And end to gentility

The picture you see saddens me greatly. This cafe, in my area, sells great food cooked by a very Godly woman. The boards I am pretty sure are to protect from looting.

I have just spent two weeks listening to the media, secular and religious.

What I have noticed is the disparity between what the ‘learned’ have been saying and what the rioters themselves have been saying. The former have blamed the police, government cuts, family break up, poverty and ‘Broken Britain.’ The rioters seem to be saying ‘we knew the police would not be able to cope so we did it.’

I was in teaching for quite a while and I saw the slow erosion of the authority of teachers which I now see happening to the police: hamstrung by politically correct rule makers who often do not live in the inner city, government and middle management inventing more and more paperwork and officers becoming more and more fearful of reprisal by what my friend calls the ‘mind police.’

I recently tried to complain to the police about an issue. Three letters were ignored and then eventually a courteous officer came and said I should not personally try and intervene in dealing with the anti social behaviour I had complained about. He did not suggest either that the problem would be addressed by the police.

I do believe that the rioting came about partly because the presence of the police in London is now so low key as to be ineffective. England is now a very changed place yet the police seem geared to a genteel public that no longer exists.

Here is one thing scripture says. St Paul is talking about the last days. I am not predicting the end of the world but I do see the lawlessness St Paul talks about in the London I know.

For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power. 2. Timothy 3.2

I would apply this to dishonest politicians, unscrupulous bankers as well as rioters by the way. I will be glad when the boards are taken down from Pellicci’s.