Skip to content

Who is to blame for the riots?

A thought.

We are told, endlessly, that only the rapist is to blame for rape. Nothing that the victim does, has done, where they go, how they\’re dressed, nothing at all changes the fact that the rapist is solely and completely responsible, in and of themselves, for the crime.

So why isn\’t this true for rioters?

Discuss.

94 thoughts on “Who is to blame for the riots?”

  1. Because those being looted aren’t a defined victim group. And in the membership of a defined identity group is essential to being able to be a “victim” in this PC world.

  2. If everything is reduced to the free-will argument ,there is no point in politics,economics etc.There is no such thing as Society as an influence on,or determinant of, individual behaviour.

  3. Seeing as we have recordings of rioters saying it’s about tax, I think it’s fair to blame Richard Murphy. “We’re getting our tax back”[1] is a pretty clear statement of motivation by Tax Injustice. Richard Murphy it is.

    [1] said by somebody who clearly doesn’t pay tax, so that’s the royal “we” there, meaning “the community is getting its tax back from evil corporations by stealing trainers”.

  4. I don’t think anyone is blaming the shopkeepers for being looted, or the wheelie-bins for being thrown etc.

    I think societal factors are often blamed for rape, such as porn.

  5. I have no problem with blaming the rioters and looters. They’re criminals. End of discussion.

  6. You’re right Tim. But you’re missing two things.
    1. The inconsistency between rape and other crimes usually cuts the other way. Some people say rape victims bring the crime upon themselves, eg by dressing sluttily, when they rarely claim that victims of other crimes – muggings, burglary, murder – bring it on themselves.
    2. There’s another inconsistency here. The right tell us – often rightly – that people respond to incentives. But when the left reply that this same thinking predicts that poverty can cause crime (coz folks have less to lose), the right lose interest in incentives and blather about morality.

  7. There’s a school of thought that states, simplistically, that rape isn’t about sex, it’s about power. Doesn’t the same apply here? It wasn’t just about looting, it was as much about trashing places and establishing who’s the boss…

  8. There have been, and still are, prejudices in society/structures which tend towards ‘victim blaming’ in rape – and so ‘we’ have to respond with the position that you outline. Is it always the right one? Almost certainly not, is it the lesser of the evils? Probably. If you like, I’ll point you towards some really angry feminists who’ll gladly go into more detail.

    As for rioters… well most people I’m hearing seem to be of the view that, as individuals, the rioters are absolutely responsible for their actions, and do not get to point fingers at the unfairness of the world and excuse their own complete disregard for their communities and, in many cases, human life.

    However, the rioters exist as a group, not just as individuals. That group is, whether or not we like it, part of society… the victim. It’s all rather murky. Whilst I have noticed a lot of people just wanting to blame tories, many are recognising that there a societal issue which isn’t party-political. To look at, and deal with, each rioter as the individual violent moron that he/she is, and not question whether ‘the victim’ has lessons to learn, would miss the point.

    So yes, your logic holds – but real life doesn’t care.

  9. I’m not sure your first point is accurate, chris. There’s no shortage of public information films, posters and what-have-you reminding us not to ‘advertise’ ourselves to thieves, not to mention TV shows devoted to telling us how vulnerable our homes are because our curtains are open or fences too low…

  10. I think it’s a ridiculous question and obviously not apples to apples. Nobody is saying the individual shop owners are partially to blame – while victim-blamers always point to the individual victims in rape cases.

    But the wider culture has obviously contributed to an environment where looting and large-scale vandalism is seen as acceptable by a minority. That is inarguable.

    Yes, that would also apply to rape were thousands of young people to go on a rape rampage through the cities of England.

  11. IanB, not to defend the scumbag you quote, nor to suggest that s/he was making the point I’m about to make, but: indirect taxes such as VAT or petrol duty are taxes, just like the others.

  12. Chris, Lee and Tom are right. Ed and Steve are bigots. And the rioters in London aren’t mostly black, in any case – almost everyone in the Enfield riots was white.

