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

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....

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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.