Who Knew Joe Exotic Was Ukranian..?

Or that the headline writer at the 'Independent' really thinks there are thousands of lions and tigers in Ukraine's zoos..?

Looking To Challenge The Dear Old 'Grauniad', Are We?

The word is 'barbarous'.

Is This A Parody? It Must Be A Parody, Surely...

Because if it's not, then 2017 is the day the 'Indy' finally jumped the shark....

I’ll probably be called a snowflake for writing this, but all this “dreaming of a white Christmas” leaves me feeling very low every December. As a queer Iraqi immigrant in Britain, Christmas is the time I most hotly feel my displacement.

 Hmmm, wait, I've got something for that here....

That's the ticket!

The Christmas season is polluted with national notions of “home”. Every November and December, my social media channels are assaulted by Christmas promotions, such as a video with Owen Wilson for sofa company Sofolofy which boasted the caption: “It doesn’t matter who you are or where you are, coming home is the best feeling ever. #whenhomereallymatters.”A cisgender white man reclining on an expensive sofa to tell me that going “home” is an irrefutable joy? Hardly a comfort.

 Yeah, we all get fed up with sales adverts, sand holiday adverts too, at this time of year. So what>

Ostensibly – as many intersectional queer identities will tell you – I have no fixed notion of what home is. Due to my sexuality and drag career, it would be unsafe to spend Christmas there.

Boo hoo! So why aren't you happy about being safe?

Yet London feels an equally inhospitable place during the holidays.

Wait, what? As inhospitable as the places that'd cut your head off or hang you from a crane? Are you sure you know what that word actually means?

Aside from the fact that Oxford Street looks like a Christmas Cracker on psychedelics during the festive season, our city becomes saturated with images of nuclear families, with brands coyly reminding us to shower our relatives with love (where love equals moderately-priced fragrances). For the queer people who have endured traumatic rejections from their families and communities, the Christmas barrage only aggravates our feeling unwanted.

So what do you want the world to do, stop celebrating so you can feel better about yourself?

These experiences at Christmas are only symptomatic of broader social issues in the UK. The past two years in politics have seen an acute scapegoating of immigrants for Britain’s problems, and being a nomadic identity is feeling increasingly unsafe here.

Well, nothing keeping you here, is there? If you can't go home, and you can't stay here, might I suggest you find an atlas & start looking for another country to whinge and sulk in?

If Christmas really is about love and generosity, try to spend the holidays thinking about how you might better respect and incorporate migrant and queer identities feeling displaced around the country. Perhaps then we might have a happier New Year.

Yeah, I thought briefly about doing this and then I decided to spend Christmas as I always do - enjoying good food and good company, relaxing with family and friends, and ignoring the bitter complaints of people who are unhappy with their lot and this that that's something everyone else should fix for them.

Newsflash, chum - the power to change is in your own hands, no-one else's.

The Irony Of This Headline About A Student Protest...

...won't be lost on any grammar pedants.

Well, I Suppose You Could Ask Yourself...

...'Has it got four legs, whiskers and a loud purr'..?

Seems A Bit Excessive...

...if all he wanted was a nice, smooth lawn?

“Hey, Peasants, Allow Some Chin-Stroking Academic To Soothe Your Racist Fears…”

So says the ‘Indy’ on the Calais Swarm:

In an effort to separate the reality from the political rhetoric, we asked Professor John Salt of UCL’s Migration Research Unit to respond to some of the most common assertions about immigration to the UK.

Oh boy… *gets popcorn*

Is Britain full?

"The problem here is that there has never been an accepted optimum population level as there are all sorts of constraints. There are various land uses that housing must compete with. For example, you could say that if we hadn’t built all the golf courses we have in Surrey, then we’d have a lot more space to build housing and therefore be in a better position to manage an increased population.

"It’s really a matter of perception and what people are comfortable with. Many of the problems associated with immigration are regionally specific. For example, one of the big problems in the South East is water supply and it could be said that immigration in that region is adding to that pressure, but that is very different to saying Britain is full up. It is possible to divert resources to those areas experiencing most pressures associated with immigration, from those that do not.

