John Lloyd explores the causes of rioting throughout the country

John Lloyd has written a column published by Reuters online (Aug 10) in which he explores the causes of the rioting that began in London and spread to other cities. He writes: Most demonstrations have spokespeople, who sooner or later -- usually sooner -- seek to make their cause known and attract support to it. The cause might be...jobs and dignity; or it might be protests against racial discrimination, of which London has seen a few over the past three decades; or it might be against immigration.

But the London demonstrations, and those in Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol and Nottingham, have no spokespeople. They hide their faces, run away from reporters -- or, as often, beat them and smash cameras. The conviction grows that they do not articulate a cause because they cannot. That the anger, the violence and the destruction are pure activity, a bid to make a spectacle in a society which is organized round spectacles.

The full article can be read here.

(Photograph courtesy of George Rex.)