onto them.

xpost sorry, beg pardon?

xpost again ah.

xp Sorry suzy but you are endorsing them. Just as depressing as the predictable establishment attempt to depoliticise the riot is the refusal of some on the left (especially the drooling riot-porn voyeurs over at DSG) to distinguish between different kinds of behaviour in a riot. Setting fire to a police car is a political act. Setting fire to Allied Carpets, smashing up local traders or trying on trainers outside Foot Locker - these are not and it's absurd to pretend that certain shops were especially hard-hit because of tax rebates or executive bonuses as opposed to just having the most enticing stuff. It's not like the black bloc on the TUC march who vandalised banks as symbolic gestures (I don't like them but the intent was clearly political) - it's nicking trainers. What's the defence of Wood Green where there were next to no police because they were all in Tottenham, hence no confrontations, and the looters were just on a shopping spree?

lol i guess this millionaire cunt has solved the economy in the past 12 months

It's interesting, to me, at least in *my* neighbourhood, the shops which seemed to be targeted for the most intensive looting, and also destruction (like, burning down a shop seems to me to be expressing a lot more anger than just peeling back the shutters or smashing a door in) were the trainer shops. Like, down my way, a lot of phone shops were targeted for smashed windows, peeling back the shutters, and it's obviously small, portable, high value consumer goods. But JD Sports and Footlocker were the ones that were not just looted, but utterly torched.

I'm trying not to draw conclusions, because I wasn't there, I haven't spoken to anyone who was rioting (in fact, no one seems to have - there's lots of people talking to "experts" about rioting, but no one talking to anyone who was there doing it) but you could read that in two ways: 1) ha ha LOL chavs be wanting trackies and trainers coz they chavs LOL or 2) these are vastly overinflated-in-price consumer goods, marketed intensely at urban areas, exploiting both the people making them for pennies a day and also more importantly they are marketed so heavily in poor and minority as signifiers of affluence, status symbols, exploiting the people to whom they are being sold at huge prices.

And it does say something to me, that they're not just *stealing* the things, but venting huge amounts of anger at the shops selling them. We may not see those shops as appropriate targets, but I do wonder what they represent to the people trashing them.

But then again, I recognise that I've been infected with a lot of semi-marxist anti-consumerist thought recently, I do *not* think of "looting" as a completey non-political action within these contexts. In a society that routinely values corporations and consumer goods as more important than people, I do think that looting *can* (not always, but it certainly *can*) be a politicised act in and of itself. It is certainly a way of registering discontent which might be voiceless otherwise. But I do not know, it is simply musing on observed damage.

Well, it can take a mass of people to loot a shop, and only a few to torch one.

DL, I don't think it's wise - or strictly accurate - to assert that my posts constitute an endorsement for the looters' actions; you can't expect to be permitted to tell me how I feel about this - my emotions and POV are for me, not others, to determine.

Also, KDT is pretty OTM.

nah looting is just poor people making the most of a bad situation and capitalising on a chance to get expensive and overpriced goods that they crave for free. simple as. no one is angry at nike or footlocker, they just WANT that stuff. yeah its pushed to them a lot which feeds the desire and places pressure on them to get this stuff by hook or crook but ultimately they just want this stuff. theyre not fucking over footlockers as a political gesture, other than 'fuck you footlocker for being out my budget', which is the same reason for looting any other shop.

i think anger can be unfocused though - just cos theyre not taking on explicitly political targets like banks, doesnt mean theyre not angry at things beyond their control. someone on lbc said that we are much more lenient and empathetic in how we look towards riots in other countries than we are here which is prob true.

Also banks kinda hard to break into, for obvious reasons, about all you're going to be able to loot are the little pens on chains and some withdrawal slips

^^^Saw a lot of pix of capsized, demolished cashpoint housings.

x-posts I don't think it's that simple. Poverty isn't simple, the psychology of coveting and the manufacture of desire is not that simple. I think it's a bit more comlex than "I want stuff, for free" - because of the targeted nature of the stuff being taken. Why do they want *that* stuff so badly, as to riot to get it? (Which is the picture being drawn with these descriptions of "opportunistic looters")

Why *is* Footlocker "out of people's budget" when the shoes cost pennies to make?

I dunno, there might be nothing to it, in that I'm reading now about jewelry shop grabs and Curry's mobs and Nando's being destroyed. (Why Nando's? You don't think there's a political or race/class based edge to the stereotype of Nando's customers in inner city London?) I guess it's my background to look for patterns to seemingly random events. But when I see specific things being targeted, I wonder if there's something to it. The property damage over Brixton Hill into Streatham was anything but random. I wonder why.

these are vastly overinflated-in-price consumer goods, marketed intensely at urban areas, exploiting both the people making them for pennies a day and also more importantly they are marketed so heavily in poor and minority as signifiers of affluence, status symbols, exploiting the people to whom they are being sold at huge prices.

This is correct I think, and in a riot there's an opportunity to get them for nothing.

And it does say something to me, that they're not just *stealing* the things, but venting huge amounts of anger at the shops selling them. We may not see those shops as appropriate targets, but I do wonder what they represent to the people trashing them.

This is where the cognitive leap takes place I think. Not convinced they're venting anger AT Foot Locker or JD Sports or wherever, in the way they're venting anger at the police. It's more likely to be rage that's just boiling over into smashing things, but I don't know for sure, none of us do.