    Pat: they’re not quite the same thing. I’ve never heard any story of a burglary victim being *subsequently* criticised for the way their home was insufficiently protected, whereas that happens to rape victims a lot of the time.

  13. when they rarely claim that victims of other crimes – muggings, burglary, murder – bring it on themselves.

    Quite a few years back now, I was mugged. I went into work the next day and mentioned it and instantly, the guy I was talking to grabbed me in an emotionally supportive manner and stared into my eyes and said, “REMEMBER, IT WASN’T YOUR FAULT!” in a distinctly identical way to how that would be addressed to a sexual assault victim.

    Mind you, I was in a theatre at the time, so, drama queens are a norm. Still, it was the same sort of thing.

  14. Well, perusing the ‘Indy’ today, Camila Batmanghelidjh thinks it’s ‘poverty’ and ‘feelings of isolation’ and prescribes more hugs, and Christina Patterson blames ‘institutional racism’ and ‘consumerism’ and prescribes nothing…

    It’s like some ghastly race to see who can be most appeasing of these vicious oxygen-thieves…

  15. Steve: “Because the rioters are mostly black.”

    But they’re not. Maybe at first, yes. But now there’s black, brown, white and all shades in between.

    No Chinese though, I’ve noticed…

  16. “Wouldn’t you love it if your son brought one of them home for dinner? Not least because they’d bring round a bottle of looted rose, what utter peasants.”

    What would one serve? Does a Greggs pasty go with rose..?

  17. The only place where whites make up a significant proportion of the rioters is on the pictures the BBC has seen fit to publish on its website

  18. “JuliaM – yes they are, dear.”

    *rolls eyes*

    No, they’re not.

    And it’s not just the BBC, I’m looking at Twitter and other social media, and it’s a vertiable smorgasbord of shades.

    They’re all one type, that’s for sure – feral street rats.

  19. ISTM a claim along the lines of ‘economic deprivation / inequality is a strong predictor of criminality’ is not controversial. Agreeing with that claim doesn’t mean you are an ‘appeaser’ and think people should not be held accountable for their criminality. Ultimately the individual bears responsibility for his decisions. But we shouldn’t ignore the environment or circumstances that incline people to make decisions of a kind that we don’t want him to make.

  20. I’ve never heard any story of a burglary victim being *subsequently* criticised for the way their home was insufficiently protected

    Really? You haven’t? I’ve heard of people being criticised for leaving doors or windows unlocked and subsequently being burgled, and I and my brothers were told off by my mother on several different occasions for not leaving the burglar alarm on (albeit we weren’t actually burgled any of those times – the only successful burglary of my childhood home prompted the burglar alarm in the first place, the later known attempts were prevented by the burglar alarm).

    Admittedly I did grow up in a high-burglary suburb, so I might well have been exposed to a lot more conversations about burglary than most.

  21. “Surprised at the criticism of Camila Batmanghelidjh because she’s one of the few who make any sense to me.”

    Well, allow me to point to Twitter, for its ability to instantly puncture the preening egos of the Righteous.

    Referring to her ‘Indy’ article, I got this reTweeted to me yesterday:

    “Camila Batmanghelidjh says these youths don’t have money… no hopes.. no food on the table. Did they BBM that to her via their Blackberry?”

  22. JuliaM, where in that article does Camila Batmanghelidjh say the youths don’t have money? ISTM implicit that they do have money.

    It’s fair to say she claims her organisation and others like it don’t have enough money.

  23. Steve, you’re a fuckwit. Here’s the Sun. Notice ethnicity of lead thug. Or is it also part of the BBC-led conspiracy. And yes, actually, I am right about Enfield.

