Allister Heath tries to point out the real damages from this past week’s rioting:

What a year of contrast this has been for the UK. A few months ago, the world looked on longingly as we put on a marvellous, heart-warming show for the royal wedding, in a brilliant piece of PR highlighting the continuity and stability of Britain’s institutions, a valuable commodity in a troubled world. Today, all eyes are on us once again — but this time, the message is one of incompetence, chaos and decline.

From royal fairytale to banana republic in one summer: it has been a shameful, embarrassing disaster, not just for the tourism industries but also for foreign direct investment.

He also points out that more has changed than the blackened, burnt-out shopfronts:

The public’s mood has changed irrevocably; on crime and punishment, social attitudes will have hardened permanently as a result of the past week’s events. Strong speeches from the prime minister are a step in the right direction, as is the much more effective policing of the past 48 hours, but the public wants real, permanent change, not just temporary, emergency measures. A YouGov poll found that 85 per cent of the public believe that most of those taking part in the riots will go unpunished — they have lost faith in the system. This is understandable: it also reflects the perception of the thugs themselves. Criminal activity is far more rational than people believe, especially in wealthy societies such as ours: there is a lot of empirical and statistical work that shows that criminals implicitly weigh up the costs and benefits of crime. A high probability and cost of detection reduces crime, all other things equal; a low likelihood of detection, a low likely cost (such as a negligible prison sentence or a caution, as has too often been the case in the past) and a larger payoff (flat screen TVs or expensive trainers) raises it. Many of those storming shops made that very calculation this week, albeit implicitly and in some cases incorrectly.

No matter how much the public’s opinion has hardened, it’s the opinions of the governing class that will make the most difference, and there’s been mixed indications in the British press from that sector. Opinions have shifted, when even the Guardian can run articles that fail to exonerate the rioters, but there’s no guarantee that opinion has shifted far enough for changes to be made. A few more “tough” speeches from the PM and the Lord Mayor are not change: they’re a substitute for action, unless the pressure increases for real change to be implemented.

H/T to Tom Kelley for sending me this link. He responded to Mr Heath’s article:

Welcome to Detroit circa 1960, a once-vibrant community and global center of employment, now reduced to a ghost-town where serious consideration is being given to bulldozing entire neighborhoods and letting them return to nature. The past 50 years of unchecked, continuous, Democrat Party and labor union rule have resulted in what many saw right from the start as an inevitable outcome.

There’s no need for me to go on at length about Detroit, as the details of this downfall are well-recorded, even in the most biased of historical and news accounts.

What’s left of England has a choice, Detroit or the metropolitan areas of Texas (Dallas, Houston, Austin . . . ), two sides of a coin that were roughly equal in 1960, and couldn’t be farther apart today.

I’m sure that in England as well as in Detroit, the ill-fated plans started out with the best of intentions, but as is frequently the case, the well-intended plans completely ignored the reality of human nature, that when offered a free-ride, too many of the otherwise-capable will take it, leaving too few to provide the ride.

The class warfare that served the Left well as a political tool in elections, has led to its own inevitable result, real warfare, both in your current riots, and ours during the late sixties. I fear that we in the States are due for another round of riots when fiscal reality slams the door on the undelivered utopia promised in 2008.

Study Detroit thoroughly and decide wisely my friend, the future of England depends upon it.

Update: Well, well, well. This might be an indication that things really are starting to change:

A London council is trying to evict a tenant whose son has appeared in court charged in connection with rioting and looting at Clapham Junction.

Wandsworth Council is serving the tenant with an eviction notice — the first stage in the eviction process.

The tenant is believed to be the first in England to face losing their council-owned home as a result of this week’s disturbances.

Neither the tenant nor their son can be named at this stage for legal reasons.

I’m not keen on the idea that they’re starting eviction proceedings based on only a charge rather than a conviction, but they claim they’ll drop the process if he’s found innocent.