To Brexit Or Bremain

If your Facebook timeline has been anything like mine for the past couple of weeks, you may now be heartily sick of hearing about the referendum. I have also been irked by the number of posts I've read which start "I hope I don't know anyone who's planning to vote Leave..." I'm sorry, did I wake up in some sort of Nazi-land where we must all have the same opinions? Seriously, if you and everyone you know are all voting the same way – in this or any other election – it's a sure sign you live in a little bubble and need to get out more. Diversify!

The EU has a number of fantastic features. For instance, the laws that have improved people's lives, protected the environment, raised standards of animal welfare, and ensured that food and cosmetics are always accompanied by a full list of their (strictly tested and approved) ingredients. The fact that once the laws have passed, they apply to 28 countries in one fell swoop, makes everything a million times easier. 

Despite this, I will be voting to leave the EU. (Not to be confused with leaving "Europe", as so many professional journalists have been heard to say.) Why? Let's take a look at some of the arguments doing the rounds on the internet:

1) The Myth of EU Funding

(Also known as that awkward moment when you forget that money "coming from the EU" is just a partial refund of money you sent them in the first place.)

There's no such thing as "EU money". Just like "government money" – it all comes from YOU and your taxes. You know how everyone's been making such a fuss about the "mythical £350 million", and how much we "get back"? This is the cash they were talking about. 

The EU does indeed generously bequeath us with our own money, but with provisos on how we can spend it. Kind of like giving your salary to your mum and then having her dole out your bus fare and lunch money but keeping the rest.

Interestingly, the Leave campaign has claimed the current subsidies will remain the same in the event of Brexit, although what would happen after 2020 is anybody's guess. 

So how much does our EU membership cost? According to independent UK fact checkers www.fullfact.org: "£350 million is what we would pay to the EU budget, without the rebate.* But the UK actually pays just under £250 million a week." 

(*That rebate was hard-won by Maggie T, as pro-remain site www.infacts.org pithily notes; "Funny how eurosceptics, for most of whom Thatcher is a hero, have forgotten one of her best known achievements." All together now, #ThanksThatcher)

But we get some more funding back, so what are the final figures? Crunching the numbers further, www.fullfact.org's conclusion is that in 2015, "Overall we paid in £8.5 billion more than we got back, or £23 million a day." Just let that sink in for a moment. That's the amount we paid in that we never saw again. £23 million PER DAY. 

No matter how many cutesy memes you've seen about it equalling the price of a couple of pints, that's an awful lot of money.

  

("Free healthcare across Europe"? Your free EHIC card will entitle you to essential treatments "at a reduced cost or sometimes for free". But those medical bills will be passed onto your own Government, who pay them with your taxes. Oh, and you'll still need insurance, too.) Interestingly, the UK also has reciprocal healthcare agreements with certain non-EU countries such as Australia, Croatia, Gibraltar, New Zealand and Russia.)

The biggest reason behind my vote for Brexit is the total lack of transparency over what happens to the HUGE amounts of money they handle and the utter waste in what we do know they spend. 

For instance, they blow £150 million every year on moving offices once a month. Yep, they pack all their paperwork in a bunch of lorries and relocate from Brussels to Strasbourg for four days. No particular reason, they just like it. 

(Actually, I'm being facetious, The real reason is because France insists on it. Something to do with fighting over who got to host stuff back in the 1950s? Not that they're being childish about it)

"Other Areas" so beyond reproach that they don't even need to be mentioned. 

It's often said that the EU has never been audited, which turns out not to be true. As reported in 2014: "The European Court of Auditors (ECA), an EU body set up to examine the accounts of the Union, signed off on the 2014 accounts as reliable – something it's done for every set of figures since 2007. But it did find that payments made were materially affected by error.... Payments have breached this (2% allowable error) threshold for the last 21 years." 

Also: 

"But there are many errors that the ECA can not quantify, such as less serious breaches of procurement rules, failures to comply with rules on publicity, or incorrect incorporation of EU directives into national law.... These errors are not included in the ECA’s estimated error rate." Reassuring stuff.

