"Officers are shocked at the outrageous level of violence directed against them. At least nine officers were injured overnight in addition to the 26 injured on Saturday night ...". That is from the Failygraph live clog. What is thus emerging, without question, is that the current wave of violence is largely directed at the police.
But, if the plods had the slightest idea of what was going down, they would not be in the least surprised. Like the politicians, they have completely lost touch with reality, and have no idea how much they too are hated. If you could slice up contempt and sell it, the national debt would evaporate.
The metric really is straightforward. The plods have pissed off the middle class for years, and lost the support of huge tranches of the population. It really should come as no surprise, therefore, that those lower down the food chain are reacting as they do - they get it far worse than we do. If we are pissed off, they are doubly so.
Despite that, for the next few days and even weeks, there will be untold volumes of extruded verbal material on this, from a media that is also almost completely out of touch (although not entirely so).
Thus, much of the comment will be ill-informed and miss the point - not least in any comments about race. As North Jr points out, if you do go out of your way to piss people off, and do it long enough, they will respond in kind.
It really is that simple - and difficult. And there's the rub. One of the most difficult things to accept in this life - and it applies to all of us - is that we are occasionally wrong. For an anally-retentive organisation such as the Met-Plod - and all the other police forces - it has proved almost impossible.
Even now, Top-Plod is "talking tough" in terms: "We will not tolerate this disgraceful violence ...", they say. And the fool Cameron has already made his contribution to the litany of the blind: "The rioting in Tottenham last night was utterly unacceptable. There is no justification for the aggression the police and the public faced, or for the damage to property", he said.
They simply do not get it. Many Londoners - and many more others - have lost patience with incompetent and arrogant policing, especially when many officers themselves should be in jail.
And since the politicians are so much up their own fundamentals and have long ceased listening - even the ability to listen - this is the only real way left of making a point. Furthermore, we have been saying this for an awful long time.
The outrage and wave of moral indignation from that foul mob of thieves - not the rioters but the parasite class - will thus be a wonder to behold. But, with weary predictability, they will continue to miss the point - as always. We will repeat it once again, so they can ignore it once again: piss off enough people, long enough, and they will find ways of pissing you off.
Simples, you thick bastards.
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