Britain faces summer of rage - police

[Bozita]

Source: Guardian UK

Britain faces summer of rage - police
Middle-class anger at economic crisis could erupt into violence on streets
Paul Lewis
The Guardian, Monday 23 February 2009
Article history


Police are preparing for a "summer of rage" as victims of the economic downturn take to the streets to demonstrate against financial institutions, the Guardian has learned.

Britain's most senior police officer with responsibility for public order raised the spectre of a return of the riots of the 1980s, with people who have lost their jobs, homes or savings becoming "footsoldiers" in a wave of potentially violent mass protests.

Superintendent David Hartshorn, who heads the Metropolitan police's public order branch, told the Guardian that middle-class individuals who would never have considered joining demonstrations may now seek to vent their anger through protests this year.

He said that banks, particularly those that still pay large bonuses despite receiving billions in taxpayer money, had become "viable targets". So too had the headquarters of multinational companies and other financial institutions in the City which are being blamed for the financial crisis.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/23/police-civil-unrest-recession

[drdtroit]

1. Imagine, people outraged at the fact these bloated bloodsuckers

are paying bonuses derived from taxpayer money to empty suits who bankrupted their profession.
How can I get one of those gigs of driving a company into the ground and make millions?

[DavidDvorkin]

2. I fear that the stage is being set for a fascist backlash across Europe.

[ShockediSay]

8. Financial instability multiplies societal/governmental instability

No accident that Hitler came to power after Germany's

economy was tanked

[Baby Snooks]

3. We will have a summer of rage as well....

When it becomes obvious that the only people who have been helped by the "stimulus" are the ones who didn't need help and that millions more are unemployed and millions more are losing their homes we will have a summer of rage as well. Which will follow the spring of rising anger.

[ohio2007]

5. ...followed by the winter of our discontent

When it comes to the home owner bailouts and falling property values, people who couldn't afford house payments the last time around will get to flip or fail next time around....but the real estate taxes would never drop in order to adjust the actual market value. ( for those who played the home mortgage payment game on the honest up and up.)

[Psephos]

6. yep n/t

[Frank Booth]

4. Not only viable targets, but deserving as well.

The people running the banks (and their government cronies) are largely responsible for this worldwide depression.

[tomreedtoon]

7. Brits are more courageous than Americans and the UAW.

We should be rioting right now. The UAW should be storming the houses of their CEO's and burning their jets - with the CEO's and all their family members inside. But no, we're too "nice" for that.

Sounds like the British have dropped their Monty Python don't-give-a-damn flakiness for some righteous anger and courage. Good for them.

[silverojo]

15. You think the Pythons didn't give a damn?

They were (and are) liberals to the last man, and much of their humor skewered British politicians.

Rent the "Flying Circus" DVD's and learn. ;)

[bird gerhl]

16. John Cleese is a Tory

[pschoeb]

17. No hes not, He's a Liberal Democrat party supporter

and had made several ads for them, as well as other support, and he was always the least left of the group.

[bird gerhl]

30. My bad!

Thanks for clearing that up. I don't want to have a reason to dislike John Cleese.

[tomreedtoon]

18. Sorry, the Pythons were zany but indiffferent.

Look at their humor, silverojo. They made fun of rationality. Period. Not a form of politics, but the very idea of politics. They were anarchists and dadaists. Their work denied the very existence of meaning. That made for lots of laughs in college, but as a philosophy it was self-centered and did not allow any kind of positive political action.

Just because you like somebody's work doesn't mean you should swallow what they say wholesale, or deny their flaws.

[muriel_volestrangler]

21. Terry Jones' political writing for The Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/terryjones

Eric Idle on Bush, Blair and Iraq: http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=118272&title=eric-idle

Terry Gilliam on the Orwellian nightmare of Bush and Cheney: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/06/entertainment/main2071659.shtml

John Cleese on why it was so important to elect Obama: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIz4KrZottM

Michael Palin may not get involved in party politics, but has been the chairman and president of the public transport lobbying group Transport 2000/Campaign for Better Transport

So, yes, they're all liberals.

On edit: oops, I take that back about Palin not being party political:

Palin also comes across as a principled figure, who was suspicious of making easy money by doing voice-overs for commercials and wanted to concentrate on the more serious business of comedy. He was a committed Labour supporter and the diary also gives an insight into living through the Three Day Week and the oil shortages in the early seventies. In places, the diary is surprisingly political, reflecting Palin's anti-establishment tendencies at the time.

http://www.ciao.co.uk/Diaries_1969_1979_The_Python_Years_Michael_Palin__6561310

Clees, Palin and Chapman made a short film for the Labour Party in 1969: http://ssa.nls.uk/film.cfm?fid=0026

[LeftishBrit]

31. Now you're talking about a Palin whom I like!

[sufrommich]

22. Yes, because ultra violent mobs always lead to a more just

and democratic society.Kill the CEOs and their families, what a crock of shit.