    Tracy: yeah, I was told off as a kid for leaving off the deadlock. I suspect if I’d left off the deadlock and we’d actually been robbed, I wouldn’t have faced a major telling-off, because I’d already have been distraught. Surprised to hear your first point, on those grounds – just because you’d have to be a complete bastard to make it to someone who’d just had their house robbed…

  24. People insisting that there’s a racial angle to all of this seem, to me, like they’re make an extra special effort to completely miss the point. That, by the way, includes the various ‘community leaders’ who’ve been rolled out to tell us that it’s because of Stephen Lawrence and police racial profiling.

    @ProgContra is right, by the way, this is about power. When folk are done sneering at the ramblings of whatever kids the media outlets have gotten soundbites from.. listen.. because there’s one unifying theme which is ‘this is fun, and you can’t stop us doing it’.

  25. “JuliaM, where in that article does Camila Batmanghelidjh say the youths don’t have money? ISTM implicit that they do have money.”

    Well, it’s pretty implicit in this that we have our old friend and favourite of the likes of fakecharity directors and left wingers, ‘material poverty’:

    “It’s not one occasional attack on dignity, it’s a repeated humiliation, being continuously dispossessed in a society rich with possession. “

    It’s all about the consumerism! Won’t someone think of the children?!?!?

  26. ukliberty – yes, but the environment and circumstances that can incline people to make decisions that we don’t want them to make might plausibly include things like a lack of quick and common punishment for such decisions, and more distantly, a moral climate where such behaviour is excused away.

    To take an example – I doubt whether we can find many class differences in people in the habit of intentionally burning ourselves on hot pots on stoves, because the pain is so immediate and so certain that it would take a really compelling reason for any of us to do so voluntarily.

  27. Lee: “When folk are done sneering at the ramblings of whatever kids the media outlets have gotten soundbites from.. listen.. because there’s one unifying theme which is ‘this is fun, and you can’t stop us doing it’.”

    Should we not ‘sneer at them’, Lee? Are they not worthy of the scorn of all decent hard-working people?

    And I think they’re wrong. It can be stopped. All we need is politicians with backbone.

    And as soon as we find some…

  28. I think Ian B has got this right, there is no real explanation they’re just doing it because they can. The tax rebate to the people stuff is just something that’s been tacked on as an afterthought by the one or two who are capable of a bit of thought and have picked up on something they half heard from someone who reads the Guardian occasionally. It seems rather reminiscent of the Gordon Riots an outbreak of collective nihilistic action, a break from the routine. The reaction of the authorities then was just as confused and sluggish, of course in those days you could end it all with a whiff of grapeshot, not so easy today.

  29. John B – as I said, I have quite a large sample size. As for being a complete bastard – I don’t think that’s necessary to motivate the behaviour, I think quite a few people want to convince themselves that a bad situation won’t happen to them, and to do that they need to find a way to explain away anything bad happening to another person similarly situated to them. I’ve heard of people telling cancer patients that the y wouldn’t have gotten cancer if they’d done x. And while burglary isn’t as scary as cancer, well, in that first burglary at my childhood home the poker had been removed from the fireside and left on a bedroom floor. (Not that I ever recall my parents blaming any neighbour for getting burgled).

  30. Tracy W,

    ukliberty – yes, but the environment and circumstances that can incline people to make decisions that we don’t want them to make might plausibly include things like a lack of quick and common punishment for such decisions, and more distantly, a moral climate where such behaviour is excused away.

    Absolutely! I wholly agree with that.

    I think for many of the looters and arsonists it is about exploiting a vulnerability they’ve found – they will get away with it. That is what they have in their heads, that they are highly likely to get away with stealing and burning stuff, so they think why not?

    But ISTM that just as we shouldn’t ignore things like “a lack of quick and common punishment [for criminal behaviour]”, we shouldn’t ignore other things that are predictors of criminality.

  31. JuliaM “Should we not ‘sneer at them’, Lee? Are they not worthy of the scorn of all decent hard-working people?”

    Sneer away. They are idiots, and I make no excuses for them.

    But if that’s all we do then we’re not ever going to make anything better. The alternative is to try and figure out why so many people really don’t give a fuck about the rest of us and our ideas of a society.

