If you have a good number of citizens that, when some instability happens, goes to the street and fire cars, houses and rub shops, you have a much more serious problem than 100million GBP in loses.
During the Tunisian revolution, the police was ordered to leave a 1 million citizen city that I'm living in after a tough day where the ruling party locals where burnt. Although without any security (and before people gather and create groups for protection), the city was relatively stable.
There was theft, but theft existed before that day. Also there wasn't that kind of violence in the thefts that happened. When I went to the center of the city the day after that, I saw no signs that a private property was abused.
I thought about this sort of thing. It almost seems like the underclasses in Britain are less civilized than the people of the countries that have had recent revolutions.
However, I also believe that the riots in Tunisia weren't limited to lower class people, and maybe involving a larger section of society in them caused them to be more civilized.
British society, like American society, places consumerism above all else. Britain's "underclass" are reminded constantly that they must have consumer product A through Z to be happy and that they will never have them. The poor of Britain are far poorer when it comes to the things that matter in British culture than the poor of Tunisia on the scale of Tunisian culture. Just a thought.
Everyone is starting to generalize wildly about 'Britain'. London + Birmingham is not the same as Britain. The problems of urban Britain are not the same as the problems of Britons outside the major cities. London has 13% of the population. As a member of the underclass in Britain, I resent being called uncivilized. Well, I would if I didn't have a sense of humour.
Religion and culture has an important effect in the society. I'm not religious myself, but not a great percentage of people can get enough culture to think in a civilized way. Religion is great because the rules are enforced by the religion and thus the religious person himself and not the state or police.
During the Tunisian revolution, the police was ordered to leave a 1 million citizen city that I'm living in after a tough day where the ruling party locals where burnt. Although without any security (and before people gather and create groups for protection), the city was relatively stable.
There was theft, but theft existed before that day. Also there wasn't that kind of violence in the thefts that happened. When I went to the center of the city the day after that, I saw no signs that a private property was abused.