London Burning

* snip - Question for RJ *

EDIT:




So they are going to give police the "power" to have somebody that is thought to be involved in a crime and wearing a face covering to remove it. I don't see a criminal following the law when they are already breaking the law.

I think they mean to remove the face masks, if seen before any crimes are committed.

A BBC News political commentator said of this, that politicians have spoken of doing this several times before, but nothing ever seems to happen.

Does anyone else see the hypocrisy in the cops being allowed to wear masks, or coverings?

Not really, since they all have identifiable shoulder badges, plus their hard hats have the number clearly on display as well.

* * *

BBC News - London riots: More than 900 arrested over disorder

BBC News said:
More than 900 people have been arrested over violence, disorder and looting in London, with over 450 charged.

Those arrested include two boys of 17 and a man of 18 held over an arson attack which destroyed a Sony warehouse in Enfield, north London, on Monday.

The Met also began raids in Pimlico and Brixton as 100 warrants were issued targeting those that looted shops.

And the prime minister said the reinforced police presence of 16,000 officers will remain over the weekend.


more via link

I had no idea there were that many people involved, it was not so obvious from the TV News coverage, which only showed a small snapshot of what was actually going on.


This helps a bit:

the Guardian - UK riots: every verified incident.

A spreadsheet of all verified incidents.

the Guardian - Interactive Google Map

A useful and pretty cool interactive map, well done Grauniad.
 
Last edited:
This is something I am totally against.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14493497

Frankly, I'm shocked that David Cameron is even thinking of this!

The government is exploring whether to turn off social networks or stop people texting during times of social unrest.

David Cameron said the intelligence services and the police were exploring whether it was "right and possible" to cut off those plotting violence.

Texting and Blackberry Messenger are said to have been used by some during this week's riots.

Rights groups said such a measure would be abused and hit the civil liberties of people who have done nothing wrong.

........
 
Take that those who want to check on your loved ones!
 
ICQ MSN AIM Skype etc
So, you actually endorse Syria- and Iran-style internet cuts? Now you are firmly running on the sharia platform as Mayor of Hull.

Even if I know it will only be mocked by our resident conservative youngsters, I found this op-ed piece quite brilliant:
Not the Torygraph said:
These riots reflect a society run on greed and looting
David Cameron has to maintain that the unrest has no cause except criminality ? or he and his friends might be held responsible
It is essential for those in power in Britain that the riots now sweeping the country can have no cause beyond feral wickedness. This is nothing but "criminality, pure and simple", David Cameron declared after cutting short his holiday in Tuscany. The London mayor and fellow former Bullingdon Club member Boris Johnson, heckled by hostile Londoners in Clapham Junction, warned that rioters must stop hearing "economic and sociological justifications" (though who was offering them he never explained) for what they were doing.

[...]

[T]he multi-ethnic unrest has spread far further and faster. It's been less politicised and there's been far more looting, to the point where in many areas grabbing "free stuff" has been the main action. But there's no mystery as to where the upheaval came from. It was triggered by the police killing a young black man in a country where black people are 26 times more likely to be stopped and searched by police than their white counterparts. The riot that exploded in Tottenham in response at the weekend took place in an area with the highest unemployment in London, whose youth clubs have been closed to meet a 75% cut in its youth services budget.

It then erupted across what is now by some measures the most unequal city in the developed world, where the wealth of the richest 10% has risen to 273 times that of the poorest, drawing in young people who have had their educational maintenance allowance axed just as official youth unemployment has reached a record high and university places are being cut back under the weight of a tripling of tuition fees.

Now the unrest has gone nationwide. But it's not as if rioting was unexpected when the government embarked on its reckless programme to shrink the state. Last autumn the Police Superintendents' Association warned of the dangers of slashing police numbers at a time when they were likely to be needed to deal with "social tensions" or "widespread disorder". Less than a fortnight ago, Tottenham youths told the Guardian they expected a riot.

