brits behaving badly

I'm about to make a comparison between the riots and looting of early August and the way Brits behave in cafes.

I know, I know... extreme. How long before Godwin's Law is invoked?

This is one of my pet hates, and I'm witnessing it as I write this piece.

I'm in the M&S cafe in Reading. Don't judge me! The only independent coffee house I've tried in Reading was bloody awful.

Plus, my youngest son (sat next to me scoffing an enormous cookie) likes it here.

Back to the pet hate. It was relatively quiet when we arrived. Since then, it's got busier. There's a longish queue and empty tables are fewer in number than they were.

I've watched about six groups of people walk in, bypass the queue, find a table, deposit themselves and their bags at said table, and send one person off to join the queue.

I've also watched several people leave the queue with their trays piled high, often with children in tow, struggle to find somewhere to sit.

"I'm sorry," the table-baggers say. "Someone is sitting here."

What I hear though is, "up yours you loser."

It's a bit of a leap, I admit, from here to looting. But what I'm witnessing is a lack of consideration for others.

Sadly, I think it's endemic.

I don't know what it is about this country, my home, but good manners are becoming as rare as hens' teeth. And it just fosters an attitude of looking after number one, and not giving a toss about anyone else.

It's a shame. A real shame.

We can all call for looters to be locked up for years, that's easy.

But what's much harder, is to look at ourselves and consider how we might lead by example in the little things we do every day.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

why four years for the facebook rioters is not a good thing

Two young men in north west England have been sentenced to four years in prison, each, for content posted on Facebook that was deemed to be inciting people to riot.

Some of you may be thinking this is a good thing.

But it's not good.  It's far from good.

The average sentence handed down to rapists in the UK is five years.

That's the average. You don’t need to be a statistician to appreciate that means some get sentences that are far more lenient.

It has to be possible that at the same time one of those men was using Facebook to attempt to encourage people to engage in acts of criminal destruction (in one case the proposed target was a McDonald's restaurant) somewhere in the UK a woman was being raped.

Should her attacker be arrested, convicted and sent to prison in accordance with the existing typical sentencing loads, that rapist will be released back into society before someone who invited people to a riot that never took place.

This cannot, to any reasonable person, be a good thing.

I do not advocate leniency in the sentencing of people who have sought to perpetrate civil disorder, theft and destruction. Far from it.

The events that took place around 8/9 August 2011, when the rioting and looting reached its apex, were shocking and appalling. Those that broke the law must be brought to book and suffer the consequences.

However, the government has been on the back-foot from the outset and even now is seeking to position itself as in control of things by virtue of a succession of reactionary statements driven by fear. Now, it would appear, the judiciary is caught up in that fear too.

So much for the separation of powers.

Crack down on rioters and looters by all means. That can only be a good thing. Furthermore, investigating options for coping with the way in which people will choose to use social media, mobile phones and other messaging technologies is a good thing too.

Sending someone down for a failed attempt at inciting a riot – whether they do it on Facebook, Twitter, SMS, a phone call, a fax, or even a carrier pigeon – is also a good thing.

But a situation where rapists face lighter prison sentences than a couple of idiots in Cheshire whose clumsy attempts to look big on Facebook would be more at home on a site called egg-on-your-face-book is not a good thing.

It is a bad thing.

after the london riots, why david cameron needs to lead the clean-up

David Cameron is right.

That’s not something I ever thought I’d write, let alone a viewpoint I’d ever share in public.

I have not had a right-wing epiphany though.

In the speech given on 10 August, the Prime Minister spoke with forceful authority on the causes of the appalling scenes of rioting, looting and criminal destruction visited upon the UK.

Clearly he is a man who wants us to know he is not only going to be tough on crime, but tough on the causes of crime too.

“For me, the root cause of this mindless selfishness is the same thing that I have spoken about for years,” Mr Cameron said.

And I agree with him on that point. I have often regaled people with my opinion that the UK has lost its sense of civic pride and civic duty over the last three or four decades.

He went on, as politicians often do: “It is a complete lack of responsibility in parts of our society. People allowed to feel that the world owes them something, that their rights outweigh their responsibilities and that their actions do not have consequences.”

On this point, David Cameron and I speak with a single voice.

However, I do feel he is being somewhat selective with scope of his argument.

When I heard the Prime Minister speak these words the first thing that sprang to mind was this:

MPs' expenses: Eric Illsley claimed £150,000

And this:

How Jim Devine claimed thousands using fake receipts

And especially this:

MPs' expenses: duck house MP 'refusing to pay back £40,000'

It also brought to mind this:

Phone hacking: Hundreds of "smoking gun" emails released to detectives probing police corruption

The rioting, looting, and arson that the UK, and in particular London, has witnessed in recent days cannot be excused. The wanton destruction, criminal damage, lawlessness, and violence are all things that defy legitimisation.

Homes have been destroyed. Livelihoods ruined. Some people have lost everything they owned and worked for. Some have lost their lives.

I look around and wonder what on earth has happened to my country.

And I ask myself who the hell is actually in charge.

Is it a callous minority, hell-bent on helping themselves to whatever’s available while no one is looking, and doing their best to conceal their illegal and immoral behaviour?

Or is it a callous minority, hell-bent on helping themselves to whatever’s available while no one is looking, and doing their best to conceal their illegal and immoral behaviour?

In his speech David Cameron also said: “Well, they (referring to the ‘actions’ in the above quote) do have consequences. We need to have a clearer code of values and standards that we expect people to live by and stronger penalties if they cross the line. Restoring a stronger sense of responsibility across our society, in every town, in every street, in every estate is something I’m determined to do.”

Once again, Mr Cameron, you and I occupy common ground.

But – without wishing for one second to sound like an apologist for scum – this code of values and standards needs to embraced by everyone.

I do not want to live in a country where seemingly ordinary people wreak havoc because of greed, avarice, a lack of respect for their fellow human beings and a disregard for the safety and wellbeing of anyone and everyone around them.

Similarly, I do not want to live in a country where politicians steal from the public purse, where newspapers hack into the phones of dead teenagers, where corrupt police officers are being bribed by journalists to supply information and turn a blind eye.

Anyone in a position of authority and leadership will find out, if they weren’t already aware, that respect is earned – it doesn’t come with your job title, or your accent, or your grey hairs and wrinkles.

Leaders are respected most when they are leading from the front. After all, if you’re not out front you’re plainly not the one doing the leading.