UK UK Newswire Archive
A costly mistake... but we are people too
08-08-2011 17:55
I was under ten when PC Keith Blakelock was killed and Broadwater Farm erupted in the now infamous riots of 1985. I was growing up a few miles away near Finsbury Park; racial tension existed locally, with the National Front in evidence across north and east London; sympathy for the unwilling victims of an unwanted war in Northern Ireland was widespread; and there was little respect for authority in the form of the Metropolitan Police - a feeling vindicated by the subsequent unmasking of corruption at "Stokey-Pokey" (Stoke Newington) police station, situated only a short distance away in Hackney.
Twenty-five years later, despite what even recently appeared to have been progress, little has actually changed. As a nation, we are all affected by the corruption of authority. The financial extravagances of recent years are causing the economic system to collapse on us - and the poor are paying. Racial tensions persist, with increasing support for the English Defence League across the country, and DNA profiles samples taken by police in London are disproportionately far greater for non-northern European whites (more than 1 in 2 of all such profiles) than the comparable figure for the London population as a whole (approximately 30%). We remain involved in costly, unwanted and unnecessary wars against "terrorists", and bribing the police is apparently still rife - if their conduct surrounding the red-top press is anything to go by.
Yet the riots in Tottenham and Wood Green on Saturday night were not political in origin, say the commentators. I disagree. They may not have been consciously political - the destruction of local businesses (I don't mean the IKEAs, CarPhone Warehouses or HMVs, but the local grocery stores and small businesses run by families or individuals) is not commensurate with good neighbourly manners - but the riots carry a message: "We are people too." The banking excesses of the past decade have robbed us - the people - who are now expected to pay the price. And now the people are asking "why?" Why are our youth clubs, nurseries, leisure centres, and libraries being closed? Why are hospital budgets and health care services being cut? Why are we blamed and why are we carrying the can for the problems caused by elites?
Indeed, Haringey seems to suffer most from this robbery: as a borough, it is ranked in the top 15 most deprived boroughs in England (there are 326 altogether). More specifically, it is Tottenham that bears the brunt of this; the western half of the borough contains the relatively much more affluent districts around Alexandra Palace, Muswell Hill and Highgate. The deprivation figures across the borough only become more extreme when looking at specific measures of deprivation such as child poverty, employment levels, or housing.
Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? It would be nice to say "yes," but I'm not sure that I can. Downing Street on Sunday morning lit a candle in the dark: by stating that "[t]he rioting in Tottenham last night was utterly unacceptable" the door at least has been opened for local residents to claim compensation under the Riot (Damages) Act 1886. This makes provision for monies to be "paid out of the police fund of the area" But such retrospective claims often take years to effect, and the damage upon our communities is being inflicted now. Cameron's cuts can only lead to further unrest; the true remedy requires long term investment in community combined with an understanding of every day life - an understanding that this government is clearly lacking. The coalition's failure to learn the lessons of the last 30 years is proving a costly mistake for us all.
Eyewitness account from Edmonton 'riot'
08-08-2011 17:14
The police were clearly psyched up and frustrated that they couldn’t break more heads. One man, who happened to be both young and black, but in the area to monitor policing for the network for police monitoring, was arrested for obstructing police after he refused to give a name and address. In the back of the police van he was then repeatedly punched in the face leaving him with cuts, bruises and a bleeding lip.
If this is a typical example of how the police treat local black and working class youths – and there is every reason to think that it is – then it isn’t difficult to understand the anger and rage that exists.
ATOS Worker - Sick are "Parasitical Wankers" - Update and Dox
08-08-2011 17:03
kicking off in hackney 16.45
08-08-2011 16:55
16:49 →
kicking off in #hackney tsg out ppl throwing stuff at therm #londonriots police car attacked shop windows smashed
08 Aug 16:38 →
shops shut early in hackney mare st lots of police. reports of shops shutting all over -ilford - green lanes - stratford, enfield, barnet, palmers gn.
