A Peculiarly British Riot?

We Brits love a good riot.  Or do we?  As it stands this dangerous new craze has not caught on in Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland.  I sincerely hope that remains the case for if it were to spread north of Hadrian’s Wall, even the mildest dose of civil disobedience would be viewed as a far graver crime than the horrendous scenes we have witnessed in London.

Imagine if similar riots were taking place in the geographically British cities of Glasgow and Dundee instead of London and Birmingham.  Sky News and Paxman would go out their way to find talking heads to pontificate on how these disturbances were the inevitable outcome of our sectarian, Old Firm loving, and generally backward ways whilst congratulating themselves for living in such a modern, inclusive, and quite riot-proof, metropolis. 

I cannot imagine the London media referring to this as anything other than ‘Scottish Riots’ – with those pesky benefit-hoarding Jocks conspiring to bring down what is left of this glorious Empire and ruin life for everyone in the Home Counties.  They would absolutely not be called ‘UK Riots’. 

Yet that is precisely how these peculiarly English riots have been referred to in every media outlet since this regrettable situation ignited across London a few nights ago.  No one could reasonably describe these occurrences as ‘European Riots’ until they had spread to at least one other country so why is it that our media see fit to consistently refer to them as ‘UK Riots’ when they are confined to only one constituent part?

You can forgive this kind of wilfully ignorant imprecision when it applies only to sporting matters.  It is more amusing than destructive when Andy Murray is ‘British’ in victory but decidedly ‘Scottish’ upon defeat.  However, it can be rather damaging to our economy – as the First Minister ‘controversially’ pointed out – when English riots are beamed globally, portraying the United Kingdom as a nation of looters and arsonists. 

Not since the blitz has there been such widespread criminal vandalism in the capital of the British state.  Interestingly, the media has been surprisingly muted in apportioning blame, lacking the scaremongering one might expect if, say, Al-Qaeda were responsible.  Perhaps it is a simple failure to accept the social circumstances and gross inequalities that have given rise to such a widespread rejection of our shared British values by so many of Her Majesty’s subjects.