"Logic dictates that you cannot keep increasing your population forever. However, when I first began studying this subject in the 1960s, the assumption was that the population would increase to as much as 80 million by the end of the century. All sorts of regional strategies were developed, including plans to create substantial extra capacity in towns like Milton Keynes, Swindon and Northampton. But then the pill was invented and that simply didn’t happen."

Translation: “You’re stupid and racist. Let them all in.”

Are immigrants really taking our jobs?

There are some very interesting figures that relate to this, from the time around the turn of 2004 and 2005 when something like a quarter of a million Poles entered the UK. However, recorded unemployment rates went down between 2003 and 2005, and recorded vacancy rates actually went up slightly, which would seem counter-intuitive. There are of course other factors at play, and people will make of that what they will, but the data would suggest that they weren’t taking the jobs of Brits.

One of the arguments is that certain easy-entry occupations are disproportionately affected, such as catering, food processing, driving jobs and construction, where it is often claimed wages are driven down. The econometric evidence suggests immigration doesn’t generally impact on the pay or employment rates of existing citizens. People in lower paid jobs are more likely to be affected, but even then the effect, statistically speaking, is relatively small.

Translation: “You’re stupid and racist. Let them all in.”

Are most immigrants here illegally? I am often posed this question and my stock answer is that there are only two countries that really have any idea how many immigrants have entered illegally, and they are Australia and North Korea. This is because Australia counts everyone in and out, while North Korea has border controls that most people would consider unacceptable.

For other countries, by definition, we don’t know how many people are there illegally. Many of the people who are in the country illegally are people who have entered legally, but stayed beyond the period they had permission for. But the number of people who actually get into Britain illegally must be pretty small, due to the stringent checks that exist at our main points of entry.

Translation: “You’re stupid and racist. Let them all in.”

Do immigrants claim a disproportionately high amount in welfare and benefits payments?

The studies that have been done do show that immigrants are less likely to claim benefits that native Britons. However, the proportion varies by origin. People who have asylum claims, for example, are not allowed to be employed while their application is being processed, so it is inevitable that they will need more support through welfare payments. But again, that is a relatively small group. On the whole, the story is that migrants are less likely to access benefits payments.

Translation: “You’re stupid and racist. Let them all in.”

Do immigrants put too much strain on education and health services?

I think what does put pressure on these services is the relative age structure of populations. One of the features of the Polish and other eastern European communities which developed in Britain is that they were largely comprised of younger people, who are of course more likely to have children, which will in turn put greater pressure on schools. But authorities will often have data that show this is likely to happen, so should be better placed to deal with those changes.

The other thing to mention is the number of immigrants who work in health and care sectors and recent reports have suggested as many as a one in four new nurses are recruited from abroad. Services may be under pressure, but you simply cannot generalise. Our research indicates that it is always important to look at the routes of entry, which are labour, family, students and asylum. Each of these may have different effects the provision of services and must be taken into account by policy makers at national and local levels.

Translation: “You’re stupid and racist. Let them all in.”

So, that went well, eh?

A Terrorist's Tale...

I only knew Israel from the stories. 

It was the military zone for which Hamas was responsible, but we all knew the stories about how they managed to kill several civilians in one ambush.

Honestly, we were a bit jealous. I was drafted into Hamas at the end of the Second Intifada into a special operations unit. From the start of my service I knew that the West Bank and Haifa would be the areas for which we were responsible. Child’s play, seemingly, compared to the stories that came out of Israel – but my child’s play.

I’ll never forget the first time that I was shot at, the first Jewish corpse I ever saw, and the fear and adrenaline during my first terrorist operation.

No, surprisingly, that's not the sort of thing you'd ever see from the 'Indy', is it? I wonder why...

An ‘Indy’ Guide To Self-Flagellation & Self-Loathing

I was on the London Underground last week when a woman got on at Archway station. She walked through the carriage, placing packets of tissues on the seats between passengers, with a note that read: “I’m a homeless mother of two children and need to support myself.”

My reactions were, in the following order:

1) You’re probably Romanian.

2) You probably stole those tissues.

3) You probably don’t have children.

4) If I wanted tissues, I’d go to Boots.

Congratulation, you’ve matched the internal thought processes of most regular commuters who are plagued by these pests (though thankfully, it’s an Underground issue rather than an Overground issue, in the main).

My first reaction was: "My god. Am I racist?"

