Man charged with Keith Blakelock murder...

[Jonone]

This bombardment of aspirational images and brand messages has a corrosive effect on childhood - it could be argued - and yet Cameron has never addressed this.

[Gentleman]

I thought that's what Daves anti porn crusade was all about..after all being bombarded by nasty fake boobs, tasteless tattoos, orange tans and shop brought hair (well if its a English model) will have nasty effect on children.

[David Johnson]

I do find it depressing now the school holidays have started that there are loads of young girls who look to me about 11 or 12 dolled up to the nines with the full makeup, false eyelashes and latest gear that you would expect adults to wear. It makes me think "What happened to their childhood?" "Who stole it?"

And a corrosive effect on adulthood too. Isn't aspirational house ownership what Osborne is selling with his Help to Buy scheme designed to support people buying houses up to ?600K that they otherwise wouldn't be able to buy? When the scheme stops and interest rates start to rise, those people run the risk of being left in negative equity with unaffordable mortgage bills.

Same old, same old.

[andy at handiwork]

And with mortgages underwritten by the taxpayer if they default?

[David Johnson]

Well 15% of the mortgage needed to purchase a house as part of the scheme which starts at the end of this year, will be underwritten by the taxpayer.

The government argue that the lender will be charged a fee for this service but have not outlined what the fee will be. The government has, however, argued that this scheme will be self funding. If that is the case, why should the lender bother? So it seems likely that in the event of a default, the taxpayer will have to cough up.

The concept of the taxpayer underwriting people wanting to buy a house up to 600K has been described as "very dangerous" by the Institute of Directors and "moronic" by a leading economist.

Indeed!

[Gentleman]

Cheap way of buying votes though, well to the Tory party coffers anyway as its not their cash that's being spent.

[muswell]

I would guess that this is far from being a "done deal". For one thing there was no one murderer of PC Blakelock his body had 40 stab wounds and a fireman witness said that he had been attacked by at least as many people, so finding one without the others raises many questions.
My guess is that without a confession, a witness or physical evidence there will be no conviction and I doubt that any of those will be forthcoming in a convincing form. If there is a conviction there will still be the other perpetrators who are being protected by their community as they have been for nearly 30 years.
It will in any event take more than one result before arriving at justice.

[max_tranmere]

I agree they need to be held to account, it's just that when they are so over-scrutinised and monitored that it hinders them doing their jobs effectively then I have an issue with it. Since the Lawrence inquiry the Police have been on the back foot so much you would think it was them who were the criminals often, rather than the criminals. As far as I'm aware street crime in London has soared since the Lawrence inquiry as the Police have to watch themselves so much over stop-and-search. You endlessly hear on TV and in the print press how the Police stop and search a lot more black people than anyone else, and the implication is that the Police are being racist. Most muggers in London are black men, so what are the Police supposed to do - go after the Chinese community or something? It's ridiculous. Political correctness puts innocent people in danger.

[max_tranmere]

"If you stop to consider that Winston has been a defender of his neighbourhood way before the murder charges which were self defence as his attackers were the aggressors that he got the best of...Ok he murdered them. I admit that doesnt do his image any favours. His neighbourhood saw him as a warrior defender to the young and weak. One only has to talk to the indigenous peoples around where he lives. Gangs from other areas were always going there taking the piss and Winston was the man that saw them off."

I've copied and pasted this from Wikipedia about Winston Silcott:

STARTS
Silcott's other convictions include murder, burglary and malicious wounding. In 1989, the London School of Economics Students' Union elected Silcott as Honorary President, allegedly as a protest against miscarriages of justice. Silcott served 18 years imprisonment for the murder of boxer and reputed gangster Tony Smith, for which he was on bail when Blakelock was killed. Silcott claimed that he killed Smith in self defence. He was released from Blantyre House Prison in October 2003. Silcott had also spent 6 months in prison for assault in a nightclub prior to his conviction for the murder of Smith. In 2005, the police recruited Silcott to run a youth centre on the Broadwater Farm Estate, in a bid to reduce youth crime in the area. In March 2007, he was found guilty of theft from shops for a second time since his release from prison. After his initial arrest he was held in police cells for two days for failing to reveal his real address.
ENDS

He doesn't sound like the kind of person I would want to got for a beer with. This bit about him becoming the honorary president of the London School of Economics Students' Union is very baffling indeed. I had to read that a couple of times to make sure my mind wasn't playing tricks on me!

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"Sigh I think its fair to say you've made up your mind how it all went down and everyone who gets nicked is guilty"

Not correct. I said earlier how being arrested for something and being charged for it are two different things. They would unlikely go as far as charging this guy unless they thought him guilty and that there was a very good chance of getting a conviction. If he did it, he should go down. If he's innocent he does not deserve to go down. Apparently he's in Court later today (Friday).

[max_tranmere]

I agree there is always a trigger that will start a riot, things have been simmering away for a while and then a 'straw that breaks the camels back' thing occurs and it all kicks off. All the riots you mention involved things like that which pushed the community from being close to rioting to actually doing it. I don't think looting can be justified though - teenagers heading back to their council flat armed with plasma screen TV's and boxes of expensive Nike Air pumps which they will sell on later and make loads of cash from.