    Alas, ‘the right’ demonises and marginalises them, and ‘the left’ excuses and patronises them. Is it any wonder they’ve turned out like this?

  32. It may be that the looters are who they are because of failings in society, benefit culture, sense of entitlement to god paying jobs (min wage) education and parenting.

    But if I infect a dog with rabies, whilst it is then my fault the dog has rabies, you still shoot the dog.

  33. R Grey: “But if I infect a dog with rabies, whilst it is then my fault the dog has rabies, you still shoot the dog”

    If you did it deliberately, we could justifiably shoot you too.

  34. @ JuliaM

    “And I think they’re wrong. It can be stopped. All we need is politicians with backbone.”

    And police with live ammo.

  35. JuliaM @34,

    Well, it’s pretty implicit in this that we have our old friend and favourite of the likes of fakecharity directors and left wingers, ‘material poverty’:

    “It’s not one occasional attack on dignity, it’s a repeated humiliation, being continuously dispossessed in a society rich with possession. “

    It’s all about the consumerism! Won’t someone think of the children?!?!?

    I don’t understand what is meant by “material poverty” (something not mentioned in Batmanghelidjh’s article). But I challenge you to visit Hackney, Lewisham, parts of Camden and Kentish Town, Lewisham, Peckham, and other streets and estates affected by recent ‘disturbances’ and truthfully tell me that none of them are ‘deprived’ or ‘poor’ in the usual senses of such words.

  36. Lee,

    But if that’s all we do then we’re not ever going to make anything better. The alternative is to try and figure out why so many people really don’t give a fuck about the rest of us and our ideas of a society.

    Alas, ‘the right’ demonises and marginalises them, and ‘the left’ excuses and patronises them. Is it any wonder they’ve turned out like this?

    In a nutshell, neither side actually cares about fixing this. Neither of them live in or near these streets or run retail businesses, and they don’t generally have many floating voters.

    If rioters started kicking off in Charlbury, Cameron would have a lot more than a “code of behaviour” to throw at these people.

  37. The alternative is to try and figure out why so many people really don’t give a fuck about the rest of us and our ideas of a society.

    Suggestion – they’re not trying to sell us anything? (Be they after our money or our votes).
    I’ve read theories of government that argue that governments generally only expand electorates when they want the increased tax base and can’t/don’t want to get at it by force. And analyses that, say, the extension of women’s rights came first in those countries that were trying to attract women immigrants.
    Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations, argues that teachers who aren’t paid by their students tend to indulge themselves and not give a fuck about their students.

    So, well, if you don’t have to keep someone happy to keep the money coming in, or to keep your position as MP/priest/local body councillor, and you’re not of the sort who is naturally interested in the feelings and ideas of others in their own right, is it really surprising that you wouldn’t give a fuck about them? I’m sure we can all think of things like that for ourselves, I know intellectually that the sexual reproduction of plants is necessary to sustain my life, but the topic itself is the one area of science I find utterly boring.

  38. What don’t they have, ukliberty, are they starving, do they have no shoes on their feet, have they got a tv at home? To suggest that anyone in the UK is justified in behaving in this way is utter bollocks. They may be relatively poor compared to those who pay their welfare but that is how it should be.

  39. DocBud,

    What don’t they have, ukliberty, are they starving, do they have no shoes on their feet, have they got a tv at home? To suggest that anyone in the UK is justified in behaving in this way is utter bollocks.

    To suggest I suggested that is also utter bollocks.

  40. So what did you mean by:

    “Lewisham, Peckham, and other streets and estates affected by recent ‘disturbances’ and truthfully tell me that none of them are ‘deprived’ or ‘poor’ in the usual senses of such words.”

  41. I just had to laugh a moment ago when I looked at the Telegraph front page. Peering out from amidst the apocalyptic mayhem was a little picture of Mervyn King and “BoE Cuts Growth Forecast”.

  42. DocBud, it’s related to causes, reasons, risks, ingredients, not justifications. Cause is not synonymous with justification.