Politicians and media talking heads counter that none of that has anything to do with sociopathic teenagers smashing shop windows to walk off with plasma TVs and trainers. But where exactly did the rioters get the idea that there is no higher value than acquiring individual wealth, or that branded goods are the route to identity and self-respect?

While bankers have publicly looted the country's wealth and got away with it, it's not hard to see why those who are locked out of the gravy train might think they were entitled to help themselves to a mobile phone. Some of the rioters make the connection explicitly. "The politicians say that we loot and rob, they are the original gangsters," one told a reporter. Another explained to the BBC: "We're showing the rich people we can do what we want."

Most have no stake in a society which has shut them out or an economic model which has now run into the sand. It's already become clear that divided Britain is in no state to absorb the austerity now being administered because three decades of neoliberal capitalism have already shattered so many social bonds of work and community.

What we're now seeing across the cities of England is the reflection of a society run on greed
? and a poisonous failure of politics and social solidarity. There is now a danger that rioting might feed into ethnic conflict. Meanwhile, the latest phase of the economic crisis lurching back and forth between the United States and Europe risks tipping austerity Britain into slump or prolonged stagnation. We're starting to see the devastating costs of refusing to change course.
Source

I'd like to stress that no one is justifying the actions of the rioters. What they did was wrong, stupid, highly criminal and has to be punished with all the force of the law.

But that does not mean we should not question how it came to this.
 
Last edited:
This is something I am totally against.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14493497

Frankly, I'm shocked that David Cameron is even thinking of this!

During disturbances like this they always talk about that sort of thing, but then people who actually know how the internet works tell the government that it isn't possible and they silently forget about it. Every time.
 
During disturbances like this they always talk about that sort of thing, but then people who actually know how the internet works tell the government that it isn't possible and they silently forget about it. Every time.

Yeah it's quite the same in Germany. As politicians tend to be rather old and unknowledgable they are really rather scared of the internet and it's possibilites. Just today I read a really good articleabout this on Spiegel.de. The author compares this fear of the internet to the cargo-cult.
 
So, you actually endorse Syria- and Iran-style internet cuts? Now you are firmly running on the sharia platform as Mayor of Hull.

Even if I know it will only be mocked by our resident conservative youngsters, I found this op-ed piece quite brilliant:

Source

I'd like to stress that no one is justifying the actions of the rioters. What they did was wrong, stupid, highly criminal and has to be punished with all the force of the law.

But that does not mean we should not question how it came to this.

I agree.

On one side, our societies grow up people telling them that they are demi-gods, that they can have everything, that they can do anything, that a world of richness and success is waiting for them, that they are going to be "the best", just to nick their money away, to have them as "consumers", as "customers", no message is too much, no advertisment too extreme, not even those that dig violently in everyone's deepest desires and play shamelessly with common yet unresistable psychological automated circuits.

On the other side, the same societies that grow up people telling them how good and cool they are, shun them away from real opportunities, refuse to invest on them, avoid giving them possibilities, avoid even giving them proper education. Briefly, avoid giving them any chance to become the successful heroes they were told they were.

What is so strange in the behaviour of these poor, deluded, exploited, money-cows with no future before them apart from sitting and idioticly dreaming for what they have been bred to desire and yet they will never be able to really get, destined (if nothing changes) to waste all of their money in useless shit that won't make them any inches happier or richer? Why are we all so amazed by this?

Also, why are we all so amazed by the fact that they are, obviously, taking the wrong aim and robbing people like them instead of spoiling the palaces and supercars of the careless, individualistic, corrupted bunch that put them where they are now?

This is rage undirected, this is not going to end well; the aim is wrong, and as long as it will remain as it is, it won't address the problem, rather it will bring more police, more angry people, more controls, more restrictions, more tension.
 
Last edited:

British police mostly only wear protective headgear, at any other time its just the usual Peaked cap.

