Walking lightly on the news: Southport is of course out there and the riots initiated by the EDL (English Defence League) who like a good riot on a sunny day.
Someone described them as being too old to be football hooligans so they have moved their aggression to the racist right. As you may know of me, labels do not sit easily in my writing. For instance where is my political leanings, well probably liberal but to the left and socialism but that label does not brand me. But from that viewpoint I can speak out, without hatred, about how I feel about what is happening around us.
Quite a few towns and cities have been effected by the rioting, the police out there trying to bring some law and order to the situation, and also there is an opposing force to the far right EDL and they are also on the streets chanting 'anti-Nazi slogans. See how slogans fit in so easily but in truth they have no legitimacy in fact.
What gets hurt, beside the people, is the businesses, private properties, the mosques and vehicles. Do you know the people of Southport were out there the next day, after the shocking news of the attack on the little children and were clearing the debris off the streets. Builders were mending, for free, the brick garden walls, also the mosque damage.
Most people in this country are not rampant idiots, they are the people who actually run this country. Whether in the police force, councils, churches or mosques, people gather together quietly and help each other.
Asian communities are part of the life blood of the Northern cities, they run shops, businesses, Uber drivers and live compatibly beside us. I can hear the voices rising already, "What about the boat people?". Truthfully I do not know the answer to that one. I suspect leaving those that have arrived in this country in limbo land is the political answer. Hoping they will go away, a somewhat childish response.
My daughter is a manager in an RSPCA charity shop, she is in the fashionable part of Manchester, so I asked her what it was like. Well the buses and trams seemed to have disappeared and there were drunk men around but the shop had the same number of customers as usual for a Saturday. There is also a 'gathering' at the end of the road. A local business sells out maybe 500 t-shirts in the street, and the company arrive to the large crowd that is waiting on the corner and the t-shirts sold, that went as normal. The young do things differently!
If it had rained yesterday, the whole thing would probably have been called off. Also the Labour Party really had nothing to do with it, Starmer in his prosecuting role is already talking about 24 hour courts. Unfortunately the prisons are full, someone forgot to build more prisons under the last regime. mmm
As has been observed elsewhere, Starmer's reaction to these incidents is in marked contrast to his reaction to the Harehillls incident just a week or two earlier. Then, there was no demand for 24hour courts, no aggressive policing, but all of a sudden now he's gone full throttle.
ReplyDeleteIt stinks of two tier policing, cracked heads if you are the "wrong" kind of demonstrator/rioter, otherwise police give you a free pass if the "right" kind. We saw in when BLM rioters were given free reign by police in 2020 lockdown, when peaceful individuals just passing the time of day outside were rounded up like most-wanted criminals.
I suspect that, under the surface, there is a lot of frustration and resentment about this, and we could well be in for a lot more trouble. In this respect Starmer does have skin in the game, he could have demanded to know why these incidents are not being all treated equally, and make it clear that any disturbance will be taken seriously, irrespective of who is involved, and that individuals will be held to account in a meaningful way -perhaps by being forced to clean up the resulting mess themselves and at their own cost.
I suspect Will that the Harehill incident was for a different reason and the police taking away the Romanian children and the agency workers for their own protection. Perhaps we should ask why do people riot in the first place? Mostly out of boredom, tired with being out of work and youthful wickedness living in poverty stricken circumstances.
DeleteWell Starmer hasn't been in office for long, you can hardly blame him for every incident since the election. We would probably have had the same response if the conservatives were in power. The blame game helps no one.
Certainly the two tier policing predates Starmer, and the previous Conservative PMs and Home Office ministers must be held accountable for not having got to grips with it. Some at least can be traced back to May at the Home Office - she was an apologist and appeaser of demands to allow Sharia courts instead of standing firm that every citizen in this country must be held accountable to the same laws irrespective of ethnic or religious backgrounds.
DeleteNo one escapes the law of the land, in this instance Britain, though Will. There seems to be a few Sharia courts but really about religious affairs.
DeleteThe earth revolves, humanity devolves. It is horrifying to me that people seem to believe that loud raucous gatherings are valid ways to express themselves. The first step in any war is the vilifying of other human beings. If people can be demoted to less than human status, they can be annihilated with without giving it a second thought.
ReplyDeleteIt is rather worrying this baying of hate. People need to settle their troubles and it seems to provoke a vicious element in society to take it out elsewhere. Rotherham attack on immigrant housing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm2riVkJp38 If you can get it.
ReplyDeleteI am sympathetic to the argument that the working classes across England have been ignored, and I think there is a point about the two-tier policing ... but I think as soon as you start becoming a thug and destroying property & businesses, you waive the right to be treated as anything more than a thug.
ReplyDeleteTrue Liam, thugs have always existed. It is ignorance and a need for violence that is so frightening and the poor police are in the frontline of attack. The problem is so many things today are orchestrated from the outside and especially on social media. 700 free spaces in our jails, not a lot, where do we go from here?
DeleteThe previous regime lost track of 70,000 asylum seekers who were waiting forever to be processed. Nobody officially knows where they are. All I know is that they are not in Rwanda.
ReplyDeleteRwanda was a long shot, can you imagine the scenes at the airport as people were forcibly boarded. We have one of the longest coastlines around, and true they only come over from Europe so the boats land in the South-East. Perhaps stronger watchout in the channel is the answer and a return to France of the boats. But it is a humanitarian disaster with the world breaking down and imminent war on the horizon as Israel continues the battle with Hamas in Palestine. Not of course forgetting Ukraine's brave battle against Russia. But there again it might not be as bad as I make out....
Delete34 AM
Deleteps: Not only did I get the pub wrong Tom (see previous) but also the saint, it was St. Lawrence.