London's burning
This is a phrase I’ve grown up with. My parents used it freely when they saw children misbehave and their mums or dads failed to discipline them. If you can’t teach young people values and instil respect for authority and seniority, what hope is there for the next generation? Where on earth do these parents think their kids are at 3am? What’s their reaction when they wake up to find a new flat screen telly at home? Since when is it acceptable to have a 10-year-old parade around like a gangster? How have parents allowed this to happen? This is not political expression, it’s theft. Start taking responsibility for your children – they’re a menace!
Riot police and mounted police were called in after the protest deteriorated into violence
The looting has escalated into mindless violence in different parts of London and for no motive other than to cause anarchy. This is not about so-called “justice” for Mark Duggan and his family. This is an excuse for young hoodlums with no jobs, probably little education and no moral responsibility for others to wreak havoc. It’s pathetic.
Police officers wearing riot gear walk past a burning building in Tottenham, north London August 7, 2011.
Even aggression in the animal kingdom has a motive. Hostility can usually be seen in primates if it’s to defend and protect kin, territory or resources like food, shelter and mates. Aggression may be necessary to ensure survival of the fittest in a fast changing environment. In hierarchies, some individuals are “picked on” in order to maintain group structure. But what we are witnessing is not even animal behaviour. It’s selfishness and ignorance at its worst – a minority of Generation Y/Millennials – lazy beggars and thieves who want something for nothing and wouldn’t know hard work if it bit them on the a***!
When they’ve run out of steam and there’s nothing left to pillage they’ll have created a ghetto that they’ll have to live in. The clean up cost will run into the tens of millions of pounds at a time when the economy continues to battle with instability. Where’s the logic in that and what have they proved? These kids simply don’t care and neither do their parents.
whogivesamonkeys 
sanjeev
August 9, 2011
Loved today’s blog- you are totally right and the little b@stards need to be water cannoned…They have closed off loads of streets in Bromley and Woolwich. What made me laugh though is that they were so stupid that they attacked Primark! Looting something that normally costs £1..need I say more!
joan wilson manchester
August 9, 2011
I totally agree with your comments entirely, I am sick of people blaming anything and everything on something else other than themselves. It really is a question of values. When i first put the TV on I thought i was watching an African town on the rampage like sierra Leone and the Congo wars, not London. This may have started with the police shootings, but it’s just the excuse these toe-rags needed to carry out their uneducated form of anarchy. Our country is overcrowded with people that don’t know and understand our values or care for that matter. Like you say regarding animal agression they have a motive for it and a survival approach. Man is just ignorant of this fact, who is the uncivilised the great apes or man?
Tim Brunt
August 9, 2011
Hi Asha
Feisty! You aren’t thinking of writing for the Daily Mail are you?
Nice to hear from you again,
Tim x
urbanprimate
August 9, 2011
Ha Ha, yes very funny Tim. But I can’t tell you how hacked off I am seeing images of these little feckers ruining people’s livelihoods. Residents and businesses are helpless if their properties go up in smoke – insurance won’t cover that – they’ve lost everything and who’s accountable?
A
Tim Brunt
August 10, 2011
I agree, total lack of disciplne, structure and positive role models from the parents.
perriaqua
August 11, 2011
As a parent of a 6year old and a 1 year old. I agree that parents are partly responsible but what about the goverment that ties a parents hand to dicipline a child, a woman was find £100 for smacking… not beating the child to an inch of it’s life…. just a smack and was fined by our goverment for doing so. Children of today think they have power and the goverment give it to them. A child can ring up and say that thedy have been assaulted by the parent (smacked) and the police take the parnet in custody. But when these little darlings reached the age of consent and do something bad in society the goverment ‘smacks’ that child right into prison
urbanprimate
August 11, 2011
HI Perriaque,
Thanks for the comment. I realise that some parents have their hands tied, but that’s often after they’ve allowed their little darlings to get out of control. I’m a firm believer that if discipline and authority is drummed into a kid at a young age the child wouldn’t dare step out of line. Children these days have no respect for adults let along their parents. Yes the law has changed and some kids have become far too savvy for their own good, but there are always solutions. If you’re child becomes difficult then get help before they turn into something you don’t recognise.
i a k
August 10, 2011
this generation are punky, anarchistic, gangsta’s,continuing on from their punky, anarchistic chaotic, boomer parents
Christian Daly
August 14, 2011
Hi Asha !
Here in Newcastle, the images from London and other cities over the past week have been appalling, rather like ‘Eden Lake’ writ large ! Thankfully, Newcastle and the rest of the North East has remained unscathed so far. Whatever the causes, poverty is NOT one of them !! I was born into a two-parent working class family, and I didn’t break the law and neither did my parents. To compare the perpetrators of this violence to animals is an insult to animals ! I hope that you and any members of your extended family kept safe and weren’t caught up in this madness.
best
Christian
urbanprimate
August 15, 2011
Hey Christian,
Many thanks for the concern. I’ve managed to avoid getting physically “caught up” in the mess down here. But reporting on the fallout has been endless. There’s so much political squabbling and everyone looking for a scapegoat. I’d like to think of myself as a liberal minded woman, but some of things that I have witnessed has stirred up quite right-wing feelings. I absolutely agree that poverty should not be an excuse. I believe it comes from values instilled in you as a child. The problem is, a lot of the parents of these “troublemakers” are barely adults themselves or they’ve simply failed to lay down the law at home. Young people are fearless of authority and have little respect for society as a whole. They want instant gratification, fame and fortune but are not prepared to put in the hard work – it’s a generation of “brats”. I don’t think you can hold parents of teenagers aged 17+ responsible for their actions, but for kids under that age…..it makes you wonder what sort of parenting they have had.
A