I’m not sure this has anything to do with politics. There does seem to be a legitimate cause of concern about the guy who the police shot but that message then got drowned out by criminality. Everyone likes a good riot but this was a rampage. The Bradford riots, Oldham, Burnley, age od Toxteth, Brixton and Totenham were all decent political riots – this was ejeets on the rob with some heavy vandalism chucked in too.

David Lammy was just saying that it was down to outsiders engaging in mindless violence. The first part I assume is a convenient lie so that he isn’t seen to attack his own constituents, and I don’t see getting yourself a plasma TV as particularly mindless. If the Labour Party were any more responsive to popular feeling he would be facing calls for his deselection for his failure to prioritise the question of why one of his constituents is dead.

There’s no footage of the original protest. Not news the way a riot is.

Apparently Haringey council has recently shut 8 of its 13 youth clubs.

Deeply depressing that this has ended up with the community vandalised and small businesses & property destroyed. The callousness & stupidity of the rioters/ looters is astounding. I’m no lover of the police and their tactics – but why in God’s name destroy your own area?

From what I have seen the riots had little to nothing to do with the shooting. It was a bunch of thugs who fancied having a go at the police, robbing some shops and torching some buildings. The shooting was just an excuse.

I’d guess that many of the rioters weren’t involved in the protests earlier in the day and just turned up once the sun went down.

Aside from being a Moonie, Nile Gardiner is not a man with his finger on the pulse of British politics. I get the feeling he won’t be happy until all of us (except for his chums) are sent to live in forced labour camps.

“Apparently Haringey council has recently shut 8 of its 13 youth clubs.”

When my local youth club was shut down we didn’t start rioting. You can be bored and have nothing to do but still know that mindless violence is wrong.

@4

“From what I have seen the riots had little to nothing to do with the shooting. It was a bunch of thugs who fancied having a go at the police, robbing some shops and torching some buildings. The shooting was just an excuse.”

And what have you seen? Nothing but this article and the BBC coverage? Thought so.

There hasn’t been a riot in Tottenham for 26 years, do you really think people were waiting that for ‘just an excuse’? If you do, you’re crazy.

“I’d guess that many of the rioters weren’t involved in the protests earlier in the day and just turned up once the sun went down.”

Any basis for this claim, beyond wild speculation? I think you massively underestimate how angry people are – about police brutality, about racism, about deprivation and poverty. This was a political act, not one carried out by unnamed spectres who turn up as night falls.

@6

What about this particular violence made it mindless? Or is all violence mindless to you?

@6

Don’t tell me, you didn’t riot, you got on your bike (Norman Tebbit style).

This type of action is/was inevitable and to be expected. I would be surprised if we do not see similar action spread up and down the country.

What the dying main stream media have thus far failed to acknowledge is that this was not a “Black” protest. It was supported by all sections of the community; black, white and even the Hasidic Jewish community.

The power structure, at it’s foundation, is based on lies and deception. It is becoming increasingly difficult, I would say impossible, to maintain any veil of respectability.

People see it for what it is. The city dished up another 14 billion in bonuses, between themselves, this summer. Meanwhile we are told that the only option for the masses and the greater good, is more and more austerity.

Perhaps what we need is a “NUTO” imposed no fly zone and the freezing of the assets of banks and hedge funds and transference of these assets to the rebels.

Everybody is sick and tired of this crap, this theft, this hypocrisy. The nation is at boiling point.

What it will look like on the other side, I don’t know. But make no mistake, we are at inflection point.

@10

Well said. The anchor on the BBC News Channel at 0100 was trying to inject the old “racial tension” canard into the reportage. The reporter on the scene just ignored her.

Well, for once, it is good to see a Labour MP condemning completely reprehensible actions for change. The normal caveats apply here of course, it is far too early to throw judgements around like so much confetti.

However, I will say this. If the victim of this killing was carrying a gun and was part of the gun owning culture then the Left’s position should be quite clear. There is no point pussyfooting around on this, we need to absolutely condemn, without reservation the carrying of weapons and especially firearms. I have no idea if the victim was killed ‘lawfully’ or not, but as far as I am concerned a gun carrier is a perfectly legitimate target.