^^^Saw a lot of pix of capsized, demolished cashpoint housings

Yes, saw those too. From banks tho?

Sorry suzy, obviously I can't read your mind but I was just responding to the substance of your posts. There wasn't a lot of distance there.

titchy OTM - it's too easy to project anti-consumerist theory onto looters. Karen, you honestly think the people looting Foot Locker thought for a moment about the injustice of Asian sweatshops? From a certain political angle society has always valued corporations and consumer goods above other people, ergo all looting is always justified as a politicised act - well no, it isn't. A riot is composed of so many different agents and agendas that it's impossible to generalise about what the looters thought but the history of riots indicates that the initial political impetus - the arrest, the shooting, the baton charge - leads to a chaotic situation which sucks in all kinds of people, including some (by no means the majority) who just want to take shit for free and some who will vent

Karen, you can do better than strawmanning anyone who thinks looting is wrong, and a shitty, self-defeating element of a riot which enables many observers to completely ignore the real and important tensions behind the initial violence, as "ha ha LOL chavs be wanting trackies and trainers coz they chavs LOL". And "opportunistic looters" does not imply that people riot to get consumer goods. Quite the opposite - it means that they use the cover of an existing riot to take stuff.

I think they're venting anger at a system where shoes made for pennies are out of their budgets because they're exploitatively marketed as providing "urban status" or some such thing. Is that a vast cognitive leap? I don't think it's an either/or with venting anger at the police, more of an and/both.

x-post

Oops, "and some who will vent" was a fragment of a deleted thought.

xpost - its not just 'i want it for free', it is very much about manufacturing desire to a group that doesnt have that much money to spend there, which is perverse, but how does currys target this group, or ikea, or nandos even? (what book are you reading about this btw - i might pick it up). thats just opportunism and anger boiling over. but the footlocker thing is similar to how you used to get stories about people getting robbed for their trainers. pretty much everything is overpriced. its why currys was targeted (expensive electronic goods), phone shops (stuff people need but is still wallet-lightening). nandos is bizarre cos thats not exactly that expensive but its just a place where a lot of young kids like to go, same as footlocker.

Is the progression of anger at "*why* can't I afford this?" while in a situation of expressing anger at "the system is unfair" is not such a quantum cognitive leap.

Phone shops are like banks though, in that their stock is locked away and all that's on display are dummy versions?

A lot of the stuff that was taken wasn't just covetable, it was easy to sell on for cash - portable, valuable and difficult to trace.

There would have been some stock out front in the phone shops, wouldn't there? Nobody bothered breaking into Gamestation in Wood Green as all they have in the main section are empty boxes.

DL, I carefully stated that I did not think that *all* looting was a political act, but that I did not think that looting was *categorically* a politics-negating act. Please stop disregarding my actual words while accusing me of strawmanning? Thanks.

DL, I'm still confused and quite clearly need a man to explain - where in my posts am I endorsing behaviour rather than reporting it?

Suzy, don't worry, DL isn't actually talking to us at all, but to straw liberals in his head.

Good recent posts KDT...I'm broadly of the same opinion, i think there's a lot of subconscious or unconscious anger/motive and some of the reactions about this are really black and white about what/who/why is a target

I think we're all reacting in our various ways to constantly being told there's no money by people who are on their way to RAF Northolt to catch their G5 to Davos. Most of those brownfields box stores up by the North Circ where most looting has taken place are there because huge corps get massive, massive tax rebates for building in 'deprived' areas and giving a few low-responsibility MW jobs to 'local people' from 'communities' - did we think those people were too thick to notice?

Reads like an endorsement to me. Maybe I'm the confused one.

xp Karen, I didn't say you thought all looting was political but that it seemed like the logical extension of your argument - or are only trainer-looters political?

"Is the progression of anger at "*why* can't I afford this?" while in a situation of expressing anger at "the system is unfair" is not such a quantum cognitive leap."

i cant really argue with that. but without wanting to sound like the daily mail, while i sympathise with the view that the system and corporations are out to exploit disenfranchised groups on both ends of the production scale, these kids havent been taught the idea that 'if you cant afford it, you cant have it'. for all the apparent media literacy and media savvy-iness of todays kids, funny how they arent so literate that they cant resist what theyre being fed.

"*Why* can't I afford this?" is surely more likely to be "why don't I have the job/income/opportunities to afford this?" rather than "are these overpriced given they are made for pennies in sweatshops?"

I mean in that context it's pretty undeniable as to why there'd be anger to vent.

xpost - its not just 'i want it for free', it is very much about manufacturing desire to a group that doesnt have that much money to spend there, which is perverse, but how does currys target this group, or ikea, or nandos even? (what book are you reading about this btw - i might pick it up). thats just opportunism and anger boiling over. but the footlocker thing is similar to how you used to get stories about people getting robbed for their trainers. pretty much everything is overpriced. its why currys was targeted (expensive electronic goods), phone shops (stuff people need but is still wallet-lightening). nandos is bizarre cos thats not exactly that expensive but its just a place where a lot of young kids like to go, same as footlocker.

