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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Seriously, wtf is going on in London?
It's like they've just gone berserk! Why can't the police stop them?
Re: Seriously, wtf is going on in London?
I have no idea. It's spread to Manchester, Liverpool and Nottingham. Madness.
I feel so terrible for those police men and women. I can't imagine a worse job.
I agree with the curfew. I think the police are always afraid of being seen as too heavy handed, but in this case, it's warranted.
Did you see the guy from the Met on the news last night desperately asking parents to come and get their kids from the streets?
A friend and I used to try to imagine the worst jobs we could think of as kids. I realize many of these are mechanized, but still these are the worst I remember:
Putting ketchup into ketchup packets
putting the little plastic thing onto the ends of shoelaces
Things that still exist now that are pretty horrible are many factory jobs that are mindnumbing and/or dangerous.
But also... what is so bad about the police officer's job? I mean, isn't it about the same as any soldier? It was their choice and 95% of the time is not so bad. Every now and again you have to deal with civil unrest. Presumably they understood that and didn't just think they would work for 25 years without doing more than walking the streets and helping strangers with directions, royal events or car crashes. Especially since some of them are specifically riot police - I'm imagining that many people who sign up for that are drawn to the adrenaline rush or at the very least expecting to deal with riots occasionally.
I think it's more about having to deal with the crowd -- mob mentality takes over and it's hard to break it up. Otherwise rational people do strange things when caught up in that kind of mob mentality. I know the police officers in NO have some of the best crowd control techniques ever, but they are usually dealing with a drunk mob that just wants to drink more and party more. NO has never really had to deal with riots like the ones in London currently. I know I personally would not want to deal with that kind of mob mentality. If it were in the US, I think the governors would have already rolled out the National Guard, and I have wondered why similar measures have not been taken in London.
I've honestly not seen much news coverage yet because I'm in my last week of work and have been working a lot of over-time this week, but my goodness I cannot imagine how bad this has gotten in such a short period of time.
I think that disabling the social networks for a short period of time and calling in the army sounds reasonable. I know that it is the free right of the people to use twitter and whatnot but in this case it would be a necessary action to restore the safety to the general public.
Can someone give me a brief overview of WHY the riots started? Something to do with the changes in England's immigration policies???
Policing is very different here. Its like a containment strategy - the police use their bodies to block in the rioters to a specific area. The police don't have any weapons, and are very useless to do anything. They are also outnumbered, so they just watch. In the States, police would be using tear gas, rubber bullets, arresting, etc. to make sure people stopped. We watched for hours last night as people broke into buildings, stealing electronics and alcohol. The police just watch and hope they can catch them later based on pictures they take.
The sad thing is that the people who are "rioting" are usually doing it just for looting. Some of them do it from their own area. They really have no regard for human life or personal property.
The government doesn't seem to know what to do. They are asking parents to keep their kids in at night.... unbelievable!
Wedding stuff.
A man on Friday was shot and killed by police, which is unheard of in this country since no one has guns (including "normal" police). The police say that he had a gun, but there have been no official reports, so everyone is just guessing about what actually happened. In anger for the shooting, there was a peaceful protest which turned into a riot. Then the following nights, there have been riots everywhere. It has turned into lots of young men who want free stuff and end up looting electronic and liquor stores. People have been quoted saying things like, "we want free stuff" and "we pay lots of taxes, the government owes us". Who really knows??? It is absolutely crazy!
I'm fuzzy on all the details, but I think it was because the police killed a man in Tottenham during a traffic stop (he was in a cab). There's debate over whether he fired on the police and some other details but his family/friends started a peaceful protest at the police station and some others took it to the next level.
Rioting/looting is so messed up. I understand having feelings of anger about the situation, but stealing a tv from a store and setting a car on fire isn't doing anything to help.
Now jumping domestically.
Well that was a crazy couple of years.
My best friend in London lives in Notting Hill, right around the corner from our old flat, and she e-mailed me last night saying she's nervous about the Notting Hill Carnival at the end of the month. I would be too - there's usually craziness around it anyways since there are so many people (drinking nonetheless). However, the carnival specifically started as a celebration for Caribbean immigrants and there's history of racially-motivated issues there, so it's possible that any feelings of this situation being related to race can spill over.