    I said @27, “Ultimately the individual bears responsibility for his decisions. But we shouldn’t ignore the environment or circumstances that incline people to make decisions of a kind that we don’t want him to make.”

    That is to say, punish people for wrongdoing. Also look at what may have influenced it – this doesn’t entail letting off criminals.

    If deprivation is a strong predictor of criminality of particular kinds and we’re interested in prevention as well as punishment, we might want to look at mitigating the risk associated with deprivation.

  43. “…But I challenge you to visit Hackney, Lewisham, parts of Camden and Kentish Town, Lewisham, Peckham, and other streets and estates affected by recent ‘disturbances’ and truthfully tell me that none of them are ‘deprived’ or ‘poor’ in the usual senses of such words.”

    You assume I don’t work in or travel through those areas, then..?

    And no, I wouldn’t use the words ‘deprived’ (‘depraved’, though…) or ‘poor’ to describe them.

    Their problems are not ones of deprivation or poverty, but moral failings and the culture of ‘no consequences’…

  44. UKLiberty:“If deprivation is a strong predictor of criminality of particular kinds and we’re interested in prevention as well as punishment, we might want to look at mitigating the risk associated with deprivation.”

    What do you suggest? The State buys these feral street rats the 50″ flat-screen tv, new trainers and iPhone 4 they would otherwise go loot?

  45. What effing deprivation? So they don’t have what those who work for a living do, neither should they. I must have been massively deprived growing up in a council house in the 60s, but somehow I managed to resist burning down the local shop, as did my mates who didn’t go to uni and ended up in unexciting jobs.

  46. JuliaM,

    What do you suggest? The State buys these feral street rats the 50? flat-screen tv, new trainers and iPhone 4 they would otherwise go loot?

    Now there’s a non sequitur.

  47. Well, if you believe that:

    “If deprivation is a strong predictor of criminality of particular kinds and we’re interested in prevention as well as punishment, we might want to look at mitigating the risk associated with deprivation.”

    what are you suggesting? Like JuliaM, I took that to suggest that yet more should be taken from them that work and given to those that don’t.

  48. The interesting thing about this conversation (here and elsewhere) is the number of people who appear to think every decision to misbehave is made ex nihilio – as if the person’s circumstances, environment, upbringing and all the rest of it is wholly irrelevant, has no influence on the decision-making process. In essence, the person has flipped a mental coin.

    I’m sure they don’t really think that, but it is a reasonable inference.

  49. I don’t see the relevance of “circumstances, environment, upbringing and all the rest”. If the person is intellectually challenged to the point that they cannot see that what they are doing is wrong then they should obviously be in state care. For all the rest, they should feel the full weight of the law because they are nothing but criminals.

  50. ukliberty: “Now there’s a non sequitur.”

    And there’s yet another failure to answer the question of just what you suggest be done…

  51. If we are going to try looking at social reasons for these two legged rats then how about these reasons?
    1. Because they are violent thugs that enjoy destruction.
    2. Because they have no fear of any consequences.

    What could the consequences be?
    1. Trouble from the society.
    2. Trouble from the state.

    Why are there no consequences from society?
    Because they do not have to rely on society for anything as they are handed everything by the state.

    Why are there no consequences from the state?
    1. Because the police are to worried about doing anything to create any.
    2. Even under normal circumstances the risks of getting a meaningful punishment are small, because of 1. and the number of others involved they are now even smaller.
    3. There lives are so bad that the state cannot make them significantly worse with the penalties legally available.

    1 and 2 are difficult to change without adverse consequences for civil liberties, but 3 certainly isn’t. How about reducing the benefits of anybody who is convicted of a crime (or their legal guardians) as part of the sentence? Or how about making prison harder? Making education as the only priveledge they can earn? Make loss of remission or extentions of sentences for bad behaviour easier to impose?

  52. JuliaM,

    ukliberty: “Now there’s a non sequitur.”