Well, no. You’re just observant. But despite that, it seems, you’re exactly the sort of guilt-trippable sucker that con-artists (like this one) rely on.

But to the best of my knowledge, I’ve never uttered a racist remark in my life. Perish the thought. However, later that day, as I blew my nose on a silky Kleenex (50p is a bargain to avoid an awkward silence), I thought of the times my mouth would have disowned my mind if it knew what it was thinking.

You paid her. Thus encouraging her.

Well done, you…

/golfclap

According to a recent British Social Attitudes Survey, one in three of us admits to being racist on some level. It’s fair to assume my tissue issues place me squarely in that shameful third.

*sighs*

My train shame throws into focus where the battle lines against bigotryare really drawn. Certainly not against the “boo hiss!” goons of the BNP. Those pantomime baddies are a clear and present danger. Far more worrying is the unspoken prejudice that informs our interactions with each other. Those daily knee-jerk thoughts that make us judge others, without questioning ourselves for thinking them.

But wait, isn’t this a …

Well, what do you know!

Judging people is a vital survival skill taught to children.

Hurrah!

But the gap between judgment and prejudice can be treacherous to navigate. Britain in 2014 is a tolerant place to be. But the Social Attitudes Survey should serve as a wake-up call to us all. Latent, if not blatant, prejudice bubbles beneath the surface of modern Britain.

If we remain blind to our worst instincts and their consequences, we lose the battle at precisely the point where it needs to be won. The next step is to change our thinking long before the words start spilling out our mouths.

You change your thinking if you want to. I'll go on thinking as I do. That way, I'll save 50p.

Ohhh, Ohhh, I Know The Answer!

*waves hand in air*

Is it because they are polar bears, and not human beings?

You Know You've Played Too Many Hunting Games...

...when you look at a newspaper wildlife appeal poster and all you can think is "Far too low for a kill shot:"

The 'Independent' Redefines 'Extremely Horrific'....

Ummm, no. The attack on the Miami homeless man by the 'cannibal' was extremely horrific. Tonight's Red Wedding scene in 'Game Of Thrones' is extremely horrific.

This is just a minor incident of assault. It wouldn't  say, attract more than a fine or suspended sentence if it happened in the street to someone else...

Mind you, there's a lot of it about...

Norman Kelly, who was outside courtroom eight at the time of the incident, described how the drama unfolded.

The 53-year-old construction worker from Bevendean, Brighton, said: “I was standing outside the court when suddenly people rushed out.

“Someone yelled, ‘The magistrate has just been attacked’.

“I understood the man flew at the magistrate. He had maybe been between 8ft and 10ft away from him before then and he apparently just launched at him. The woman who was in the dock came out of court in hysterics but the man who people said attacked the magistrate did not come out.”

And what was this one all about?

Mr Kelly, who was at court supporting a friend, had been sitting in the public gallery moments earlier. He said the case was about council tax non-payment. He claimed the man accused of attacking the magistrate – who was chairing a bench of three – was sitting with the accused woman.

He said: “From my perspective it looked as though she had some difficulties with hearing and he was helping her. He was sitting next to her but he was told not to speak and it kicked off.”

Lovely!

A Sussex Police spokesman said: “A 50-year-old man from Brighton was arrested on suspicion of battery on Thursday after he allegedly attacked a magistrate and security staff at Brighton Magistrates’ Court.”

There's not a lot of sympathy for the magistrate in the comments....

How To Torpedo Your Own Argument….

Richard Sudan in the ‘Indy’:

…. the pathologist who conducted two post mortem examinations on Ian Tomlinson, the newspaper seller and father of nine who was killed in 2009 at the G20 protests in London after being pushed to the ground by a police officer, faces being struck off after a tribunal panel of medical professionals noticed a number of key errors in his work and found him to be ‘dishonest’.

This prompts him into a rant about Tomlinson’s death, the IPCC, the Harwood trial, the need for reform of the Met, etc, etc. And also this:

Among other factors (there are too many to go into here) we know institutional racism still exists. We know where it exists. If you’re black in this country you’re still almost thirty times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police. Of those stopped and searched the percentage of searches that result in a conviction is a small percentage. If some people cannot be persuaded that this is actually immoral, then what about the economic argument? What about the money being wasted on stopping and searching so many innocent people? What about the fact that this racism affects the whole of society and not just those being mistreated and victimised? What about the legacy it leaves and has already left? What about focusing on inclusiveness within the upper ranks of the Met? Would a greater diversity in leadership among senior officers bring a better level of understanding on the ground?

Yes, it’s all ‘institutional racism’.

Oh, wait. The name of that pathologist, if you please, Richard?

Freddy Patel…

Ah. Thanks.

Clearly it was that dreaded institutional racism that kept him in his job long after the concerns were raised..?

MONA Behaving Badly..?

Eva Charalambous on being a woman in London:

This week Sophie Peeters, a film student from France released a video called Femme De La Rue. In the film Sophie walks around her local neighbourhood in Brussels. For most of the film she is wearing a knee length summer dress and cowboy boots, and sometimes she is wearing a cardigan and a scarf. A hidden camera films her progress.

She gets harassed. Repeatedly. Find that hard to believe? Well, there’s a wrinkle here:

Some controversy has flared up about the film, in particular because many of the men who harass Peeter’s in the film are of North African extraction, and Peeters is a white woman.

Ah. Now the penny drops. But don’t think what you are thinking!

But for those of you, who think that this sort of harassment is unique to the streets of Brussels or a racial matter, you are mistaken.

And Eva’s going to show you why:

I was shocked when I first saw the film but then I had to admit to myself that this was all too familiar. I have lived in London for most of my life, I am now 21 and for the last four years almost every day I have experienced harassment of this kind. When I was sixteen it was much the same as Peeters shows in her film… men asking me for my number or for a fuck, and the occasional a white van bibbing as they sped past.

Hmm, how can you tell they are bibbing at you, Eva?

Whilst travelling on the tube in rush hour, with barely any room to breathe, I am forced to endure middle aged men standing close, asking for my name and not giving up until I am forced to leave the train before I have reached my stop.

Really? My inner sceptic is coming out to play, here…

Last week at 5pm two men in a car followed me down a street nearly a mile long. At first the driver started slowing down, asking me relatively harmless questions like “Will you marry me?” to which I responded in my usual manner- I looked at the ground and kept silent. Then he became progressively more aggressive. He started to pull up and get out of his car, asking me for s88. He did this four times in total. Luckily, a friend of mine called me on my mobile phone and I made her stay on the phone to me till I reached my destination, trying my best to ignore the man pursuing me down the street.

So….why no descriptions of the men?

I mean, you’ve shown how it’s not ‘unique to the streets of Brussels’, Eva, but you’ve studiously ignored the elephant in the room, haven’t you?

I guess we are entitled to draw our own conclusions as to why…

Left-Wing Media Struggles Manfully With Disappointment…

…as follow up riots fail to materialise on the anniversary.

First up, the ‘Guardian’. And we must look to the comments to sum up this article:

Wessexboy

Hardly surprising that a study sponsored by the Guardian and the LSE has blamed everyone for the riots except the rioters.

Well, quite!

Widespread anger and frustration at the way police engage with communities was a significant cause of the summer riots in every major city where disorder took place, the biggest study into their cause has found.

And who did they interview to find this little nugget?

Hundreds of interviews with people who took part in the disturbances which spread across England in August revealed deep-seated and sometimes visceral antipathy towards police.

Fancy that! Well, you could knock me down with a feather! Criminals aren’t too keen on the people who aim to stop them committing criminal acts, eh?

Of those interviewed in the Reading the Riots study, 73% said they had been stopped and searched in the previous 12 months.

Another shocker! Known bad ‘uns are more likely to be stopped by the police! Clearly, money well spent on this study, eh?

Meanwhile, The ‘Indy’ thinks that hearing the words directly out of the mouths of the street trash poor unfortunate victims of society will do the trick. So meet Karl Lokko:

Dear Society, my name is Karl Lokko. I'm a young man from south London. In the sight of many of you I may be considered a nobody – you may have walked past me on the Tube or been stood next to me at the bus stop and had your nose so high in the air you couldn't see me. You may not have seen me then, but lend me your attention briefly now....

No chips on shoulders on display there, then…

The alcoholic that sleeps in the park is a human being just like me and you; that cocaine addict in the shelter is a human being just like me and you – they just took a wrong turn. Since when did we penalise an individual for being lost?

We don’t. We penalise them when they break the law.

Some of my peers have made your headlines, your front pages, your tea-time discussions, all for the wrong reasons. And because of the places they have wound up, you feel you have the right to give them labels. You call us hoodlums. Scoundrels. Monsters. Dogs. Animals. But you only know about the incident that got them in the headlines, not the incidents that led them there.

Wrong. We don’t care about the ‘incidents that led them there’. They’ve all got their excuses, their sob stories, their ways of avoiding personal responsibility.

Mostly, they blame it on ‘society’, as if th…

Oh. Right.

Society is supposed to act as everyone's guardian, but society's neglect of the underprivileged has created what you now refer to as "monsters".

*sigh*

From a young age I lacked self-esteem. I was bullied, which contributed to my feeling of worthlessness.

Maybe it’s not just a feeling. Maybe you really are worthless?

Yes I broke the law, but society helped in the breaking of my identity and instead of taking the time to fix it sensitively and with love, all that is thrown at it are more police and more money.

Why would society want to furnish you with love and sensitivity when you can’t fit in to it? No-one’s that daft that they…

Oh.

I myself was a lost child, broken and travelling a road of destruction en route to either death, lifelong incarceration or the mental institution. But I received the right directions from genuine, loving, sincere people like Pastor Mimi and Camila and her team at Kids Company.

Say no more!

Not to be outdone, the ‘Guardian’ invites Daniel Edu to join in the pity party:

"People like you … " These three words, as innocent as they might sound, should be the epitaph for last August's riots. It was 3am when the police barged into my house to search for stolen goods. "We've seen hundreds of people like you before, just tell us where the stuff is and don't waste our time," they said. I had nothing to hide. I stood by and watched them hunt for something that wasn't there.

And why did they raid your house? Mistaken identity, was it?

I gave my side of the story in court and explained that I'd left my house to see all the madness on TV in real life – it looked like history in the making and I didn't want to miss out. I'd followed others into a shop for five minutes and had no intention of stealing anything. I left of my own accord. Emptyhanded.

Well, of course you did…

The judge told me he didn't believe me.

Fancy…

There’s always a jury though. Sometimes, they’ll buy it.

I was released in the end after being found not guilty on all charges.

And now?

Like many of my friends, I still feel the police represent a community that doesn't include me. No one could understand why rioters targeted their local areas, but on that night the shops were owned by the police who had forever targeted us with stop and searches. On that night, the shop I went into wasn't the shop I know well where I regularly speak to the owner. There's rarely a day goes by when the thought of being sent back to the place where they kept me doesn't go through my mind. I live an honest life and have a job. I live by the law. But I know that sometimes isn't enough for people like me.

Have you been dawnraided since? No?

I guess that job and living that honest life are just coincidental to that?

Why Can’t They Think Like Meeeeeee!

Dear, dear Yasmin again:

On Saturday we drove our daughter up to university where, for the next four years, she'll be studying for a degree in engineering… There she goes, a young woman who doesn't even consciously think it is her "right" to study a male-dominated course. She chose a subject and went for it.

So, you must be happy, right?

Within just two generations, my family has gone from barely any educated females to this.

Scratch ‘happy’ – you must be ecstatic?

Maybe this is why I am so grateful for the gains made by feminism – and also aware of its occasional drift into banality or hideous egocentricity.

Ah. I knew it couldn’t last.

One tires of middle-class, professional women prating on and on about how hard it all is – from "inconsiderate" nannies to husbands who don't sympathise enough with juggler mums in stilettos trying to keep all those plates spinning. These are but the gripes of small things.

OK, so, what should they be complaining about?

… such frustrations, though understandable, sound vain and flighty in these hard times, when various catastrophic national and international crises are gathering, affecting the life chances of millions of women and their children.

Such as…?

Would you believe, new film releases?

Yes, really:

And that brings me to the newly released film I Don't Know How She Does It, starring Sarah Jessica Parker about the many trials and tribulations of Kate Reddy, an ambitious and successful businesswoman, and also a mum with a loving husband.

AWFUL! OUTRAGE!

For feminists like myself the film irks not only because now Reddy seems selfish and greedy but because the highly dramatised domestic irritations of the privileged have been taken up by today's self-obsessed mumsy websites at a time when we have the global recession, wars, famines, undiminished male violence against women and evidence of increasing childhood trauma, even in rich countries.