Its not like in continental Europe where they have to wear full head gasmasks to protect against the tear gas.

I think they mean to remove the face masks, if seen before any crimes are committed.

A BBC News political commentator said of this, that politicians have spoken of doing this several times before, but nothing ever seems to happen.



Not really, since they all have identifiable shoulder badges, plus their hard hats have the number clearly on display as well.

I see masks and all I can get off the shoulder patch from a distance is rank. Remember, it wasn't long ago that they were ketteling peaceful protesters and letting the crooks get away. Do I need to dig up the videos of the cops pulling people out of the crowd?
 
Also, why are we all so amazed by the fact that they are, obviously, taking the wrong aim and robbing people like them instead of spoiling the palaces and supercars of the careless, individualistic, corrupted bunch that put them where they are now?
Why is that justified though?

As much as people will say "I can't believe that there are rich corrupt people out there who are willing to tread on the poor to remain wealthy" what is neglected is the fact the amount of people who wouldn't do that are very, very few.

Short of becoming a communist country (and I'm talking proper, complete equality here, not the former USSR or North Korea which were/are, of course, dictatorships under the guise of communism) there is no way to abolish class divide and some people simply being more wealthy than others. And as we know communism, outside of theory, simply does not work.

The world has always worked under a system where certain people are powerful and rich and others are not. Obviously this is a horrible way for it to work, with people being born into money and never lifting a finger to work in their life, but it is the the hierarchy that the world grown under since early civilisations, be it for better or worse.
So many people grown up being promised things ("buy these clothes, your friends will think you're cool... they just happen to be twice the price of un-branded ones and of worse quality...") and told that respect and money is all that matters and you can have it all. Of course it is a lie, most people never become massively rich, they end up living average lives and buying crap with fancy labels on it to make themselves feel like they have got somewhere.

I never had to deal with peer-pressure, I left school and was essentially left to work out my own opinions and find what I want from life without much outside influence. What I want from my life is contentment, at this point I'm fairly sure that entails a job in IT tech support, a red brick terrace house and a Austin Allegro and buying half my (very good quality and long lasting btw) clothes 2nd hand.
Now society and the media may tell me that is an awful existence to want, and why on earth wouldn't I want to be rich or an Aston Martin or designer clothing?
But the fact is if you remove the pressure to be what is declared to be a "success", and to gain what is said to being "happiness" by the media and have the ability to sit back and think about what you really want out of life I bet you'd find a lot more people willing to settle for a comfortable life rather than massive riches...

Sadly of course, this isn't how the world works, and people want to be rich and "respected" because that is what they are told to want. In the same way they are told nobody in their right mind would be content with working as a lowly cleaner... yet if a Polish person happens to take the job its "stolen" from some good, honest local.


tl;dr

The peoples want what they are told to want by the media, they are told to want money and Gucci handbags. They resent rich people for having money and Gucci handbags, thus causing rage. If media wasn't allowed to do this shit, less people would want money/Gucci handbags, thus causing less rage.
There would still be some rage, because some people will still want money/Gucci handbags but hey, unless the world goes Communist the rage will always be present.
 
I see masks and all I can get off the shoulder patch from a distance is rank. Remember, it wasn't long ago that they were ketteling peaceful protesters and letting the crooks get away. Do I need to dig up the videos of the cops pulling people out of the crowd?

If you are so determined to make the police the bad guy in this whole thing, then yes, go ahead and show us where they have gone wrong in the past.

As for the shoulder numbers here is another picture, if it wasn't for motion blur then the number would be easily readable, also notice the lack of balaclavas which the picture you linked showed a grand total of 2 out of 9 visible police wearing.:

article-2024620-0D63DE7800000578-873_634x393.jpg
 
My point was not to say that the cops are the bad guys, but to say that they have the possibility of committing abuses too. So why should they be able to hide their face, which is far easier to recognize later, than a badge that can be hard to see from any kind of distance.
 