Currys - incessant advertising, "interest free" credit, wide screen tv American style fridge the sine qua non of modern life

Ikea - the Nike of furniture, cheap but aspirational

Nando's - aspirational Wimpy, happy chef mcdonalds, whatever

All agents in the manufacture of desire, all selling things with a high degree of unattainability to the average unemployed youth.

yep.

yep to matt dc's last post that is

I'm sorry, DL but going from "this subset of situation X is potentially Y" to "the logical extension is that ALL subsets of situation X are Y" is a very basic error of logic and I'm not going to bother continuing this thread with you because, like, most of us learned not to make those errors in 8th grade maths.

don't see anything more complex here than

all the cops are over there <--- we can nick stuff over here ---> and not get busted

kinda admire the torturous attempts to blame this on david cameron tho :D

Karen I'm trying to work out what you're saying and therefore asking for clarification. You're finding ways to avoid those questions and chuck insults.

A lot of the stuff that was taken wasn't just covetable, it was easy to sell on for cash - portable, valuable and difficult to trace.

yeah this leapt out at me too - not convinced it's so simple as looters wanting things for themselves.

i don't think rioters are expressing anger against capitalism - the capitalist mindset is, i think, hugely embedded in them. it's been constantly drummed into kids in poor areas and estates that their best way out is via capitalism x protestant work ethic - work hard and you can be an entrepreneur, set up your own business, make money. stealing consumer goods to sell on (if that's what was going on) seems an oddly logical manifestation of that.

i don't think rioters are expressing anger against capitalism - the capitalist mindset is, i think, hugely embedded in them. it's been constantly drummed into kids in poor areas and estates that their best way out is via capitalism x protestant work ethic - work hard and you can be an entrepreneur, set up your own business, make money. stealing consumer goods to sell on (if that's what was going on) seems an oddly logical manifestation of that.

Cosign all of this.

though that may be projection (which kinda goes for everyone in this thread, which shouldn't prevent theories and discussion obv)

No, you aren't, Dorian. You're repeatedly *telling* me what I'm saying, and I'm not doing this with you any more.

OK, fine, excellent. I look forward to it.

xp to lex. Right. I don't see how one can read looting as anti-capitalist rather than another manifestation of capitalism, unless the looted items are distributed to other people. I understand the frustration and the unfairness and the appalling job prospects in somewhere like Tottenham but I stop short of making apologies for looting.

DL, might I politely suggest that for something to be endorsed rather than simply cited, I'd have to be a lot less neutral in my choice of words? I'm just finding the 'mindlessness' ascribed to looters to be a wee bit patronizing, wherever it comes from.

A lot of the stuff that was taken wasn't just covetable, it was easy to sell on for cash - portable, valuable and difficult to trace.

yeah this leapt out at me too - not convinced it's so simple as looters wanting things for themselves.

I don't think there's much of a distinction between looting things to sell and looting to keep.

i don't think rioters are expressing anger against capitalism - the capitalist mindset is, i think, hugely embedded in them. it's been constantly drummed into kids in poor areas and estates that their best way out is via capitalism x protestant work ethic - work hard and you can be an entrepreneur, set up your own business, make money. stealing consumer goods to sell on (if that's what was going on) seems an oddly logical manifestation of that.

OK, that's a perfectly logical and reasonable assesssment, and an interesting one. It's not anger at capitalism so much as a twisted take on capitalism extended to its brutal ends?

That's kind of a same input, different conclusion to the things I was thinking aloud about.

it's been constantly drummed into kids in poor areas and estates that their best way out is via capitalism x protestant work ethic - work hard and you can be an entrepreneur, set up your own business, make money.

also alongside being constantly told that they can achieve this if they work hard enough is the reality that, if they're from that background, becoming richard branson or jay-z or alan sugar is the exception not the rule, and ISN'T just a question of hard work, and that's where a lot of the anger probably derives from

lex was half right. the second half was about some sort of capitalist robin hood theory.

"All agents in the manufacture of desire, all selling things with a high degree of unattainability to the average unemployed youth."

yes yes, we get it, they are making people want things. LIKE EVERY OTHER BUSINESS DOES. THIS IS WHAT ALL BUSINESSES DO. it makes people who cant afford it want it more. you can analyse it as 'why nandos' or 'why footlocker' but there isnt much discrimination other than 'can i get it' and 'do they have something i want'. H&M, M&S, currys, mcdonalds, it made no difference. yeah the chains will prob suffer more as they are more coveted but if there was an independent shop selling the same goods it will get fucked over too. its basically just "*Why* can't I afford this?" and "why don't I have the job/income/opportunities to afford this?" resulting in 'im going to get it'.

"I don't think there's much of a distinction between looting things to sell and looting to keep."

you are overlooking the entrepreneurial spirit at play here.

I don't think there's much of a distinction between looting things to sell and looting to keep.

seems like a pretty important distinction to me

xp to suzy - I agree. "Mindless" is one of those entirely inaccurate, argument-closing words politicians always reach for in these situations. Actions are never mindless even if you don't like the minds behind them. Sorry if I misread you. I wasn't doing it for kicks - it was genuinely how I interpreted your two posts.

independent shops DID get fucked over too.

Karen, you honestly think the people looting Foot Locker thought for a moment about the injustice of Asian sweatshops?

