THE BRITISH THREAD II

Quite a few people were, but it's less surprising when you look at our form the end of last season.

Breaks my heart to see what's going on in London... and now spreading to whichever city is going to be next...

just so terribly sad

Why haven't they deployed the army yet?

I don't understand why!

When we have had law breaking on a gigantic scale by bankers, MPs, newspapers and even the police what can you expect if these powerless and skint people are now expected to pay for it? And the number of arrests of the fat cats is derisory.

They started the class war.

I hear you

I don't disagree

However, this is mindless violence and wanton destruction - people are going to die

I don't understand why they aren't bringing in the army to try and prevent further damage ...

Because it would be provocative and dangerous at this stage.

Listening here. I agree with you on that, Spendius. Or I think I do.

I've some experience with 'riots' though I've luckily just missed being in the thick of them. The building next door to our studio was burnt not long after we had decided to leave work early that day, in Los Angeles, in '92. Good that we had the radio on that afternoon..
My ex, then a white eleven year old, was playing baseball in Watts the day the Watts riots started, so he had more direct experience.

There's a lot of anger that simmers. I'm no fan of rioting, aka civil unrest, but I understand some of it.

As is said by locals: you so it coming, over the years.
And it has cumulated now ...

The UK can only hope that it doesn't escalate like it did (and periodically still does) in France.

I don't believe this is simply a case of folk having their grievances and wishing to riot.

There are a very small minority who are setting the fires - the word is being spread by the blackberry (DBM..whatever that's called) which is a private messaging section on the mobile (not techy so can't explain). Blackberry have confirmed they are helping the police in informing them of where the next 'meet and destroy' is going to be - meanwhile people are going around setting fires to large buildings - no-one knows if the surrounding houses are evaucated... and the looters are looking for a quick bargain - anything they can get their hands on "because they believe they have the right to do this".

This is not about Duggan or a peaceful protest - this is not about any excuse that some folk seem to think it is 'justifiable' - destroying the community they live in, endangering the lives of their "so called" neighbours - this is where it shows it is NOT the general community creating this carnage - it is a select few!!!!!! The opportunists are a whole different matter. Folk are coming in from out of London for the equivalent of a "flash mobile destruction". Laughing as they do it as they watch a 90 year lady trying to leave her house which they are laughing at her as she struggled to get out in time... and laughing at everything they were holding in their arms.

Calling COBRA for the morning as London is being burnt down - it's now moved to another borough.

I understand anger, I have huge anger at the sytem - I do not condone burning down property, stealing what you can etc. There are a LOT, MILLIONS of young folk in poverty in London and the UK - not all of them are acting like these offenders.

This is being organised through social networking - not many of them - a few - they need to be segregated then...

It's dark now, they can't be seen

they make me sick

the commuities are absolutely terrified - they can't get out, and their families can't get in to help them

the police have been on their feet for 3 days now - there are not enough policemen on the ground, not even with 32000 of them - we're now helicoptering in from outside counties - the general community is NOT safe, they have no protection.

Cobra meets in the morning... errrrrrrrrrr.... little too late in my opinion - I speak to photo journalists and they KNOW where the hotspots are going to be via their Blackberries - but the police can't get there

This is a crying shame.

Kids as young as 10 on the streets - so many folk have lost every single thing - there homes are destroyed, they have nothing left but the clothes on their back - they are alive, and bemused, scared to death.

This is NOT all about politics or anger, tho of course it has a play in it - this is about a lot of thugs who believe they can do anything they wish and take what they wish in our society. There is a level of despair - I understand that - I really do - I believe our system is corrupt from first hand experience ...

buring down the community is not going to make this better - and the opportunists, criminals are there for what they can get.

I wonder how many elderly or infirmed people may have died who could not leave their properties. I hope I am wrong in that if no-one died with this mayhem - then that would be the only blessing.

Cameron meanwhile is tootling back from his holiday - he shoulda been on the plane yesterday. Our Met force is struggling big time and firkin Theresa May "can't be any more clear" - she does not know what to do!!!!!!!!!!! Make a decision woman - people are going to die if this is not contained.

Now onto Clapham and Ealing.... so how many places have been targeted throughout the night - are up to what....7 - 8 boroughs ... arriving masked in cars, with bottles, bricks etc etc

scary ****

makes me sick

It's been making me sick for years Izz.

Massive protests about the war in Iraq, the pit closures and student's fees and they didn't take the slightest notice. The hunting crowd were ignored. The smoking ban was a con. The bankers walked off with billions in loot. MPs thought they had the right to thieve off the public. The newspapers thought they had the right to tap thousands of phones. They even emasculated the House of Lords to prevent further opposition to the march of the lower-middle class all of whom are completely stupid and no better than pigs.

The chattering classes have been taking the piss out of us all for donkey's years. Working people mean nothing to the wine-bar set.

You don't reap until you have sown.

Pathetic. I stopped voting after one go at it. Egos are inflated.

TV is a pickpocketing operation.

I'm quite right-wing at time like this.
I think hoodies and facemasks should be illegal, and that rioters should be shot.

