@talk72000,
I bought 5 blackberry 4 years ago for less than $200 US each for my company. I hadn't heard that Britain was in such dire straights as for that to be considered 'Rich'. Unless you're inferring that there were explicit social restrictions on that phone which I haven't encountered/heard about at all in the States.
Also unless I missed a time warp somewhere, the riots happened in 2011. Oh, and the blackberry messenger ap is free and can be installed on not just blackberry but the iPhone and the Droid. Which I'm assuming are in pretty decent circulation among Londoners as I communicate with several via an iPhone ap daily.