Ignoring the fact that they're audited by an EU body rather than an independent one (nope, absolutely no side-eye for that), how much does that margin of error account for? "Overall, 4.4% of the EU's spending didn't follow the rules and accordingly shouldn't have been paid out." 

4.4% sounds tiny, but if your total budget is €142.5 billion (about £114.8 billion) then that equals £5.0512 billion. (Lost forever. No biggie.) And that's just the money that's gone unaccounted for. While there's no doubt that our EU refunds are a boon to everything from the arts to scientific research, there has also been some pretty suspect spending from Brussels, such as the €300,000 (£263,511) spent on events described as “cocktail parties” in 2009, or the £350,000 cost of building a Hungarian dog hydrotherapy centre which never opened. 

I know, I know; If we picked a British MP for a random audit, their spending would also be a nasty (non) surprise. But I'd rather only pay for one set of ridiculous wasters than some here and some in Brussels.  

  

2) If we come out, crazed right-wingers like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove will be in charge, with nobody restricting them.

                                      

Some advocate voting Remain to keep Boris out. Would it be melodramatic to liken that to suicide, in that it's a permanent solution for a temporary problem?

We're a year into the current government and we'll have a general election in four years' time. Given that it would take two years for us to extricate ourselves from the EU anyway, that's only two years for hypothetical PM Boris to romp unfettered through the UK's existing laws. And we've got four more years of Conservatives ANYWAY, no matter what the result of the referendum. (Unless Brexit triggers an extraordinary election.)

Like them or not, the Tories were voted in, while the leaders of the EU were not. Do we believe in democracy? Or does it come with a disclaimer: "Only if the majority are correct, i.e. if they agree with me"?

The point is often made that the house of lords is also unelected. So instead of removing one lot of undemocratic punks, we should keep both? Personally I think the sooner we dismantle the systems we currently have in place, the better. And exiting the EU is the fastest way to kickstart our revolution.

As Tony Benn  once said, "“If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.” We are free to vote out the Tories. We have no such powers when it comes to voting on the actions of the EU.

Oh, wait, we do. On the 23rd of June.

3) The EU doesn't tell us what to do!  

Some of the EU laws are clearly a result of someone having too much time on their hands (it's just a shame they haven't yet got round to standardising shoe and clothes sizes so we wouldn't have to return half of what we buy online, isn't it?) But they're not as crazy as the tabloids suggest; I don't think it's unreasonable to ban unsubstantiated health claims or insist that washing up gloves should be safe to use. But I particularly love the EU's response to the infamous banana story: "Of COURSE we didn't ban bendy bananas, what a RIDICULOUS myth... I think you'll find that we actually said that bananas had to be "free from malformation or abnormal curvature". Gotcha. Totally different thing. 

Although the EU is generally considered to lack democratic legitimacy, their system does at least involve representatives from each of the 28 member countries. Beyond that it all gets a bit complicated, so I'm just going to leave this here for starters:

So how much control do they have over us?

In 2010, the House of Commons reported: "The British Government estimates that around 50% of UK legislation with a significant economic impact originates from EU legislation" but tempered this by adding "However, there is no totally accurate, rational or useful way of calculating the percentage of national laws based on or influenced by the EU."

Brexiters claim: "Over the past twenty years… there have been 72 occasions in the Council of Ministers where the United Kingdom has opposed a particular measure. Of those 72 occasions, we have been successful precisely 0 times and we have lost 72 times." 

According to www.fullfact.org, "Official EU voting records show that the British government has voted ‘No’ to laws passed at EU level on 56 occasions, abstained 70 times, and voted ‘Yes’ 2,466 times since 1999". So basically, we get our way when we happen to agree with the majority. 

There seems to be a prevailing belief that, without the civilising influence of the EU, the UK would descend to its natural state of Dickensian working conditions, heartless bosses etc. (Goodness me, we'd probably have bankers with ridiculous bonuses, and struggling students on zero-hour contracts, too.) The Leave campaign has a full list of the total (not yet verified) 76 times Britain has been on the losing side of a vote, revealing that actually, where we come up against the powers-that-be mostly on the subjects of fishing and farming. Who'da thunk it?)