If they go equipped with clubs and petrol, they should definitely be shot.

It won't make them feel any better, but it will clear the streets, and might save a few innocent people from being burnt to death in their homes.

Then, we can look at underlying causes.
These people probably live in subsidised housing, and are being paid to stay on at school.

Which proves you are very right wing full stop and your leftie sentiment is a mere pose in aid of "good bloke" image.

Which I knew all along Mac.

Media is the cause. It's a rot in the core and looks like it.

Just today we have "Gold Command Headquarters" and "COBRA". Speaks volumes to anybody with a proper education.

London is a giant parasite.

The WPCs have not been much in evidence from what I have seen as our "brave officers" (what that says about our soldiers beggars belief) mount a charge. Equal pay for equal work my Aunt Fanny.

Soldiers get half the pay of WPCs and with no overtime.

It is this sort of deciet, lies and craven politicking that has led us into this fine mess.

Two of the important persons in the hacking scandal were accused of using their influence to find somebody's daughter a well paid, comfortable and prestigious position.

We need law and order FIRST, full stop, do we not?
It's no good the Police standing off, and waiting for the fury to subside. That gives them time to loot, and to start fires.
I think that if rioters come equipped to start fires, then the reaction has to be almost immediate.
Even if it means a curfew. We should tolerate no more of this.

Wait a minute Mac. You were demanding they be shot Assad style and you sounded like you meant it.

Having riots goes hand in hand with a Tory government. A lot of the rioters may well be opportunistic little shits, but it was the ConDems (unelected)policies that lit the touch paper. Boris Johnson got rid of Sir Ian Blair for political reasons, his replacements have all had to resign.

But the ConDems were refracting themselves, as self-improvers are wont to do, according to the agenda Media was setting and particularly TV.

The insignia on the kit, and the kit, of the Acting Commissioner, both designed to hide his normal frailties, reminded me of that we used to see on Russian generals before the **** hit the fan over there.

He should have been gone into unannouced sat at his desk with his sleeves rolled up, a phone in each hand, a tumbler of a light brown liquid within easy reach and a WPC applying cold towels to his forehead.

He could have glared into the camera and said, menacingly, "If any of you scumbags are watching this on your new middle-class, high-definition idiot boxes you would be better staying at home tonight. But thanks for showing the silly-buggers that I'm at least 15,000 men short. If you behave in future we'll not be so hard on you when the public identify you all for us. Now (to camera team, probably about 150 of them), get out of here--I'm busy".

Bill Fraser could have done that.

When Roy Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson of Fleet, in 1957, launched a successful bid for the commercial television franchise for Central Scotland, named Scottish Television, he described it as a "licence to print money".

And so it was.

Now how does any gang of humans, a new tribe especially, behave when it finds that it has a licence to print money. I have to ask myself how would I behave in such a gang having grown up with the customs and rituals as they became gradually asymptotic with perfection.

Bob Dylan said that you could rob people with a fountain pen and he was right. Now you can rob people with an beam of radiation. Which is obviously the explanation of their exaggerated, feigned outrage when others are caught robbing people using cruder methods.

Dermot Murnaghan on Sky News was having the time of his life using victims to display his virtuousness. I wonder what the limits of his ambitions are. What sort of bloke would leave the BBC to further his career?

Did you see that woman on Ch 4 Racing who had won £170 odd grand the week before and had to pick the winner of the Steward's Cup to win another £600 odd grand. A handicap with 30 odd runners over 6 furlongs straight and everybody arguing about which side of the course was fastest. Francome told her to pick like she had picked the six winners the week before and she picked Hoof It, which was favourite and won. But the counsellors got to work and by the start she had changed her mind. There's a moral in that somewhere.

They produce such a work of art and then they ruin it with a "Win a Holiday for two in Dubai for Sultan's Cup week". With the "rates may vary" kick at the end. A raffle in effect. £2-3 a ticket. Whoosh!!

Legally it is a game of skill and thus not banned off TV. They ask a very difficult question before you can qualify to enter. That removes the chance element as any QC will tell you.

If your home town gets a finalist in a knockout phone-in job the takings in the shops will diminish by roughly the amount that the main beam pulsed to London. One chap said that he rang Who Wants To Be A Millionaire 170 or more times before he satisfied the stringent intellectual requirements suitable for such a show. It paid off. Goodstyle. For him I mean.

The lottery is a money pump.

My house was on TV, I sat in the pub and watched it! It is the furthest on the left at 1.00 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14450557 I have a ridiculous view from the balcony now.

I don't know what I think about it yet. I don't give a damn about Footlocker and Tesco being smashed, only the independent businesses.

The only difference between these guys and David Cameron is that their daddy can't foot the bill.

I know what I think. London is a shithole. They are not satisfied with the money they steal off us but now they have stolen some of our coppers. And when they get more coppers the rest of us will be paying our whack. More money into London.

And the measures that are taken will become permanent and thus move us another step towards totalitarianism. In fact it might be that those who want to do that organised the riots. It's a well known and often practiced trick.

Welcome back Queenie.

William Cobbett, thou should'st be living at this hour.