(a) How did you know they weren't?
(b) Isn't that a rather patronising assumption to make, namely that (by inference) none of them was capable of thinking this?
(c) Isn't it, by extension, continued patronising of the working class and the deprived by well-meaning "liberals" which contributes majorly to the incremental pissed-off/piss-off feeling that leads to rioting or looting? The condescending pat on the head which implies, "very good, now back to work (if you can find it) and contribute to our profits under the illusion that you're buying yourself life?"

I actually don't understand the Nando's thing. Are they taking the chicken home and cooking it?

surely the same people are doing both, keeping x pairs of trainers selling the rest?
xp

There's a difference between not assuming they're illiterate idiots and projecting thoughts onto them.

― Matt DC, Monday, 8 August 2011 10:05 (1 hour ago)

nandos sauces in bottles innit

"independent shops DID get fucked over too."

well thats my point. we can look at footlocker and nike and reebok or whoever as manufacturing disproportionate levels of desire in ppl that cant afford it but the fact is rioters dont care who it is. theyre just looting. theyre not discriminating. i mean, sure im sure some kids watched bbc3 docus on sweatshops and whatever, but really, i doubt theyve been reading no logo.

"There's a difference between not assuming they're illiterate idiots and projecting thoughts onto them."

some ppl really want to think the best of the rioters. its like that observer review of tyler OF. 'but hes so smart!'

anyone concerned w/plight of asian sweatshop workers could have found a better protest than to alert the shop there's a high demand for sweatshop trainers and also to oblige them to order a fuckload of new stock

just sayin'

I actually don't understand the Nando's thing. Are they taking the chicken home and cooking it?

There were reports that people broke into the Wood Green branch of McDonalds and started preparing their own food, although that's a little difficult to believe.

xp to Marcello. Fair point. Bad phrasing - I don't mean they were intellectually incapable of knowing or caring about sweatshops, just that it's a huge stretch to assume that was a significant factor. Matt DC said it better than I can.

I'd have thought that people who cared about caricaturing or patronising the poor or deprived would want to make a clearer distinction between them and a minority of looters TBH.

The Nando's thing does kind of throw that argument, though, Lex, because there's nothing in the shop to steal, loot or sell on. It does seem to be something which is specifically directed at a lifestyle. I dunno, maybe I've misread how Nandos is perceived due to how it's discussed/represented in my part of South London (I've never been to one, my entire understanding of it is based around how it's represented by bus talk and twitter) that it's something somehow both aspirational and "ghetto" at the same time? (I feel uncomfortable using that word but it describes the class-race intersectionality.) That whether it's seen as coded "up" or "down" really depends on who is describing it.

But there's this stratified class and race faultzone right down the A23, so that might not have the same implication elsewhere.

the nando's thing is weird, i always got the impression that nando's was fairly beloved? maybe they were hungry. not being flippant there really, if you get into the mob mindset whereby you're doing whatever you want and no one's stopping you, why not go get some of your favourite food?

also the weird testosterone-driven love of smashing things up for just the love of smashing things up that i've never understood, whether it's bullingdon style antics or football fans celebrating or something like this

they were cooking their own burgers in mcdonalds so i hear.

I think a lot of anger (in this or any situation) is subconscious and unfocussed - kind of unsure about people prescribing very black and white motives, when its likely to be a mix of all the different things being stated, and not necessarily in a coherent manner

and yeah, there is the mob-mentality "smash it up, chuck a fire extinguisher out the window" thing. a lot of it seems quite unfocused.

There were reports that people broke into the Wood Green branch of McDonalds and started preparing their own food, although that's a little difficult to believe.

They broke in, fired up the ovens and cooked the food they'd brought with them?

nando's is beloved. also cheap as fuck, you can afford a meal there on the broo no bother.

does nandos really come with lifestyle marketing? honestly i think its popularity in areas with big non white populations is simply down to what they serve sitting well with the general diets of most non english people. nandos is deeply liked i far as i know. more than somewhere like mcdonalds. and nandos isnt that expensive. i think youre reading too much into the attack on one isolated branch. its just testosterone and people lashing out at pretty much anything. its def about consumerism and poverty and so on but looking at individual places or chains i think might be a bit of a red herring.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg described the second night of rioting as "needless opportunistic theft and violence"

So whereabouts is he on holiday then?

riots are basically just unfocused destruction, this seems fairly simple to me, there is nothing political in the targets of desctruction and looting, it's basically what's there, corner shop or hmv, doesn't matter a jot, they'll get done.

"I think a lot of anger (in this or any situation) is subconscious and unfocussed - kind of unsure about people prescribing very black and white motives, when its likely to be a mix of all the different things being stated, and not necessarily in a coherent manner"

otm

Anger can be subconscious and unfocused, but still have legitimate reasons behind it?

I think it is an and/both situation, and there may be as many different motivations as there were rioters. I'm just saying that one motivation does not necessarily preclude the others.

i think people who eat at nandos have kind of a love/hate relationship with it.

MSNBC: LONDON -- As political and social protests grip the Middle East, are growing in Europe and a riot exploded in north London this weekend, here's a sad truth, expressed by a Londoner when asked by a television reporter: Is rioting the correct way to express your discontent?

"Yes," said the young man. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?"

well what did he have to say after that?

i think people who eat at nandos have kind of a love/hate relationship with it.

― caek

footballers fucking love it. joey barton tweeted the other day "stereotypical footballer tweet, i'm off to nando's then the cinema".

