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

(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