LONDON

A letter to Cameron's parents concerning morality

Dear Mr & Mrs Cameron,
Why did you never take the time to teach your child basic morality?
As
a young man, he was in a gang that regularly smashed up private
property. We know that you were absent parents who left your child to be
brought up by a school rather than taking responsibility for his
behaviour yourselves. The fact that he became a delinquent with no sense
of respect for the property of others can only reflect that fact that
you are terrible, lazy human beings who failed even in teaching your
children the difference between right and wrong. I can only assume that
his contempt for the small business owners of Oxford is indicative of
his wider values.
Even worse, your neglect led him to fall in with a bad crowd.
There’s
Michael Gove, whose wet-lipped rage was palpable on Newsnight last
night. This is the Michael Gove who confused one of his houses with
another of his houses in order to avail himself of £7,000 of the
taxpayers’ money to which he was not entitled<//istyosty.com/b/?u=//www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5305293/David-Camerons-shadow-cabinet-drawn-into-expenses-scandal-MPs-expenses.html> (or £13,000, depending on which house you think was which).
Or
Hazel Blears, who was interviewed in full bristling peahen mode for
almost all of last night. She once forgot which house she lived in, and
benefited to the tune of £18,000.<//www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/05/11/mps-expenses-scandal-hazel-blears-fighting-for-job-over-18k-tax-dodge-115875-21348438/> At the time she said it would take her reputation years to recover. Unfortunately not.
But,
of course, this is different. This is just understandable confusion
over the rules of how many houses you are meant to have as an MP. This
doesn’t show the naked greed of people stealing plasma tellies.
Unless you’re Gerald Kaufman, who broke parliamentary rules to get £8,000 worth of 40-inch, flat screen, Bang and Olufsen TV<//istyosty.com/b/?u=//www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5330816/Sir-Gerald-Kaufmans-1800-rug-and-an-8865-claim-for-a-television-MPs-expenses.html> out of the taxpayer.
Or Ed Vaizey, who got £2,000 in antique furniture ‘delivered to the wrong address’<//istyosty.com/b/?u=//www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5340043/Ed-Vaizey-had-2000-furniture-delivered-to-wrong-address-MPs-expenses.html>. Which is fortunate, because had that been the address they were intended for, that would have been fraud.
Or Jeremy Hunt, who broke the rules to the tune of almost £20,000 on one property and £2,000 on another<//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Hunt_(politician)#Expenses>.
But it’s all right, because he agreed to pay half of the money back.
Not the full amount, it would be absurd to expect him to pay back the
entire sum that he took and to which he was not entitled. No, we’ll
settle for half. And, as in any other field, what might have been
considered embezzlement of £22,000 is overlooked. We know, after all,
that David Cameron likes to give people second chances.
Fortunately,
we have the Met Police to look after us. We’ll ignore the fact that two
of its senior officers have had to resign in the last six weeks amid
suspicions of widespread corruption within the force.
We’ll ignore Andy Hayman, who went for champagne dinners with those he was meant to be investigating<//istyosty.com/b/?u=//www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8656580/Phone-hacking-Police-chief-Andy-Hayman-paid-for-champagne-dinners-with-News-of-the-World-journalists.html>, and then joined the company on leaving the Met.
Of
course, Mr and Mrs Cameron, your son is right. There are parts of
society that are not just broken, they are sick. Riddled with disease
from top to bottom.
Just let me be clear about this (It’s a good
phrase, Mr and Mrs Cameron, and one I looted from every sentence your
son utters, just as he looted it from Tony Blair), I am not justifying
or minimising in any way what has been done by the looters over the last
few nights. What I am doing, however, is expressing shock and dismay
that your son and his friends feel themselves in any way to be guardians
of morality in this country.
Can they really, as 650 people who have
shown themselves to be venal pygmies, moral dwarves at every
opportunity over the last 20 years, bleat at others about ‘criminality’.
Those who decided that when they broke the rules (the rules they
themselves set) they, on the whole wouldn’t face the consequences of
their actions?
Are they really surprised that this country’s culture
is swamped in greed, in the acquisition of material things, in a lust
for consumer goods of the most base kind? Really?
Let’s have a think back: cash-for-questions<//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash-for-questions_affair>; Bernie Ecclestone<//istyosty.com/b/?u=//www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/3562753/Bernie-Ecclestone-and-Tony-Blair-a-truth-revealed-10-years-too-late.html>; cash-for-access<//news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/131755.stm>; Mandelson’s mortgage<//news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/251229.stm>; the Hinduja passports<//news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1137974.stm>; Blunkett’s alleged insider trading<//www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/matthew-norman-the-moral-squalor-that-destroyed-blunkett-513826.html>
(and, by the way, when someone has had to resign in disgrace twice can
we stop having them on television as a commentator, please?); the
meetings on the yachts of oligarchs<//www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/osborne-the-oligarch-and-a-yacht-in-corfu-968625.html>; the drafting of the Digital Economy Act with Lucian Grange<//www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/correspondence_with_representati#incoming-197387>; Byers’, Hewitt’s & Hoon’s desperation to prostitute themselves and their positions<//www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/byers-hoon-and-hewitt-suspended-from-party-1925390.html>;
the fact that Andrew Lansley (in charge of NHS reforms) has a wife who
gives lobbying advice to the very companies hoping to benefit from the
NHS reforms<//istyosty.com/b/?u=//www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8305506/Wife-of-Health-Secretary-Andrew-Lansley-gave-lobbying-advice.html>. And that list didn’t even take me very long to think of.
Our politicians are for sale and they do not care who knows it.
Oh
yes, and then there’s the expenses thing. Widescale abuse of the very
systems they designed, almost all of them grasping what they could while
they remained MPs, to build their nest egg for the future at the
public’s expense. They even now whine on Twitter about having their
expenses claims for getting back to Parliament while much of the country
is on fire subject to any examination<https://twitter.com/#!/TomHarrisMP/status/100910621083701248>. True public servants.
The
last few days have revealed some truths, and some heartening truths.
The fact that the #riotcleanup crews had organised themselves before
David Cameron even made time for a public statement is heartening. The
fact that local communities came together to keep their neighbourhoods
safe when the police failed is heartening. The fact that there were
peace vigils being organised (even as the police tried to dissuade
people) is heartening.
There is hope for this country. But we must
stop looking upwards for it. The politicians are the ones leading the
charge into the gutter.
David Cameron was entirely right when he
said: “It is a complete lack of responsibility in parts of our society,
people allowed to think that the world owes them something, that their
rights outweigh their responsibilities, and that their actions do not
have consequences.”
He was more right than he knew.
And I blame the parents.

