London's Burning

Thus, I still don't know what to say!! All that's been in the news for the past 4 days are riots...

These started in London, in Tottenham, and have spread to other London boroughs and also throughout the country to other big towns. So riots have been the headlines of all the news: nearly 600 people have been arrested, over 100 police officers have been injured - people up and down the country are outraged, urging the powers that be to man up and use proper force to stop these thugs before it gets any worse.

Yet its not just rioting. Its looting and arson; assault and theft - on a huge scale. I saw this quote on Going Underground's Blog - one person's reaction: "destruction is easy, but what have you created?" All over the news are the stories that other cities are starting to experience this kind of senseless violence.
The other thing that astounds me is this minority's actions - the looting just beggars belief. Youth and children smashing store fronts in and then blithely walking out with goods.
Supermarkets, shops, small businesses, people's homes have been burnt to the ground.

The worst riots for a generation, the news says.

It was my day off today and Mum and I went into town. The first thing we noticed was that H Samuels was closed, its shutters drawn. As the afternoon wore on we saw that many shops in the town centre closed way before 5pm and took extra precautions such as barricading when they did.
Morrisons is closed and barred, my own Argos store closed before 5.30pm and added extra security.
Violence has spread as close to us as Chatham and Gillingham, so maybe its expected to spread???

Rumours are rife. When I checked Facebook back at home, people's statuses seemed to suggest they believed that M&S was on fire and that mobs were gathering in the centre of town. None of this was true of course, as I could personally testify, but the paranoia is extreme. Disturbingly so.

These people seem to be mainly young and male and I've long felt that the disenchantment of this group within society is a huge tragedy. We need to address the underlying issues that caused this unrest and that allow people to feel that blatant theft is acceptable. First however, we need to win back control of the streets and I really pray for the strength and wisdom of the police, our emergency services and the government.
Of course news of this violence has spread throughout the world and the England v Holland friendly scheduled for this week has been cancelled and there are concerns over security for London 2012.

On that note, it is one week until tickets go on sale for the Paralympics and I intend to apply for those tickets too!

One of the most encouraging things is that hundreds of ordinary people took to the streets of areas of London today to clear up their local high streets and communities. They were young and old, black and white, the famous and the ordinary; all coming together to restore some order where chaos had reigned. They are the true face of London, its true and I thank them for the picture of community and peaceful coexistence that they are portraying.

Meanwhile, life goes on. I'm back to work tomorrow, it should be a reasonably boring day, its meant to rain for the next 4 days and I'm continuing to pretend that I'm making adequate preparations for Momentum in 10 days time. I treated myself to some Phish Food ice cream that was half price - so that made me doubly happy!!

So yeeeees..... Stay safe people and don't believe all that you hear! Let's all pray that peace and order are restored swiftly across the nation.