London's social contract is in tatters

Looking out my double glazed window while sitting in my comfortable flat in my so far generally comfortable area of North London, I'm reasonably well placed to make a few observations about the crazy nights occurring in "the Capital" as ever anxious BBC TV anchors prefer to call London.

The first observation to make is that the cops simply can't cope with the scale of these riots.  There are just not enough cops versus too many rioters in a wide range of different places.

 The-cops-are-overwhelmed. See for yourself:

It appears the police tactics are to arrive in an area on mass, which takes time to assemble and draws more cops away from other areas, while the rioters just run away, in their colourful, new trainers:

The result is that I heard people call into BBC radio this morning describing looters going about their "business" for 3 to 4 hours in parts of London without any attempt by the police to stop it. The cops simply didn't turn up. How's that? 

For instance my bike shop that I signed up to yesterday ( O.K. I confess I like some email spam) sent me this lovely message advising of its interaction with some late night shoppers last night:

We guess most of you will already know that about 30 of our relentless patrons took advantage of a self-initiated after hours shopping opportunity last night. Armed with hammers and knives they broke in to the shop and helped themselves to most of our stock and kindly made a start on some interior modifications. See their antics for yourself captured here and posted on YouTube by a concerned neighbour. We don’t see why our more valued customers shouldn’t benefit from this mayhem too, especially as many of you have kindly called up in support. So we are offering a 10% discount on all services for bikes booked in for August . Please spread the word. And a big thank you to all our supporters and well wishers for your consideration today. Read more on these excellent blogsLondon Cyclist and BikeBiz back to top

It's not just the retailers, "shoppers" and cops that are busy either: Here's a look at how the London Fire Brigade's overtime bill is shaping up (assuming London Firies get overtime of course):  

"The Brigade's 999 control centre answered 2169 calls between 18:00 on Monday and 07:19am on Tuesday. This is around 15 times the normal rate of calls the brigade would expect on an average day" 

So this is a full blown crisis. If you don't believe me ask PM David Cameron or Mayor Boris who the media incessantly repeat  have both  taken the unthinkable steps of downing their chianti's  and rising from their afternoon snoozes; to cut short their holidays!  repeat cut short their holidays! to deal with this unfolding and increasingly high drama.

When they do arrive it is likely that they'll continue the somewhat confused and inconsistent political messages of their underlings who have been left in charge.

The first confusion is whether or not these riots are big or small. On the one hand riots are being conducted by a few mindless thugs, which if you look at the scale of this revolt can only mean London has more than its fair share of thugs. Perhaps the Capital has a world beating lead in thug populations? Its in the tens of thousands at least. Remember, there are enough of them to overwhelm the police. Which means on the other hand that many of these rioters are everyday Londoners. Fed up, over it or just out and about for a bit of mayhem. Which ever way it is, you don't need a survey to know lots of people in London aren't happy.

The second is the message about how the authorities will catch the people responsible and do lots of nasty, bad things to them when they do. Well that isn't happening so far, and it appears everyone  thinks that it won't happen in the future either. Its not very convincing when the Police ask parents to call their children and ask them to come home either. They really did. How powerful.

The third message appears to acknowledge the 'fantastic role of the hard working police in protecting the community' from 'mindless thug violence' - well as we've already shown that's not happening either. In fact we could run a pretty convincing argument that the police sparked it and then made it worse. 

Here's the bit that nobody in the middle or the right appears to acknowledge. Of course The Guardian has come closest though:

"Those condemning the events of the past couple of nights in north London and elsewhere would do well to take a step back and consider the bigger picture: a country in which the richest 10% are now 100 times better off than the poorest, where consumerism predicated on personal debt has been pushed for years as the solution to a faltering economy, and where, according to the OECD, social mobility is worse than any other developed country."


To add to that my two cents are that London has a very large number of people living in working poverty or unemployed poverty who don't believe the Government cares about them. As a result these people do not believe they owe any obligation to society. And they don't. Other people are simply opportunistic. But what would I know; I'm just a blow in. I do know though  that when I refer to poverty I mean it.  Here's the WEEKLY jobseeker allowance benefit for your average Londoner:

Type of person	Amount
Single people, aged under 25	£53.45
Single people, aged 25 or over	£67.50
Couples and civil partnerships (both aged 18 or over)	£105.95
Lone parent (aged under 18)	£53.45
Lone parent (aged 18 or over)	£67.50

and here's what you can spend it on in some riot affected areas of the Capital: The rent for  a rather modest  flat in pretty unattractive Tottenham (no offence Tottenhamites), the bill for a pub lunch in  Hackney, and the cost of a bottle of wine in Clapham. Not much left over for education or a holiday, or underwear, food, or just a cab fare home in the rain, so maybe a bottle of the PM's Chianti is out of reach too. In fact, you're already behind putting a roof over your head.


On the other hand, these people aren't facing poverty and it doesn't matter if they work or not.  They can just stay at home(s).

I'd be pissed off too. If my fortunate circumstances weren't so, I might even riot.

What's next? Nobody knows. The Government so far seems unwilling to escalate the level of force they will use against its citizens. It seems its fine for the police to use plastic bullets and water cannon in Ireland, but not in The Capital. Some people are demanding the Army be deployed, but they're a bit busy I hear. Something about "bad press" in the context of a supposedly spirit lifting Olympics also comes to mind, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

So we watch, listen and wait as it all unfolds .... or is that unravels. Time for a cup of tea.