Epitaph for Britain

Laura Wood brings out various aspects of the Tottenham raceless riot that I missed, among them, first, that police were seen running away from the rioters; and second, as reported by the Daily Mail, that this exchange occurred:

One police officer, asked by an elderly resident why more had not been done to stop the rioters, replied: “The way we look at it, we’re damned if we do, we’re damned if don’t.”

What a contemptible, worthless sod. But he represents what official Britain has become.

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August 8

Julian C. writes:

I’m not surprised the UK police are demoralised. Look at the list of recommendations that came out of the MacPherson Report to address ‘institutional racism’ in the force. They have probably been through more cultural awareness seminars than Tim Wise. Also, the media are still happy to blame “oppressive policing” as a cause of the riots as this cartoon demonstrates.

An Indian living in the West writes:

We can be absolutely sure that such acts would be impossible to carry out in New York City (to take a comparable example of a large Western city which is also multi-racial). The police in Britain has been systematically stripped of its powers by all kinds of new regulations dreamt up by the culturally Marxist left and by fear of being persecuted by race-relations busy-bodies. This really lies at the heart of it.

The mobs have lost fear of the police completely. Regardless of their race, when criminals lose fear of the law enforcement agencies, trouble ensues. If one really wants to understand how the police was slowly stripped of its authority in Britain, one needs to start by looking at the Brixton riots of 1981. After the riots, Mrs Thatcher’s Conservative government appointed a gentleman by the name of Lord Scarman to prepare a report. The rest, as they say, is history.

Steve R. writes:

From the Telegraph:

“Looters formed an orderly queue in the daylight to steal from a sports shop, a clothing store, a computer distributor and a mobile phone dealer.”

Clearly the civility of British culture has made its mark. America’s black rioters would do well to to observe the orderliness exhibited by their cousins across the pond.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 08, 2011 12:59 AM | Send