    And there’s yet another failure to answer the question of just what you suggest be done…

    I tend to switch off when commenters start putting words in my mouth or drawing unreasonable inferences from what I’ve said.

  53. DocBud,

    what are you suggesting?

    I don’t have any specific suggestions. It has been difficult enough to get across my ‘question’.

    I am talking about mitigating risks of people deciding to turn to crime, not justifying criminality or saying we should throw more money at people.

    Like JuliaM, I took that to suggest that yet more should be taken from them that work and given to those that don’t.

    That seems an unreasonable inference to me, but YMMV – I am biased.

    For all the rest, they should feel the full weight of the law because they are nothing but criminals.

    I still agree that criminals should be punished.

    I don’t see the relevance of “circumstances, environment, upbringing and all the rest”.

    The relevance is in terms of contributory factors / risks / statistical predictors. Again, I am not justifying criminality as I made explicit earlier – I’m talking about attempting to mitigate risks as well as punishing individuals.

    About 10% of 16-19 year olds are not in education, employment or training.
    About 20% of people will leave school functionally innumerate or illiterate (some both). These are significant proportions, no?

    At the same time there is a scarcity of unskilled jobs being snapped up by literate and numerate foreigners with a good work ethic who understand their wages, while relatively low in UK terms, will buy a relatively good quality of life in their native countries, so they are willing to ‘tough it out’ now for a relatively good reward. You might say a person who is functionally illiterate ought to go for one of those unskilled jobs. I agree (but don’t think much of his chances).

    This hypothetical person has grown up on a rough estate where the law-abiding are disadvantaged compared to the criminals, in terms of wealth. His mates are in a gang and are rewarded for hiding and running weapons for their seniors. They are rewarded for bringing their seniors the proceeds of dealing, mugging and other crimes . He knows of a drug dealer with an expensive car, home stereo and massive flatscreen TV. And this doesn’t have any influence on his decision-making?

  54. UKLiberty: “About 10% of 16-19 year olds are not in education, employment or training.”

    Except….

    The first few looters have been arraigned, and turn out to be – surprise! – not unemploable NEETs but teachers, postmen, lifeguards and dental nurses.

    So can we can we please, please see a massive drop in left-wing pontification about it being down to ‘deprivation’ and ‘poverty’ and ‘joblessness’..?

  55. Lewisham, Peckham, and other streets and estates affected by recent ‘disturbances’ are not ‘deprived’ or ‘poor’ in the usual senses of such words.

    Anyone with a mobile phone (that they don’t use for their job) is not poor.

  56. Following the link http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/mar/29/indices-multiple-deprivation-poverty-england , I ended up at http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/statistics/pdf/1871208.pdf , looking at the methodology. This convinced me that the IMD is worthless. It says that it is about “deprivation” and not poverty. I agree. But that makes it worthless. People in Lewisham and Peckham are not poor. I mean, come on: it uses various welfare benefits to measure deprivation, but after benefits, the people are no longer poor!

  57. “But I challenge you to visit Hackney, Lewisham, parts of Camden and Kentish Town, Lewisham, Peckham, and other streets and estates affected by recent ‘disturbances’ and truthfully tell me that none of them are ‘deprived’ or ‘poor’ in the usual senses of such words.”
    UK Liberty
    I’ve spent the last months sharing my life with a chica from the rough part of Medallin, Colombia. She’s been selling her ass in Spain for the last few years because that was her ticket out. Do you want to know the details of being one of six children in a two room shack with no plumbing?
    Deprived & poor in London in 2011?
    Fuck right off.
    Cunt.

  58. I see a little bit of what UK Liberty and his detractors are both driving at.

    Those kids are not in material poverty by any sane standard. They have no need to steal. They chose it. About this Bloke in Spain is 100% right.

    However the poverty of spirit caused by:

    Being dragged up without a father to show you what it is to be a man

    Attending crap schools with few male teachers and fewer teachers who are men.

    No job or apprenticeship in a workplace where older men will soon put young-snot punks in their place.