The TV reporter from Britain's ITV had no response. So the young man pressed his advantage. "Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you."

http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/08/07/7292281-the-sad-truth-behind-london-riot

I think a lot of anger (in this or any situation) is subconscious and unfocussed - kind of unsure about people prescribing very black and white motives, when its likely to be a mix of all the different things being stated, and not necessarily in a coherent manner

Yes and no, there's one obvious focus of anger - the police - but a whole range of other causes and contributory factors. I agree, I don't think it's particularly conscious or directional in many cases, there are a lot of people involved and it's hardly a hivemind.

my guess is nando's was sort of a "because it's there" thing.

Quite different to how it's being reported in the local press, which is all "opportunistic chaos"

http://www.streathamguardian.co.uk/news/9183106.UPDATE__Looters_cause_chaos_in_Streatham_and_Brixton/

so who knows.

It's a bit weird reading about your own city from the POV of foreign reporters acting like it's "the middle east", how different the tones are from how it's reported here. What's NBC's general politial alignment? I can't remember.

there's more fat and calories in a nando's than a kfc

^^^ the real reason

you can get a lot of good sauces from nandos, hot, medium, mild, garlic, herb, and so on. id like to get them all for free if i could.

my impression is the descent of europe into anarchy due to economic management is part of a narrative in parts of u.s. politics, so events tend to be overstated/misinterpreted to fit in with this.

oh god yeah the sauces are incredible. nando's and pizza express sauces man. makes me proud to be british.

there's more fat and calories in a nando's than a kfc

Is this true? The chicken's grilled and not fried so the sauces must be made out of pure lard or something. Admittedly a Nando's is much bigger than a KFC.

white middle class ppl as a rule do not eat at nandos btw. eg - the lack of replies in my post about nandos on this board.

My boss is about as big a food/restaurant snob as you can get and he's fucking crazy about Nando's.

a "meal" at nando's is different to kfc so it's kind of apples and oranges, but yeah, the sauces are the thing that does it.

i feel like we've discussed nando's before. i think i remember matt's boss being a fan.

Anger can be subconscious and unfocused, but still have legitimate reasons behind it?

I think it is an and/both situation, and there may be as many different motivations as there were rioters. I'm just saying that one motivation does not necessarily preclude the others.

― Aphex Twin … in my vagina? (Karen D. Tregaskin), Monday, August 8, 2011

Yes! my post probably wasn't clear enough but this is what i mean

LOL I'm a white middle class vegetarian, why on earth would I go to Nando's?

basically people who hate nandos are racist.

― doop snobby snobb (history mayne), Wednesday, June 9, 2010 12:08 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

their veggie burgers are highly praised by my veggie brethren. chips are nice tho the chicken can be dry sometimes.

But then again, Morley's and Chicken Cottage, totally untouched. Just sayin' like.

Speaking as a white middle class 40something vegetarian I went to my first Nando's in Croydon with the kids a couple of weeks ago and found it remarkably pleasant, compared to the alternatives in Croydon town centre! The veggie options are actually pretty good.

Holy shit. I was just about to gripe about how this Nandos you all have sounds so good (as someone who is constantly in search of good vegetarian options) and I went and looked them up and there's one in my mall!

Located at the Westfield Entrance between Sears and Borders.

So stoked.

I see no point in going to a chicken restaurant when I have several perfectly good totally vegetarian restaurants within walking distance. (Actually one less now that Kastoori has closed, but still.) But then again, I don't live in Croydon.

ok ok so white middle classers like nandos too. i just dont see them whenever i hit nandos. though ok maybe cos my nandos is in a not very white m/c area. funny how i never see nandos ads anywhere but they still seem to be expanding.

There are Nandos ads all over the Tube! Come on!

i must be blind.

veggieburger at nando's is probably the best i have ever had tbh.

i mean it's still a veggieburger, and there are 100 tastier things you could eat, but sometimes you just want something salty/herby/flavourful in bread, with chips. they do it best.

make no promises about u.s. nando's though kkgvz. the vegetarian option at burger king in the uk will do in a pinch (e.g. forgot to eat dinner, at paddington station at 11.30pm), but the veggie burger you get at BK in the US is disgusting.

I just view veggieburgers in general as disgusting, revolting, only option in the service station last resorts, rather than anything I'm going to go out of my way to experience. Like, I'd rather resort to a cheese and onion Ginster's than a veggieburger. But you disgusting savages may think differently.

This is ILX, we start with discussing Capitalism, and end up squabbling over sandwiches. Is it lunchtime yet?

"Yes," said the young man. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?"

Fair point. When MLK visited Watts after the riots someone told him "We won." "How can you say you won?" asked King. "We won because we made the whole world pay attention to us." I have sympathy with both men in that scenario.

i basically agree, a really good veggie burger is never going to be as good as really good real food, but the nando's veggie burger is great for what it is.

i take it back though, the best i ever had was earlier this year in minneapolis.

13.23 BST so in answer to your question...YES it's time for lunch. Which tell you all you need to know about subconscious desire.

hahaha caek, as it's a town full of carnivores who happily eat 'mock duck' at Vietnamese restaurants, where was the Mpls veggieburger?

in the same way that the broadmoor riots got the local people a swimming pool, i hope these riots result in nandos offering discounted meals so teenagers can eat there too.

this would have been a better story if the etonian-munching polar bear lead the looting, got himself some air max 90s (two pairs, obv)

I just wanna know when Brixton Tube is gonna be open again, so I can get home. :-/

p.s. Brixton got our damn ice rink, they can't have our swimming pool, too!

