Tuesday 9 August 2011

London's Burning

What the fuck is going on in the capital? I've been watching the news for the past couple of days and all I'm seeing are reports about groups of feral youth smashing up branches of Debenhams. It's like a scene from that Clive Owen film Children of Men. Which is actually a pretty good movie, incidentally. It doesn't feature ferral youths smashing up Debenhams, but it does paint a picture of near-future London where people are out of control and the police are prety much powerless to stop acts of random violence. I'm drawing comparisons here, people.

I've also seen a few TV interviews with Theresa May, the Home Secretary. What fucking planet does this woman live on? The scumbags running amok on the streets of London clearly don't have a modicum of respect for the police, so how she expects 'robust policing' to stop them from smashing up Debenhams is a mystery to me. The only example of 'robust policing' that has been evident thus far has been a copper with a megaphone telling feral youths to stop smashing up Debenhams from the relative safety of an armoured car. Whilst other policemen, clad in armour and carrying shields, watched from across the road. Very robust policing, that.

Furthermore, what has Debenhams ever done to deserve being smashed up? Fair enough, some of their Jasper Conran t-shirts are a bit expensive, but does that warrant having the perfume counter demolished by a Nike Air-clad foot?

The whole rioting/burning/looting business appears to have stemmed from the killing of a young black teenager by Met officers a few days ago, and I'm not well informed enough to comment on that incident, but how this event leads to the setting alight of a carpet shop, the destruction of an Italian restaurant and the continued smashing up of Debenhams, I don't know. People keep saying "send in the army!," but what good will that do? Instead of police offers just standing there and being powerless to do anything because of the ridiculous laws of this fair land, we'll have soldiers in there doing the same.

Can you imagine if this kind of shit happenned in America? or Turkey? or anywhere where you give the police a wide berth because if you don't they'll smash your face in? Or shoot you? Quite. Anyway, David Cameron's cut his holiday short to come back and sort shit out. Kind of smacks of a mum telling her naughty little twat of a kid "you wait till your dad gets home" dunnit? I bet the feral youth smashing up Debenhams are quaking in the aforementioned Nike Airs now that Cameron's back in his pastel shirt and chinos.

Well, there's my two penneth. I'm off to Debenhams for some free stuff.

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