The Guardian investigates further: either the UK is getting more feisty or the EU is getting more unreasonable; we are "now in the minority more often than any other EU government".

You might say "So what if we had to compromise on 12.3% of the votes between 2009 and 2015?" But if we were outside of the EU, we wouldn't have to compromise at all. Rather than having the EU juggle the very different needs and cultures of 28 countries (ironing out our individual quirks to create one homogenised mass in the process) wouldn't it make more sense for us all to be independent? 

One comment I read online really stuck in my mind: "This is like arguing that slavery is OK if the master is kind... If you hand over more and more unaccountable power to wield by people you like, it may one day be seized by people you don’t."

4) If we stay in, we'll have a seat at the table and we'll be able to reform from within. 

Yeah, pretty sure Brussels' response to that idea will look something like this little guy: 

                                   

Not for the first time, our relationship with the EU reminds me of an abusive relationship. (They should really replace "Stockholm" and rename it "Brussels Syndrome".) We've already had "Can't you see how much I do for you?" and "You'll never survive without me," not to mention "Nobody else will ever love you and you'll die alone". Now we're falling for the classic "Things will change after we get married." Because people always change for the better AFTER you've signed the contract which legally binds you to them forever, don't they?

The Remainers say that Brexiters are being overly optimistic about our chances of being able to trade with the EU in future, but their confidence (or perhaps hubris) at the thought of revolutionising it is positively breathtaking; we've already had 43 years to give that a go. 

And David Cameron is particularly rubbish at negotiating; back in February, instead of pretending he was totally indifferent (the way you would if you were cancelling your mobile phone package with the intention of getting them to throw some bargains your way), he let the EU know that he was desperate to stay in. They treated him with the disdain of mean girls at school faced with a nerd begging to sit with them at lunch. 

As a side note, he was recently in the news for buying a blue 2004 Nissan Micra. This interested me because I am actually looking for a similar car (although I prefer the cute early 2003 vintage, before the shape changed and got all bulbous and weird).

This, not This

From my research on autotrader, gumtree, ebay etc I have learned that the going rate for one of these little beauties is somewhere between £500 – £800. David Cameron paid £1,495 for one with 92,000 on the clock? He was done. And not for the first time, it seems. When he attempted to make the EU agree to various promises, most of them were batted politely aside. And this was when he was in his strongest position, dangling the prospect of a referendum in front of them. Once our trump card is gone, are we really suggesting that the UK will be so strong and influential? The same UK currently threatened with being shut out of trading, excluded from terrorist intelligence, and generally doomed? 

You can't have it both ways; we're either too weak to to stand on our own and we have no influence at Brussels, or we have plenty of clout both at the inner table and outside of it.

5) Our economy will suffer and we'll end up like Switzerland and Norway, paying in, being forced to have open borders and not being able to trade!

"You don't want to end up like Norway, do you?" is the threat, as if Norway is the kid who lost his front teeth doing wheelies on his bike. The big fear is that we'll get all the things we were trying to avoid – open borders, huge fees – but we'll be stuck on the outside, unable to trade because everyone is feeling spiteful after being spurned. Norway's Prime Minister has warned that we "won't like it" if we leave, although she did also admit that the EU "is not very attractive". And the article comments are mostly from Norwegian people pointing out that they're not remotely interested in the EU, as evidenced by their repeatedly voting to stay out of it. 

Meanwhile, perhaps in a sneaky show of solidarity, Switzerland withdrew its long-dormant application to join the EU, saying "only a few lunatics" would want to join now. (Being cynical, maybe they want us to leave so that the EU will crumble and they won't get into trouble for naughtily blocking the number of immigrants they take.)

Here's me, aged 9, in Switzerland on their national day. (A nice lady gave me the lantern on a stick.) Somehow, I managed to enter the country despite its stubborn anti-EU stance. (As a side note, I look quite evil, don't I? A bit Village of the Damned? I think it's from having no eyebrows.) 