Now jumping domestically.
Well that was a crazy couple of years.
Wedding stuff.
I can see how it must be very frustrating to be a police officer and feel useless. But I still feel like that is just a crappy part of their job, same as any job has a crappy aspect to it. If this way of policing is known, then if you sign up for the police, you know that you will probably have to do that at some time.
However, I hope this is a wake up call that perhaps they need new strategies, especially because of the Olympics, as Snippy mentioned. I hope the IOC gets on them about this ASAP.
As for the rioters and looting... yeah, I get really annoyed at this. I'm from LA and we use any excuse to riot and it just pisses me off. Don't like a court verdict? Riot! Lakers won? Riot! Lakers lost? Riot! It's so idiotic; I just don't get the mentality where the way to express happiness, displeasure or anything is to steal, light things on fire, destroy things and hurt people. I wish they would call in the army and throw every single person they find in jail. After making them clean up the streets.
This makes me cross - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Gex_ya4-Oo&feature=share
These riots are ridiculous. I just hope that all of London Nesties stay safe.
As far as causation: There have been some interesting articles about the failure of multiculturalism (Daily Telegraph), the perception that representative democracy has failed to resolve the economic crisis (El Pais, speaking more broadly of riots across Europe), long-standing racial tension (several, including the BBC), and of course, youthful opportunism.
There's also the idea that this can be viewed as a continuation of the Brixton riots.
The thing that upsets me the most is that the kids are doing all of this destruction with big smiles on their face, giddy with the joy of it, and laughing and talking about 'what's next, what's next.'
I agree that a curfew is a good idea for a short time. Leo, that's interesting stuff about the Notting Hill carnival--hopefully they get massive amounts of trained police on hand!
That video was terrible. What a bunch of thugs.
Holy crap. Jerkoffs! That's horrendous!
Wedding stuff.
Outnumbered. That and the Homes Secretary is saying that we need to "police by consent". I'm sending a permission slip to shank these scumbags.
What does that even mean? 'Police by consent'? I thought when we paid out taxes we gave permission, why else have we been paying the police a salary?
It means death by committee while London burns. I guess (on a more serious note) that in exceptional matters then community input is required to impose stricter measures.
Wedding stuff.
They have my permission.
That video honestly made me sick to my stomach.
Now jumping domestically.
Well that was a crazy couple of years.
Me too. They keep showing it on BBC news. So terrible. I would like to see those guys get their asses whooped please.
Seriously, I think the answer to the why question is that they know they can get away with it. In England there is a culture of fear of their youths. And that is because there has been very little authority for them to follow starting in primary school. People fear kids in hoodies. They really do. There is no respect for authority what so ever and now England is getting a taste of what its like to take the authority away in school.
:::stepping down from my soap box:::
I agree 100% about the fear of kids in hoodies. Especially among shop keepers - even two years ago a lot of shops around us had a "no hoodies" policy and you had to have your face uncovered to be in the shop. It's bad.
As far as the police by consent thing - its the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Utterly useless. Why can't they call a curfew, bring in their equivalent of the national guard/martial law and deal with this? Watching the police just stand by and watch as fires rage and people ripped through the Debenham's in Clapham Junction for TWO HOURS last night just made my blood boil.
The fact that anyone is trying to connect what is going on now to what happened last week with the shooting in Tottenham makes me almost more angry. I can totally understand the anger of that man's family and community. These total arseholes are trying to use him as an excuse for their despicable behavior - it would make me irate if I were them. There was a legitimate reason that they were protesting PEACFULLY and these f'ers come in and turn it into this. It's horrid.
This needs to stop. I'm all for protesting WITH a cause and peacefully. Saturday evening was a peaceful protest, Saturday night still a protest although not peaceful any longer. The last couple of nights have been a complete piss-take. These people don't have a cause, they are scum.
If the cops kicked ass during the G20 demonstration a couple of years ago and contained crowds I just don't understand why they can't keep these people in check. Police tactics during the G20 felt a lot of more heavy handed than now.