    Grown up without wisdom, guidance, morality, discipline enough to breed self-discipline (NOT taught to obey–that is wrong).

    Filled with ego and a sense of entitlement because they have never been taught better. Without useful skill or work ethic, unemployable.
    Seeing every day successful example of all the dead-wrong role-models.

    That is poverty of spirit.

    Does it excuse them?

    Hell NO.

    But any one of us–“raised” that way, in that enviroment, might be out their with them, thieving as they do.

    They must be stopped.

    And then the political and bureaucratic scum who have turned this country into a shithole must suffer as well.

  59. @Mr Ecks

    I like the cut of your gib. One of my kids is a primary school teacher and she’s been working in a sink school in south London. They use a system called ‘free flow’ – it consists of the kids pretty much deciding for themselves what they do and when. The school has appalling results and a high turnover of staff – because a lot of teachers want to impose the boundaries that the school management (especially the headmistress) insists should not be imposed.

    Come September my daughter will be teaching in a different school. The poor kids won’t have the luxury of moving on.

  60. JuliaM said: “Their problems are not ones of deprivation or poverty, but moral failings and the culture of ‘no consequences’”

    Yes! Just this.

  61. bloke in spain, of course some of those Londoners are not deprived compared to her. They are not deprived compared to the people currently starving to death in East Africa (some of them turning to eating cow shit, apparently, because they are that desperate). Do you imagine the people I’m talking about tend to compare themselves to starving East Africans? Or do you imagine they tend to compare themselves to people on their estates and the TV?

  62. Hugo,blockquote>http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/statistics/pdf/1870718.pdf
    It covers “air quality”, amongst other things. This report is pointless and should not be compiled.Brilliant – dismiss a 140 page report because it mentions “air quality” 21 times. Disregard all the other words.

    ‘Air quality’ falls within the ‘Outdoors
    Living Environment’ ‘sub-domain’, in the domain ‘Living Environment Deprivation’. The domain is given a ‘domain weight’ of 9.3%. The sub-domain is given one third of the domain’s weight. So the sub-domain is given a third of 9.3% and air quality makes up a bit of that third.

    Compare to “other things” such as ‘Income Deprivation’ (22.5%), ‘Employment Deprivation’ (22.5%), ‘Health Deprivation and Disability’ (13.5%), ‘Education, Skills and Training Deprivation’ (13.5%)…

  63. UK Lib @75
    The days when a black face on the streets of London equated with Caribbean are long gone. A lot of those black kids rioting are from E. Africa or their parents were. The Somalis have got such a rep they scare the hell out of the Yardies. These are the guys who chewed up the Yanks in Mogadishu & now their younger brothers are trashing Tottenham.
    As for them feeling disadvantaged compared with…well with who? Many of their families have more disposable income than their neighbours who are out at work Haven’t you ever looked at them? Seen the latest trainers, the designer gear, the gold chains & bracelets. The gold teeth. All the stuff of street cred.
    And people off the TV? Which people off the TV? Eastenders?

    Oh & for the benefit of johnb way up the thread. On the phone with a pal in Enfield today & the local problems were mentioned. He reckoned predominately black leavened with the usual white assholes who hang with them. Probably the mob from Edmonton were the hard core & that’s some seriously nasty territory. Take a walk through there on your own & you’ll soon be relieved of your right-on liberal views along with your cash & valuables.

  64. I see the Boy Dave has said it’s okay to use weapons of mass saturation and that these can be deployed in 24 hours.

  65. Julia: pretty sure that out of the 250 people arraigned yesterday, the few who have (well, *had*) real jobs are the ones being reported on – which makes sense, for Man Bites Dog reasons.

    Take a walk through there on your own & you’ll soon be relieved of your right-on liberal views along with your cash & valuables.

    I fucking hate it when ignorant righties use this line. Places I’ve lived in the last 10 years include N4, N19 and E2, as well as M16 (Moss Side). I’ve been mugged and robbed.

