Let me offer you a hypothetical situation, if I may?
A young couple are thrilled to find that they are expecting a child.
They both work but are struggling to get on to the property ladder and private rent is too costly.
They apply for and are accepted into council housing.
Thrilled, they move in to their new home and begin their new lives.
They do their damndest to raise their child to be kind, honest and law-abiding.
But something doesn’t quite work out and this lad, now a teen, commits an opportunistic crime during the riots.
Saddened and disappointed, they accept that he must be punished, they take him to his court date and they shed a tear as their baby boy is sent to jail for six months.
What they don’t do is return to their family home to await his return and rebuild their lives, because the council have evicted them.
I think the best way to sum up my opinion here is with the delightful simplicity of BULLSHIT.
There are very few things in this world which can be safely viewed in black and white terms, this whole “EVICT THE RIOTING SCUM!” idea needs some thought, don’t you think?
Wholeheartedly agree – the subsequent backlash has been completely disproportionate. Evicting people who were linked in one way or another, arresting people who are organising waterfights and gloating about arrests and sentences for those who received goods appropriated from the looting. If only they took the same attitude towards the politicians who are guilty of fiddling their expenses.