.
Hackney uprising going off NOW Mare st.
08-08-2011 16:28
Live footage on BBC news 24, get on social media and keep comms upUK Antifascist Prisoners – Latest info
08-08-2011 14:27
Solidarity action in USA with London Rioters
08-08-2011 14:05
BRIEF NEWS - Fuck the Police - Cop Car Window SmashedMOX Maneuverings
08-08-2011 13:55
Create Dependency, Withdraw , Watch them Plead for More...
The way in which the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority coldly announced the closure of MOX - without discussion - was calculated to prompt pleas for new nuclear developments. Sure enough Jamie Reed MP and other nuclear shills are calling for MOX 2 (!) along with new build and deep disposal.
The NDA have said the closure of MOX is essential to easing the financial burden to the taxpayer. The sincerity of this statement could only be believed if the NDA then went on to say:
- No more spent fuel will be delivered to Sellafield
- All jobs expertise and taxpayers money will now be put into looking after existing wastes.
- Existing wastes will not be dispersed into the wider environment by deep 'disposal,' dumping in landfill, 'recycled' into pots and pans.
- Or as with MOX and Thorp turn solid spent fuel into even more dangerous and much larger volumes of liquid high level wastes (reprocessing)
Then perhaps we could believe the NDA when they say they are concerned with wasting taxpayer billions
Refs:
A Pox on Mox
http://northern-indymedia.org/articles/2152
Proliferation and Reprocessing
http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/reports/ProliferationBriefMay08.pdf
Sellafield's Mox plant is brought down by aftershocks of Japanese earthquakce http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/sellafield-s-mox-plant-is-brought-down-by-aftershocks-of-japanese-earthquake-1.864839?referrerPath=1.203635
mare street right now
08-08-2011 13:50
i've been told a large crowd is forming around mare st.Full article | 1 addition | 4 comments
Ian Hislop In Bed With MI5 and A Super-Injunction
08-08-2011 10:57
Ian Hislop has criticized Julian Assange because he claims to be concerned about Assange's alleged treatment of women and his possible connection with an anti Semite. When confronted with evidence of anti-woman, anti Jew hate material published by MI5 agent provocateur, David Myatt, Hislop put a 'super-injunction' on the truth and refused to publish. Hislop wouldn't even publish a letter which mentioned Myatt's name.London riots: focus on Holloway
08-08-2011 04:25
Report of about 3 hours in Islington - from midnight (beginning of the day), today.
I headed out about midnight. It wasn't clear what was going on - lots of rumours, but who do you trust on twitter? I didn't know anyone in my area, so I figured I had to see whatever was happening (or not) with my own eyes. The most consistent reports were saying Holloway, but others mentioned Angel, too, so I decided to head down there first.
I headed out, and immediately saw a police car, prowling the back streets of Dalston area. However, I couldn't keep up - and he didn't look as if he knew where he was going either. So off to Angel, where, not surprisingly, it was extremely quiet. The only evidence of anything was:
- the police station (car park) was empty
- there were two innocent looking bobbies standing outside sainsburys, opposite the N1 shopping centre.
Was this it? I stopped to file a post, during which the bobbies wandered over and warned me to get out of there: "We have intelligence that that place over there is about to be firebombed in the next few minutes." I cycled around a little while longer looking for the likely candidates, but there were none (other than the cops: are they really that stupid)?
Thus, next stop Holloway. Initially, it didn't seem much was happening. A bunchy of kids outside maccieDs at Nags Head corner of Seven Sisters and Holloway Rds, but nothing really untoward, and no smashed windows. At this point, it pissed it down, so I sheltered under a shop front/awning and posted a few tweets (I'd link to it all, but can't figure out how! Check out https://indy.im/gdm or the relay on my twitter relay: gdm_uk for the full timeline) While I was standing there, cops suddenly chased a bunch of youth down a side street, so I followed after a few moments later. Before I knew it, I was surrounded by about 6 cop cars - a mixture of undercover and panda cars - who all stopped in the middle of the road and chased off on foot after some youngsters. Another passerby, a woman, and I just looked at each other, and both commented how we thought we had been about to get nicked. We wandered up the road, back towards Holloway Road a couple of blocks north of Seven Sisters, to find a bunch of cops sitting on one guy and frogmarching another guy back towards us and the patrol cars. Across Holloway Road, another guy was also getting busted.
