Last night’s rioting in Tottenham is reported to have spilled over into Wood Green, and it is feared that there will once again be unrest tonight. Reports indicate that it took only 200-300 rioters to wreak havoc in Tottenham, endangering life and limb as they looted and set light to properties, businesses and vehicles. The cost of the damage is already estimated to be many millions of pounds, and fearing that the Metropolitan Police will again be overwhelmed by violent criminals, the London Daily News reports that a number of shop owners have formed their own ‘local protection units’. A spokesman for the Green Lanes ‘unit’ told the paper "We do not have any trust in the local police, our shops are next on the target list by the thugs who have ransacked Tottenham, we will protect our property."
That people feel that they need to do this is a shameful indictment of the inadequacy of the police force. Nobody should feel so fearful for their physical safety and that of their property that they feel compelled to form voluntary defence associations, but this is what is happening. This failure to honour the most basic duty of any government – to safeguard the physical safety of citizens and their property and to uphold the rule of law - whilst the ConDem administration prioritises foreign aid and costly wars which have nothing to do with our national interest, indicates that there is something dangerously wrong with the thinking of those in government. To cut police budgets and spending on other essential public services and allowing civil order to disintegrate whilst appropriating our money to spend on their pet projects abroad represents a grotesque abuse of office. Moreover, it is of course not only the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats who approve of increasing foreign aid and meddling in overseas conflicts, but the Labour Party too.
It is time that it was made crystal clear that the duty of any government that purports to represent its citizenry is first and foremost to preserve public safety and the rule of law. Without seeking to prioritise and secure these basic preconditions of a stable civil society, it cannot be said to be a government in any meaningful sense of the term. Worryingly, those who have banded together to form ‘local protection units’ in Wood Green, Turnpike Lane and Green Lanes, are said to be Kurds and Turks, or, to put it bluntly, Muslims. If our forces of law and order are seen to be failing so spectacularly, to whom and to what do you think they might turn?
Tottenham High Road Ablaze
