Should've stayed in Tuscany, David
Published 18 Aug 2011 09:30
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For all the sense that David Cameron spoke following the Cobra emergency committee meeting, he might as well have stayed in his luxury Tuscan villa. While all decent people will deplore the violence on the streets and clearly criminal elements were at work, Cameron accepted no responsibility for the conditions that gave rise to the riot epidemic and showed no understanding of why some people do it.
"This is criminality pure and simple and it has to be confronted and defeated."
Put the army on the streets, wheel out the water cannon and plastic bullets - it worked so well in Northern Ireland, didn't it!
Yet the prison population is at an all-time high with overstretched prison officers facing privatisation of their service and attacks on their pay and conditions as do police and firefighters, who are targeted by the government's cuts agenda.
Cameron completed his speech without mentioning the plethora of cuts imposed on young people - funding for youth clubs, sports facilities, educational maintenance allowance, housing benefit and given half of black youth aged 16-24 are unemployed the wonder is not that riots have broken out but that they didn't occur earlier.
Government should be investing in local services rather than in overseas wars, nuclear weapons and tax breaks for big business and the rich.
We are told that dog-eat-dog competition is human nature.
Rubbish. Humanity could not have survived and prospered on the basis of ruthless individualism. Progress has been achieved through co-operation. That was exemplified by the collective efforts of communities to stand together to defend shops and homes from attack in recent days.
Strengthening our public sector and collective solidarity is the way to rebuild the economy and provide the jobs and hope that alone will prevent future social explosions of the kind witnessed recently.
Peter O'Neill, Hardgate
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