Grant Shapps, the Housing Minister, says he's looking into making it so any rioters can't claim social housing after they serve their sentences. Worrying on its own ANYWAY but it's coming amidst a load of reactionary bile about how to deal with this. How foolish can you get? It just puts more innocent people at risk - do they really think the best thing to do for a criminal after they've served their time is to throw them straight back on the streets and tell them society wants nothing to do with them anymore? It's just a one way ticket to rocketing crime rates...we should be focusing on making these people law-abiding citizens, not indulging in petty vengeance.
Yeah, I agree with all of that. It shouldn't really be necessary for the police to do this but I'm certainly not going to criticise them for putting themselves first and not having the rights of the rioters at the forefront of their minds. It's ludicrous that the police have so little power.
Indeed. Is it not OBVIOUS that anything like that is a SCREAMINGLY bad idea? This arsehole is my local MP
It's like the girls on the BBC audio. 'Why are you doing this?' 'Because we can'. They can get away with it and that's all that matters. The problem is that girls like that will DEFINITELY get away with it, because they were not causing the violence, they were ONLY stealing rose wine.I don't understand how ONLY a few hundred arrests were made. It seems absolutely bizarre to me that with 6000 officers on the street on the worst night of the rioting they only managed to arrest another 200 or so people that night.
Southwark Council also said earlier that anyone in their social housing proven to be involved in the rioting will be losing their accommodation. Obviously quite short sighted.
I can't believe they are suggesting this. It seems completely incomprehensible to me! By removing their housing aren't they just going to make these people homeless? I don't understand how they can possibly think is the right thing to do!
NEWSFLASH: Politicians don't NECESSARILY support things that are the RIGHT THING TO DO They support what will PLAY WELL WITH THE PUBLIC and get them RE-ELECTED
But this is just that little bit further removed from reality and more illogical than anything else I've ever seen them suggest. So DUMB.
Grant Shapps is a weapons grade cunt and I would dearly love to dance on his corpse some day. So, yeah, anything he says can fuck off.
Seemingly all quiet tonight so far. I guess water canons, boarded up shops, rubber bullets, extra police, no longer being of the moment, nothing left in the shops will mean it all has to slow down at some point. Having said that Birmingham seems quite EXPLOSIVE still. It'll happen again as well. Next time a black man gets shot by the police - and it WILL happen... the precedent has been set.
Inflammatory statements like 'Rioters should be evicted from their council houses' from Nick Clegg will not do anything to DIFFUSE THE SITUATION
It's fucking STUPID. Talk about INFLAMING the situation, whilst trying to pacify the middle classes, who have insurance for their boutiques and a nice legal home to go to... LET'S CHUCK THE POOREST ANGRIEST PEOPLE OUT OF THEIR HOMES.
Did Nick Clegg really say that? FINALLY he's turning me against him... and I've been one of his staunchest defenders.
Not true actually. A friend of a friend owns two barber shops in Ealing that were trashed and his insurance won't pay out for 'rioting'. The insurance companies will find ways of not paying out if they can, and even if they do there's excesses to pay. The middle classes never get much sympathy, but most of these people will have lost out financially because of this, not to mention the emotional upset of seeing your business ransacked. The middle classes are the ones paying the price, as always. But who cares? It's not fashionable to feel sympathy for them.
Relieved that nothing major seems to have kicked off tonight, yet. I notice on the BBC website feed that there has been an incident of police being bottled by a group of men in Eltham, but state the situation is under control, and not a riot. I know it has gone on a lot later than this the last few nights, but it was already in full swing in a lot of places, wasn't it?
I think that the statement made by Tariq Jahan was on the right wavelength. Just heard it on the news.
Yeah, I know. I feel INAPPROPRIATE. x100 In fairness, I was coming into the thread to say that ANYWAY. *lynched, but in a sensitive way*
I wonder your mail is being affected. I sent a friends mother a pick me up gift from Amazon UK over to Nottingham. If she doesn't get it today it will be late.
Glad to read this. I hope Fiona Armstrong was seriously disciplined. I don't need to see quasi-racist aggression towards old men on the BBC.
Walking Stick QOL turns out to be a local JAZZ singer: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...h-woman-revealed-to-be-local-jazz-singer.html We should have her perform for a Moopmeet.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hear-Music-Air-Pauline-Pearce/dp/B00002MP1D/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1 Remember to buy through the Moopy link, kids.
It needs to happen. Else her biggest hit will end up being some 8-bit dubstep remix of "Teefin Shoe".
I disagree actually. I think it was an unfortunate exchange which was only exasperated by Howe's response. Clearly someone in the BBC had informed her that he'd taken part in riots in the past and therefore it was a fair question. Whilst on the subject of riots, it's only reasonable to expect someone to ask about their experience in them. Now, the information was clearly wrong (although being in a riot and being in demonstrations that have ended up violent is not a million miles away - it's a mistake but i've seen worse!) but that's not the fault of the newsreader - that's the fault of whomever informed the newsreader. His reaction was over the top. He should have just said "I think you've got your information wrong, i've never done that" and moved on, rather than becoming aggressive over it.
I thought he was/ is a COMPLETE COCK. He creates victims where they don't need to be made. He talks for a generation as if it's the Notting Hill riots era. Not that the BBC have been VERY IMPARTIAL during this. Lot's of reporters using their own personal disgust for emotive reporting. I don't want that from the BBC. That's Sky fodder, a channel I never touch. I'd rather be an hour late. Besides Twitter/ Moopy/ Facebook/ Guardian beat any news channel these days.
I agree with Indie and Madison. Howe was aggressive from the start. He could have raised some good points if he didn't make himself look incapable of forming an argument. Coming on national TV with the attitude of "I told you so" is quite irrespsonsible. The BBC didn't handle it brilliantly, but it's a journalistic instinct to create a counter argument for anyone who is coming across as ridiculously one-sided.