Monday, August 08, 2011

London's burning


We know it's not protest. We know it's crime, theft, arson and violence. What follows is not in any sense justification. In a society where MPs cheated on their expenses, where bankers remain immune even rewarded for their catastrophic mistakes with other people's money, where powerful and rich companies and individuals avoid tax, where the press hack into people's phones and are untouched by their clients the politicians and the police, where the burden of mismanaged public finance falls hardest on the poor, where education is becoming a private privilege, where schools fail and jobs disappear, can we be surprised that there are so many young people who clearly feel they have no interest or stake in a lawful society ?

This is not the Big Society. This is a very small, fearful, hopeless, selfish society.

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