PacificSocial Pacific Social Club
Just been told to close the shop by the police as it's all about to kick off on mare street supposedly!
48 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply

:(

are you round there atm mark?

no i'm at work in angel -- all quiet in pentonville road currently -- and not planning to be home till late-ish

Doing comment moderation on the Telegraph site must be the easiest job in the world - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8687177/London-riots-live.html

http://twitpic.com/62y7wq

can people link to twitpics directly? if there's one thing worse than a bankrupt country, mass unemployment, police brutality, and riots, it's opening a thread to see a big list of twitpic links.

lol at riot police reading twitter -- no doubt lookin at selves in this very picture #escherswarm

But then again, Morley's and Chicken Cottage, totally untouched. Just sayin' like.

― Aphex Twin … in my vagina? (Karen D. Tregaskin), Monday, 8 August 2011 12:06 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"leave it, that's my brother's caff"

people at work also crazy about Nandos and eat there maybe once every week or two. personally find it a little bland and the sauces all taste the same and are kind of chemically (big hot sauce fan over here, but these burn in a nasty sharp way). I still eat there though, because it's relatively cheap and not an unpleasant environment - a halfway house between fast food and restaurant nosh.

Branches of Morley's and Chicken Cottage get smashed up pretty much every week, this is a special occasion.

Also no Morley's north of the river innit.

grau live blog:

We have to be careful not to fan the flames in situations like this, and I am reluctant to reveal the (many) BBM messages that are circulating with instructions for tonight. They are all hard to verify, but generally suggest plans to gather in at least six boroughs in north London.

if you're not following @paullewis on twitter you might want to btw

wonder if any MPs will talk about the issues behind whats happened and say they should listen to the people like how they do whenever this kinda thing happens overseas.

also british riots need a new theme song. its been 3 decades since ghost town.

(and i love ghost town, though the kode 9 remake was unintentionally hilarious)

Recent update here sheds a bit of light on another reason why they might be smashing things up - it's a massive two-fingers up to the police, attempting to cause chaos they can't control.

as long as it's got nothing to do with the Kaiser Chiefs, I'm happy.

"dead the fires"?

Just seen footage on Sky of a police dog trying to rip some guy's leg off. Didn't appear to be causing trouble, just walking along away from the main group of people.

I think I've said this on ILX before but there's a specialist burger restaurant in St Ives that just does the most unreal, wonderful veggieburger, cannot recommend enough.

dead = stop.

Before and after pics
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8689053/London-riots-before-and-after-the-destruction-in-Tottenham-Brixton-and-Enfield.html

Why trash a PO? Do they keep money in them?

many house cashpoints

Wouldn't have thought they would have the wherewithal to get into cashpoints?

I was astonished to find Ms Cupcake, owner of a bakery on Brixton’s Coldharbour Lane, out in Brixton this morning handing out brightly-coloured iced cakes. She told me this was no day to sell cakes, and she wanted to show the world the true face of Brixton –smiling, generous, and big-hearted.

From here.

Nice one Ms Cupcake.

Not her real name?

Jodelka ( o ) ( o )
Also that vegan cupcake idiot who's giving away their shit cakes in the name of harmony - GTFO you were calling us animals last night
5 hours ago Favorite Undo Retweet Reply

She likes animals though

If she was, it wasn't on twitter (or she's deleted it.)

I mean, cupcakes are the devils own food for other reasons, but Ms Cupcake is pretty harmless for the most part.

Astonishing kneejerking and complacency there from the Lambeth Labour guy.

LOOOOOOOOL saw that tweet, Lex.

Apologies if this is so six hours ago, but there's a picture on the Daily Mail website of a girl in a Curry's uniform being arrested for apprently looting the shop that she works at.

LOL it's Cllr Steve Reed

If she was, it wasn't on twitter (or she's deleted it.)

yeah, i didn't see it either but pip is trustworthy when it comes to these things.

the picture of the curry's girl is amazing. as pip (again!) tweeted, "shoulda looted some trousers"

i need to do some actual work now i think. riot news is oddly addictive.

The Russian Embassy is warning its nationals to stay out of Tottenham, Enfield and Brixton

<3 schadenfreude

Sending a coded message to Pav to come home.

One of the main Russian papers apparently called the violence a 'pogrom', which seems a little odd.

"Go home, get a takeaway and watch anything that happens on TV," one constable advised. "These are bad people who did this. Kids out of control. When I was young it was all Pacman and board games. Now they're playing Grand Theft Auto and want to live it for themselves."

DING DING DING! Tabloid Hysteria Bingo, just claimed "someone blaming violent video games" square.

One of the main Russian papers apparently called the violence a 'pogrom', which seems a little odd.

Must have been watchhing Sky:

Weirdly, the lead clip Sky was using appeared to show a whole bunch of Orthodox Jewish geezers either running to or from the riot

― R. Stornoway (Tom D.), Sunday, 7 August 2011 11:55 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

@victorialine Victoria Line
I am part suspended with no service between Stockwell and Brixton at the request of the police.. There's a good service on the rest of me.
1 minute ago Favorite Retweet Reply

;_;

irrelevant to the thread but I'm not sure about tube lines tweeting in the first person.

s/b the first person plural for the victoria (= royal we).

