Newsnight was an appropriate shambles tonight - out of 4 guests we have 2 voices of the "repressed" (one of whom said the BBC had been editing and misquoting those involved in the fracas, would you adam&eve it?), their Godfather Kelvin McKuntzie (crawled from under the rock he's been hiding now pretending he's The Voice Of Middle England after spending 35 years as The Voice Of The Gutter and no doubt hoping the police will be too busy to find out what crimes he authorised for Rupert) and some silly cow from some pointless pressure group "Mothers Against Murder" (as opposed to "Murderous Fathers For Mass Homicide" or something?). This country is fucked.

angel wrote:
I have to agree itk

I have to report that ITK has been taken to hospital with shock !

Angel - why do you think there have been no incidents in Scotland ?
Don't you have disaffected yoof up there ?

Chris Retro wrote:
Newsnight was an appropriate shambles tonight - out of 4 guests we have 2 voices of the "repressed" (one of whom said the BBC had been editing and misquoting those involved in the fracas, would you adam&eve it?), their Godfather Kelvin McKuntzie (crawled from under the rock he's been hiding now pretending he's The Voice Of Middle England after spending 35 years as The Voice Of The Gutter and no doubt hoping the police will be too busy to find out what crimes he authorised for Rupert) and some silly cow from some pointless pressure group "Mothers Against Murder" (as opposed to "Murderous Fathers For Mass Homicide" or something?). This country is fucked.

The hooded monosyllabic interviewee was a joke.

Who on earth was that "poet" / rapper? How do twats like this get on TV ?

Kelvin McKenzie spoke for the vast majority in Britain (you could almost hear the majority screaming "YES ")

In The Know wrote:


The hooded monosyllabic interviewee was a joke.



There you go, it's attitudes like that, the demonisation of a whole class of people, which fuel things like this. Being monosyllabic or wearing a hoodie doesn't make you wrong. (I wear a hoodie )

We had quite a lot of trouble in Nottingham last night- considerably more than is being reported on TV and Radio. Before I looked at the link below I made a mental list of where the trouble would be and do you know what, I was pretty much spot on.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england...shire-14472172

Nottingham is a city I love. It is vibrant and friendly. I say that because I live in an affluent area to the south of the city, which was named one of the Top 10 places to live in the UK by the Sunday Times not long ago because of its parks, social amenities, schools etc. However, there is a whole different side to Nottingham largely out to the North of the city centre. A large area of social depravation, high unemployment and crime. Guess where it kicked off last night. Clue- not where I live.

When I first moved here 7 years ago to be with my then partner, we lived in his house in Bulwell, one of those areas in the north of the city. Going into that area was like entering another country- I don't mean ethnically, as it's a mainly white area, but it felt completely disconnected from the rest of the city. Shortly after I moved there I had just got on a bus when a brick came flying through the window, sending glass everywhere. A couple of months later I went to the local shop only to find it closed. The big window had been smashed in and lots of stuff stolen. These were the only 2 events I witnessed when I was there, but I never felt safe. There was a constant tension in the air and a sense of hopelessness which you could see in the faces of people. I was so pleased to get out, and not at all surprised when I heard it had kicked off there.

There's another area which is even worse- St Ann's. It has a reputation for crime and drugs. It is very close to the city centre but is avoided by most people. I had never been there until last year, when I applied to do voluntary work teaching French to young kids. Again, walking into St Anns felt like entering another world, totally disconnected from the rest of the city. The feeling of tension was everywhere, the smell of cannabis too. The teaching was to be at the local community centre. When I got there it was horrible. A dirty, dingy, smelly place - somewhere which was supposed to revitalise the community, but which sapped the will to live. I declined the voluntary work and never went back. St An's police station was attacked last night. I was not surprised.

From a link I posted elsewhere here 'Dr Paul Bagguley of the University of Leeds, who researches the sociology of protest, said he had often been asked if there would be riots in the wake of spending cuts, rising unemployment and increasing social inequality in Britain. He told Channel 4 News: "There's been a sense of watching a slow train crash ever since the credit crunch."


When there were riots in Paris in 2005,many people here criticised how problem families and communities were shunted out to anonymous suburbs which felt isolated from the city, and how that was at the root of the problem. But we have done the same here. These areas of Nottingham are large, but are so disconnected and almost hidden that much of the population goes about its daily business unaware that they exist. I was not at all surprised that this has happened in Bulwell, St Anns, The Meadows, just surprised it hasn't happened earlier.

As someone said the other day: 'When people feel connected and included, they don't riot.'

This is no excuse for the wanton acts of violence that have led to people losing their homes, their livelihoods and now their lives. And justice has to be seen to be very firm on those to committed these crimes. But we need to wake up and smell the coffee.

In The Know wrote:


Kelvin McKenzie spoke for the vast majority in Britain (you could almost hear the majority screaming "YES ")

Sadly- I think ITK may be right

In one stroke ITK has put his finger on why we are where we are.
That McKuntzie can crawl back on to National TV and somehow contrive to strke a chord with the "good people" is more frightening than any riot. We'll be asking for advice from Brooks and Murdoch next. Society has got ADHD.

The man is hypocritical scum.

Unless we reject wholesale hypocrisy and lies there is no way back - unless you want more bully-boy tactics granted to the knuckle-heads in the police & the army (which reminds me of the scene in A Clockwork Orange when Alex finds out to his horror that his vengeful fellow droogies are now coppers), which will (as ever) result in the persecution of the law abiding and easy-to-trip-up.

The politico's and the media just don't get it!

The real problem is these kids have been raised on a diet of bullshit. Consumer goods are disposable. Politicians lie & fiddle, and then extoll platitudes about 'decency' and 'morality'. The police bully the weak and take money from the gutter press. The media thinks it's justifiable to carry out witchhunts at will. etc etc, repeat to fade.

