This is a blog about weight loss and - to a lesser extent - weddings. It's light-hearted (save the odd SoD induced strop) and pretty focussed but I can't let current events go by without commenting. For a more traditional post see below for the one I prepared earlier!
But... I am so appalled by what is happening that I have to speak out. In London and it's spreading like some sort of canker elsewhere in the country. I watch the footage and I feel ashamed to be British. I do not believe that this is any kind of protest of idealogy - I think these are selfish, venal, evil thugs, bent on self-gratification, theft and mindless destruction. Evil? I don't think it's too strong a word. I've seen fellow Londoners (from all corners of the globe) crying over the devastation of their shops, the businesses that they've built up in an initially foreign country. They're the brave people.
As are the police. Having to run literally towards that kind of trouble, agression and venom. No-one signs up for that but they do it anyway. My heart goes out to every wife, girlfriend, husband, boyfriend and family member who is glued to 24 hour news coverage for a glimpse of the person they love, hoping that they're not going to swell the number of 111 who have been injured. I saw a shot of police cars driving through Clapham to applause. I hope they know that we - the real Londoners - are behind them when they face that rabid pack of animals. Unfair to animals really. Cockroaches perhaps. I really hope we don't see the media turn on the police, saying that they should have been able to prevent this. Who could have foreseen such devastation on such a scale? We need to pull together not pull each other apart.
And I have no time for the people bleating that these are young people voicing their dissatisfaction with 'the system'; this is not any kind of protest, it's mindless thuggery and should be condemned as such - not have excuses made for it. It makes me despair that there can be so many people like this, prepared to behave in such an appalling way. If it weren't for those people - the polar opposite - who have taken to the streets with brooms in their hundreds to clear up and to voice their opposition to the looting and vandalism I would have lost my faith in human nature altogether. A colleague who lives there and went to join in the clean up said that people were queueing (blissfully British!) to try and play their part in restoring a community. "And if they come again tonight, we'll be here tomorrow" one woman told a camera with determination.
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2 comments:
It is appalling. Have you seen the cover of The Sun? Maybe some of these cockroaches will be dissuaded from further thuggery.
Stay safe.
Yeah - wholeheartedly agree. Especially about the police's role.
Heard an interview with a Mr Reeves of Reeves furniture store in Croydon - 140 years plus trading in the same family and ow burnt to a crisp - all gone - 15 families without a job and for what??! As someone who spends my working life trying to encourage development and regeneration of poor areas I know how hard it is to bring businesses in and now they are being destroyed by their own local residents (or some of them).
Stay safe hon.
Lesley xx
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