British Home Secretary Teresa May, when interviewed Sunday, August 14 on BBC Radio about the UK riots, was anything but clear in her answers except in her frequent repetition of the actual word "clear," which she managed to duplicate 11 times in less than 8 minutes.
Regular observers of American and British politicians will be familiar with excessive use of the word "clear" whenever they are found to be on shaky ground and the thought cogs are slipping due to extra pressure being applied by an interviewer. Sadly, this is a very rare occurrence with the lickspittle "lamestream" U.S. media, but one that is becoming increasingly common in the UK, as journalists hone new techniques to hold political leadership accountable.
British Ministers and the police force are busy sniping at one another as each side seeks a scapegoat for the recent widespread breakdown of law and order, with four nights of looting, arson, and killings across a number of large urban centers. When even politicians and the police are in a verbal war, it's a sure sign that the system is near the breaking point. London is particularly vulnerable due to the upcoming Olympics in less than a year. A fact that has not been lost in the latest edition of China Daily, which comments, "even in normal times, alcohol-fuelled street disorder is common across urban Britain at weekends."
News that Prime Minister David Cameron has invited U.S. street crime expert Will Bratton to advise the government on tackling gang violence has not gone down well with the British police. Their argument being that they have nothing to learn from overseas "experts" who have allowed gang populations to grow into the tens of thousands throughout American cities. In the USA, the only answer appears to be flooding no-go crime areas with large numbers of very heavily armed officers backed by a legal system with the highest incarceration rates on the planet.
Much has been made of the supposedly successful tactic of deploying thousands of extra officers on the streets, but little has been said about the calming effects of rain on rioting youths.
Things are definitely very serious. It takes a lot to make any British politician cut short a foreign holiday in sunny climes. And hundreds of MP's, including the Prime Minister and most of his Cabinet, have been recalled from overseas trips for an emergency meeting of Parliament.
Most average Brits will concur with the Chinese assessment of what passes for normal drink-fuelled violence on an average weekend, and can also attest to the endemic level of robberies, random violence and vandalism which pass for life in everyday Britain. As long as this phenomenon was confined to poor areas and sink estates, the police and politicians weren't worried. But with the breakout into middle-class residential and business areas, well that's a very different matter!
