Its an interesting thing that they are blaming benefits and the fact that there are families who havnt worked for 15 years, but we need to put things in context by going back to the eighties.
The iron lady(maggie Thatcher) wanted to destroy the unions. they had been a pain in the arse for many prime ministers before her, and lets face it, their lefty ideals didnt gel with her idea of "rolling back the state" so over the 3 terms she was in power, the unions were destroyed as Britains heavy industries were dismantled and sold off/privatised. This was felt particularly keenly in the North/midlands/Wales as this is where shipbuiding, coal mining, textiles, car manufacture etc were based, although London and the south had their fair share of heavy and semi skilled industry. When all these people lost their jobs, they went on benefits.
Whole communities were rendered unemployed, and as the primary industries were lost, service industries in these areas failed as well. London, I am fully aware is very wealthy and there are well paying service jobs in restaurants, hotels etc. except they are probably going to hire a white guy over a black kid with a thick jamaican accent and "lets face it, is planning on knicking the fine silver"(dont forget, there was no segregation, but racist attitudes like this were common in the eighties, and unfortunatly still now)
And a generation of children watched their hard working parents get fired for no reason other than it was "uneconomical" with no offers of retraining or assistace moving to other areas (fun fact it actually cost more to pay ex miners dole money AND import coal from Poland ) and South Africa. The reason for the pit closures was that they were uneconomical)
So now those kids have seen that hard work wont get you anywhere, and when you try to get work, the police hassle you, people think your gangster scum because your from Hackney, or Tottenham, or Brixton, your education is shit because your school is drastically over subscribed with teachers who can barely control their classesand the only jobs available are low wage and dead end, its no suprises that another generation (3rd now)is entering this stat of welfare dependency
Just to clarify, a single person claiming benefits gets rent and council tax payed for and £50(~$100) a week. take away food, electricity, transport and water bills, that dont leave much. Having kids will increase your benefits, but a single mum of 2 will be up to £65-70pw
To say that Benefit scroungers are the soul reason for the riots is rubbish. There are so many reasons ranging from institutional racism of the police (a black man is 6X more likely to get stopped and searched than a white man in London)the shooting of Mark Duggan (this being THE spark), the widening gap between rich and poor, the sharp cuts in youth services in London, the fact its school holidays, envy of the haves by have nots, and lets face it, good old fashioned opportunatism at realising you could nick a few bikes and a flatscreen whilst the police where overwhelmed by the numbers of pissed off kids throwing bricks. (nb i do not support the looters or arsonists, just trying to understand WHY this happened. Much love to the people who were cleaning up and protecting shops(bloody immigrants, coming over here and defending our communities))
Wow that was an essay and half, if only id put this effort into my uni work
