Riots, Then And Now

There's been a serious change in my attitude, and I suspect many peoples' attitudes, to the current riots in London compared to our attitude in the eighties. When I say 'riots' I mean the outbreak in Tottenham on Saturday, not the wanton theft and looting that has since happened elsewhere in London.

I remember the riots in the eighties in Brixton, Liverpool, Manchester and elsewhere and most of us instinctively sided with the police. The problem today is that peoples' confidence in authority, the police especially, is so low that we can't condemn the rioters quite so unequivocally as we did thirty years ago.

I don't include the student riots in this either. They were just a bunch of spoilt brats who needed a good hiding.