Riots in England

'The Independent' reports that there was a twelve year old boy among the looters who appeared in the dock at Manchester Magistrates Court and we are told by 'the Guardian'  that  in "the broadest sense, most of those involved have been young men from poor areas. But the generalisation cannot go much further than that. It can't be said that they are largely from one racial group. Both young men and women have joined in." There is evidence to support Garry Shewan, the Manchester's Assistant Chief Constable's, contention that:
 "This was criminality, pure and simple. It had no racial element to it. It was just mindless violence so I want to let people know that there is no evidence to say any political groups organised or played a part in the disorder." 

Nevertheless, while there appears to have been no real political involvement in the riots, we must remember that they are set against a backdrop of a fiscal and sovereign debt crisis and government policies that will ensure that all of the goodies that are being looted are well outside the purchasing power of most of those who are doing the looting. The last remaining Marxist revolutionaries might be using all their energy to hang on to their under-threat tenures. However, all of us, even the mindless rioters, are already engaged in politics even if we are ignorant of that reality. In Britain today, the mindless looting of the rioters is not much more than an inarticulate answer to the carefully planned looting of the bankers and well thought out violence of the political elite.