I hung on the side road for a few minutes, trying to take some photos with my camera phone. The cops weren't terribly impressed, but I ended up chatting with them, explaining I wasn't obstructing them and that I wasn't causing trouble. They were all full of testosterone and adrenaline (even the women, it seemed) and a few of them were bolshy and tried to argue with me. One guy, an Irishman I think, said he'd had nothing as a kid when I told him that the (current) kids were bored, poor, desperate and had no future. I decided our opinions were too diverse so I might as well move on, but I guess I conversed with them for a good few minutes.
Over the road it was a different story. I took another couple of photos from a few yards away, but the cops were mostly obscuring a guy who was sat on the ground. I'm not sure if he was cuffed or not (I don't think so), as I couldn't really see, so I moved around behind them to try and take another photo. At this point, Officer EK102 came over and tried to patronise me. He told me that he was allowed to confiscate my phone in order to get the pictures for evidence. I told him he wasn't, but I was happy to call my lawyer to check. He threatened to arrest me. I refused to give him the phone. This continued for a minute or two. He then asked me to see the photo and said I could delete it. This I did, as I had no intention of spending a night down the nick, and it was all blurry anyway. But I'm sure his actions were illegal, and I will be investigating making a complaint tomorrow.
Where next? Well, I'm getting tired so going to cut it short. There's lots of detail on https://indy.im/gdm and I'll try to post some more photos tomorrow. There was one point I was about to leave, when behind me came the smashing of glass. Turning around, I saw CarPhone Warehouse on the corner of Nags Head getting smashed in, but almost immediately an undercover car pulled up alongside, cops exited and chased after the gang of people who were gathered there. The hammer remained on the floor, as seen in the photo... well, the photo doesn't seem to be uploading, i will try again tomorrow. For now, I'm afraid I have to sleep.
Solidarity, and good luck!
Brixton Road Pics - Foot Locker + H&M
08-08-2011 02:55
Police were very few, very tense and very ineffective. Foot Locker was up in flames, while H&M was being looted. Marks and Spencers, Bodyshop, McDonalds and most other shops on Brixton Road had glass damage, while other places like the games shop at the corner to Ferndale Road and William Hill on Stockwell Road have big gaping holes and look like some things might have gone missing.
The H&M was being attacked and looted with the police guarding the burning Foot Locker just up the road on the other side of Brixton Station. People inside were trying on things before deciding whether they were worth nicking. Shortly after the H&M was opened up to the public, most of the people on the streets took off towards Effra Road. Rumors said that some people were trying to break into Curry's and Halfords between Mervan and Trelawn Road.
This turned out to be true. Heading down there later, police went into the parking lot and had the crowd pushed back towards Brixton Water Lane. After taking the long route round, approaching the situation from the South, the police line had moved back to the other end of the parking lot, leaving Curry's open to the crowd.
Loads of people were on the streets, carrying large screens and laptops, even driving up in cars. While quite a few people were masked up, many were not, and we will see if the CCTV was good enough to be able to recognise number plates. The rain might have hampered vision, but the brazenness and festival atmosphere was amazing. People were chatting to each other and running around with big smiles on their faces.
A Festive Night in Brixton
08-08-2011 02:55
The atmosphere was alternately tense and festive in Brixton tonight. After last night's riots in Tottenham, sparked by the police shooting of Mark Duggan on Thursday, riots spread all over London this evening.