Having said that, I also concede there are wider issues regarding these riots. Again, let us wait to we get a full picture here. However, if these rioters are driven by some kind of ‘martyrdom cult’ of the gun owner against the police, the Left’s response needs to be pretty unequivocal, gun ownership and carrying weapons has no place in civil society.

There is no point in holding Berevik and his ilk to task last week, only to shy away from a pretty insidious sub culture that appears to me (albeit from a geographical and cultural distance) to be firmly rooted in our inner city communities.

Chris Williamson MP sickeningly tries to use this riot for political benefit

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451b31c69e2014e8a717994970d-pi

I think New Labour did do some things, but not all that they could. For example, EMA: this was intended to allow young people to go college and improve their chances of further employment as well as helping to increase the income of poor families. Yes Labour could and *should* have done more. Look at health inequalities, they *increased* under Labour (mainly because the life expectancies of the rich improved faster than those of the poor, the poor do have a better life expectancy now than a decade ago). Type 2 diabetes is a condition of the poor – it is more prevalent in deprived areas than well off areas (taking into account the fact that it is more prevalent in Asians). After 13 years of Labour we should not have been left with the situation of the poor being sicker than the rich. Labour didn’t do enough, but things are going to get a lot worse.

Public health is being sidelined as no longer being a health issue (how else can you interpret moving it from the NHS to local authorities – from clinical organisations to organisations who empty bins). The problem of type 2 diabetes is not going away – even though it can be reversed in some people – because the money is not there. The government is moving NHS money away from deprived areas to more affluent areas in a cynical move that will be catastrophic. Of the funding that will be provided, some of it will be channelled away from NHS care into the pockets of shareholders and the result will inevitably be less healthcare and the poor – who do not have the resources to buy healthcare privately – will suffer disproportionately. Silly Lib Dem ideas like removing the CCTV cameras, that were popular on the estates, will result in higher crime, and it is the poor who will suffer most – they cannot afford to live in a Lib Dem voting gated community.

The government is acting recklessly – there is no intelligent thinking. They are making cuts to the community (EMA, housing benefits, cuts in youth services) and cuts in the police. How will the Big Society react to this: vigilantes?

The news story for now is the violence. But that will fade and then the real story will have to be looked at.

The last decade has seen many of the UK’s ghettos benefit from regeneration – schools in those areas invested in heavilly – and jobs programmes get people into work.

Likewise the police have been required to “fill in forms” for things like stop and search that make them accountable to those they interact with – and have engaged in community projects to build bridges and build trust.

Sadly this has all reversed very quickly since the financial crisis.

Police budgets are in trouble – so community programmes and “red tape” have been scaled back – restoring the mistrust that is never far below the surface of working class communities.

School budgets, the EMA, jobs programmes and regeneration have been decimated as funds are cut hardest in poor areas, and from services for poor people, to prevent having to cut hard in wealthier (tory) areas and to pay for cuts to corporation tax.

The thugs who loot their own communities deserve a bloody good hiding.

But so does a policy agenda that is going in almost every wrong direction it can.

PS

Where is Boris Johnson. This is his city for christ’s sake! What on earth is he doing today?

Young, angry about the neoliberal hegemony, and in the Tottenham area on Sunday night? Join us to loot shops, burn cars and throw rocks at the police!

7 Actrualy one reson there hasn’t been a riot in Tottenham since 1985 was that there was 5000 police a day during the next 18 moonths after the riot and by the time of the Blakelock trial there were heavily armed up police wearing werious riot gear waitnign in vans at Hendon police training school when teh verdicts for teh murder trial were read out as the Police feared that if there was another riot after the murder trial result that the police were going to go in heavy with machine guns, and the local black community were to affraid to riot, IT could also be another reeason for the riot the other day, was becuase that police have been hmassively cut over the last few days,

13 well said that labour mp. was adisgrace

there was a asylum seeker killed in Glascow riots in 2001 ,the protesters who killed him, felt there were to many asylum seekers in the country as their excuse for doing it ,probably the same excuse the BWF rioters who felt the police were racist over Blakelock’s tragic death,
it doesn’t justify it.

when Bernie Grant said that it was good Blakelock was killed
suppose Nick Griffin of the BNP said it was good stephen lawrence had died there would have been an outcry

If it turns out that Mark Duggan had a gun and fired at the police, then what was the original protest about? Are ”gangstas” meant to be treated with kid gloves? Everyone I’ve heard on the radio who knew him, says that he was well respected, a father of four, and sure, he wasn’t an angel, but the police were totally wrong to shoot back. (Of course the line about a police officer being shot and a bullet hitting his radio could be a police lie). Did he have a job even? It would be interesting to know how he made his living.

