August unrest
Observer August 23rd, 2011
The rioting in English cities has for the moment passed, and the soul-searching begun. Mr Cameron and Mr Blair, the latter still active, if now in defence of his record, batted it out in detailed pieces at the weekend, in conspicuously non-Murdoch newspapers. From afar, there have been several signs that British life is not what it used to be, and suffering from a dilution of standards. Not least, a tolerance for base language. When the BBC deploys ‘ten quid’ in a news report, or The Independent the commonest of obscenities in a review of opera, one wonders who they are trying to relate to. The expenses scandals and Murdoch allegations have brought an open season mentality towards both politicians and police. And quite some pot and kettle accusations between them. The reputational damage from the dramatic images is significant. The underlying causes are probably joint and several, and will not be fixed in the short term with an ‘initiative a day’ approach. But what is, and was already known, is that riots tend to happen in summer months. Which is also presumably the time when police are short handed, and perhaps less agile this time as events unfolded than they might have been ordinarily. This, at least, should be straightforward enough to fix.
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