Eileen Devaney,

Manager,

Speke Advice Service, (CAB) Ltd,

Five Childrens Centre,

Conleach Road,

Liverpool,

Re: wish we had a leader like Cameron in the US

Responsibility for crime always lies with the criminal.

Do you propose we put the government in jail. After all they and their Wall Street owners are the biggest criminals in the USA :-)

Armagideon Time

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga4wASz39Fc&feature...

Dear Soosan Khanoom

How can you compare Iran with the UK? Is a country where even the safety of rioters and looters is of concern to the authorities comparable to a country who sends knife and gun wielding plane cloth militia to injure and kill silent protesters? A country where some militia shoot and kill people from the rooftop of Sepah and no one gets prosecuted cannot be compared to a country that sets up committee to investigate the killing of a drug dealer. Whilst the UK rioters will pay by fines and community work for stealing, the Iranians get tortured, raped and buggered for speaking their mind.

I understand that AN and Gaddafi were the only ones who made themselves the fool and their childish comments were ignored by the rest of the international society who does not value the child mentality in the grown up affairs.

I guess keeping

Iran backwards didn't work after all. Many people say that West has been keeping Iran backwards because they fear our competition. Well India already took the jobs! Now the British malcontents riot to no avail.

See we are not "special" and keeping us backwards did no one any good. India and China together outnumber us 30 to 1. Well maybe now we may put aside the theory of "West put us back" and move on. 

Dear Truthseeker

You are right that we have to disagree on this one. Having some adventurous rich or middle class in the rioters does not change the fact that it was started and fuelled by poor of the society. To be more exact, this is not about poverty, this is more than anything about inequality and lack of hope. To avoid writing a very long comment, I will write a blog to share more facts from this side of the argument.

I agree with you that young people are not taught discipline and that causes real problem, but I don't think anyone has so far offered a proper solution to that issue. Whilst they should not be left free to rampage the society, they should not be criminalised from the early age either. This is surely a case of bad parenting but parents themselves in my view are the products of a segregated society where some have no stock in its success.

