The roots of the burning and looting in North London at the weekend can be traced back not to Broadwater Farm 1985 but to the Great Ikea Riot of 2005.
Six years ago a 7,000-strong mob went berserk at the opening of a new furniture warehouse in Edmonton. Five people were taken to hospital, including a woman who was stabbed in a fight over a cut-price sofa.
Police and security guards fought running battles with bargain hunters and the North Circular Road was brought to a standstill.
Shoppers desperate for discount bed frames, on sale for as little as £30, tried to smash their way in to the store when the doors were barred after just half an hour. One member of staff had his jaw broken and paramedics feared for their lives.
Ikea admitted that it was probably a mistake to offer such low introductory prices and to open the warehouse at midnight. But that doesn’t explain why customers ‘behaved like animals’, according to eye-witnesses.
They scrapped like alley cats over soft furnishings even as the casualties were being stretchered off to ambulances. One scared shopper said: ‘It’s just furniture. It’s not worth dying over.’
Edmonton is a couple of miles north of Tottenham as the Molotov Cocktail flies, so it was no surprise when the looting spread there on Sunday.
Some of the survivors of the Great Ikea Riot were almost certainly filling their boots on Tottenham High Road and at nearby Wood Green Shopping City, where thieves formed orderly queues to ‘liberate’ everything from flat-screen TVs to trainers.
One photograph showed a woman casually trying on a pair of stolen shoes in front of a smashed store front.
This wasn’t a spontaneous uprising of dissent from the downtrodden masses, it was shopping with violence.
Enfield isn’t a deprived inner-city ghetto, it’s a peaceful middle-class suburb. The disturbances there weren’t a protest against police brutality. A few hooligans figured the police would be so busy down the road in Tottenham that it was the perfect opportunity to rob the local Vodafone dealer.
Just as some of those who took part in the Great Ikea Riot had come from as far afield as Birmingham, so agitators and opportunists from all over London and beyond flocked to Tottenham and surrounding suburbs at the weekend.
Rioters were alerted to the potential for violence against the police via anti-social network messages from some of the leading lights in the Stop The Cuts mayhem in Central London earlier this year — including wheelchair warrior Jody McIntyre, who tweeted to his 9,000 followers: ‘Be inspired by the scenes in #tottenham and rise up in your neighbourhood = the way we can beat the feds.’
Let’s hope the police round up these electronic ringleaders and charge them with incitement.
The only real link to the Broadwater Farm riot was location, location, location. Relations between the police and the ‘community’ have improved beyond recognition since 1985.
Don’t take my word for it, listen to the local MP David Lammy who has lived in Tottenham all his life.
Millions of pounds have been pumped into inner city estates in the wake of the disturbances of the early to mid 1980s, not just in Tottenham, but also Brixton and other notorious concrete jungles across London.
In the case of Broadwater Farm, it would probably have been better to raze the place to the ground and start over again.
The most frightening side-effect of the new ‘softly, softly’ policing approach is that the control of such estates has been surrendered to lawless gangs led by the likes of Mark Duggan, whose shooting by police sparked the peaceful demonstration which escalated into mob violence.
Reliable locals attest that, despite the Guardian’s doting portrait of him as a respectable pillar of the community, Duggan was involved in drug dealing and gun crime.
Impressionable ‘youths’ looked up to him as an ‘elder’. Only on our inner city estates can a 29-year-old gangster be considered an ‘elder’, a term usually associated with a wise old man.
Mind you, there are probably a few 29-year-old grandfathers around these days, so anyone over 30 counts as ancient in some communities.
The police have questions to answer, not just in relation to the death of Mark Duggan but also why they stood aside and allowed the wholesale looting in Wood Green and at the Tottenham retail park.
It would be premature to prejudge the outcome of the official inquiry into the shooting, but it is worth pointing out that it involved officers who work out of a specialist unit at Scotland Yard, not the local nick at Tottenham.
And it is also worth noting that young, predominantly black, men are shot dead in turf wars every week across London without it turning into an excuse for setting fire to Carpetright and robbing Foot Locker.
The usual suspects have been bleating about police brutality and ‘racism’ being the prime causes of the unrest.
But if there is racism in Tottenham, it’s not white on black. The racial tensions involve hostility between Jamaicans, Nigerians, Cypriots, Albanians, Kurds and a host of Eastern European newcomers.