Wife just called me from outside Green Lanes Sainsburys. Whole retail park locked down apart from Costa Coffee.

Sainsbury's was open as normal yesterday. There's apparently information that six areas are going to be hit today - that might be one of them. Would be suicidal to try to loot anything around Green Lanes other than the business park, though.

There's a good service on the rest of me.

potential new username for someone.

Sainsbury's was open as normal yesterday.

Cheap toastie sammiches?

And it does say something to me, that they're not just *stealing* the things, but venting huge amounts of anger at the shops selling them. We may not see those shops as appropriate targets, but I do wonder what they represent to the people trashing them.

lol i also just read no logo.

xp, Come nightfall there may be cheap toasted everything.

I've never read No Logo, btw, so I'm not sure what you're saying.

Also first person tube service updates is surely what the interwebs was made for!

(agree on the Royal We, though.)

i think if any tube line i used tweeted at me in the first person, i'd be tempted to tweet so much abuse and vitriol back and it'd maybe send me a bit insane

(agree on the royal we obv!)

[oh my bad, no logo is partly about nike and their peers and how evils they are on many different levels, incl. fucking over inner cities specifically and the resentment that builds]

Lots and lots of police in Mare Street Narrow Way now; not sure if anything is happening beyond this: http://yfrog.com/h792815653j

Is he obsessively checking Twitter?

police are behind the times, this is the blackberry messenger revolution.

http://ishackneyriotingyet.com/

He is checking when the John Maus poll closes.

hey guys maybe a hipster will be hurt in these hackney riots!!111 lol! no doubt they started over a fixie bike!!!!

Oh god, even Diane Abbott is using the appalling "kicking off in..." tweetform now. ;_;

Expecting some enlightened chants from Everton fans when they go to White Hart Lane this weekend.

"In your Tottenham slums"

"Is this Toxteth in disguise?"

5.04pm: Our correspondent Vikram Dodd reports that Scotland Yard has introduced special powers in four areas, allowing officers to stop and search suspects without reasonable suspicion. The powers are contained in section 60 of the Public Order Act. The areas are Lambeth, Haringey, Enfield and Waltham Forest. The section 60 powers were invoked around midnight on Sunday following a second night of serious disorder to hit London.

Yeah that's gonna go down well.

serhiy rebrov got there first

tbh theres nothing police can do in this instance that will be perfect

surely there are enough ppl for the police to worry abt without hassling randoms

BBC News just called people smashing up a bus and looting cardboard from a van "protesters" and "demonstrators". FFS.

In Whitechapel, Sainsbury's staff intent on causing a riot by closing the store now.

is that true james? i was going to go there after work. TIME TO RIOT.

sorry i said riot, i meant "reluctantly buy vegetables in waitrose".

sort of bewildering how the police just stand around watching shops and buses being smashed up

Yep they're not letting anyone in.

girl on BBC News just now:

"maybe they are proving a point, that we don't know what the point is that they are trying to prove"

you'd almost think the policy have a vested interest in making black kids look bad

letting ppl smash shit up then going indiscrimately postal seems to be the 2k11 way

win-win!

Girl on BBC News doing a creditable job of explaining why Tottenham was different.

policy, police ehhh

BBC helicopter has run out of fuel

Big win here for Whitechapel Road Tesco Metro.

Apparently Kurdish and Turkish shopkeepers in Green Lanes and Stoke Newington have got the knives and baseball bats in.

is it wrong to feel a twinge of local pride in that?

Not at all. Good luck to them.

Wouldn't mess with those guys

lewisham lulz now according to sky

i like Dorian's line here, which echoes my own feelings about, say, the 7/7 bombers. they weren't warriors, they were destructive, violent knobheads.

Lewisham is home to Europe's largest police station, so good luck with that one. Twitter is only confirming two blokes throwing yams at one another though.

It always starts with yams.

theresa may confirms that there is "no excuse for looting and thuggery" six times in a row

TheresaMayBot successfully running her "riot response" app.

The difference between a community exploding in outrage on Saturday and 50-100 goons running up and down Mare Street today is depressing.

Definitely going down in Lewisham now. Starting to wish I didn't live three doors down from a police station.

Reports of another police blockade in Elephant and Castle? If Brixton is closed and Elephant off limits, how the heck am I gonna get home now?

Hilarious shot of some kids trying and failing to batter in the window of Ladbrokes on Mare Street. Get the feeling that selling off the playing fields was part of Thatcher's long term plan.

If Elephant is blockaded that's half of SE London out. I'd get the train to Streatham if you possibly can.

DC, did you hear the five police vans that went down Theobalds Road about 15 minutes ago?

Kate, can you go via Clapham or Northern Line to Tooting and then bus?

Carhartt outlet between Mare Street and London Fields being raided now.

Angel Sainsbury's and Waitrose were both closed when I went to buy some balsamic vinegar. WHEN WILL THE MADNESS END???