    Emotionally, of course I wanted to get the bastards, horsewhip them and throw them in jail forever.

    But because my views are formed rationally based on evidence, not on deranged emotional prejudice, this had absolutely no bearing on my views about society – and wouldn’t have been the actual punishment I would have inflicted if given the choice.

    I pity anyone who’s pathetic enough that being robbed or mugged would change their views on crime. All the left-wingers I know have been robbed, mugged and/or burgled at some point; they’ve all remained left-wingers, because their views aren’t based on simplistic Stone Age concepts of personal revenge.

  66. johnb, that’s a surprise to hear you say that, from reading your comments I’ve always thought that your views were largely informed by very typical stone age concepts. Your revenge however tends to be general rather than personal, I’ll grant you that.

    Ed “bigot” Snack. Next time I’ll remember you’re complete cluelessness and include the appropriate /sarcasm tags.

  67. Having been caught out( again) with mass rioting
    on their watch ,the Conservatives and their accomplices are saying :these people are evil/feral; nothing we do can have any effect or influence.Why are they in politics ,if political policies don’t have any effect ,political rhetoric no influence?Or is it just these ferals who are unreachable?Funny because they seem to have been reached by enough branding / advertising/rampant consumerism to steal stuff mainly for conspicuous consumption.

  68. DBC Reed – funny, I thought Conservatives were saying that the rioters should be arrested and convicted and there be a clearer code of responsibility.

    It took me about 2 seconds to find this on the Conservative Party website. Do you have some sort of moral objection to basing your beliefs on reality?

  69. Mr Ecks: “No job or apprenticeship in a workplace where older men will soon put young-snot punks in their place.”

    I think you’ll find, thanks to the efforts of UKLiberty and his fellow travellers, such behaviour is now deemed ‘workplace bullying’ and would lead to dismissal… 😉

  70. JuliaM,

    I think you’ll find, thanks to the efforts of UKLiberty and his fellow travellers, such behaviour is now deemed ‘workplace bullying’ and would lead to dismissal…

    Of course you will be able to provide evidence of me making such an effort…

    Christ, I must say enough things that are evidence of incompetence, i.e. no need to lie about me.

  71. Ed: so you’re saying you were being sarcastic about ‘victim groups’? Hence you don’t, in fact, believe that Political Correctness Gone Mad means the Liberal Do-Gooders Who Run Society only care about people in defined ‘victim groups’? In which case, congratulations on not being an idiot, and apologies for failing to pick that up from your other comments.

  72. @Tracey W
    Do you have some kind of moral objection to making sense?None of what you said has any bearing on what I said, which was —nah tell you the truth ,can’t be bothered.

  73. DBC Reed
    “Or is it just these ferals who are unreachable?Funny because they seem to have been reached by enough branding / advertising/rampant consumerism to steal stuff mainly for conspicuous consumption.”

    My goodness! That’s an explanation that’ll send a shockwave through historian circles. The sackings & lootings of history were brought about by the influence of advertising.Whoever would have thunk it?

    johnb
    That left wingers don’t change their minds when confronted by reality must be one of the most abiding truths of the past century but thanx for the reminder.

  74. BIS
    Didn’t say the shoplifting was “caused” by advertising. But please explain why the shoplifters headed for Foot Locker, JB Sports etc.if they were n’t brainwashed consumerists.

  75. DBC Reed – I admit that what I said only has bearing on what you said for those people who care about whether what you said matches up with reality. A group which clearly does not include yourself, otherwise you’d’ve checked what the Conservatives were actually saying in the first place.

    But please explain why the shoplifters headed for Foot Locker, JB Sports etc.if they were n’t brainwashed consumerists.

    BIS – don’t bother. If you make a response, DBC Reed will just totally ignore it, as he himself believes that the truth of any question doesn’t have any bearing on what he says about it. (At least he’s truthful about his lack of interest in truth).

  76. Pingback: Rioting and rape | Pub Philosopher

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *