An open response to a Callum Jones blog on the London Riots

Callum,

It is unfortunate that you got challenged in the shop this morning, get over it.  I believe that that there is more to all this than just mindless thuggery, but at the end of the day it is mindless thuggery and it is a type of thuggery that society has brought upon itself and it started the day that the welfare state was introduced.  From the very first day of the welfare state we have been heading towards these days of social unrest.

We have for the last 40 years been telling a section of society that you do not need to take care of your self, you do not need a job, you do not need to pay rent.  We, the state will do it for you and it will be funded by people in work!

It is a great concept, the welfare state, and there will always be people who do need assistance through life, but what we did, was make it the norm where we have got to the point where lazy feckless gits, like those who are rioting have got to the point where they truly and actually believe that every single thing in life should be given to them for free, and maybe it will one day, whether they are actually capable of finding a job and getting paid for it to be able to go and purchase everything like the rest of us

We have generations of families who have seen their parents and grandparents, sitting at home because they have rolled out one excuse after another as to why they should not work and we have given them handouts to enable them to buy their drugs and their booze and run their cars!  This is borne out by the fact that while the papers may keep referring to 'youths' the rest of us are watching the images and seeing that it is not wholly this section of the populace who are out there.  I nearly said section of the community, but they are as far removed from being a part of a community as ET.  But we do know, fact, that a large number of youths are out there because there feckless parents don't give a shit about them and they were born probably and only as a means to get an additional cash bonus through the child benefit system and the parents, do not give one toss where they are or what they are doing at any time of the day or night!

And in that condition they have learned that they have no need to respect the state or their neighbours.  And so when the payouts are reduced, or cut, what do they resort to, mindless thuggery.  It is not aimed at authority or the state persay, how many town halls were attacked, how many police stations were attacked.  I can't see any reports saying any were.  No it was shops and mostly little shops, one man and one woman enterprises that suffer at the hands of these thugs  Including my own son who had bricks thrown through his bar windows last night.

As to you comments, " Some smart arses are claiming that police need to be more forceful, using water cannons and rubber bullets.  Let me take you back to the G20 protests in 2009, and the Demolition Student Fees protests last year, when the same idiots were accusing the police of being too heavy handed.  If Tom Goodwin or David Cameron honestly believed that the police on the ground needed more resources, they would give it to them."

I was one of those smart asses, but not in accusing them of being too heavy handed, and I am calling for them to do it again, Now, Tonight and any time mindless thugs, whether they are the riff raff who will not work or the riff raff who 'protest' under the guise of being angry students.

There is no excuse for what happened this week,  just as there was no excuse in 2009 or by students 'protesting' about Student Fees.  I said then and say it to you again that they should have used rubber bullets and water cannon then as they should be now.  Kettling, I am fine with that.  I have no problem with people marching down the street in a peaceful manner protesting about this or that, but when it turns into wanton thuggery, like throwing a fire extinguisher off a roof into a crowd below, or trying to burn down a shop  they should be treated with appropriate force and if that means you hit them with rubber bullets or water cannon to prevent them from burning down a shop, many with flats with people in them above, then I say get on with it, pull the trigger, don't hesitate Or do you say let the people burn?

As for your clearly sycophantic comments in regard to Goodwin and Cameron, it is clear that you intend to go into politics maybe, instead of journalism, and are feathering your bed, go for it, but what I saw this morning in the brief statement by Cameron, was a man caught in the headlamps, who did not know WTF was going on or what to do about it and made a cowardly retreat after his pathetic statement, back through the safest doors in the land into No 1O, while the country is going down in flames.

PS.  Callum's piece can be found here