Mental Revolt

Order has been restored by the police and we should all breath a sigh of relief, whilst quietly chucking in the canal the brass knuckles and can of mace we bought off the internet. It will no longer to necessary for men to patrol their streets in vigilante groups, which is a shame because I had a whole look worked out, based on the 1979 urban gang classic The Warriors. We were going to dress in cricket pads, gloves and helmets, coloured black to show we meant business and be called 'The Fast Balls'. Looters would be dispatched with cries of 'Six'. My fellow vigilantes and I would trade humorous quips about leg breaks whilst actually breaking bones. Best thing about being dressed in full cricket gear is the police cannot stop you for carrying a bat as an offensive weapon. The stumps converted to fire live ammunition, those were always going to take a bit of explaining.

The London riots and their viral spread around different cities were unexpected; the poor quality journalism that followed was perhaps more predictable and the clean up for that will take a while. The Left in particular has gone into denial mode, much like right wing commentators went into intellectual lockdown about the financial crisis. They just can't admit their cherished belief in self-regulating markets has been falsified and resort to bizarre leaps of logic, where it all ends up being Bill Clinton's fault that Goldman Sachs devised toxic securitised debt products. Don't even mention the bank bail outs,  the masters of the capitalist universe taking public money from the dead hand of the state. If you remember another eighties classic War Games, this is the bit where the computer controlling America's nukes fries its own brain through a logic loop.

Much the same mental gymnastics, revolts and loops are happening now in the minds of British liberals. You see the riots must have a cause, probably police brutality or racism. What about those children firebombing a police station in Nottingham? Then it must be the alienated youth. But several of the rioters are in their thirties and have jobs?  Consumer society, it's all our fault for being greedy as a society. We should really see gangs of ten year olds descending on Debenhams as a social critique, a form of spontaneous political street theatre. They certainly aren't to be blame, it was society wot robbed Boots. And didn't Cameron smash up a restaurant when he was in the Bullingdon club, so in a way he started it twenty years ago in an Oxford Tandoori.

The other important thing to consider is sometimes you have to have studied at university and read a lot of turgid tomes to say things as stupid as many of the chatterati:  these riots have complex roots and we need to listen to what the youth are saying on the street. It goes like this: 'Yo mate, gis ya phone or I'll shank you'.

'Some men just want to watch the world burn', to quote The Dark Knight. We don't need detailed, verbose and fatuous commentary to work out that people have evil, destructive impulses and they have to be kept in check. Have you seen Primark when there's a sale on? The riots were an eruption of those dark passions, you only need to hear the rioters description of why they set fire to buildings. It was fun.

Some of the reluctance to admit that ideas and policies need to change is a misguided belief amongst many liberal people that it's a binary choice: North Korea or Woodstock, there's nothing in between.  Fascist or hippy, pick a team and stick with it.

 If you say you are in favour of more police with tougher tactics and expanded prison places,  that does not mean you are also rejecting all the social changes after the 1960s. You can be in favour of gay marriage and water cannons, though preferably not at the same venue.