8/6/2019 Looking Beyond the Riot

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Looking beyond the riot: Role Models and Knee-Jerk Reactions

It was very convenient for the government to blame young people for the riots this week,but quite why senior politicians and coalition prime ministers felt justified in making suchunfounded claims is at the heart of the deepening crisis in Britain, with riots only a smallseismic shift in what may signal bigger tremors to come if the government doesnt step outof denial and into democracy; such knee jerk reactions are not acceptable within the corridors of power.

Yet, the riots should not really have come as a surprise. Speculation over civil unrestamongst bloggers has been rife for some time. Britain has already had its fair share of ominous tremors over the last few years, some large, reaching the upper limits of ourpolitical and social Richter scales and some smaller flashes in the political pan. But thoseevents have not gone un-noticed.

Our economy is weak. On the surface it looks as if the sub-prime mortgage crisis is theagitator, a US led movement responsible for artificially propping up banks both in Americaand here in England and who have become so much a part of the establishment that no onequestions quite how and why they are allowed to issue money and what the implications of that relationship going unchecked means today. What is particularly fascinating about thesubprime mortgage crisis when considered in relation to the erosion of democracy is theerosion of trust between the banks themselves, which was at the heart of the crisis. From

credit rating agencies, designed to analyse the quality of the banks loans to governments

including ours, who actively failed to regulate the banks activities, we begin to see that thereal agitators are opportunists in the system and they make the rioters look feeble incomparison. And it is these very same agitators who are, this week calling on Britain as anation to fight gang culture and the Something for Nothing School of thought. The irony of this is both hideous and depressing.

And how could we forget the parliamentary expenses scandal in 2009. Responsible forcausing a massive loss of confidence in politics, it was angered members of the public whocalled on the government to act. In the end, the Speaker of the House of Commons, cabinetministers, Labour back benchers, Conservatives and peers were all subject to resignationsand sacking. The creation of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority was set upto keep MPs expenses separate from the House after the event, but the scandal was initiallyexposed by the press and members of the public. When we reach a point where we mustrely solely on the media and the public to police our politicians we have reached an all-timelow. The question then must surely be, why are our democratic checks and balances failing?And the answer can perhaps be found in the reaction of our leaders to the scandal. NadineDorries, the Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire bemoaned the media spotlight, likeningthe scrutiny to a witch hunt and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams felt thathumiliating MPs who had taken advantage of the expenses system would damage the faithwe had in democracy. Nevertheless, David Cameron was highly critical of MPs like NadineDorries who did not have sympathy for the public s perception. (Shortly after, David

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Cameron was ordered to pay back expenses he had also pilfered). Startlingly, those MPssentenced and convicted for false accounting received surprisingly lenient sentences.

In stark contrast, the current outcry over the handling of those who have been remanded incustody over the riots and charged only to find themselves serving vastly disproportionatesentences to those normally handed down for crimes like rioting and theft is anotherindication that our government is no longer living by democratic principles. When there isone law for MPs and another for the public, what example does the government hope toset?

The loss of legal aid for significant sectors of society, especially families, sends out anothermessage: we, the government, do not value family. Or put another way, i f it doesnt makeimmediate returns its not going to get attention. Th is fast- food approach to the countryssocial welfare, this need for immediate gratification is in everything our government does. Itis almost as if politicians simply enter government to take as much as they can and then

leave, leaving behind devastation and destruction for future governments to tend to, butwho fail to and who simply perpetuate the cycle of seat and steal . Our governments are nolonger manning the democratic machine; they are raping it and leaving it to fend for itself.

It is hard to gauge at what point we started to neglect the very processes designed toprotect us, but this phenomenon has had a far reaching impact. Even the face of Britisheducation has suffered, with the acquisition of diplomas and degrees seen as the Holy Grailof schooling, rather than substance of the teaching itself . It is all about making Britain lookeducated rather than educating Britain and actively trying to generate as much profit as ispossible at the same time.

In the end, governments who actively encourage theft on a massive scale through banks andother institutions, who steal from the public purse and who point the finger at fledgingmembers of our society are not democratic organisations. But the infrastructure is thereand a new generation are watching to see what our politicians will do next. It is foolish forany government to think that children can ever be the root cause of deep-seated concernsin society. Young people do not set the tone we do.