So, in his testimony to the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee Rupert Murdoch says:

The surprising thing was it took so long: the tinderbox was dry and
the spark of alienation everywhere. The background of urban riots is
almost formulaic. A substantial section of the population who are
economically excluded, a situation of political marginalisation where
there is no party or politician to speak for them and, then, the final
straw, an act of police injustice – real or perceived. This was the
background to the Rodney King riots in LA in 1992, to the Brixton riots
of the 1980s, to the disturbances in the French banlieues in 2005, and
to the 1985 riot in Broadwater Farm, Tottenham, where I was a lead
investigator for the subsequent Gifford inquiry.
And the media and political response is similarly predictable. The
right blame race, ignoring the fact that many of the kids are white; the
centre-left "sympathise" with the predicament of the oppressed but wish
they would channel their dissatisfactions in the appropriate political
places.

There is a tautology of blame: there is no political
representation of the disaffected, that is precisely why there was a
riot, people have waited for years for things to get better, but their
economic situation gets worse – indeed the kids grew up waiting – that
is why there is such anger. It is an irrational situation; do not expect
the targets of riots always to be rational, fair and progressive. It is
impossible in a liberal democracy to exclude a substantial and
increasing section of the population for any length of time without
widespread disturbances.

Politicians who haughtily proclaim "that
unacceptable behaviour will not be tolerated" should dwell on the fact
that they have been party to unacceptable economic and social policies,
which gave rise to the riots in the first place.

Jock Young

Professor of criminal justice, City University, New York.

.

 

Meanwhile in Letters Guardian

Letters

Gove's guidance on moral relativity

• guardian.co.uk,

  Wednesday 10 August 2011 21.00 BST

• Article history

Michael Gove
leads the Tory law and order brigade on the riots, warning Harriet
Harman and Ken Livingstone against "relativising" the issues when they
raise the wider social context (Report, 10 August). This is the politician who claimed £7,000 of posh furniture
on his parliamentary expenses, including a Chinon armchair and a Manchu
cabinet. When caught out, Mr Gove simply repaid the money and continued
untroubled with his career. Will it be OK in court for a looter to
offer to hand back a stolen TV or a pair of trainers?

Jon Bloomfield

Birmingham

Can the looters offer to pay?