Below is a video based on the Guardian/London School of Economics Reading the Riots study (co-funded by the Joseph Rowntree and the Open Society Foundations) in which some of those involved in the summer protests in Britain are speaking.
The Cameron government's rhetoric was that the summer riots were the work of criminals---young hooligans and black street gangs running amok--- and they needed to be punished. This rhetoric was used to justify using the stick instead of the carrot as an answer.
What comes through the interviews is the intense dislike of the police for their petty harassment, abuse, humiliation, as well as the concern for justice in the form of their poverty due to not having a job or any prospect of a job.
The downturn in the British economy and the politics of austerity will increase the inequality in the UK and deepen the poverty. Conditions are going to worsen as the cuts bite in even further, social problems will grow, and the response by the Cameron Government will be a law and order one and greater police repression.
| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:58 PM | Permalink
"The Cameron government's rhetoric was that the summer riots were the work of criminals..."
Not all that different to the stories told by Mubarak and his pals. How peculiar.