Firstly, the threat that we "won't get a say" is obsolete when you see the only time our voice is heard is if we happen to side with the majority. Norway and Switzerland both negotiate on which laws they agree to take on board, and there's a fair bit of wiggle room. 

But do we only have Switzerland and Norway as our role models? Whether Britain is the fifth or ninth largest economy, likening our pulling power to Norway's is like comparing Tesco with your local corner shop. And there are dozens of countries all over the world who have free trade deals with the EU without having to adhere to rules on free movement. 

The value of the pound has dropped sharply in the pre-vote uncertainty, but it also did this when we opted out of the Euro. And aren't we all glad we didn't fall for the scaremongering back then? (Interestingly, the threats used were remarkably similar to the "you'll never trade again" claims being used now.) 

Using the most British of words, Barack Obama has said we'll be "at the back of the queue" when it comes to drawing up new trade agreements. Of course America want the UK to be part of the EU; dealing with all of us at once is much easier. (Also, once we're gone, who are they going to pal around with? Everybody knows we're the fun ones.) The EU and USA are currently negotiating the controversial / dreaded Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP); tariffs between the two trading partners are already low at 3%, but the deal would likely put this at zero. (Of course, chances are we could end up signing up to this or something like it whether we're part of the EU or not...) 

Word on the street is that leaving will mean being made an example of; as one EU diplomat put it, “If we say you are outside the EU but can keep all of the advantages, access to the single market without any solidarity, it’s a terrible message for the rest of the EU." France have already threatened to shun us. 

As part of the EU, we've sometimes been held back from making agreements because of conflicts of interest, such as the EU avoiding deals which could mean outsiders rivalling EU members. Large organisations move slowly; the EU has been going back and forth for YEARS with Canada, China, the US and India, to name but a few. Acting alone, we wouldn't have to wait around for negotiations to suit all 28 members.

We will be able to use existing contracts for the next two years; after that, even if we fail to strike satisfactory deals, the very worst case scenario is that we'd have to stick to World Trade Organisation rules, which would mean paying tariffs. And as James Dyson points out, "If, as David Cameron suggested, they imposed a tariff of 10 per cent on us, we will do the same in return. We buy more from Europe than they buy from us, so we would be the net beneficiary and based on these numbers it would bring £10bn into the UK annually. Added to our net EU contribution, it would make us around £18.5 bn better off each year if we left the EU." 

Will the other EU countries really give us the cold shoulder? Currently we send about 44% of our exports to the EU (although this rate has been steadily dropping; it was 60% back in 2000) while 16% of EU exports go to the UK. This still makes us their biggest customer and when it comes down to it, trade is only concerned with profits, not politics.

In fact, the EU has a falling share of the world's GDP, suggesting that perhaps it is already a shrinking ship (and this referendum is our last lifeboat). 

                                     

Membership of the EU is beginning to sound like getting caught in a steel trap; escaping is worthwhile even if it means chewing off your own arm. Many farmers can't wait to be free of the red tape and one-size-fits-all attitude that stretches across all the EU countries. The UK fishing industry is equally annoyed at the fact they are only allocated 30% of the fishing quota in UK waters. 

6) Turkey isn't joining the EU

Pro-remain site www.infacts.org has "Turkey will join EU in 2020" under its "5 most misleading myths peddled by Leave". First of all, this is quite rude towards the Turks, isn't it? Saying "Don't worry, they're NOT coming." Guys, they're standing right there.They can hear you.

Secondly, this strikes me as meaningless, because if this is the only referendum we ever get and we vote to stay in, we'll still be in whenever Turkey DOES join. It doesn't make any difference whether it happens in 2017 or 2047. (And David Cameron's weird non-answers suggest that it's unlikely to be vetoed, whenever it occurs.)

7) Australia's points based system has resulted in MORE immigration, not less. 