That is why we're fucked.

In The Know's personal assistant wrote:
angel wrote:
I have to agree itk

I have to report that ITK has been taken to hospital with shock !

Angel - why do you think there have been no incidents in Scotland ?
Don't you have disaffected yoof up there ?

I'm told in Scotland that the disaffected are too pissed or smacked up to riot, and the rest of the country are fine with their free education, presciptions, subsidies etc

In The Know wrote:
The Coalition has started to remove many unnecessary powers but will now have to back-track (to satisy the police).

Its also interesting to speculate on whether the police (who have campaigned vigorously against cuts for them) have allowed the riots to escalate a little in order to prove that more police - not less - are needed ?

If this is not the case, can they explain why they have done so little to stop the riots? They all have Taser guns, dont they? They seem very willing and capable of using them against drunks on a Saturday night. Why not in a full blown riot?

What did I say yesterday?

From Sky News - news.sky.com/home/politics/article/16047027

Earlier Boris Johnson directly criticised Government policy by calling for plans to reduce police numbers to be reconsidered in the wake of the disturbances in UK towns and cities.

In response the PM said: "Mayors and local authorities always want more money. It is the Government's job to give them what they need."

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, the Conservative Mayor of London had said: "This is not a time to think about making substantial cuts in police numbers."

He added that it would be a "good thing" if Ministers "had another look" at the issue.

Chris Retro wrote:
In The Know's personal assistant wrote:
angel wrote:
I have to agree itk

I have to report that ITK has been taken to hospital with shock !

Angel - why do you think there have been no incidents in Scotland ?
Don't you have disaffected yoof up there ?

I'm told in Scotland that the disaffected are too pissed or smacked up to riot, and the rest of the country are fine with their free education, presciptions, subsidies etc

Asbo-bloody-lootly! And can I just say hic, thanks hic to every idiot south of the border that pays for it! No court cases, no re-building, street clearing etc. It makes financial sense. I know where i'd rather be. Get involved you bunch of wasters!!!

Lovely yet heartbreaking.

www.theatlantic.com/video/archive/2011/0...s-time-lapse/243323/

you are spot on Chris Retro.

two shows really spelled out the future.. Clockwork Orange and the largely forgotten TV show Max Headroom (where everyone became a 'reporter')

For all the moralising and condemnation and Daily Mail style utterings I think we are just seeing the beginning.

As usual.."get tough on crime" will be the 'solution'.

Chris Retro wrote:
and the rest of the country are fine with their free education, presciptions, subsidies etc

.. all provided by a LibDem government, eh Chris ?
(The SNP came in later)

veritas wrote:
Sadly- I think ITK may be right

You see veritas, we dont need those Labour re-education camps ... just common sense (and either LibDem or Coalition government).

As much as I hate the vile Sun (actually its the general public that I really hate !) they didn't get to be the biggest selling paper by alienating their "readers", did they ? (which is more a reflection on their readership than the paper itself)?

An interesting article in the Guardian today, which makes some interesting points.


David Cameron has to maintain that the unrest has no cause except criminality - or he and his friends might be held responsible. It is essential for those in power in Britain that the riots now sweeping the country can have no cause beyond feral wickedness. This is nothing but "criminality, pure and simple", David Cameron declared after cutting short his holiday in Tuscany. The London mayor and fellow former Bullingdon Club member Boris Johnson, heckled by hostile Londoners in Clapham Junction, warned that rioters must stop hearing "economic and sociological justifications" (though who was offering them he never explained) for what they were doing.

..................

But it's also a nonsensical position. If this week's eruption is an expression of pure criminality and has nothing to do with police harassment or youth unemployment or rampant inequality or deepening economic crisis, why is it happening now and not a decade ago? The criminal classes, as the Victorians branded those at the margins of society, are always with us, after all. And if it has no connection with Britain's savage social divide and ghettoes of deprivation, why did it kick off in Haringey and not Henley?

To accuse those who make those obvious links of being apologists or "making excuses" for attacks on firefighters or robbing small shopkeepers is equally fatuous. To refuse to recognise the causes of the unrest is to make it more likely to recur - and ministers themselves certainly won't be making that mistake behind closed doors if they care about their own political futures.

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/au...ty-run-greed-looting

The riots have now spread to Scotland. Video footage captures the shocking moment.

Love it Angel.

david wrote:
If this week's eruption is an expression of pure criminality and has nothing to do with police harassment or youth unemployment or rampant inequality or deepening economic crisis, why is it happening now and not a decade ago?

To accuse those who make those obvious links of being apologists or "making excuses" for attacks on firefighters or robbing small shopkeepers is equally fatuous. To refuse to recognise the causes of the unrest is to make it more likely to recur - and ministers themselves certainly won't be making that mistake behind closed doors if they care about their own political futures.

I see the dole still provides enough for internet access !!

There are NO excuses for thieving, rioting and looting - and those that take part should be shot on sight.

In The Know wrote:

There are NO excuses for thieving, rioting and looting - and those that take part should be shot on sight.[/quote]


Maybe you'd like to tell that to David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson, who were members of the Bullingdon Club and delighted in destroying other people's property. Boris Johnson was involved in heaving a great big plant pot through a restaurant window, and gloated about it.

And Nick Clegg was done for arson when he was 16.

How the hell are these people who were all teenage criminals in any position to lecture today's teenage criminals?

If you agree that Boris Johnson should be turned in along with the thugs from last weekend, I might take you seriously.

Stop trying t5o justify criminality by harping back to things decades ago.

Get a life !

In The Know wrote:
Stop trying t5o justify criminality by harping back to things decades ago.

Get a life !

There she goes again,insulting people when she can't get her own way!
Ignore her David,we all do