Anarchy In The UK

Sixswitch · Post by **Sixswitch** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 6:30 am

Yeah, sorry Mark Duggan. If you're carrying a gun around, then you're fair game to be shot. It's a reasonable assumption that if you have a gun, you intend to use it.

-Ss

optimusskids · Post by **optimusskids** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 6:44 am

We got sent home early yesterday just in case. It was very eerie walking through the streets of Watford . All the car franchises and saw the empty forecourts as they had obviously hidden their stock somewhere offsite and a couple of shops were boarding their windows with plywood.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 6:44 am

Indeed, whilst I can understand the family wanting a full investigation and being cynical of the stated chain of events considering the Met's reputation, it's way beyond that now.

I've a terrible feeling that what's going to happen with these groups of people going around trying to deal with the rioters themselves is that you're going to have two anti-rioter teams running into each other and assuming the worst.

Whilst channel hopping I just caught a bit of Daybreak with that Chiles bloke going "There's some great stories coming in!" as this is the best day of his life.

Dogs and cats living together?

When I woke up this morning, the cat was sleeping on my bed. The cat never sleeps on my bed. It's the end of the world!

Jaynz · Post by **Jaynz** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 4:48 pm

Sixswitch wrote:Yeah, sorry Mark Duggan. If you're carrying a gun around, then you're fair game to be shot. It's a reasonable assumption that if you have a gun, you intend to use it.

One of my father's best pieces of advice (and he was a career cop the entire time I grew up) was this: "When you pull a gun, there are two things which are likely to happen. You'll either have to pull the trigger, or expect to get shot. If you're not prepared for both, don't pull the gun."

But the situation in the UK (I can't even just say London now) is beyond the incident of a would-be cop-killer. My prayers are with you all, and I hope things improve soon. I also hope you lot have family and friends in the country that you can get to if the need arises.

Day five with increased spreading and the police still not responding? I don't know how a society recovers its faith from that.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 5:42 pm

It might be more geographically spread out, but the police are beginning to get the upper hand - London was relatively quiet last night. Police in other areas are watching and learning, and now rubber bullets are an option most of these people will think twice about it - this isn't like Northern Ireland where the people causing disturbances have a cause, these are just morons who see a chance to nick a plasma screen TV and throw a few petrol bombs. Now the police are beginning to find footholds, more will be staying in and just playing GTA IV instead.

It's worth noting that Nottingham especially is such a crime zone that any incidents there are more-or-less coincidental.

Jaynz · Post by **Jaynz** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 5:47 pm

Well, I'm very glad to see things improve now (and more thankful that the radical causers are out joining these asshats). Still, please be careful in the meantime until things calm down fully.

It'll be interesting to see the political theater in the next few weeks, though. I can't imagine that this will 'just be taken' lying down. Labour seems to have a lot of 'splainin' to do.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 7:57 pm

TFVanguard wrote:Labour seems to have a lot of 'splainin' to do.

It's the Torries at the moment. Well technically a coalition of them and the Lib Dem's, but no one pays the LD's any attention whatsoever. Though there was some great footage of their leader/ deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg visiting Birmingham and trying his best not to lose his smug face as he was confronted by some very angry members of the electorate.

Labour have shown themselves to be particularly useless as well though, their leader Ed Milliband has been hired an opportunity most politicians would kill for, a completely open goal to score against Cameron (who was incredibly slow to come back from his holiday after this all started), but I can't recall even seeing him on TV the last few days. He must have been sprouting some sort of platitudes but not nearly enough to make any impact. If he can't portray strength and leadership in a situation like this when the Prime Minister is looking so weak he has no chance at the next election.

If one good thing does come from this, lets hope it persuades the powers that be that many of the planned cuts to the police are going to be a really bad idea.

electro girl · Post by **electro girl** » Thu Aug 11, 2011 1:00 am

inflatable dalek wrote:
If one good thing does come from this, lets hope it persuades the powers that be that many of the planned cuts to the police are going to be a really bad idea.

My housemates dad is chief of North Yorkshire police and he said that his force has been the only one ready to send extra cops out to Manchester because others are either in london, suffering the cuts or just making sure there is a more visible presence of cops in their areas.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Thu Aug 11, 2011 4:32 am

Another largely quiet one last night, which means the leftist papers are already claiming the police are being overzealous (y'know, the same police who needed to get off their arses a couple of days ago). The Guardian especially seems deeply disappointed that the country hasn't degenerated into a war-zone. A lot of news outlets have spent a lot of money getting reporters onto the streets only to find that they've missed the party and now have to make mountains out of molehills.

Providing the police invesigate the Birmingham murders effectively this is going to fizzle out entirely well before the weekend. Considering most of the looters have been 15-30 year-old males, I seriously think the potential disruption to the Premier League has been a contributing factor...

Post by **Sades** » Thu Aug 11, 2011 5:32 am

I wish I had something useful to say, really, throughout the entire thing, reading about it in the papers and all, all I could say or think was "Some people are ****ing morons".