[Posteritatis]

24. Lot of bloodthirsty keyboard revolutionaries here lately, aren't there? (nt)

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

32. Well, that sounds like a sure way...

...to drain whatever little sympathy the public still has for the UAW.

[closeupready]

9. People have a right to peacefully demonstrate and protest.

I don't see the problem.

[Alamuti Lotus]

10. And now I ask our contestant, for $100,000......what do you think will happen?

A) will the politicians and industrialists address the root causes of this rage and mend their evil ways?, OR
B) will the politicians and industrialists send the police out to beat the shit out of these people, and have the press blame them for their own injuries?

Write down your answer, we will return to the show after a series of commercials for Doritos, (Un-)Reality TV, and beer. Please stay tuned!

[DrDebug]

20. C)

The politicians and industrialists will hire agents provocateurs to incite riots and then have the police beat the shit out of the peaceful protesters while the media will blame the protesters.

From the S.O.P. - How to deal demonstrations - Elite edition.

[Hardrada]

11. My wife and I were doing the tourist bit in London and we

came out of an old church in the City and found ourselves right in the middle of a big protest against the World Bank, I think it was. They smashed stoplights and were about to smash some store windows before we got going away from the mob. Helicopters were flying overhead and I remembered from some US protests I'd been in that police helicopters can drop pepper spray. No taxis or buses were running so we had to hoof it from the Bank of England to the British Museum. O yes, they can come up with good riots.

[dipsydoodle]

14. I think I know the one you're talking about

What year was it ? I don't think we do use pepper spray here in the UK.

[Hardrada]

23. 1999. I remember it very well.

It was an interesting visit. The ever-helpful IRA had also bombed a bridge in London earlier that summer.

[dipsydoodle]

25. This one I guess

London riot : http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/1999/1999-June/011289.html That wasn't exactly an every day public disorder event and I'm sure a few were there just for a laugh to inflict as much damage as possible on McDonalds etc

There were no IRA bombs that year and only splinter groups remained active by then anyway. There was however a nutter who nail bombed a gay pub in Soho that April. I missed the IRA's Harrods bomb , Dec.'83 , by about 30 minutes. I left to make sure I didn't get a ticket on my car which parked up the road. My wife followed about 5 minutes after me and must've walked past the car packed with exposive as she used the Hans Place exit where the guy was selling roasted chestnuts.

[Hardrada]

26. I asked someone why we couldn't go a certain route and

got the tale about the IRA bomb. I guess we looked fairly gullible!! I vaguely recall the Harrods incident. I'll google to see if that comes up. You lucked out on that one! Thanks for the link. I wrote an article later on that year: Visit London, It's a Riot!

[dipsydoodle]

27. Here's the London event calender for you

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_London

Despite the lull between 1996 and 2001 there were a lot of false alarms and so maybe it was one of those you experienced. Us / we here got used to it and just carried on pretty much as normal - it was just a nuicance.

The splinter group Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA) aka Real IRA carried out the Omagh bombing in 1998. I think that one had the greatest number of casualties : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omagh_bombing

[Hardrada]

28. Thanks for the link. I had wanted to visit St. Ethelburga

and was of course upset to find it had been blown up. I think they rebuilt it however well after our last trip to London.

[Reasonable Robinson]

12. Summer of Rage

There is a fine line between imagining 'scenarios' and talking 'as if ' they were true. It is the Police's job to think through and prepare for possibilities, it is not their job to speak publicly about things that haven't happened. The Police even if they are preparing for the 'summer of rage' scenario might do better in public by talking about 'expecting well ordered protests' or 'good natured demonstrations'. Stick to Policing not P.R. or assume your part in the problem.

This is <a href="http://gullibility.blogspot.com">gullibility</a>

[dipsydoodle]

13. BBC News link

"Known activists" were likely to foment unrest, with the recession creating more "footsoldiers" to join them, Supt David Hartshorn told the Guardian.

>

The officer said that the established activists "would be good at motivating people, but they haven't had the 'footsoldiers' to actually carry out .

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7905172.stm

[jpak]

19. Rick Santelli!!!!1111

:rofl:

[LeftofU]

29. We could use a little of "taking to the streets"

Right here.

[lovuian]

33. those video cameras are not going to stop them

either