‘Mumsy’ websites? Could she possibly mean….?

Oh. She could!

Look at the immensely powerful Mumsnet website and some other copycat ones and there is barely any mention of (or fundraising for) the famines in East Africa where mothers push dry breasts into the limp mouths of babies as they die.

Yazza vs Mumsnet – it’s like ‘Thunderdome’ only without the ugly mutants.

Not much about domestic violence either, or any serious take on the policies of the Coalition government which are leading to unprecedented numbers of female redundancies.

*yawn* Change the record, Yazz…

Some political issue occasionally slips in. Not nearly enough. In truth the new film and online chattering lasses are disturbingly apolitical and indifferent to class inequality between women and real gender parity.

Oh, how shocking! Maybe, unlike you, Yaz, they’ve just grown out of student politics?

Quick! Pander To Them Some More!

I don't know what they're going to do about this rioting", said a newscaster on one of the main local TV stations during the Watts Riots in August 1965, "but I know what I'm going to do." And with that, he pulled a gun from his pocket and laid it on the table before him.

Riots, particularly those with any racial tinge, produce a visceral fear among the middle classes that the underclass will pour out of their estates and ghettos to wreak havoc on their havens.

Well, yes. And they’ve got much less far to go than in LA. And we don’t have guns.

The police do, but are remarkably reluctant to use them.

It's been no different in London this time, as the inhabitants of my area of Brixton huddled in fear that looting in the High Street would expand to rape and pillage in the whole neighbourhood.

Well, at least Sky TV would have given them fair warning of the hordes advancing…

Back then in California there was open talk of war as the rioters were reported to have taken up the cry of "Burn, Baby, Burn". The National Guard was called in. Nervous and untrained, they shot at anyone carrying away goods from a shop, including 10- and 12-year-old kids.

We used to shoot looters too, back in the dim, distant past. Pity we still don’t!

It's hard to see the violence of the last week across Britain as anything very different.

There isn't the same straight racial character to the outbreaks which have occurred in the last few days – although a surprising number of ordinary people seem to believe there is. But all the accusations of "mindless violence", "feral kids" and "social breakdown" – the LA police chief in 1965 didn't improve matters by calling them "monkeys in the zoo" – are pretty much the same.

What should we use, non-harsh and judgemental language? This Mac cartoon pretty much sums it up.

Our patience with this sort of appeasement has evaporated.

… the rioting tends to exhaust itself when the young have enjoyed the pleasures of destruction and theft, as much as because of the restoration of order by the police.

No, you cretin, it’s not some wildfire in an uninhabited wilderness we should just let burn itself out, it’s people’s homes and livelihoods!

What does matter are the consequences. The Watts Riots led to an intense bout of soul-searching in America and a good deal of action led by President Lyndon Johnson (a good liberal on these matters) to improve conditions for the dispossessed.

To….

To WHAT?!??

We should ‘improve their conditions’? Whose conditions? Hers?

And in Britain? The rhetoric, it has to be said, has so far been almost entirely on the lines of suppression rather than reconstruction.

What a shocker…

In all the statements of ministers and the Mayor of London there has been virtually no mention of communities and talking with them, only of cracking down on wrong doers.

It’s not ‘communities’ out there looting and burning. It’s individuals.

Yet Britain is not nearly as divided, or as frightening, a country as America. Sink estates exist side by side with posher streets. Gated communities are still the exception rather than the rule.

I bet they become a lot less of an exception in the future!

Any reconciliation has to be carried out by building community relations between the underclass and their neighbours.

Just what does this mouth-breathing cretin think we need to ‘reconcile’?

The one advantage that the authorities have now – unless they want to throw it away in an orgy of punishment – is that the local communities are as appalled by what has happened as the Government is.

And they are crying out for punishment. Not ‘reconciliation’.

Take note of that.

The ‘Independent’ Holds A ‘Missing The Bloody Point By A Mile’ Contest (Part II)…

Next, Camilla Batmanghelidjh:

London has woken up to street violence, and the usual narratives have emerged – punish those responsible for the violence because they are "opportunist criminals" and "disgusting thieves".

Ooooh, god forbid there should be punishment…

The slightly more intellectually curious…

Translation: ‘People who think just a little bit like me, but not enough’.