That's because they are actively encouraging immigration. Just like us, they need people to help run the place. (Also, the attitude  "Yah boo, you'll still get immigrants! In your face!" sort of suggests you don't actually think they're such a positive thing. Rude.)

8) And we DO have control of our borders.That's why you have to go through passport control, duh!

The free movement of the EU means anyone with a European passport can come and live here. This is why it was so puzzling when David Cameron made promises about reducing immigration to "tens of thousands" – you can't, David. What part of "Free Movement" do not understand? The only way you could reduce numbers would be to completely cut off people coming from outside of the EU, and that would be unfair.

The issue of immigration could take up a whole blog, so that's what I've done: in a nutshell, I dislike the bizarrely colonial vibe of modern immigration and the misguided belief that the EU is somehow egalitarian when in reality it's a snobby in-group.  

As for our own inconvenience if we opt out of free movement; we've all managed to travel to non-EU countries, haven't we? It's really not that hard. I know numerous people who have managed to live and work in non-EU countries too – we all know someone who lives in Thailand and does a "visa run" every three months, right? 

Conclusion

For months, members of the public have been demanding that Leave campaigners give them "proof" and "guarantees" that  Brexit will be a force for good. We want "facts" and a definitive answer to the question "What will happen if we leave?" 

We have to accept that NOBODY KNOWS. (Although contrary to popular belief, plans such as "Flexcit" ARE in place, ready to be put into action.) Even the most confident prophet of doom or joy really has no idea what the future holds. (But if David Cameron wants people to Remain, he really needs to stop saying that Brexit will be "a leap in the dark" – he makes it sound way too exciting for all the gamblers among us.)  

The scaremongering has gone too far now, with the result that whenever David Cameron, George Osborne or anyone else pops up with a new threat, the collective response is:

But the EU's marketing department has done its job: we now believe that being out of the EU is "turning inward" and "isolating ourselves" while being on the inside means belonging to a fluffy, cuddly family; kindness, inclusiveness and unity personified. 

The opposite is true. The EU is an EXCLUSIVE CLUB; they will let you join if you fulfill their criteria, but if you mess up, they'll treat you with merciless contempt. (Just ask Greece. I'm still not sure why the risk of being treated like crap has been cited as a reason for us to stay in, rather than running away as fast as we can.)

Brussels  is collecting countries like Pokémon cards... for what end game? To build a force mighty enough to compete with the US, China, and Russia? To become the biggest power in the world and crush the competition?

We can't invite the whole world to be in the EU – that's what the United Nations and NATO are for – so why are we acting like the EU is all about togetherness? World unity will never be achieved while half of the countries are in a little gang and the rest are not.

It has been argued that this referendum shouldn't be happening; that the average Brit is just not educated or qualified enough to make such a momentous decision. To be fair, this is probably true. While lots of people will choose whether to vote in or out based on carefully weighing up all the options, some will vote for stupid reasons: voting out because they don't like immigrants, or voting in because they think the EU gives us money. And you know what? That's their privilege, because we live in a DEMOCRACY. And that's something worth fighting for. 

                               

Won't somebody think of the children....?

I wonder if the BAAF think this family should be outlawed? 

Adoption is one of the few areas in British law in which it is entirely legal to make discriminatory decisions based on race. THE BAAF (British Association for Adoption and Fostering) website puts it thus: “We find children do best in a family that reflects their ethnic identity as closely as possible.” Which sounds reasonable, but it also means that if nobody of your particular ethnic mix shows up, you will be languishing in a care home for a very long time. Where's Angelina when you need her? 

Last month David Cameron was loudly criticising this system: “How can we have let this happen? We’ve got people flying all over the world to adopt babies, while the care system at home agonises about placing black children with white families.... ith the right values and the right effort, let’s end this scandal and help these, the most vulnerable children of all.”

Unfortunately his noble sentiments appear to have gone AWOL, as the strict criteria remains in place. Matt Dunkley (president of the Association of Directors of Children's Services) told Radio 4 “If you can make a match within a child's own race, that generally leads to better outcomes.” Children's Minister Mr Loughton countered “Although having an ethnic match may be desirable, it is a bonus and not a deal breaker.”