The stupidity just... astounds me.

DrSpengler · Post by **DrSpengler** » Thu Aug 11, 2011 4:56 pm

So your Prime Minister's solution to all this is install a killswitch to shut down all social media in the event of civil unrest? (sorry I couldn't find the story on a more reputable/less opinionated site)

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Thu Aug 11, 2011 5:03 pm

I ****ing hate Twitter and Facebook, so feel bound to agree with the posh racist there. I also think we should have some sort of switch that blows up mobile phones.

Prowl1984 · Post by **Prowl1984** » Thu Aug 11, 2011 5:43 pm

One of the sad things about this is that Duggan twat is probably going to be considered some kind of Martyr by the scum...

this is an example of the intellect of those involved

Post by **Denyer** » Thu Aug 11, 2011 5:48 pm

DrSpengler wrote:So your Prime Minister's solution to all this is install a killswitch to shut down all social media in the event of civil unrest? (sorry I couldn't find the story on a more reputable/less opinionated site)

AFAICT he's on about blocking access for individuals actively inciting, which is a bit more feasible than some of the other things politicians think are possible with tech but still doomed.

Post by **Hound** » Thu Aug 11, 2011 6:06 pm

Prowl1984 wrote:this is an example of the intellect of those involved

@the video: OMFG, can someone go smack the shit out of these people...

Jaynz · Post by **Jaynz** » Thu Aug 11, 2011 7:07 pm

Hound wrote:@the video: OMFG, can someone go smack the shit out of these people...

"It's good though, a lot of fun!"

Well, it's pretty much guaranteed that this is going to happen all over again soon enough. The yabos of London found this as entertainment... maybe a few non-rubber bullets would do the trick here.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Thu Aug 11, 2011 7:32 pm

Prowl1984 wrote:One of the sad things about this is that Duggan twat is probably going to be considered some kind of Martyr by the scum...

In this case I think his family managing to carry themselves with some dignity and condemn the rioting right from the off with stop him becoming a new Raoul Moat, indeed, it's been a few days since I've seen any news commentary on it even mention him.

AFAICT he's on about blocking access for individuals actively inciting, which is a bit more feasible than some of the other things politicians think are possible with tech but still doomed.

Ah, that makes slightly more sense, completely shutting down something that's been used far more to let people easily get in touch with their loved ones during the crisis than it has to cause the trouble would be daft. What he wants is still untenable though, you'll just have a mass increase in "I'm going to blow up Robon Hood airport" style moments.

Well, it's pretty much guaranteed that this is going to happen all over again soon enough. The yabos of London found this as entertainment... maybe a few non-rubber bullets would do the trick here.

I'd be very surprised, it's been at least twenty years (the news reports have all being saying thirty, but the Poll Tax riots were more recent that that weren't they?) since the last major large scale riots in England, we're generally a fairly placid lot- frequent too placid in my opinion even if this has swung too far the other way- with infrequent periods where the country goes a bit nuts. To a certain extent that does excuse the initially sluggish response, it's just not something we're used to handling.

And to be honest, the fact we've been through this with a relatively small death toll is one of the more commendable things about how it's been handled. It was a mess (though not quite the nationwide emergency it felt like, 99% of the UK had no riots whatsoever), but it could have been a much worse mess.

Channel 4 just had a piece on how at least one part of London was mainly dealing with small groups of EDL morons last night who'd turned up in a slightly desperate attempt to kick off a race riot. Which is making hilarious viewing...

Though presumably the majority will be from the unemployed and young there was a piece on Yahoo the other day about the "surprising" (their words) number of upper middle class idiots involved. So dumbassery is a class barrier crossing thing after all.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Thu Aug 11, 2011 7:41 pm

Eh, the school teachers and the like just leap out to the press - much more interesting than 15 people whose job is selling bits of wood wrapped in clingfilm to tourists.

And yeh, that'll pretty much be that. Few of the people rioting were genuinely dissatisfied, more saw a chance to steal stuff in the crowd. Once the police started announcing baton rounds would be used, it all stopped. There's no real political discontent here - these are the sort of bottom feeders who'd be unemployed and leeching off the state while looking for a chance to grab what they can their whole lives, whoever's in power. I doubt they'll be able to get together this sort of spontaneous response again, and if they did the police would be better prepared.

The problem will be if knee-jerk bleeding heart media use various incidents to further handicap the police - like that kid who was riding a bike around near some rioters who got clobbered.

optimusskids · Post by **optimusskids** » Thu Aug 11, 2011 9:33 pm

apparently sales of baseball bats have gone up on amazon with one particular model now being something like no 7 in the top 8 sporting items sold by Amazon having seen an increase in sales by over 6000 %

shame on them for not sticking to the traditionnal english cricket bat Shaun of the Dead style.

Post by **Sades** » Thu Aug 11, 2011 9:52 pm

... how long does it take to get shit shipped in thru Amazon, again?