It looks to me like the real issue should be how does a society, employ people that are the most unattractive to employers that can be choosy. Particulary during a recession. Rates of unemployment amongst black young men is more than twice or three times the average.
http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&source=hp&q=black+unemployment+uk&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=1b744a7e8d4e5d1b&biw=683&bih=279

Through boom times and recession, there are still swathes of these young inner city black guys not working, while new immigrants are. In factories, warehouses, on building sites and in shops.
It has to be something to do with the hip hop post code ‘gang boy’ culture IMO.
This is my local ”posse” in Croydon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fjql5Qjd47I

Pretty good rappers, but I don’t know if they’d make very good postmen.
I doubt they’d like the early morning starts.

@19

“when Bernie Grant said that it was good Blakelock was killed…”

I’m pretty sure Grant said his famous words before he knew anyone was dead.

8 – I am thinking in particular of the looting and destruction of businesses which were in no way linked with the police. If this was an anti-police protests they had some rather odd targets and ways of showing their dissatisfaction. “I hate the police and the system so I’m going to nick a 42 inch plasma screen!”

9 – No, I would either stay in or go round friends’ houses.

@12 well said Jim..
Operation Trident was set up to deal with black on black gun crime by Yardies and control of the drug trade. If Mr Duggan was a bonefide target of Op Trident and resisted with fireams then his sad and unfortunate death may well be justified. If however it turns out that he was an innocent victim then the police should face the full force of the law. But we will only find out after a thourough investigation has taken place.

The IPCC are largely to blame for the lack of information being given to the family of Mr Duggan which created the tensions of the intitail peaceful protest yet we have heard very little from them? Taking the law into thier own hands serves no purpose at all and has encouraged the mindless looting and destruction of property from within thier own communities.

Here on Merseyside the situation in Toxteth is very different from 1981 with a great deal of effort from the police and community leaders and I would like to think we would not have a repeat of the those riots.

The one common thread though in all situations is a Tory government and an unemployed disaffected youth?

Its a simple human fact that when you take everything from people then they have nothing to lose.Hence they burn the gaff. The riot is the authentic icon of today’s Tory Britain.When our ‘leader’s’ are all wedded to the failed philosophy of Neoliberalism then we have no effective democratic voice. The riot is the democratic voice of the truly dispossessed.The politics of the streets is illuminated by the fires of riot.

I don’t see anything political in destruction of cars or shops. What I saw burnt down (I went to visit my old neighbourhood: http://andreasmoser.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/tottenham-riots-august-2011/) were small corner shops and residential buildings and barber shops,

I wasn’t surprised to see the late Bernie Grant traduced by the red tops but I’m surprised to see it here. The actual quote was “The youths around here believe the police were to blame for what happened on Sunday and what they got was a bloody good hiding.”

Perhaps Nile Gardiner might want to turn his attention to the poverty in Washington D.C., though I doubt that the city’s “foreign affairs analysts” think about it too much, lest it take the sheen off their expensive lunches.

Poverty does not give a person the moral licence and superiority to engage in violence and thievery.

Poor people exist all over the world, but it is seldom, if ever, they engage in what occurred in Tottenham, last night.

There is, quite simply, no justification for the “good hiding”, as you put it.

People may be disenfranchised and down-trodden and they need assistance and help, but as soon as they start to become a nuisance and violent, they must be brought to heel and dealt with, appropriately.

It is quite something else to watch the talking-heads on the news channels arguing that their community feels let down by the police. What is their solution? Burning down the very community they felt was being let down. How ridiculous.

If people want their questions answered, they need to have patience for the IPCC investigation to be conducted. Nothing will come out this show of outrageous emotion.

