Exactly! Everyone is trying to come up with a simplistic explanation (it's the single parents/it's Twitter andf Facebook/it's the 24-hour media coverage/it's the government cuts/it's all the last government's fault, or the one before that, or the one before that), but of course it's a combination of many factors that all came together. For most, it was just an excuse for some mayhem in the (often mistaken) belief that no one would get caught.
It was a different story 20 years later when another mob took possession of Hyde Park, after rampaging through the streets from Trafalgar Square. The American journalist G W Smalley telegraphed details to an amazed New York on February 9, 1886. "As they went, they smashed windows, broke open and plundered shops and restored to themselves a portion of their rights in the shape of watches worn by such capitalists as happened to come their way.
"Once in Hyde Park they attacked carriages, broke them in pieces, beat the liveried menials, insulted ladies who were driving, and stripped men." They marched to Oxford Street "laden with plunder". The police failed to intervene, so for three days the West End was at the mercy of the mob.
Lord Lexden
London SW1Sound familiar?
[COLOR="Blue"]Ah well that makes everything ok today then eh!
This is why we are in the state we are, simplistic views are not so simplistic when you really start to analyse everything. Yes there are complex deep seated problems in our society but it is too easy to ignore and poo poo breakdown of family life, structure, teenage parents, no discipline etc., All of which can help build strong foundations to us humans.
There's a really nasty sub culture in some places, as though the whole world was a prison and prison rules apply everywhere. I guess some kids picked it up from parents who might have jsut spent a lot of time in prison, and it spread from there. I think this has a lot to do with the riots.