Trying to adopt a child in the UK sounds like a nightmare of Orwellian-style red tape and hoop jumping  – no wonder many people are instead paying to adopt from abroad. This turns you into a multi-cultural family, allowing you to adopt a non-white child in the UK  – yay! Oh, but only if they are of the exact same ethnicity of your first child. (Never mind that you could quite easily produce biological children with a variety of ethnic backgrounds, if you so wished.) It does seem like a complicated approach to what should be a simple mission  – finding the best possible family for each child. Even if this means placing them with *gasp* a smoker. I know it's not ideal but surely we should be living by the maxim “A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow”. (Don't tell me Alec Baldwin films never teach you anything.) 

Of course, if you have lots of money, you may find 
some of these problems just fall by the wayside.

In 2000, Tony Blair did his best to sort out kids in care by setting adoption targets of 50%, with large cash incentives for the councils. Unfortunately social workers are easily confused; they attempted to meet the targets not by systematically emptying out care homes of children that were already “in the system” but by finding babies they could remove from their biological families instead. By 2007, 900 babies were being taken every year. (I know it sounds insane, but it's true.) Now, we can probably assume that at least some of these were from parents who had previously proven themselves to be unfit, but a frightening number appear to be people who were just easy targets. At the time, Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming said “Social workers are seizing very young children on the flimsiest of excuses and giving them to other families.... This smacks of social engineering on a grand scale. The offer of monetary rewards for meeting the targets has created a frenzy among social workers.” Scary stuff.

One famous case was that of Mark and Nicky Webster, whose three children were forcibly removed because of one of them suffered unexplained leg fractures – which were later thought to be due to a Vitamin D Deficiency. By the time this had been discovered, the children had been adopted, never to be seen again by their biological parents. Many more stories of this kind will never be heard; the irreversible decisions made in family courts are veiled in utmost secrecy. 

Obviously, this Twilight Zone of a social system must be changed. Luckily for children everywhere and those prospective parents who are over 35, white, or 10lb overweight, the backlash has begun. Adoption with Humanity has a mission “to actively push for policies that place children at the heart of a more humane system, with a new ethos that views adoption as equally valid and equally valued as a means of finding a family for children in care”. If you're in agreement with them, there is a petition on their website. I’d hate to sound like a Daily Mail columnist here (although they are entertaining) but LET’S STOP THE MADNESS NOW!

Something rotten in the state of... London

On the bright side, Rise of the Planet of the Apes is out soon.

What a week, eh? Without delving too far into the origins of the protests, they began when police messed up – and not for the first time. However, the legitimate complaints were soon hijacked by some very angry people.

One ubiquitous youtube video showed Fiona Armstrong interviewing Darcus Howe (She came a cropper in the media for asking "You are not a stranger to riots yourself, are you? You have taken part in them yourself." To which he replied, "I have never taken part in a single riot. I've been part of demonstrations that ended up in a conflict.”) What I found sad was that Darcus Howe apparently believed that the rioters were in some way politically motivated, as he had been when protesting in the 1970s. It appears to me that rioters were cynically using the death of Mark Duggan as an excuse for their own agenda.

At least some of the “protesters” made it clear they were not the champions for social change that some suggested, as this recording (sure to become a classic) indicates.

Apparently rioting is “good fun” and “it’s the government’s fault.... I dunno... Conservatives... whatever, who it is, I dunno....  It’s not even a riot, it’s showing the police we can do what we want... and now we have.”

And why were these radicals targeting local people?

“It’s the rich people, the ones that have got businesses..... that’s why all of this has happened, because of the rich people.....so we’re just showing the rich people that we can do what we want.”

That’ll teach you for trying to build a successful business, won’t it! No wonder the people who dared to have homes got them burned down, too. These girls have obviously never heard the sage old rabbi's advice: "don't waste time counting other people's money".

