There is no shortage of opinion about the UK rioter:
- “They do not watch royal weddings or notice test matches”,
- “How many [of the looters] come from homes without a father”
- “All we hear about is these scumbags on the street…”Shoot them. I would be in favour of shooting them.”
Symon Hill takes some of them to task in his blog. He says they do not know anything about the people they are passing judgement on.
During last year’s general election campaign, Nick Clegg, the Liberal Party leader said that the Tories’ economic policies could lead to riots in the streets.
When Hill mentioned this on Twitter, he was accused of making excuses for the rioters by blaming the Tories.
“I wonder how anyone manages to tackle a problem without considering the causes”, says Hill and asks if such “people invite a plumber round when the sink is blocked and then take offence when he starts talking about the cause of the blockage. “The cause of the blocked sink?! I want to defeat the blocked sink, not make excuses for it! Whose side are you on?!”.
Symon Hill is associate director of Ekklesia and author of The No-Nonsense Guide to Religion.