Our authorities and police have been incredibly stupid. They have created exactly the circumstances in which the kind of misinformation they claim has been circulating about the Southport attack could flourish, by their own failure to provide details that the public desperately need, if they are to make sense of this awful and brutal event.
I absolutely get that when minors are involved, a degree of circumspection is required in how much information is released. But in an event of this level of shocking severity, people need detail and reassurance to understand. To be told "a seventeen year old boy is being held" - end of - just isn't going to cut it. It just made for the perfect circumstances for the spawning of false narratives, conjured up from half known snippets of glimpsed and overheard rumour. Chinese whispers of a deadly kind.
Claims that people heard the killer shouting, "Allahu akbar". True or false? Nobody knows: the authorities have been silent on this. Claims that the kid was a recent boat arrival, known to the security service and of questionable mental health. Denied as misinformation but without being informed that he was a home born kid of Rwandan parentage. Not until much later when the damage had been done. Time in which anger could build, speculation could run rife, and those half glimpsed snippets could fester and bloom into the outbursts of anger we have seen in what, three or four cities now (I haven't even looked at this morning's news yet - gosh knows what happened overnight).
What about the kid's religion. Was he a practicing Muslim. Again the police are silent, the Home Secretary saying neither yes nor no. Known to MI-6, ditto. Mental health?, same again. Nobody wants to know his name, but people are thirsting to understand what has happened here. Three children lie dead and more are fighting for their lives. The witholding of relevant information is absolutely
not what is needed here. Here. What about this?
In a shocking attacking a dance event [etc,etc]. The details as to what caused the attack are as yet unknown, but terrorism, though not being ruled out is not at this point thought to have been the primary cause. A 17 year old boy of Rwandan parentage is being held, following an arrest made at a site some distance from the tragic attack. Known to the security service and mental health services, it seems more likely at this point that it was health issues rather than any radicalisation or third party influence that lay behind his actions. People are asked to be calm and patient while the police do their job of finding out the background to this horrific event.
Something like this, and all of this trouble could have been avoided.
And now that it's too late, now that the anger has erupted, spilling out at police, at mosques, at corner shops owned by Muslims, let's look at the coverage. It's all "far right troublemakers, bussed in for the event." Tommy Robinson supporters and people with no interest in the events at Southport itself, making capital out of the opportunity to get out and fight the police, to cause trouble and run amok. Pour scorn on them and claim, "they are not the true spirit of Southport, as shown by the ones who turned out to clear up the mess, to repair the damage done in the rage fuelled riots."
Well let's look at this.
Because what we're talking about here is young white working class males. The most disparaged and looked down upon group in our society. Chavs. White van man. Essex Boys. The kind that listen to "notorious misogynistic influencer" Andrew Tate and far right radical Tommy Robinson.
And is it any wonder that they would.
Every time there is any mention of their kind by Fiona Bruce on the news, we see that condescending sneer just below the surface. While the seven o'clock Today show (or whatever it is called) always has a place for the cool dreadlocked black kids doing their "fing", the go-ahead asians, the enterprising girls and upwardly mobile kids of the educated classes, what do you ever see of the white working class male? The sweaty boys of the building sites and low grade delivery jobs? These sit at the bottom of the woke pile. No-one wants them and nothing good is said of them. Our educated liberal establishment, our woke media and chattering classes would simply rather that they didn't exist. Is it really any wonder that they turn to Tommy Robinson, to Andrew Tate and the like: people who are prepared to talk to them, show that they understand and respect what they are feeling.
The riots and fights with the police are just a great big "Fuck You!" to a society that spurns them, that has no time for them, no interest in what they think. These are the lost generation, the kids who have little or no future that doesn't involve doing jobs of mindless drudgery for wages that barely cover the cost of survival. Looked down on and spurned, out they come, ready for the chance to kick back. They see their communities changing (because none of the immigrants coming into the country finish up in the areas lived in by the wealthy commentators, the liberal establishment - they are all shipped up to the North, where services and living space is already stretched to breaking point) and themselves always pushed to the back of the queue.
And then something like this happens. And they see our own authorities not being prepared to be open with the public about what has gone down. And boom, it goes off. The police don't help, and neither do the government. Kier Stamer saying that "Peaceful protest will be allowed, but insurrection will not be tolerated!"
But Peaceful protest doesn't mean being told the times when, the places where, you can protest. That's up to the protesters (obviously within limits: private property etc is obviously out). But heavy handed policing has played its part in the troubles of the past couple of nights. The clever money should be, if the protests are peacefully going on, let them continue until whatever time the protesters are ready to pack up and go home. Not to whale in at 6pm ordering everybody off the streets. That's just asking for trouble, and trouble is what resulted. I've no doubt that there were elements in these protests that were bent on trouble. But the police has its elements spoiling for a fight as well.
But the one thing that Kier Stamer, Evette Cooper and the rest of their ilk won't get - and this is an absolute banker - is that this situation requires not just heavy handed authority to quell it, but also
dialogue. Dialogue with the people, dialogue discussing their anger their wants, their needs. The bringing back of this much insulted group back into our national discussion. The dropping of the condescension and the sneering, the pretending they don't exist and the exclusion of any thought on how their lot must be bettered, their life chances improved. Without adoption of this approach, as opposed to 'martial law and cunts with guns', this situation is only going to get worse.
And now I'm going to go and look at what's been happening overnight. All the above is just my thinking from yesterday - I haven't even
seen what today is going to bring.
