When the riots broke out in England, I thought it would only be a matter of time before they spread to Glasgow. Because that city has a lot of poverty and inequality, and some of the toughest street gangs in the world.
Gangs that regularly charge at each other armed with baseball bats, knives, machetes, and swords. And have more facial scars than you dare count.
So when the city wasn't sacked by the so called ned hordes, I was puzzled. And glad to see that I wasn't the only one wondering, why didn't Glasgow burn?
Now I think Taylor is wrong to dismiss the progressive policies of Scotland's SNP government which has refused to dismantle the social safety net, unlike the Cons in England. And she probably doesn't give the Strathclyde police force enough credit for the tough but progressive way it has worked to reduce gang violence.
But this is true:
Officers with experience in the field say the nature of gang violence in Glasgow is completely different to that of London and Manchester. For a start, it's primarily all about the fighting. Not drugs, gun-running or bling, just what cops north of the border call "recreational" violence. The pure enjoyment of the fight, Clockwork Orange-style. Guns aren't prevalent in Glasgow but knives certainly are, which in itself changes the nature of the violence.
I know because when I was a boy one of them stabbed me after a football game. And for years I loved fighting too much myself.
Also, sadly, this could be true as well:
The drugs of choice among the young and deprived in Glasgow are also relevant. No matter how strong your constitution, heroin and excessive alcohol are not conducive to having the motivation to get off the sofa and go looting a couple of miles away.
Because it is a measure of the despair that afflicts so many young people..
And yes, this is entirely possible:
One cop I spoke to had a different, more prosaic take on why the riots didn't reach Scotland. "The rain was bloody torrential, biblical, for days," he said. "What wee ned's going to leave the comfort of his X-Box and his bottle of Buckfast for that?"
Because sometimes you get lucky eh?
But for how long?
Oh well. The good news is Glasgow didn't burn. Nobody was hurt. The neds taught me some useful tricks to use against the bullies later in Canada.
And when Sébastien accuses me occasionally of being too wild or hot headed, I can still make him laugh by saying how can you say that?
It has been a horrifying spectacle, watching the pinky faced David Cameron morph from a socially liberal Con into a red faced authoritarian.
Nearly 2,800 people have been arrested so far. In London alone, about 1,000 people have been charged in connection with the riots.
Jordan Blackshaw, 20, and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, 22, were each sentenced to four years for trying to incite a riot using Facebook, although the events they attempted to organize did not actually take place.
Demanding that anyone who had anything to do with the riots be jailed, praising the outrageously harsh sentences being handed down by the courts. Calling for the internet to be monitored or shutdown.
Cheering the police.as they batter down the flimsy doors of council homes looking for juvenile offenders and their stolen runners...
And wanking on ad nauseam about how the riots had nothing to with poverty, but were all about "criminality" and "moral rot."
While conveniently forgetting to mention the moral rot that afflicted his privileged youth, when he was a member of the Bullingdon Club.
The club's notorious dinners typically involve members booking a private dining room (under an assumed name) and drinking themselves silly before destroying it elaborately. They wear royal blue tailcoats with ivory lapels, and - having made merry - pride themselves in politely paying the restaurant's owners compensation in high-denomination banknotes.
Now the Guardian has revealed the truth about the rioters. Yes, many of them are poor.
He found that the majority of people who have appeared in court live in poor neighbourhoods, with 41% of suspects living in one of the top 10% of most deprived places in the country. The data also shows that 66% of neighbourhoods where the accused live got poorer between 2007 and 2010.
And the truth about the sentencing. Yes, it's a travesty of justice.
The Guardian's data also shows that 56 defendants of the 80 who have already been sentenced by magistrates were given immediate prison terms. This 70% rate of imprisonment compares with a "normal" rate of just 2% in magistrates courts.
Public order offences are leading to sentences 33% longer than normal and those convicted of assaulting police officers have been jailed for 40% longer than usual.
