Riots hit Bristol, Liverpool and Manchester

Opportunistic criminality continues to spread, with disorder breaking out in the hitherto unaffected cities of Bristol and Liverpool. BBC Radio 4 also reports that cars were damaged in Manchester last night. In London, which witnessed a staggering night of violence, Woolwich, Ealing and Camden joined Tottenham, Enfield, Croydon, Lewisham, Hackney and Peckham as scenes for looting, arson and attacks on the police. Birmingham city centre too was blighted by violence and looting. One commentator on Radio 4’s Today Programme this morning stated that the focus of looting in London last night appeared to be retail parks, large and small.

The BBC states that approximately 150 rioters attacked shops and cars in different parts of Bristol city centre including Cabot Circus and Broadmead. Disorder is also said to have affected the Stokes Croft and St Werbughs areas of the city, and roads were blocked to prevent 'youths' from St Pauls heading for the city centre. However, Avon and Somerset Police seem confident that they are well prepared for any further disturbance.

In Liverpool, Toxteth witnessed a relatively brief confrontation between the police and masked ‘youths’, whilst “isolated acts” occurred in the city, such as the torching of cars and criminal damage to property. 


Two football fixtures have been cancelled at Charlton and West Ham this evening as a consequence of the unrest, and Cobra meets at 9.00 this morning to discuss how to deal with and contain the spread of the riots.

What we are witnessing is not ‘political protest’, but straightforward opportunistic criminality. To some extent however, this violence has been encouraged by irresponsible reporting in some sections of the media, some of the worst of which has been provided by the BBC. Throughout Saturday evening and Sunday, BBC television news reports repeatedly stated that Mark Duggan had been shot by the Metropolitan Police and that a protest had been held to demand answers regarding the shooting. What its reports glaringly and purposefully omitted was the police claim that Duggan had been shot in an exchange of fire. Moreover, the BBC simply parroted the claims of Duggan’s family and supporters vis-à-vis his character, disregarding the fact that this man was a gun-toting ‘gangsta’. Thus, the BBC’s portrayal of the incident that has been used as the pretext for the outbreak of mass criminality that we are witnessing was grossly distorted and irresponsible. One could justifiably say that by framing the Duggan case in this fashion, and by continually seeking out ethnic-minority voices to condemn the police for ‘brutality’ and ‘racism’, the BBC has actually been a significant contributor to this violence and anarchy.

The editorial team at the BBC has a lot to answer for, and it is about time that its members rejected the NUJ code on reporting race and religion which leads it to systematically distort the whole of its output to comply with an ideology that denies reality. Sadly, many businesses have been destroyed by this wave of violence, and the BBC ought to realise that unless it adopts an objective and responsible approach to its coverage and interpretation of the civil disorder spreading across the country, its reputation too will become just another casualty of the rioting. Something else truly shocking that the BBC would never report honestly because it reflects badly upon multiculturalism and mass immigration can be watched here.