People took advantage of heavy rains and miniscule police presence, turning the whole town from Stockwell to Tulse Hill into a free-shop. Every major chain store and bank had their windows smashed in, and notable looting took place at the Currys electronics store on Effra Road. Hundreds of people walked out of there with big-screen TVs, laptops, and other big-ticket items, as the police looked on helplessly. Cars were lined up on both sides of Effra Road for several hundred meters from Currys to Brixton Water Lane, as people loaded them up.
.
Is the EDL's Alan Lake Behind Anti-Black Hate Blog
08-08-2011 01:55
Is multi-millionairre murder-loving genocidal racist EDL supremo Alan Lake the white supremacist blogger "Tottenhamlad", which this weekend, delighted itself in the gunning-down of Mark Duggan at the hands of the Metropolitan Police, writing a sick diatribe celebrating the deaths of Black Britons, entitled "Mark Duggan: One down, many more to go"?
The author of the famous EDL Final Solution, who would personally murder Islamists himself if he had a gun (as interviewed on Scandinan telly), Tottenham-based computer programmer Alan Lake is believed to be the vile racist blogger "Tottenhamlad", which recently, as well as posting plenty of pro-EDL Islamophobia, has been posting extremist anti-Black hatred on his very own hate blog.
www.tottenhamlad.blogspot.com
With a writing style too-close to comfort, and a Blogger profile which fits the bill perfectly, Tottenhamlad posted a call hoping that many more black Londoners would be killed in a style befitting of sick-in-the-head nationalist Alan Lake: -
(in his own sick racist words) "Mark Duggan: Half-caste scrote removed from the streets of London by the heroic officers of the Met's Operation Trident"
"...Hats off to the police for removing a piece of miscreant scum from the streets of Tottenham; and if his friends, family, and the 'MP' of Tottenham don't like the fact then they can all make their way to the nearest airport to take them back 'home'..."
Tottehmanlad/(Alan Lake?) admits posting these hate remarks about the dead man, the local MP, and Black Londoners on newspaper comments sites.
If you look in Tottenhamlad's blogspot archive history, you will discover, like Lake, he was one of the first people to hijack the Charlene Downes campaign:
www.tottenhamlad.blogspot.com/2006/03/charlene-downes.html
Like Lake, "Tottenhamlad" owns a fleet of cars:
http://s36.photobucket.com/albums/e22/TOTTENHAMLAD/?start=all
If only the DVLA database was freely available for anybody to use.
He is also a member of Guardian Online:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/user/TottenhamLad
Unite Against Fascism (UAF) reported that Lake had left the EDL, but as with Roberta Moore, (who might simply have migrated to the EDL's fake "LGBT" division, nobody knows if this story is mere subterfuge, as without his bankrolling of the EDL, like Nick griffin's BNP, they would go bankrupt overnight.
If, as strongly suspected, hatemonger and Breivik inspiration Alan Lake is indeed behind this vile racially-offensive blog, this confirms one important fact, that the EDL do loathe black and mixed-race people as much as Asian people, and serves as a stark warning to anybody who happens to be non-white, to not get involved with the EDL. This also applies to the "uncle toms" of the Jewish and gay communities, who thinks that uniting with a far right neo-nazi organisation in denial, over a shared Islamophobia, will make them acceptable to white nationalists.
Like the misguided Jewish citizens of Italy who voted for Mussolini, don't make the same mistake. The EDL's guard is slipping, and if you have had the misfortune of taking a look at the EDL's official Facebook sites, their is a sickening surge in anti-Black hatred. Jeff Marsh has also been making racist jokes about African-Carribean people on Casuals United.
When the EDL come to Tower Hamlets, black, Asian and white people, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Athiest and Jewish people will unite to oppose the reincarnation of Oswald Mosley, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon's fascist English Defence League.
Seven Years of Captivity
07-08-2011 22:21
A heartrending poem from Babar Ahmad, the longest serving British prisoner held in the UK without charge.