Dogwash

For much of yesterday we were treated to rolling news coverage of Riot of the Day, as assorted anarchists, SWPers and other opportunistic riff-raff attempted to effect, er, impromptu rearrangements to selected business premises in Oxford Street and Piccadilly on behalf of the people. Jolly good television it was too; though I must say I was quite concerned for the safety of the BBC's Tom Willcox as he reported from the thick of it.

Every few weeks the EDL stages a demonstration somewhere in the country. Local "community" groups, politicians, bishops, imams, local authorities, senior policemen, chambers of commerce and the local chapters of Hamsters against Racism step forward to be interviewed by the local rag. We are warned that the EDL are violent racist knuckledragging hooligans who will terrorize the populace, eat small children, smash up "ethnic" business premises, burn down mosques and generally reduce the town to ruins. Catastrophic economic disruption is foretold as all the shops are preemptively boarded up and citizens are advised to cower indoors under the dining room table, thus conveniently creating the forecast massive trading losses anyway.

So what I wanna know is this. If advance notice has been given and it's going to be that tasty a bit of mayhem, where's all the TV cameras? Where are Lyse Doucet, Orla Guerin and John Simpson in their flak jackets, perched atop a pile of rubble outside Luton Town Hall, to give us blow-by-blow reportage?

Could it be that the advertised armageddon is not there to be shown, or that such violence as does occur is largely caused by the "wrong" people?

I notice this recent coverage of the unfortunate Big John's incident. But what's this bit here?

Liz Dodds, prosecuting, told Leicester magistrates that Mooney was one of about 200 protesters who broke through a police cordon in Queens Street at about 4pm to challenge a group of Asian youths.

The trouble then spilled into Humberstone Road, where up to 20 members of the public had sought refuge in [Big John's Takeaway].

So, I guess these "Asian youths" were just standing there then, applauding politely, were they?

Scarcely the EDL's finest hour, to be sure, but possibly not quite the rampaging mobs of thugs mindlessly and entirely without provocation attacking innocent effnicks going about their legitimate business.


Just asking, that's all.