Well I go away for a few days holiday and literally riots break out. I doubt after all the millions of words which have already been written about the riots and their causes there is much original left to say. I agree with those who lay the blame at the door of those who have allowed a culture of rights without responsibilities to take hold in our Country. There is no excuse for violence and theft.
Incidentally I note that only one e-petition has reached the required 100,000 signature target needed to trigger the subject of the petition being considered for debate and that is one calling for those convicted of taking part in the riots to lose their benefits. I am not sure what conclusion we can draw about the standard of education from the fact that the petition spells the word ‘lose’ as ‘loose’ ( as indeed I noticed another less popular petition on the same subject!). It is interesting to note what is happening to these e-petitions that reach the 100,000 mark all that happens is that they are referred to the Backbench Business Committee to decide whether to use any of the time allocated to them whether to use any of the time allocated for backbenchers business to debate the issue involved. I have to say I think it is a bit rich that the Government bring forward an initiative giving the public the impression that any e-petition which attracts 100,000 e-signatures will be considered for debate and then pass the responsibility for that consideration on to the Backbench Business Committee.
David Nuttall 
In reply to Ms Headley’s post 14th August 2011, I see a deeply troubled person. I teach primary school children and am totally flabberghasted at your suggestion as to bringing back the cane/birch.
1. I am no ‘do-gooder’ as you say, but do you honesty think that physically hurting children will stop them misbehaving? You say “that children don’t have anything to fear” – why do we need to install fear in them in the first place? Are you KEEN on frightening them?
2. You say that “children learn by example”. Is smacking or whacking them with a cane setting a good example? That sends a messge to them that it’s ok to use violence if a child loses their temper or says something wrong.
3. Who is going to deliver these blows with a cane? The teacher? The person who is charged with ‘looking after them?’ I for one would be horrified at the the thought of having to inflict pain on a child.
Your views are archaic and belong in the dark ages.
Please, no more extreme rants.
If you pardon the pun, they ‘smack’ of days gone by, and are not child friendly in anyway. I maintain excellent discipline in my school without resorting to physical hurt.
There is absolutely no excuse for the rioting, however our society in Britain is broken, not just at the bottom but at the top as well. Children learn by example, and unfortunately they are bombarded with images of greed that is all too common within Britain now. The value of human life is sadly not as valuable as property as we witnessed when the courts were giving out the sentences for the various crimes that were committed. For example, there was one crime of assaulting a Police Officer and the criminal got 20 weeks sentence, then there was a theft of £3000 of ciggerettes and that criminal got 8 months prison sentence. Surely it should of been the other way around, the Police Officer’s safety is more valuable than ciggerettes. The children see that the British person’s future, isn’t as valuable to the government than keeping the Bankers and shareholders happy, and it is acceptable for companies just to come and treat British workers like rubbish. These companies get enterprise grants and tax breaks to set up in the UK, once the company gets the knowledge from the British Worker, the company then throws that worker out on the scrap heap, while all the machinery (paid for by the grants etc) goes abroad and the jobs follow due to child and cheap labour in countries where human rights is a fairy tale. The basic wage isn’t enough to be able to save to purchase a home, and the banks will not lend any money to the poor person to get a mortagage, so the basic human right of being able to afford your own home is a distant dream, because property in this country is priced out of a young person’s dream. In addition, the government’s social housing policy will hurt more communities. Trying to look into the future for a career is impossible especially if you are from a poor background, because now university is priced out of the range of some of the brightest talent in this country. Then Children see, the greed of the Murdoch’s and then there are the scandals of MP’s and government officials who have stolen from the country by making false claims, all of whom have got off lightly with minor sentencing. People who are suppose to govern, should really lead by example and the behaviour within the house of commons sometimes does show the country up as a whole when grown men and women heckle people who are speaking. The lack of discipline is another problem, because of the ‘do gooders’ children are growing out of control because there is no more smacking or cane, and the children don’t have anything to fear from their actions. As they grow older they realise that prison seems to be an easy route to getting good education and training due to the policy of rewarding criminals, infact people go into prison with no education and then they can come out as lawyers, whereas it costing innocent children £9000 per year for their college and university courses. So it is no wonder children are turning to crime to get what they want. Its about time the country went back to old fashioned values and stop pandering to the ‘do gooders’. With crime, if you can’t do the time, the don’t do the crime. We are running out of room in prisons, because you keeping the waste of space, serial killers, serial paedophiles and terrorists etc, when the cheaper solution would be Capital punishment, and that would leave more room for other offenders. The Birch could also be a very good punishment with compulsory community service orders and making the criminal pay for the crime that they committed by either making an attachment to earnings or benefits. Just to allow the criminals to sit on their bums all day shouldn’t be an option, chain gangs would be good too, because the prisoners could clean up river’s or build roads or build resevoirs or whatever big public projects that were needed. Mind you this will never happen because the government is only interested in short term profit, instead of total investment in the future of British people and our country.
Just maybe, the British government might find a few radical ideas here: http://www.3news.co.nz/Youth-benefit-stripped-payment-card-instead/tabid/419/articleID/222119/Default.aspx