With respect to tuition fees, these are generally around £4000 to £5000 for home students but even with those figures a student from a poor family has to start a graduate life with minimum of £50000 loan given the life and study expenses. This figure discourages most students from poor families who see this as a huge sum. Let's not forget that having middle class parents and the proper contacts is as important and some of these graduates from poor families never get on the professional job ladder, making an example for others.

Menial jobs that you argue are in abundant (and that I disagree) most often does not pay for a minimum life, and those UK Citizens who took them have to lose benefits that have greater value than their wage (I fully support the notion that the benefit system needs a proper restructuring).There is also not much hope of advancement for a janitor or a dustbin man.

Please don't start me on IT jobs and the completely useless UK government. UK IT firms have to be extremely innovative to compete with cheap labour from India in a market which is dominated by large US firms. Like the rest of the SMEs, they are left to their own devices.

.

.

Rebels Without A Cause

All the analyses offered on this blog come short of "one" common factor. Surely the jobless hooded thug who lives off the benefit system in a council flat and the spoiled rich kid who lives in his or her million-pound parents' property cannot be both victims of the same economic injustice and yet both of them were arrested by the police for looting and public disorder charges.  Did you notice that most of the looters who were roaming through the streets of London, Birmingham and Manchester were wearing Nike tops and trainers and communicating through Blackberries if not i-phones? Surely they can't be from the impovershed sectors of the society. So what is that brings all thses seemingly disconnected bunch together? The answer is: a culture of rebelion.

This is not something that was created by the last government or indeed by the last few governments or any socio-economic system.  This is the product of more than fourty years of a culture of disrespect for the authority, disobedience to parents and rebelling against the accepted and time-honoured values of a civil society. This generation who are plundering the shops and burning buildings are not doing it out of poverty but out of pleasure, They are the sons and daughters of a former generation of rebels whose idols were Sid Vicious and the Sex Pistols. Their's is Pete Doherty, Amy Winehouse and the Oasis. To this generation it is simply "cool" to be rebellious. They get a kick out of throwing stones at the police or taking drugs for fun. It has taken them some three decades to reach this point. It may take the same number of years if it can be changed for the better.

Divaneh

Lets agree to disagree. People are split abou the causes. 

Depraved or deprived? UK split on riot causes

Experts Cite Underlying Causes for UK Riots  

More and more information about the looters is emerging as we speak that highlight the criminality aspect or these riots.

Talking about technology, my nephew is an IT Consultant and he constantly tells me that his type of jobs have gone Offshore to India etc and therefore those types of skills are less and less filled by British people. But that is happening all over the world.  

Like RB said, no doubt that economic disenfranchisement and relative lack of opportunities are factors, as in other countries. But it is too simplistic to paint these people as "victims" when you say the rich are punishing the poor. Whilst your exposure is to one type of person of this age group, others may be different. 

With regards to Tuition Fees protests, they had a purpose. Many British people do not mind paying for their University fees. You have to do that in other countries, it is just that we have become accustomed to expect this.  In the UK Annual tuition fees are growing to £10,000. According to a recent study, the average yearly cost of tuition in the US, room, and board at a private four-year institution is over $35,000 (£22,000). At top schools such as Yale and Harvard, it’s in the region of £32,000, and rising steadily. Many British who want to leave UK for fees rising to £10,000 per year by 2012 will realise that it is not a bed of roses elsewhere. Change is something that people will grow to accept and get used to.

The reasons for the UK riots are complex

No doubt that economic disenfranchisement and relative lack of opportunities were factors.

However, alongside materialistic and economic issues there are other factors were also at play here. Lack of any type of moral code, the simple understanding of right and wrong, no concern about behaving decently towards your fellow human beings and being solely wedded to the desire of material gain at any cost, were also contributory factors here.

In the UK's large cities, particularly over the past 15-20 years, gang culture, which was always present before, has thrived and flourished. This inner city gang culture, augmented by large numbers of immigrants heavily influenced by the gangsta hiphop culture and constantly bombarded by the marketing of desirable goods by a materialistic society have made for an incendiary combination. The problem is further exacerbated by the palpable and ostentatious display of wealth of by (some of the) rich, who in UK cities can live no more than a block or two from the poor housing estates.