There’s resentment among the ‘youths’ against those who are perceived to have got on in life. Look no further than the Tweet from one of the looters which read: ‘F*** the electronics, them Turkish jewellers needed to get robbed.’
Unemployment is a problem, largely because so many of the poor, misunderstood ‘youths’ prefer to live on benefits and the proceeds of gang crime rather than seek gainful employment.
While they are posing for ‘gangsta’ photos on Facebook, most of the low-paid, but essential, jobs are filled by hard-working recent arrivals.
Study the shop signs in Tottenham High Road and see how many are written in Polish. One of the convenience stores looted was advertising Bulgarian food.
These are the people who have been burned out of their homes and small businesses. There were two dozen flats above the carpet warehouse which went up in flames.
The tragedy is not that the rioters have fouled their own nest, they have destroyed the hopes of so many decent people who have devoted their lives to building a real community in Tottenham.
Politicians have been content to throw money at these inner city areas without ever addressing the underlying problems, while fiddling around with their own fashionable obsessions.
One of the most ludicrous images from Saturday night was the photo of a double-decker bus in flames alongside a notice reading: ‘Low Emissions Zone.’
Just as prison warders turn a blind eye to prisoners smoking dope in the belief that it keeps them docile, so the police routinely ignore criminality in pursuit of a quiet life.
There has been much hand-wringing and wailing and gnashing of teeth over the past couple of days, most of it utter garbage.
One thing is certain: this wasn’t about poverty, not in the material sense. If there’s poverty, it’s spiritual poverty, moral poverty and poverty of ambition.
In countries where there’s real deprivation, they have food riots. Here we have flat-screen TV riots.
The other certainty is that this has nothing to do with the riots at Broadwater Farm 26 years ago. This wasn’t a political protest, or a demonstration against oppression, it was a grotesque manifestation of our shallow, instant gratification, I-want-it-and-I-want-it-now consumerist society, coupled with an extreme explosion of the kind of casual violence which scars our town and city centres across Britain every weekend.
There was more trouble in Brixton and last night the madness kicked off in Hackney and Peckham, as large areas of London went into lockdown.
At the time of the Broadwater Farm riots, there were copycat incidents, too. I remember driving past a skirmish outside Huckleberry’s hamburger bar opposite Turnpike Lane Tube station, which was later labelled the ‘Wood Green riot’. But it had nothing on this latest burning and looting.
We used to joke: Red sky at night, Tottenham’s alight. Now it’s not so funny. The titans of Broadwater Farm — Barmy Bernie Grant, Dolly Kiffin et al — have either died or are but a distant memory. All bar one, that is.
Right on cue Red Ken popped up to blame the weekend’s riots on Tory spending ‘cuts’.
There speaks the true voice of a man forever stuck in 1985
Six years ago a 7,000-strong mob went berserk at the opening of a new furniture warehouse in Edmonton. Five people were taken to hospital, including a woman who was stabbed in a fight over a cut-price sofa.
Police and security guards fought running battles with bargain hunters and the North Circular Road was brought to a standstill.
Riots: But the police have questions to answer too
Ikea admitted that it was probably a mistake to offer such low introductory prices and to open the warehouse at midnight. But that doesn’t explain why customers ‘behaved like animals’, according to eye-witnesses.
They scrapped like alley cats over soft furnishings even as the casualties were being stretchered off to ambulances. One scared shopper said: ‘It’s just furniture. It’s not worth dying over.’
Edmonton is a couple of miles north of Tottenham as the Molotov Cocktail flies, so it was no surprise when the looting spread there on Sunday.
Some of the survivors of the Great Ikea Riot were almost certainly filling their boots on Tottenham High Road and at nearby Wood Green Shopping City, where thieves formed orderly queues to ‘liberate’ everything from flat-screen TVs to trainers.
This wasn’t a spontaneous uprising of dissent from the downtrodden masses, it was shopping with violence.
Enfield isn’t a deprived inner-city ghetto, it’s a peaceful middle-class suburb. The disturbances there weren’t a protest against police brutality. A few hooligans figured the police would be so busy down the road in Tottenham that it was the perfect opportunity to rob the local Vodafone dealer.
Just as some of those who took part in the Great Ikea Riot had come from as far afield as Birmingham, so agitators and opportunists from all over London and beyond flocked to Tottenham and surrounding suburbs at the weekend.