My point was not to say that the cops are the bad guys, but to say that they have the possibility of committing abuses too. So why should they be able to hide their face, which is far easier to recognize later, than a badge that can be hard to see from any kind of distance.
I don't believe they are ALLOWED to not hide their faces, in the name of health and safety.

Although I see where you are coming from it should be noted that the rioters are hiding their fact to avoid being caught for crime, the police have see-through masks to protect their faces...
 
I see masks and all I can get off the shoulder patch from a distance is rank. Remember, it wasn't long ago that they were ketteling peaceful protesters and letting the crooks get away. Do I need to dig up the videos of the cops pulling people out of the crowd?

Nah, you're good.
Correct, sargeants and senior officers in riot gear normally have a rank and section number.

The ordinary police officers have the unique numbers, I didn't want to over complicate the answer before.

Good spot!

:smile:
 
My point was not to say that the cops are the bad guys, but to say that they have the possibility of committing abuses too. So why should they be able to hide their face, which is far easier to recognize later, than a badge that can be hard to see from any kind of distance.

I would agree that wearing a balaclava under a riot shield is probably unnecessary, but just because it is being worn does not necessarily mean that the officer is planning to commit abuses.

There is also the fact that British police have to fill out reams of cross verified paperwork for even the most minor of altercations, with the possible penalty of expulsion if found to be lying on them. So it isn't in the officers interest to do anything which would put their job in jeopardy.
 
Last edited:
I would agree that wearing a balaclava under a riot shield is probably unnecessary, but just because it is being worn does not necessarily mean that the officer is planning to commit abuses.

Yes it is, especially when you have the possibility of getting petrol bombs, fireworks, blast bombs, live gun fire etc... fired at you. In any case all the riot cops have a number on the back of their helmet.


New Olympic logo
London2012.png
 
Last edited:
I highly doubt those masks are made of any thing flame/heat retardent.
 
I don't have time to comment on this fully at the moment, but I thought I would toss this in here. Keep in mind that I'm having to be brief here, so I'm sure I won't get to touch on everything I'd like to even in this segment.

As much as people will say "I can't believe that there are rich corrupt people out there who are willing to tread on the poor to remain wealthy" what is neglected is the fact the amount of people who wouldn't do that are very, very few.

<snip>

The world has always worked under a system where certain people are powerful and rich and others are not. Obviously this is a horrible way for it to work, with people being born into money and never lifting a finger to work in their life, but it is the the hierarchy that the world grown under since early civilisations, be it for better or worse.

It wasn't always this way, and it still isn't entirely in some places. What's happened is a combination of a number of factors:

1. Various elements of society have implemented and fomented forms of class warfare as a method of gaining and holding political and secular power, typically the more leftist (IMHO) groups who promise you everything and deliver nothing while blaming everyone else. More evident in the UK than the US - the US never had strictly regimented classes of people, whereas the UK still does. Those that sought power this way won in the UK a very long time ago.
2. We have placed the rich on a different sort of pedestal than in the past. In the past, the rich were lauded for their skill and success at business. Having lots of money was a side effect and not a cause for admiration or worship; this sends the message that skill, success and hard work are the way to get ahead - or get worshippers if that's what your ego wants. Today, we just celebrate their vast sums of money and not what it took to get it with predictable results.
3. Between 1 and 2, we have created a culture where the rich exclude themselves from normal society in many places and they are told this is completely proper.

As for stepping on 'the little guy' - did you know that the rich people in America used to have contests every year to see who could or would give the most money back to their communities? They did, and that custom didn't stop all that long ago. They also did things like making sure that those who couldn't pay hospital bills in their cities got their tabs taken care of, and funded individual 'Christmas' and 'Thanksgiving' parties or feasts for the poorest in a city. There wasn't anywhere near this sort of envy that you see in so many places these days, and the rich were (and in some places still are to a degree) involved in 'normal' life just like anyone else.
 
Top