Going back to the point about the lack any moral code, the attitude openly on display is one of aggressive sense of self-entitlement, e.g. that if the government does give me more money, I will loot, mug and drug deal to take what I want and I don't care who gets hurt in the process. The value of a looted ipad or even a pair of sneakers is more to some of these people than the life of a human being.

There is no ingrained self-dependency disposition. It seems that these people never say to themselves that: if I want to have a decently quality of life maybe I shouldn't always expect others to provide it for me. Maybe, I should make an effort to actually attend college, obtain some kind of qualification, get a job and buy want I through the money I earn by doing that job, instead of hanging around the streets and always blaming the government and the society for my failure in life.

There are poor in every country, including the UK, but majority of them are decent people working hard to make a living. They don't go round committing crime and hurting other people, just because they are poor and economically disadvantaged.. So, there is no excuse for public thuggary and for these criminals.

Maybe I'm being too harsh, but I see this every day and, like it or not, it is reality.

PN

Good question. 

and now this ..... 

"British PM David Cameron considers ban on Twitter and Facebook during U.K. riots"

 I do no tknow what to make out of this either?

AN is not the only hypocrite here  .....  politicians they all are !!!!

wish we had a leader like Cameron in the US

In a special meeting of Britain's Parliament, Prime Minister David Cameron again denounced the culture that produced criminals as young as 12 years old.

DAVID CAMERON, British prime minister: Responsibility for crime always lies with the criminal.

PARLIAMENT: Hear, hear!

DAVID CAMERON: These people were all volunteers. They didn't have to do what they did. And they must suffer the consequences.

But crime has a context, and we must not shy away from it. I have said before that there is a major problem in our society with children growing up not knowing the difference between right and wrong. This is not about poverty. It is about culture, a culture that glorifies violence, shows disrespect to authority, and that says everything about rights, but nothing about responsibilities...read the rest and watch the video below:

//www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world/july-dec11/riots_08-11.html

 Dear Divaneh: Thanks.

 Dear Divaneh: Thanks. I don't live in GB and your assessment is a sigh of relief for me because evicting grand parents and parents will only exarcebate the problem. Thank you for your invaluable input on this issue and many others.

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho Marx

Dear Vildemose

Thank you for your comment and the information. I think government is just scare mongering to prevent further outbreak of violence. The British despite all their wrong policies are much wiser than evicting people en mass or leaving them hungry. Such measures will not pass through the parliament. No doubt in the coming days we will see the showcase of some punishment for the general public consumption. I am however sure that Britain has taken the lesson and the parliament and the government will now attach more importance to better social equality.

 Divaneh jan: Thank you

 Divaneh jan: Thank you for the sane analysis.

 the Prime Minster, David Cameron has supported the call for looters to be evicted from council housing. Even more so, some Councils are looking to do the same to those in tenanted housing by extending the laws dealing with anti-social behaviour. Given that these are young people, this policy means that their families are to be evicted from council housing (and tenanted housing if the law is changed) as well. Several city and local London councils have already stated that they plan to evict those convicted of looting along with their families.  Additional discussion on a government e-petition web-site has raised the removal of these people from benefits completely (//www.guardian.co.uk/..., //www.dailymail.co.uk/...); if 100,000 people sign this petition it triggers a process leading to MPs (parliament) voting on the plan.

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho Marx

Good analysis, half cooked conclusion

There is no doubt that the real cause of the recent upheaval is the ever widening gap between the haves and have nots. Britain in the last few decades has become an increasingly unequal society. The trend almost started with the Thatcher-Reagan consensus to lax the regulation and pave the way for the free flow of capital. The ability of the investors to move the capital freely in and out of the country increasingly weakened the position of the governments in relation to the big capital and trend has continued. Britain enjoyed a far better social mobility even 20 years ago when even children of the poor families could attend Universities and have the government covering the cost of their study and a good portion of expenses. Country enjoyed much better social services and a decent job paid for a decent life. There has been a relentless attack on services that benefit the poor whilst job creation has suffered in this consumer society. One of today's headlines was that cutting some bus service as the government intends to do, will hurt the poor and disadvantaged.

Choghok is right that the conclusion that it will spread to the neighbouring countries is unwarranted, whilst spread to the US is more likely. There is a difference between the Anglo-Saxon capitalism and the Continental capitalism. Whilst the French and German investors are prepared to invest for long term which suits a manufacturing economy, the British investors are after quick gains which favours banking and financial services. A manufacturing economy creates more jobs and results in better distribution of wealth. Continental countries are not as unequal as UK and that is why they may be spared such rage from the poor.