I don't expect any of the above will move Cameron. He is too busy trying to turn the riots into his 9/11 moment. Playing to the angry mob, and appealing to emotion rather than reason.
But when he's not playing Churchill, as played by Mussolini, he might reflect on the real irony of the situation.
Many of the young yobs who stole things from shops are not just afflicted by poverty and hopelessness, they are also dyed in the wool members of the Me Society, the jungle utopia Cons are always trying to promote. Where selfishness, greed, and consumerism rule, and the individual is more important than the community.
No other generation in history has been more targeted by advertisers. From the moment they were conscious they have been bombarded with messages telling them that if they want to belong, if they want to be happy, they must buy, buy, buy.
The poor kids bought the message; greed isn't just good it's necessary. They watched bankers steal millons and get away with it, so when the opportunity arose they followed the The Pied Piper.
All the way to their destruction...
Just like we'll all be destroyed if we allow Cons to turn human societies into jungles. And give them an excuse to create a police state. Where the rich can grow comfortably richer, and the poor just get poorer and poorer.
That's the good news. It's a useful warning.
And the bad news? Far too much of what is going on in Britain is looking like a war on the young...
And that can happen here. Or has already happened.
Why do you think that after that drunken riot so many older Canadians echoed what this woman in Britain said?
The day after, I stood in the riot debris and an elderly woman stopped for a chat.
She lamented the state of Britain's youth and suggested one way to deal with it. "They should bring back ... execution," she said grimly drawing a finger across her throat.
Why do you think Stephen Harper is building all those new prisons? In a country where unemployment among young people is twice the national average. Why do you think cracking down on young, underprivileged Canadians is so popular in this aging country?
Yup. The rich are eating the poor. The old are eating the young. The system is eating itself.
And what we need to remember is this: the Cons are the enemy.
And whether we're young or whether we're old, we're all in this together...
First came the feral phase. The young are animals.
They are essentially wild beasts. I use that phrase advisedly, because it seems appropriate to young people bereft of the discipline that might make them employable; of the conscience that distinguishes between right and wrong.
They respond only to instinctive animal impulses — to eat and drink, have sex, seize or destroy the accessible property of others.
Then came the punishment phase. Beat them, flog them, shoot them.
Throw them out of their homes.
Now at last some are turning their sights on the culture of an economic system that makes greed a virtue.
In a society that has abandoned or devalued most forms of mutual assistance in favour of a solipsistic entrepreneurialism, it's hardly surprising that, faced with the end of the good times, people help themselves. Fear and greed are our ruling passions. That's true of the kids smashing shop windows to steal trainers. It's also true of the MPs fiddling their expenses, the police officers taking backhanders, the journalists breaking into phones. Why wouldn't they? Why wouldn't any of us? The example has been set by our new masters, the one per cent for whom and by whom we're governed.
These have been a disgusting few years. That form of looting known as corporate larceny continues to rage unchecked. Economic scavengers bring the world to the brink of ruin. We don't need the discrepancy between rich and poor laid out in percentages, we see the brute fact of it with our own eyes in the shops and on the roads and in the restaurants of our richest cities. One medium-sized banker's bonus would probably pay for all the trash that's been looted this past week. And we don't even have the decency to conceal the extent of this legalised pillage from those for whom, without sentimentalising them, a pair of trainers is a treat.
The poor who must be punished, the rich who get away with it. Even as the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.
And the money runs out...
And all I can say is that if it took four nights of rioting to get people to focus on our corrupt and decaying economic system, in the long run of history it will be worth it.
Because if the message is not understood, those riots will spread all over the world. Even in Canada, where youth unemployment is twice the national average, and Stephen Harper's Cons are planning to throw tens of thousands out of work, and lock up even more young people in their swanky new prisons.
Yup. The rich and the old can scream all they like. Jail them, throw them out of their homes, flog them, hang them. But it won't make a bit of difference. The young will not be denied, will not be robbed, will not see their future torched.
For years I have warned about a generational war. And now the writing is on the wall.