Perhaps wading into the crowds for some hand-to-hand combat would have caused more problems (and been near suicidal in some areas) but police seemed paralysed – TV reports frequently showed little groups of them around the one person they had managed to handcuff. I imagine the threat of being sued – "It's my human right to set fire to houses!" must be quite debilitating when trying to do your job. The questions floating around Facebook were direct: Where were the rubber bullets, the tear gas and water cannons? (It seems that we all lose our liberal views at the sight of a chav with a nicer iphone than our own). 

“Those people were fighting for something; for a cause. To them out 
there, this is just entertainment.” Michael Caine, Harry Brown

Hand-wringing about the state of Britain’s moral decline could wait. We needed to STOP what was going on, and NOW. This did not happen; chaos continued for days, and more innocent people lost their homes and livelihoods.

Of course, to your average rioter, smashing in a shop window and nicking a laptop is a victimless crime. Because those businesses make lots of money! (And you know that’s a crime, right?) While The Guardian claimed “There is a context to London's riots that can't be ignored”, it seemed that the only context was “People like smashing, stealing or setting fire to things that don't belong to them”.

Lee Jasper, a former adviser on policing, allegedly said that certain shops were attacked because they don’t create projects for under-privileged youths. He was quoted as asking: "When did Curry’s build a school?" Since nobody seems to have the original quote, it strikes me as hearsay (or hastily buried) but it’s the kind of thing an idiot in politics WOULD say.

Ed Miliband asked "Is it culture, or is it poverty and lack of opportunity? It is probably both." Exactly – until now we’d all lacked the opportunity to get away with looting a shoe shop.

Nina Power wrote in The Guardian; “Combine understandable suspicion of and resentment towards the police based on experience and memory with high poverty and large unemployment and the reasons why people are taking to the streets become clear.”

Which would all be perfectly valid, if it wasn’t both patronising and insulting to the many people living in poor areas who DIDN’T riot. (You could also argue that she was suggesting most rioters were black, given the stronger history of conflict between black people and the police.)  As looters were caught, many people were astonished to find that, far from being the “betrayed youth,” they were often middle class 20 and 30-somethings with respectable jobs. They were just greedy morons. (And the context here would be: “It’s ok to like the products of your corporate foes, as long as you’re not giving them your money.”)

Why should we be surprised that, among others, a millionaire’s daughter, a charity worker and a graphic designer were caught stealing? For years we’ve watched politicians lie, cheat, and claim for bath plugs on their expenses. Selfishness and avarice is the culture, and it’s not exclusive to the ghettos.

Peter Oborne of the Telegraph pointed out that self-made millionaire Richard Branson was thinking of moving his headquarters to Switzerland to avoid heavy taxes, and “I couldn’t help thinking that in a sane and decent world such a move would be a blow to Sir Richard, not the Chancellor. People would note that a prominent and wealthy businessman was avoiding British tax and think less of him. Instead, he has a knighthood and is widely feted".

He also gives many examples of politician’s hypocrisy in lambasting looters, when “I find it very hard to make any kind of ethical distinction between (Hazel) Blears’s expense cheating and tax avoidance, and the straight robbery carried out by the looters.”

Obviously, something has gone wrong in the moral landscape of Britain.

"The Opposite of War Isn't Peace, It's Creation" – Jonathan Larson

Camilla Batmanghelidjh (pictured) is founder of the Kids Company and is generally an amazing person. She wrote “How, we ask, could they attack their own community with such disregard? But the young people would reply "easily", because they feel they don't actually belong to the community.... In this false moral economy where the poor are described as dysfunctional, the community fails.”

So how have we raised a society with so little empathy?

Neuroscientists have learned that when we see or imagine the pain of others, we activate regions of the brain that are normally activated when we feel pain ourselves. Experiments such as those by Alessio Avenanti and Tania Singer illustrated that participants showed a greater response when seeing pain inflicted on someone of the same “group” – be it race or football team. Brain activity revealed that knowing someone is a fan of a different team is actually enough to shut down empathy for that person’s pain. So, someone who feels completely alienated from their community will have no problems turning on their fellow man, whether it's the police or their neighbours.