Truthseeker,

You are very wrong and some of your comments definitely have no truth in them. There is no lack of jobs? Really? Who told you that? Running a small technology firm we have to deal with hundreds of applications for a single vacancy every time that we advertise. Many are from the poor and disadvantaged who want to get on the job ladder. These are from the very areas and people whom you accuse of laziness. They look for a chance and I cannot give them that chance because the needs of the business come first. They are generally under skilled which I blame on the overnment for the lack of investment in proper training and skill development. Many of those East Europeans are graduates who enjoyed free education in their own countries and now come to the UK. There however has been a negative trend in the flow of East Europeans to the UK. Finally, punishing the poor for the sins of the rich, as people in that petition have asked is another step in the wrong direction.

If I may...

Why has CNN not set up an England desk yet?  

Little Satan

Many people are determined to read what they want into these riots - social exclusion, police hostility to, lack of job opportunities to tuition fees. There’s no lack of job vacancies, it’s just that they’ve all been filled by hard-working Eastern Europeans attracted to the UK after Labour tore up Britain’s border controls. Racial discrimination? There is so much legislation against this and UK is one of the most tolerant countries in the world. We even have something peopel confuse with positive discrimination.

Equality Act explained

Employed because I was black

The kind of hooligan seen throwing petrol bombs at the police and climbing through the front window of TV shops isn’t interested in a law-abiding, nine-to-five existence. Most of them get up to sign of the dole and would rather live on benefits, while the vast majority of the people in these areas who are poor didn’t riot. These riots are by kids from all sorts of ethnic and social backgrounds, out for a laugh and looting because there was a lack of significant police presence to stop them.

England riots: Cameron says police admit to wrong tactics

This is how British people feel

BBC News - Riots: Benefits e-petition hits crucial 100000 mark

Are we saying Iranians are economically better off than Brits?

Two years ago, whilst visiting Iran, I came across an old friend who was also visiting Iran, from His place of residence in some affluent county of England ( Surrey). he was tellling me how shocked he was to see that prices of meat, milk, bread, fruit were higher in Iran than England. . Now consider the wage differences between Iran and England...

Iran's economy is in a big mess and people are suffering badly. As we talk, to mention a few,  there are steal workers on strike, tehran health workers on strike, oil workers threthening to strike, all over pure economical reasons. according to government itself, 80% of working Iranians have to keep more than one job to make a living.

Just a sample of poverty and economic hopelessness that our compatriots are suffering from back home, from one web site only:

//www.roshangari.net/as/sitedata/20110810101941/20110810101941.html

//www.roshangari.net/as/sitedata/20110810093625/20110810093625.html

//www.roshangari.net/as/sitedata/20110810170141/20110810170141.html#s1

//www.roshangari.net/as/sitedata/20110810170141/20110810170141.html#s23 

Make no mistakes, when people eventually rise against the regime in numbers and manner to topple it, it would be a lot less to do with hejab, lack of democracy , etc, and a lot more to do with lack of bread, jobs and a roof over their heads. 

"Personal business must yield to collective interest."

Democracy & Economy

I tend to agree with you. What we have seen in the streets of Iran and the Middle East in general is a need for political reform towards democracy. But what is happening in Britain has roots in poor economic policies and joblessness.

Obviously there's no justification in criminal behavior. Those who looted shops and burned down buildings and destroyed cars and... were not just showing anger at the killing of one man by the police. But it is a sign that unemployment, cuts in social programs and sky-rocketing college fees, as well as racial discrimination, are having a profound negative effect.

And why is the government short of money to spend on bettering economic, social and educational opportunity? Just look at the defense/war budget.

ham1328, Well said

FYI 

Get used to it, because it's Coming to your town soon!!!

choghok

you are so wrong ...... western countries are facing tough economic times and things are not moving into suitable direction either ...  look at the bigger picture .. It seems that you are also just watching certain news channels ...

you know it is both ways !!

what?

how can you generalize like by saying that "UK like any other western country has big problems with ...", western countries are far different with both economic and political mentalities. You cannot generalize like that, it is maybe correct to do that in Press TV or by IRNA or any other propaganda TV but not if you want to be impartial and logical. Also what is "economically democratic"? Is it like IRI? do you have an example of such country? If not then it probably is that because your idea does not work in paractic.