Riots?

[Beckie]

Anyone effected?

I can currently see alot of smoke still coming from the Sony depot fire in enfield.. thats more then close enough for my liking!

[ash]

got stuff going down in Croydon 20 mins away, Lewisham 20 mins the other way and supposedly Bromley is next (maybe tonight/tomorrow) 5 mins away.

fucking kids need to have some pride in their lives, they are only hurting people like you and me, but claiming its vs the police.

Bollox to them. if they get burnt in all this mess they deserve it. All that will happen is twitter & facebook will get monitored more, and then what kind of life is that?

Blackberry have already said they will open up their network to allow police to monitor it (at least that is what I read)

[Beckie]

I really hope they bring in measures to stop it. Curfews, tear gas, water cannons whatever. I would understand if they were trying to make a proper point vs police and goverment by attacking there buildings. But what they are doing are impacting everyone and anyone, many businesses will not recover from it. Unemployment will go up, house prices will go down and the tax payers will be landed with the policing/cleanup bill. And everyone with some sort of insurance policy will also have prices rise. They are really doing a good job of pushing us back into recession.

[Septih]

Whilst the actions of those rioting and looting is reprehensible and not in protest towards the government they are not without cause. It's not a coincidence the same groups of young, poor people who are responsible for most of it across the city and country. It's just a consequence of poor education and relations within the community and the council services actions towards those groups and it's not something that can be squarely blamed on any one policy or government. I do worry when I see people on facebook, twitter, etc saying they should just get the army in as if that's a solution.

house prices will go down

You say that like it's a bad thing.

[Beckie]

As a home owner it is..

[Septih]

Unless you're trading homes as a commodity or crossing massive price borders (i.e. north to south) the value of your home is only relative to the value of the next home you wish to buy.

If I paid £250,000 for a house and it went down to £10,000 I wouldn't mind too much as long as the prices of other houses fall similarly.

[Roper]

Looks like it’s rather predictably spread to Bristol, though I should be fine where I live. Not much to loot there anyway, apart from maybe the local gun shop..

I’m not sure what the answer is, like Seppy I’m not really up for sending in the army or anything like that. But something a bit more heavy handed may need to be done, at the moment these people are just carrying on in the knowledge that they can just get away with it.

As for house prices, yep it’s all relative but it’s still shitty for people in negative equity.

[Beckie]

And when your in negative equity and you cannot sell your home because you cant pay of the mortgage with the money from the sale? All that money that you have worked hard for to pay the mortgage just gone? Now thats a reason to riot..

Bristol are used to riots.. & trashing tesco.. unfortunatly trashing independents they dont come back and you end up with Tesco and co because they have reserves to deal with things like this..

[Roper]

The whole Tesco thing really annoyed me. We don’t want a Tesco! Fine, don’t shop there then…. But people are shopping there, so they must want one.

[Demonheart]

I'm largely anti-immigration. Can I say that here? I don't claim to know much about what is going on there, but from what I can see and read in the news, the VAST majority of the looters / rioters are black. So many people have things really bad, but this stuff makes me furious. I hope things cool down eventually.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uep5t6-a ... r_embedded

Seriously, the police should not have to tolerate this. Surely the American police force would use lethal force on that scum?

[Septih]

And when your in negative equity and you cannot sell your home because you cant pay of the mortgage with the money from the sale? All that money that you have worked hard for to pay the mortgage just gone? Now thats a reason to riot..

Well you don't have to pay off your mortgage. I don't know actual practice, but can banks not keep the mortgage for a different property provided that the amount loaned does not increase?

Most of my reasoning on property comes from my belief that a home is a home, whatever you paid for it. In most cases you will be going from one home to another, rather than buying a second one (for anyone doing so, I have no sympathies for their finances) and as long as the numbers for selling are the same as the ones for buying I don't see a problem.

[Septih]

I'm largely anti-immigration. Can I say that here? I don't claim to know much about what is going on there, but from what I can see and read in the news, the VAST majority of the looters / rioters are black. So many people have things really bad, but this stuff makes me furious. I hope things cool down eventually.

There will always be poor areas that some group will fill, if it weren't the current rioters, it would be someone else.

Also I imagine many of these people are 4 or 5 generations native by now. Immigration has nothing to do with it.

[Roper]

House prices have definitely got silly, and part of that is probably due to people treating them as an investment, I guess a bit of a supply and demand issue as well. I guess the main problem is people who are being forced to sell due to employment issues.

[Demonheart]

There will always be poor areas that some group will fill, if it weren't the current rioters, it would be someone else.

Did you really just say that? Surely it's absurdly pessimistic to make that kind of assumption? Ghettos don't exist in, well, Finland. No one is outside the system, and there are zero regions of Helsinki one would be afraid to visit at night. Sweden had only about a 10-year headstart on relatively open immigration policy. The result?



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn7EHfKn3pQ

According to the police, cars are burned in Göteborg every night. Recently they managed to set a school on fire, and it burned down. There are places the police won't go to! The Swedish society is almost identical to ours, but their only mistake was taking in muslims who were had no intention of playing by the country's rules. (Yes, they are open about it)

Also I imagine many of these people are 4 or 5 generations native by now. Immigration has nothing to do with it.

I see what you mean. I'm thinking immigration really took off after the second world war, right? I am personally a firm believer in poverty and misery being something that is largely inherited, so rioters being children or even grand children of immigrants can still be a relevant point.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGCh ... r_embedded

That's a nice video to watch, it shows exactly why immigration does absolutely nothing for world poverty. People flying to Africa and handing out condoms, on the other hand, is what would genuinely help.

[Korruptor]

It got personal when they looted Nandos.

As much as I agree to an extent with Sep about the lack of education and environment they live in contributing to these riots, when I see images like this (EDIT: And this) I can't help but rage. The original protestors might have had good reason to riot, although I disagree there to an extent as well, but the majority of these scum bags are now only doing it because they realise they have a good chance of getting away with some awesome loot. I don't understand why the police haven't been allowed to step up measures.

It's just going to get worse until some stronger measures are brought in to show these plebs that they can't get away with this kind of behaviour.

As usual for this kind of event though we must all blame VIDEO GAMES!