Harrow town centre evacuated, people kicked out of the cinema halfway through films etc.

how to get to well street? take bus from mile end or from bethnal green? am thinking that walking may be the best actually

xp If all the reports I'm reading about tube closures are true then I don't know how anyone's getting home Kate. I don't see the logic of packing the buses and turfing everyone onto the streets.

We're at the panic, confusion and misinformation stage then.

seeing such a variety of witness tweets, from people saying that it's about benefits/cuts/EMA to people seeing obvious opportunistic looting. really don't want to ascribe any singular motive to any of this.

This is reminding me oddly of 7/7 and trying to plan routes to get home around bombsites, except instead of terrorist strikes, it's the police barricading off no-go zones.

Tracer, the 277 is still running up Grove Road. At least they were 15-20 minutes ago.

Angel Sainsbury's and Waitrose were both closed when I went to buy some balsamic vinegar. WHEN WILL THE MADNESS END???

― Neil S, Monday, 8 August 2011 17:00 (6 minutes ago)

Probably should use glaze anyway.

burning car on mare st http://yfrog.com/h09vczcj

Shit, I just realised that I'm more afraid of police lines than I am of "looting" "rioters" or "protestors" or whatever we're calling the utes today.

And I'm a nice middle class middle aged white lady. :-/

Never knew there was a Carhartt shop in Hackney #gentrification

Twitter telling me that Rye Lane got closed and descended into widespread rice-looting about two minutes after I went through it on the bus

+ 3,000 variants of "what is there to loot in Peckham" jokes, obviously

Carhartt is an outlet store and has been there since the '90s. See also: Burberry outlet store on Well Street.

Ah! Victoria line still running as far as Victoria, get overground to Streatham Hill without going through the Elephant. But now twitter is saying someone's smashing up the one mobile shop that wasn't hit last night?

seeing such a variety of witness tweets, from people saying that it's about benefits/cuts/EMA to people seeing obvious opportunistic looting. really don't want to ascribe any singular motive to any of this.

Yeah, it's daft to do so. It's clearly elements of both.

Kneejerk reactions on all sides sent me back to something Greil Marcus wrote about commentators after 9/11 who "stepped forward to deny that anything had been done that required any rethinking of anything at all. None had changed his or her mind in the slightest about anything. Nearly every argument was intended to congratulate the speaker for having seen all the way around the event even before it happened.”

As history mayne would say, ruh-roh.

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/08/08/jody-mcintyre/

The tweets I've read don't seem that bad but maybe he deleted some.

LOL, I was just reading:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/08/08/london-riots-question-and_n_920934.html

Oh, Jody-paws.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p39ULW_xzUE

ha was just about to post that dorian

about time too

is there a live news stream anywhere? bbc news was showing something else 5 mins ago, don't particularly want to have to rely on sky

great advert for whoever's glass that is in Ladbroke's window about half an hour back on BBC news live. a chair, 2 massive wooden poles and what looked like a big stone barely put a dent in it.

Giggs has closed his Twitter after apparently being hacked with a message encouraging the Peckham riots four hours ago

http://yfrog.com/h8pjjgxj

This is the Peckham end of Rye Lane

not really keen on ascribing any higher motives to this than the fun of a ruck tbh

ugh Kit Malthouse can GTFO, he should stop using inflammatory language, doesn't he realise it could cost lives?

need a new thread for this

inflammatory language vs inflammatory substances

there's a riot going on: london's subaltern teens tear it up 2k11

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvQutDDmNlo

BBC showing aerial footage of burning cars on Lewisham High Street now. Pretty happy to be at home right now.

Fucking hell, London.

so what's going on in hackney? i'm heading there tomorrow \o/. (not to riot.)

2011 has been mental

Just need some footie violence and the return of Spandau Ballet and your 80s revival will be complete.

that sentiment will have been expressed

Enjoyed seeing out of the window the BBC and Sky helicopters race each other from their position over Hackney to presumably Lewisham.

Teresa May's refusal to acknowledge that this could possibly be anything at all more than MINDLESS VIOLENCE comes off pretty weird. Best blame a full moon.

whats going on in bethnal green? - hearing its happening there too now, and supposed to go there in half an hour

seeing groups of lads on roman road market, shops all shuttering up

What did Jody McIntyre do? Having trouble keeping up with everything...

police are forcing people south down mare street so they'll end up in bethnal green if they keep it up long enough

as for 'mindless violence' well this is hardly rational and insightful behaviour

"Boris has been doing lots of media..."

^^^Kit Malthouse being a twat on C4 News.

What did Jody McIntyre do? Having trouble keeping up with everything...

Be inspired by the scenes in #tottenham, and rise up in your own neighbourhood. 100 people in every area = the way we can beat the feds.

People running out of their flats as shops are set on fire below.
Don't envy you guys in London, hope they get in under control.

burning greggs in peckham, tv images of youths climbing over roofs

One of the guys came out of a flat and locked it behind him :(

wish the tv camera would focus on the people rather than the burning buildings

Can't believe there's no fire engine at the greggs fire yet!

Birmingham - http://lockerz.com/s/127818415

cor, former met commander dude john o'connor just gave the most spectacularly incendiary interview on bbc

"these yobs, probably unemployable, dont want to work, just nicking stuff, these convicted criminals despite their young age... meanwhile self-appointed community leaders etc"

i mean i was feeling pretty hardline about the whole thing myself but jesus stfu u fucking moron