Thursday 11 August 2011

An Obligatory Blog

In this time of fear and uncertainty it is beholden on the blogging community to make some judgmental and ill-informed contributions. Never let it be said that I shirk my duty.

No, I am not going to share my pet, and indeed pat, theories, save only to note that riots happen for a reason or reasons and to attempt to discover those reasons is not to condone the rioters’ behavior as some commentators would have it.

But thankfully we have incisive political leadership at this hour. David Cameron returned with the illuminating announcement that the rioters were criminals which was helpful as I was under the misapprehension that they were mormons. And as today’s Guardian reminds us, certain prominent tories know of where they speak when it comes to the wanton destruction of small businesses:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/aug/10/uk-riots-boris-johnson

It is a sobering thought that if Angus Deayton had tied a knot in it, London wouldn’t have that clown as mayor.

At time of writing, the north east remains calm. I was in the city centre on Tuesday night and passed a group of about fifty young people, mainly in hoods on a warm sunny evening, and there was a mood of nervous anticipation but nothing seems to have come of it. There were not enough and the mood had not hit that twitchy tipping moment when a group become a mob. Why not? No idea. There were a couple of police officers but no more than that. The council was doing an open air showing of The King’s Speech just up the road and maybe Geordies don’t riot when superior and slightly smug British cinema is playing in the vicinity. Thank God it wasn’t Sex Lives of the Potato Men. The consequences could have been awful.

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