@skooter #23:

The IPCC are largely to blame for the lack of information being given to the family of Mr Duggan

If it is true that Duggan was carrying, and was involved in drug gangs, then it may well be that the family know damn well what had happened, and that passing them information on the progress of the investigation could have been, shall we say, counter-productive.

@6 – You live in a depressed area. The clubs have been shut down. You can’t afford to go to school any more, since the ESA was critical to getting textbooks. You’d NOT feel angry?

The police’s responses have been arrogant and heavy handed, it’s clear that the reform reports for the police have been ignored if this type of thing keeps on happening.

Once rioting starts, it will inevitably spread, and people will take advantage. Overlooking the very real anger at the base of it, however, is plain wrong. The IPCC, with reason (not justification, reason) is seen as toothless.

There will be more of this if the problems are not addressed. In a few months, when the cuts start driving unemployed younger people out of their communities entirely…

Also, the main channels coverage of this last night was terrible. Twitter was how the news got sent.

@7
“Any basis for this claim, beyond wild speculation? I think you massively underestimate how angry people are – about police brutality, about racism, about deprivation and poverty. This was a political act, not one carried out by unnamed spectres who turn up as night falls.”

Are you saying that the best way to protest about police brutality is to burn down Carpet Right and to steal a plasma TV?

The protest was politically motivated but the riot itself was not. Robbing Argos is not a political act, it’s an opportunistic burglary.

The now homeless families took a bloody good hiding.

The small businesses took a bloody good hiding.

Saw an interview of a guy who had to take his pregnant wife to hospital because of the smoke – a bloody good hiding.

You can imagine the author sitting there in a state of near arousal because police officers have been injured.

21 he new blakelock was dead ,he just bluerrted it out in amoment of frustration and he was actually just saying the local lads were out for revenge and some(of them) say it was bloody good that the police got it

mark Duggan was a key member of drug lord Mark lambie gang the tottenham man dfem, both were jailed for torure and kidnap in 2002, Lambie was supposaed to have killed as many as 30 people

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/jun/04/highereducation.news

John: he may have been a scrote with a laundry list of convictions for terrible things, but that doesn’t give the cops the right to execute him without trial.

Of course lammy is right to distant himself.
As a non aligned leftie of sorts.
We have to accept that the west indian community themselves are to blame.
It is unhelp to keep blaming, politicians of all parties, the police, liberal teachers,. local council, the media and countless others.
It is their community that high levels of violence, street crime, and gangs.
Many on this site critisize the Asian community but they mainly work hard,usually long hours in their own business and don’t become a burden on the state.
I have friends who are teachers in London that express the fact that a sizeable majority of West indian boys and girls are near unteachable.
Feckess fathers, aggressive mothers and an idea that they want to make money an easy way (either as a footballer, rap star or drug pusher) really lies at the problem

Here was a man who was a convicted drug lordr, suspected killer and torturer. If that guy was member of my community I wouldn’t be that sad to see him away from my kids. What does this community do, riot and idolise him as some sort of robin hood.
Also there too many stupid politicians of the right and left making political capital out of this. As left and right we should stand together and blame the thugs.
As for the police , he was armed and dangerous, what choice did they have.
I heard one idiot on the radio, explaining they were angry because it was 4 onto 1. As he expected some sort of Ok corral gunfight, one on one.
Jesus

This is a good article – I would however contrast the response of Liverpool to London in implementing the Scarman report after the 1981 riots – in London all Thatch wanted to do was close the GLC and as such very little was done, whilst in Liverpool, areas such as Toxteth were re-generated to an extent that it is unlikely that we’ll see similar scenes there.
This is our analysis of the riots.
http://www.allthatsleft.co.uk/2011/08/what-caused-the-tottenham-riots/

@ Ciaran,

“What about this particular violence made it mindless? Or is all violence mindless to you?

Perhaps the part where they smashed up loads of small shops and burned down local people’s homes, many of whom won’t have insurance and will have lost everything. No?

http://youtu.be/Z3OOYEJ029k

‘The one common thread though in all situations is a Tory government and an unemployed disaffected youth?’

All of whom were presumably employed just over a year ago, and regularly attended the local library.