London's Burning...

~*~

9/08/11

After such an apocalyptic few days in London it is hard to know what to say. London has been a very frightening place, and tonight the violence here seems to have simmered, I can hear less police sirens and helicopters, though the news is that it has spread throughout the country. Its such a hideous mess, its hard to know where to begin. I'll probably post more about it in the coming days, for now just making sure my loved ones and I are safe has been exhausting.

~*~

10/08/2011

Tottenham: Where it all began

I am going to go against the tide here and say how grateful I am to police for the bravery they have shown in the face of what must have been a week of complete hell. I have not always been the biggest fan of the police, especially the riot police, but in the past few days it seems they can't win; if they had acted too barbarously to begin with then there would have been out cries of police brutality and it could have exacerbated an already inflammatory situation.  Act as they did with gradually increasing "robust policing" and everyone says they are going too soft, and we should call in the army, use guns etc. There have simply not been ENOUGH police in London over the past few days to deal with this apocalyptic scale of violence, and now that other counties are experiencing similar riots those counties are struggling as a lot of their police force are holding the situation in London at bay. The police in this video stopped the violent looters from heading further up the road, are road that would lead them to my house, these police essentially kept me and my family safe two nights ago. They also did their best to limit the damages to businesses in the area, and having visited Camden the following day, I can ascertain that they did a pretty good job, yes there was a fair amount of damage, but compared with other parts of the city it was negligible. 

If people want someone or something to direct their anger at, direct it at the government who have 

• cut youth service
• cut university places and tripled higher education fees
• axed the EMA which enabled many children from economically deprived backgrounds to remain in college, 
• cut public services
• cut NHS mental health services to the point where many are facing closure
• are allowing the housing crisis in the capital to spiral ever further out of control
• axing public sector jobs 
• and taxing the hell out of normal working people whilst 
• offering tax breaks to the rich
• doing nothing to close legal loopholes that mean we loose out on millions of pounds worth of corporation tax every year 
• and have people like Philip Green in their pocket. 

http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/

This is an angry disenfranchised youth that know that they are not going to have the same job opportunities as their parents, that IF they can afford to go to university there probably wont be a job for them at the end of it. This country has seen consecutive governments that favour the rich and since the recession there is an increasing feeling that working and middle class young people are having to pay the price for the mistakes of bankers and parliamentarians. The cost of living is going up as are rates of unemployment, and it seems like this CONDEM coalition are determined to eradicate any existing schemes to aid social mobility, and essentially keep kids off the streets.

This video was published on 31st July, just before the first riots in Tottenham. Poignant, brutal and haunting.

The youth of today are angry and rightly so, expressing their anger in such a reckless way with such wanton disregard for the lives of people in their communities is clearly inexcusable, but if we lap up the  governments "pure criminality" propaganda then we are essentially enabling them to do nothing to remedy the problems which have got us into this mess. Lets also not forget that the Tories plan to cut the number of police by 20%, can you imagine how much worse the scenes across England would be with  20% less police there to contain the situation? I can completely understand people's fury and dismay at police not reaching their homes, businesses and communities in time and essentially not being protected, this how ever is not the fault of the officers who were busy in other parts of insurrection, this is down to lack of police funding. The authorities were also completely unprepared for such pandemonium  because they didn't expect it. They didn't expect it because they have been ignoring and disregarding their constituents opposition to spending cuts, condemning their/our protests against proposed bills and passing them anyway, remaining completely disconnected from the majority of young people today.

There is an alternative solution to reducing the deficit.
Think how much this week is going to cost?
 A lot more than it would to keep Haringey's youth services open that's for sure.

The perpetrators of the grotesque crimes witnessed across England need to be bought to justice, and I hope they have many years in prison to think about what better ways they could have harnessed their anger. Collective anger without politics is frightening, and opportunistic theft, arson and thuggery is sickening.  So lets hold the people responsible accountable- the perpetrators through the criminal justice system and the government through our collective voice- STRIKE OCCUPY RESIST, and for gods sake vote. And let us thank the police, fire and ambulance services for risking their lives to try and ensure the safety of ours. 

Taken at Notting Hill Carnival
'10 following the events of 
this historical week Carnival 
'11 will probably be cancelled.