I know gamers hate it when people point fingers at the beloved x-box, but check out some youtube vids of State of emergency – it’s not a giant leap to imagine that a gaming addict could get excited when offered the opportunity to try out some well-practised moves in real life. (But most likely they were sitting on their arses when the riots went on anyway. Ho ho.)

In contrast to the total lack of compassion shown by rioters, one thing which makes me happy is the “spirit of the blitz” atmosphere which has emerged. Groups stood shoulder to shoulder and refused rioters access to their neighbourhoods. Clean-up operations transformed ruined shops in hours. (The only disappointing part is that the rioters weren’t forced to return to the scene of their crimes.) Incidentally, I was in the US at the time of the 7/7 bombings, and Americans would often tell me they thought the Brits’ “Keep calm and carry on” attitude was amazing.

I follow writer Naomi Wolf on FB – I enjoy her books, and mostly disagree with her politics (all the more reason to follow and get some interesting points of view, yes?). This week she was theorising about agent provocateurs, saying “Look closely at all these 'masked rioters' – half of UK youths are overweight or scrawny from lack of exercise... these young men have been bench pressing. Their 'yob' clothes are brand new. Something is wrong with this picture..... people just don't show up dressed like a thug from central casting.” One fan replied “Oh NayNay... leave it to you to realize how cute the rioters are.” Wolf went on to point out that “NO ONE under thirty stands up ramrod straight, chest out arms at the sides except young people trained in the military. Seriously.”

Brand new sneakers and unimaginative clothing is not exactly incompatible with Britain’s youth (especially when JD Sports was no 1 on the loot list) and it seems unlikely that the police secretly mobilised riots spread across the country. (And all the looters I saw on TV looked skanky anyway, sadly adhering to Naomi’s first impression of British youth). But there were more theories popping up; Nay Nay’s supporters theorised that planned riots may be part of a “global blueprint” to make changes while the public is all of a dither.

The reality is that David Cameron has the perfect opportunity to bring in stronger laws (if I hear him say “robust” one more time, I might scream). There is also ammunition for those who argue in favour of more CCTV cameras – who needs privacy rights when you can catch criminals? (Activists who campaign against cameras always mock the phrase “If you haven’t done anything wrong, you won’t have anything to fear,” but I’ve never heard any of them explain why they think it isn’t true.)

I might also suggest that “next time” the police and press should make it clear that if you’re not a rioter, you should get off the streets whenever possible. People standing around with camera phones just cluttered up the place and unnecessarily swelled the ranks of the troublemakers. Not to mention the fact that some of those who have since been arrested have argued that they were just “caught up” in the crowds...

You know what? I’m starting to turn into my granny, because the phrase that springs to mind is “they don’t know they’re born”. I’m trying not to think about the fact that all of these poor, repressed youths have blackberries, and I don’t. (The irony is that without the privilege of expensive technology, they would never have co-ordinated their attacks on, um, all those black-hearted capitalists.)

These spoilt kids have the same sense of entitlement we see on X factor: “What do you mean I can’t have what I want? F--- you, then!”

If they had to live in any of the many countries in which police can and will beat you to death just because they don’t like the look of you, or where politicians have almost no restrictions on their expenses (try Italy for starters), they might realise that, imperfect as Britain is (never so clearly illustrated as it has been this week) it’s not such a bad place to live.

But now that the masses know they can rise up and own the streets, what’s to stop them from doing it again? And can we trust the police to protect us?

I suspect sales of baseball bats and inspirational DVDs such as Harry Brown and Dexter (recommended!) will go up.

I leave you with the wise words of Miranda Lambert. 

ETA: I don't mean for this piece to come across as overly critical of the police – when I say "Can we trust them to protect us?" I am talking about the fact that they are tied up in red tape which doesn't allow them to do their job as effectively as they'd like to. I know that they appreciate it when members of the public give them words of support on their toughest days; a "thank you" and a cup of tea and a jammy dodger go a long way.