Politics Club hears Polly Toynbee on the summer riots
The award-winning journalist and broadcaster, Polly Toynbee, addressed the students of BSix on the summer riots.
She began by explaining that riots create a moral panic because they reveal what would happen if people deny authority and law and order breaks down. She distinguished between making excuses for criminal behaviour and trying to explain the rioting.
She went on to say that there was no openly political motive for the riots but we have to ask why they happened now and in particular places. The situation now is similar to that which prompted the riots in 1981 but it is even worse. She added that "it would be a brave person who predicts there will be no more riots." Inflation is above 5% , wages are rising by only 1% , energy prices have risen by 14% and there are £18 billion of benefit cuts. The hardest hit are the young and those with dependent children. Unemployment is currently 2.5 million and likely to rise to 3 million. Support services for the young and unemployed are being stripped away and there are more cuts to come.
Polly Toynbee concluded that all of this is based on a false premise. She agrees that there is a need to tackle the national debt but cutting like this is having the opposite effect because it means that costs rise and income falls as fewer people are in work to pay taxes. She concluded that "with no stake and nothing to lose, then rioting is almost inevitable."
Polly Toynbee was the first speaker at this year's Politics Club programme. Representatives of the Green party and the Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor of London, Brian Paddick, are due in the following weeks. They form part of the exciting and interesting events organised by our extended college, BSeven , which promotes "learning beyond the classroom".
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