… might blame the trouble on poor police relations or lack of policing.

Surely not? *chortle*

What about you?

My own view is that the police in this country do an impressive job and unjustly carry the consequences of a much wider social dysfunction. Before you take a breath of sarcasm thinking "here she goes, excusing the criminals with some sob story"…

Yeah, you got me there!

… I want to begin by stating two things. First, violence and looting can never be justified. Second, for those of us working at street level, we're not surprised by these events.

Working ‘at street level’? Don’t you spend all your time at BBC TV HQ or charity events?

How, we ask, could they attack their own community with such disregard? But the young people would reply "easily", because they feel they don't actually belong to the community.

Community, they would say, has nothing to offer them.

A wise man once said ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, ask instead what you can do for your country’. Perhaps you should tell them that. In fact, he had other observations that would stand them well too.

The insidious flourishing of anti-establishment attitudes is paradoxically helped by the establishment. It grows when a child is dragged by their mother to social services screaming for help and security guards remove both; or in the shiny academies which, quietly, rid themselves of the most disturbed kids. Walk into the mental hospitals and there is nothing for the patients to do except peel the wallpaper. Go to the youth centre and you will find the staff have locked themselves up in the office because disturbed young men are dominating the space with their violent dogs.

What should they do, then? Get themselves savaged?

It's not one occasional attack on dignity, it's a repeated humiliation, being continuously dispossessed in a society rich with possession.

Most of these street rats seem to have had the latest mobiles and trainers even before the looting…

Our leaders still speak about how protecting the community is vital. The trouble is, the deal has gone sour. The community has selected who is worthy of help and who is not.

Perhaps, just perhaps, the community is right…

I got a call yesterday morning. The kids gave me a run-down of what had happened in Brixton. A street party had been invaded by a group of young men out to grab. A few years ago, the kids who called me would have joined in, because they had nothing to lose. One had been permanently excluded from six schools. When he first arrived at Kids Company he cared so little that he would smash his head into a pane of glass and bite his own flesh off with rage. He'd think nothing of hurting others. After intensive social care and support he walked away when the riots began because he held more value in his membership of a community that has embraced him than a community that demanded his dark side.

He didn’t try to stop the rioting.

He didn’t call the emergency services.

He didn’t stay to help the injured.

He walked away.

That’s the best you can do, Camilla? Is that the best your much vaunted charity can manage?

If so, we're screwed.

The ‘Independent’ Holds A ‘Missing The Bloody Point By A Mile’ Contest…

First up, Christina Patterson:

August, historians will tell you, is a good time to start a war. And, boy, does this feel like a war.

Oh, good grief! That line could only be written by someone who’s never seen a war…

… for the people who lost their homes, and all their possessions, and their children's toys, and every single photo of their children, which they will never, ever be able to get back, and who nearly lost their lives, and their children's lives, because someone thought it was a good laugh to throw a can of kerosene and a match, it must have felt as near as you get to losing your world, without losing your life.

So, what caused this ‘war’?

This is what happens in a war. Wars start for a million different reasons, and the time to understand those reasons is not while the war is going on. They can start – even world wars can start – with a single gunshot. This one did. This one started with an old, old story, of a black man killed by police.

Oh, here we go…

It started when a woman wanted to know why four children would never see their father again.

Because he was the sort of man who comes to the attention of armed police. Next!

And when the police said nothing.

Because they can’t say anything until they have some forensics. Which they’ve now got. Next!

And frustration turned, as it often does, and particularly in communities where there's a lot of frustration, to anger, and anger turned, as it often does, and particularly in communities where there are a lot of teenagers with not very much to do, to violence.

What a shame the first few rioters and looters to be charged were not entirely jobless teenagers, but teachers, postmen, lifeguards, dental nurses…

And it spread. Do we know if the boys, and young men, smashing windows, and trashing shops, and burning cars, and buses, and buildings, in Hackney, and Croydon, and Brixton, and telling passers-by that what they were doing was "fun", and that they were "trying to get their taxes back", knew about the shooting of the black man, or even cared?

I rather think you’ve answered your own question, haven’t you?

Do we know if they knew about the black teenager in Hackney who was stopped and searched by the police, and found to have nothing illegal on him?