Rioters were alerted to the potential for violence against the police via anti-social network messages from some of the leading lights in the Stop The Cuts mayhem in Central London earlier this year — including wheelchair warrior Jody McIntyre, who tweeted to his 9,000 followers: ‘Be inspired by the scenes in #tottenham and rise up in your neighbourhood = the way we can beat the feds.’
Let’s hope the police round up these electronic ringleaders and charge them with incitement.
The only real link to the Broadwater Farm riot was location, location, location. Relations between the police and the ‘community’ have improved beyond recognition since 1985.
Don’t take my word for it, listen to the local MP David Lammy who has lived in Tottenham all his life.
Millions of pounds have been pumped into inner city estates in the wake of the disturbances of the early to mid 1980s, not just in Tottenham, but also Brixton and other notorious concrete jungles across London.
In the case of Broadwater Farm, it would probably have been better to raze the place to the ground and start over again.
Under siege: People have been burned out of their homes and small businesses
Reliable locals attest that, despite the Guardian’s doting portrait of him as a respectable pillar of the community, Duggan was involved in drug dealing and gun crime.
Mind you, there are probably a few 29-year-old grandfathers around these days, so anyone over 30 counts as ancient in some communities.
Rebel without a cause: Most of the protestors are motivated by greed
And it is also worth noting that young, predominantly black, men are shot dead in turf wars every week across London without it turning into an excuse for setting fire to Carpetright and robbing Foot Locker.
But if there is racism in Tottenham, it’s not white on black. The racial tensions involve hostility between Jamaicans, Nigerians, Cypriots, Albanians, Kurds and a host of Eastern European newcomers.
Looters: This wasn't a protest - it was shopping with violence
Emptied out: Looters' thirst to take anything they could get their hands on was extraordinary
Unemployment is a problem, largely because so many of the poor, misunderstood ‘youths’ prefer to live on benefits and the proceeds of gang crime rather than seek gainful employment.
While they are posing for ‘gangsta’ photos on Facebook, most of the low-paid, but essential, jobs are filled by hard-working recent arrivals.
Study the shop signs in Tottenham High Road and see how many are written in Polish. One of the convenience stores looted was advertising Bulgarian food.
These are the people who have been burned out of their homes and small businesses. There were two dozen flats above the carpet warehouse which went up in flames.
Mark Duggan: Gang chiefs like him took over in estates abandoned by police
Politicians have been content to throw money at these inner city areas without ever addressing the underlying problems, while fiddling around with their own fashionable obsessions.
One of the most ludicrous images from Saturday night was the photo of a double-decker bus in flames alongside a notice reading: ‘Low Emissions Zone.’
Just as prison warders turn a blind eye to prisoners smoking dope in the belief that it keeps them docile, so the police routinely ignore criminality in pursuit of a quiet life.
There has been much hand-wringing and wailing and gnashing of teeth over the past couple of days, most of it utter garbage.
One thing is certain: this wasn’t about poverty, not in the material sense. If there’s poverty, it’s spiritual poverty, moral poverty and poverty of ambition.
In countries where there’s real deprivation, they have food riots. Here we have flat-screen TV riots.
The other certainty is that this has nothing to do with the riots at Broadwater Farm 26 years ago. This wasn’t a political protest, or a demonstration against oppression, it was a grotesque manifestation of our shallow, instant gratification, I-want-it-and-I-want-it-now consumerist society, coupled with an extreme explosion of the kind of casual violence which scars our town and city centres across Britain every weekend.
There was more trouble in Brixton and last night the madness kicked off in Hackney and Peckham, as large areas of London went into lockdown.
At the time of the Broadwater Farm riots, there were copycat incidents, too. I remember driving past a skirmish outside Huckleberry’s hamburger bar opposite Turnpike Lane Tube station, which was later labelled the ‘Wood Green riot’. But it had nothing on this latest burning and looting.
We used to joke: Red sky at night, Tottenham’s alight. Now it’s not so funny. The titans of Broadwater Farm — Barmy Bernie Grant, Dolly Kiffin et al — have either died or are but a distant memory. All bar one, that is.
Right on cue Red Ken popped up to blame the weekend’s riots on Tory spending ‘cuts’.
There speaks the true voice of a man forever stuck in 1985
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