Rioting spreading through London & to other English cities.

The assets of the society always belong to the collective, and while we allow individuals to hold the assets we are always free to reposes them. This being the case I am not willing to assume that a theft has taken place, we require a hearing on the matter.

LONDON — With 10,000 additional police officers deployed across London on Tuesday night, looting and arson dipped sharply from the anarchic scenes that shook Britain over the previous three days, even as violence ticked up again in several other major cities, including Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool.

Hopes that the worst unrest in Britain in a generation had crested and begun to fall continued to weigh uneasily against fears that more robust police action might fail to put more than a temporary curb on the disorder. Sudden flare-ups continued in parts of London, with minor attacks reaching even into the upscale Knightsbridge shopping district, a major tourist draw.

With a decision not to call in the army, a step the government considered and dismissed on Tuesday, the police force appeared to be stretched near its limit by what amounted to a risky shell game, with forces outside London sending their crack antiriot units into the capital as reinforcements. One redeployed unit traveled from Manchester only hours before scores of youths stormed into that city’s center, setting fire to cars and buildings and looting shops.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/10/world/europe/10britain.html?hp

Don't you ever connect to reality?

Are you saying that the people who are being victimized by these thugs have no right to be demanding a more immediate and effective response from their government? Are your sympathies only with those engaging in criminal actions?

But this is not from lack of desire, only lack of money. If success is defined as a 42-inch plasma TV, then a riot is simply a path to success for the impoverished. As an op-ed writer in The Guardian observed, the London riot has taken place in "a country in which the richest 10 per cent are now 100 times better off than the poorest... social mobility is worse than any other developed country." And a BBC News item taped two young women, drinking looted rosé wine, who said they were "showing the rich we can do what we want."

What they really want, of course, is to feel themselves the equals of their fellow-citizens. Better said, their fellow-consumers of wine and electronics. They accept the status quo, except that they're not getting their share of it.

London Mayor Boris Johnson has explicitly rejected this thesis, preferring to find the riots' cause in mere criminality. Others will blame the rioters' blackness, or foreignness, or class. In short, like looters, we will all take what we want from the riots.

And when the fires are finally out, some of us will sit down to watch bad programs on our new TVs, and some of us will justify the hiring of more police, or pass new anti-immigrant laws, or march in the streets in support of equality. Life will go on, and so will the riots.

But I would argue that there's a huge difference between the struggle to achieve the most basic human rights and the "right" to a 42 inch plasma TV.
No one ever died from having an out-of-date tv. (I certainly haven't!)

Be it Libya, Syria, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Yemen, or London, what we are looking at is the have not objecting to their oppression. We will soon see this in the USA as well.

And I've said pretty much all I've wanted to say about it.
Yes, let's get back to the thread subject & agree to disagree

Why the lack of interest?

[Last night,] there has been serious disorder in a number of towns and cities across England, including Manchester, Birmingham, West Bromwich, Gloucester and Birmingham.
[...]
It seems that the disorder has shocked Gloucester, a picturesque cathedral city near the Welsh border, and a place that you wouldn't associate with this kind of trouble.

There's no one root cause for the riots across the country, but a range of economic indicators often associated with social unrest have been on the rise for some time.
Youth numbers ballooning

Britain is undergoing an enormous demographic shift - the consequences of which few people yet understand.

There are a million more 15-24 year olds in Britain today than a decade ago, and it's striking that those taking part in these riots are almost all in this age cohort.

Bear in mind that the last time this group was so large was in the early 1980s (in fact it was actually a million people higher at that point).

Record (LSE: REC.L - news) levels of youth unemployment

The number of out-of-work young people (which excludes those in education) is at the highest level since records began in 1992.

This isn't just a 2008 recession problem: youth unemployment has been on the rise for many years - though this was exacerbated by the crisis.

But London isn't the worst-affected by youth unemployment - the figures are far worse in parts of Wales and the North East.

Unprecedented levels of inequality

London is Britain's most unequal region by far, in terms of the income gap.

According to the definitive report from the New Policy Institute, 19% of the population of Inner London are in the top tenth for income nationwide while 16% are in the bottom tenth.

In inner London 20% of people have 60% of the total income.

Add this to the fact that overall UK inequality levels have risen to the highest levels since the 1960s (or alternatively the 1930s, depending on whose statistics you trust).

It's notable that many of the areas affected by the rioting are within touching distance of poorer areas, as is the case in Tottenham where the rioting began.

Benefits-dependent households

London has a high and growing proportion of families entirely dependent on benefits

According to a recent European Union study, there are 600,000 people under 25 in Britain who have never had a day's work in their lives.

An NPI map shows that these households are largely to be found in the inner city north and eastern areas, many of which have been hit by the riots

Austerity

London's local authorities have borne much of the brunt of the Government's austerity package - their grants from Whitehall fell by 11.3% this year and will drop a further 7.6% in 2012/13.

And the first non-essential services to be cut include youth services budgets - Haringey's was slashed by 75% leading to the closure of youth clubs.

Now, clearly there are plenty of other factors behind the riots - moreover, none of the above explains precisely why this chaos has erupted here and now.

But they underline the fact that in economic and social terms, London has been a tinderbox for some time.

I think this story of the Journalists failing to do their jobs will get bigger. We have already had a running conversation on A2K over the last year about how badly the BBC now sucks, and we have also had a running (more so lately) conversation about how the properties of Murdoch MEGACORP suck. Are there any Journalists remaining in the UK?? I dont know the answer, but so far an affirmative answer is looking damn iffy.

Any other cartoon commentary, from the UK or other countries, would be much appreciated.

The fact that that is how the situation will be dealt with, only ensures the problem won't be dealt with and will occur again in the future.