“lower-class unemployed white people had lived for years in appalling slums without a breakdown of public order on anything like the present scale”. Oliver Letwin writing to Margaret Thatcher blocking aid to black communities in 1985 after the Broadwater Farm and Tottenham riots.
“A riot is the language of the unheard” Martin Luther King.
Perhaps there is some truth in what Letwin says. Perhaps it is right to riot under such conditions. Perhaps Letwin should ask himself why lower-class unemployed white people didn’t riot as much. Perhaps the welfare state was enough to pacify the lower-class unemployed. Capitalism + Welfare State over time will create a wide gap between wealthy and workers in society. The solution is not to end the Welfare State but to end Capitalism and replace it with an improved way that all society partakes equally in.
Don’t white and black communities get equal welfare? If they do, then Letwin’s argument (which he no longer supports and has apologised for) takes another twist. Morals are not the the cap on anger that prevents rioting. If you are welcome and involved in your own community, things are going to have to get really bad before you will burn it.
Coverage of the Letwin’s comments in broadcast news media mention the death of PC Keith Blakelock. Not so many mentions of the death of Cynthia Jarrett who died of a heart attack during a police search of her home which led to the riots. No stolen goods were found in the search of her home.
Oliver’s Army [the conservative party] hasn’t changed much. The same people, “Thatcherites” are still in control of the party and in power 30 years later.
https://vimeo.com/44778138