And that’s some kind of burning INJUSTICE!, is it?

We don't, and we can't. We don't, and can't, know why young men, and teenagers, and children as young as 10 suddenly decided that it was a good idea to do what everyone else was doing, which was to spread chaos, and violence, and fear.

But you’re going to hang your hat on racism, aren’t you?

Race didn't cause these riots, but it played a part. Why else do you get three black men talking about them on Newsnight, when you almost never see a black man talking about anything on Newsnight?

Have you ever even seen Newsnight, Christina?

There are 169 gangs in London. There are 22 in Hackney alone. These are people, often people who have grown up on estates where almost nobody works, often without fathers, and often without any qualifications, skills, or ambitions, who feel that the world has let them down. The guns and knives they carry make them feel that there's a tiny corner of the world they can control. And because of these boys – no more than 2,000 of them – who carry guns and knives, and because it takes more than reports on "institutional racism" to get rid of "institutional racism", you can hardly walk down a street, if you're black, without being stopped and searched.

It’s the decent black mothers and fathers terrified for their kids that are actually happy for stop and search, though…

Too many black men have been killed by the police.

Should they kill some white men to even the score? They’re trying, after all!

Too many black men and women have been treated like criminals when they're not.

Same goes for white and brown men and women. I don’t see them rioting.

Cuts won't help. Growing unemployment won't help. Some investment, in youth services, and better schools, and mentoring schemes, might, but money alone isn't the answer.

It isn’t? Great, so carry on with the cuts!

It wasn't these children who created the culture that told them that what mattered was the brand of their trainers, or the glitter of their bling. It wasn't these children who created the culture that told them that their one hope of escape was hip hop, or fame.

If they didn’t create it, who did?

It wasn't these children who created the institutions of a country where all the black workers were in the canteens. We have, as a society, created this monster and, as a society, and like those people heading into the trouble spots with dustpans and brushes, we must pick up the pieces.

Good idea.

How?

To be continued...

Stop Press! Girls Not Necessarily Free Of Slugs, Snails Ands Puppy Dog Tails…

…at least, according to dear old Yaz:

If there was real gender parity, I said last week, women would be able to be brilliant and total failures – great and not so great, heroes and anti-heroes, just like men. It was at a lively debate on women in politics at the House of Commons.

Too blasé, methinks now, simplistic, an ethically dubious position when one considers recent examples of atrocious female behaviour.

Oh, it’s the recent examples that have swayed you?

The Human Trafficking Foundation has just revealed that it is mainly women who are entrapping and forcing young, trusting lasses from abroad into the most bestial forms of prostitution in the UK.

Fancy! That’s never happened before, Yaz?

In India, Pakistan, Japan, China and elsewhere there have always been women who prostituted their own daughters, or connived to capture innocent girls and groom them.

So, it has. So why did you say it was a revelation?

In the past five years, we have been forced to open our eyes here, as women, often in trusted positions, have been convicted of grotesque acts on babies, infants and teenagers.

Yes, in the fine old traditions of Myra Hindley, Mary Bell, etc. All of them a lot longer ago than five years….

I have been writing about female genital mutilation for more than two decades. In all that time I have not met a single man who matched the pitiless fervour of the mothers, aunts and grandmothers, all of whom held on to the conviction that the slashing, maiming and closing off of a young girl's sexual parts was not only necessary, but noble.

So you’ve been writing about it for twenty years, yet it’s a sudden conversion?

Yaz, you’re all over the place, aren’t you?

We feminists, with our neat critiques of male dominance, are pathologically unable to deal with the fact that females are, sometimes, more sadistic than men and can and do viciously hurt their own sex. Who dares within the sisterhood to revise the assumptions on which so much of that belief system rests?

‘We’..? You’ve swallowed it as well, in the past. Don’t go sniping at others.

If we say that women must not be judged as harshly as men when they destroy those who are vulnerable, or that a woman must have the right to be as evil as a man, what kind of world is that?

The kind I thought you wanted to make?

Perhaps I am coming round to the view that no, women shouldn't behave as badly as bad men, and when they do, they should be judged more harshly. Equality is essential, but morality is more fundamental; it has to be, surely.

Judging them more harshly is equality..?

Good grief! Even by Yaz’s normal dismal standards, this is a dreadful column.