Dear Rioters

Right, sit there and look at me.

Sit up straight, put your feet on the floor, unfold your arms from that defensive stance and look at me because I am going to talk to you and you need to hear this.

What the hell do you think you are doing?  No, what are you actually doing?    Not why, I don’t care about why because, whatever the reason why, it is nonsense.  Utter utter nonsense.   In fact it is beyond that, but I cannot use the word I want to as my granny reads this and she will tell me off for swearing.

You see, it is about respect isn’t it?  I respect what my granny thinks.  I got angry earlier this year when she got conned out of £400 so you cannot begin to imagine how angry with you I am right now.

We live in a respectable society.  We live by certain rules.   A rule that says we respect each other’s property and ourselves.   If we don’t have that basic rule, what happens?

Well I think we have an idea of that now, we can see what has happened.   Lawlessness.  Rioting, looting and people dying.

I just don’t understand which bit of you thinks it is your “right” to steal from a shop, smash things up, and destroy people’s homes and livelihoods.    I mean, what bloody planet are you on?  Seriously.

I heard a lady on the radio this morning who told how her father’s jewellery store in Tottenham has been looted and destroyed.  Destroyed.

Does that make you proud?  Are you happy with that?

Let me tell you something.  Your problem is that you think you are entitled to things and that the world owes you a living.   When I was a child we had three TV channels, all of which stopped broadcasting at midnight.  We didn’t have computers, the internet, ipods, flat screen TVs or fancy trainers.

I was brought up to understand that if I wanted something I worked for it.  As my parents did.   They worked.  My dad worked away for years, coming home at the weekends so that he could provide for us.   If I wanted something because I felt society had let me down or there was no community spirit did I break into a shop?    No, it never occurred to me to look to anybody else.

Never did it occur to me to smash the local sports shop door in and steal a pair of trainers.  Never.

Who the hell do you think you are to be doing that now?  Just who the hell are you?

You have made people homeless.  Destroyed their homes and every single possession they had.   Razed businesses to the ground.   These are not victimless crimes.   People have been affected.  Thousands of them.   Even down to police officers who are working overtime and not seeing their families as a result.    Will those police officers’ children start smashing up their communities in protest?

No, they won’t.

Why on earth would you destroy the very community you live in?  You say there is no community spirit in this county anymore.   So why destroy what community there is?   Wrecking whole High Streets?

It would never occur to my children to do that.  Never.  They know if they even considered it they would be in more trouble with me than any court or police officer.    My children know that if you want something you earn it.   You work for it.   You don’t smash up the high street for it.

In our house you don’t even buy it on credit and pay for it in four years.  If you cannot afford it now, you don’t have it.   We didn’t have a new TV for ten years.  The only reason we have an HD TV now is because we won it.  Had we not won it, we still wouldn’t have one.   Did I want one?  Too damn right I did, but we couldn’t afford it.  We were busy working and putting shoes on our kids feet and food on the table.  So things like flat screen TVs were not on the priority list.

The idea that you can smash your way into a shop and steal one disgusts me.  Smashing up the whole shop in the process.  Totally disgusts me.

In fact, I don’t even want to look at you any more.   I can’t even look at you.   You make me sick.   Go to the police station, turn yourself in, confess and do your time.

I don’t even think you should be in prison.   That is too soft.   You should be out in the community, wearing a bright pink jumpsuit so you are easily identified.  Clearing up the streets.   Rebuilding houses.  Fund raising for people to re-stock their shops.   Re-decorating houses.

Give something back to the very community you have destroyed.   That you say you don’t feel a part of.

Well put your money where you mouth is and get on with it.

Now get out.