By Ben Morris

Panic on the streets of London,
panic on the streets of Birmingham…

Imagine you’re playing an excruciating video game of your choice. You’re close to winning and getting that top prize, the number one achievement, but with seconds left on the clock, something happens that changes that game completely and you don’t succeed. As a by-product of the sudden anger of this loss, the controller goes flying across the room, bounces off the wall and falls in several pieces at your feet.

Most people have broken something in the heat of anger before. Lord knows I have. Whilst I completely accept and understand that the riots across London, Birmingham and other select areas across the United Kingdom were completely wrong and unjustifiable; the government could do better to find out what sparked these riots as opposed to just condemning them. People weren’t rioting and looting before, so what changed?

The most likely theory is that the growing anger towards the government and the way young people are constantly treated has overflowed out onto the streets. Between the cuts in education, the increase in University fees, the cuts to youth clubs and the controversial tactics used by police to keep young people in order, the probability that these were the gunpowder awaiting a spark that would delve the whole of London and a lot of the country into anarchy.

That spark came in the form of Matt Duggan, a local Tottenham inhabitant, being shot by specialist firearm officers on Thursday the 4^th of August. The 29-year-old father of four died from a single bullet-wound. When no evidence was produced that the firearm found on the scene had been fired, locals gathered around Tottenham’s police station demanding answers. When nothing was given to the crowds, the disruption started, with rioting, looting and fire engulfing the streets of Tottenham.

Videos from The Guardian showing youngsters from North London predicting the riots several days before they started, give us a first understanding as to why these riots broke out. After Haringey council chose to close over half of their youth clubs, Chavez Campbell correctly predicted “There’ll be riots”.

On top of this, riots have also been reported as being incited by police “heavy-handedness”. A youtube video uploaded by IAmBirmingham shows a very detailed collection of the events that happened on Monday the 8^th of August, where multiple people claim that police did not help to prevent the rioting, but rather, caused tension to rise.

The violence that happened the following nights, while completely unjust, can perhaps be understood if you were to drop your original thoughts of rioting for new trainers and a fancy phone, but more a suppressed cry from young people who feel they have nowhere to go and can’t achieve their goals in life. As they watch their liberties, education and rights being taken away by the government, I pose you this question, who’s looting who?