A bit of a riot

When will they get it? It's too, too facile to explain it away as criminality.

I think a better truth is that this is about rebellion against authority, which in recent years, let alone months, has displayed no reason to deserve respect. MPs had their nasty little hands caught in the till - shoplifting on a monumental scale. So much for the idea of respect in our political institutions.

How about the banks? Disgusting behaviour, followed by the rapacious gathering of bonuses. Weren't banks once pillars of respect?

And then came another voice of authority - a newspaper group revealed as grossly undeserving of respect. The media, whether they like it or not, put themselves up as another source of 'authority': certainly they want us to look up to them, to some degree or another. Fail.

The police themselves, the Met in particular, have a record of accepting bribes from News International journalists. Hardly the stuff we expect of them.

So if kids are rioting and looting, it's a way of expressing their disrespect of authority, which has so badly disrespected them. You don't have to like it, but it sure speaks of the bankruptcy of our so-called institutions.

By the way, I'm up for a nice digital HD-ready TV, if there's one going.