Ministers plan removal of UK rioters’ benefits

According to news reports, plans are being drafted to remove welfare allowances from those who are convicted of rioting.

This will satisfy public anger at such rioting, expressed for example by an apparently widely-supported public petition.

However, such political sops will exacerbate rather than address the root problem which led to the rioting - and that is the feeling of hopelessness and helplessness on the part of people who have fewer and fewer public benefits and feel excluded from the explosive growth in private wealth since the policies of Mrs Thatcher were put in place (and there has been no retreat from such policies, whichever party has been in power).

Till that root problem is addressed, we can expect to see even greater disaffection leading to MORE such incidents, because while it is just to punish rioters for rioting, it is not just to take away what little possibility they have of living a human life.



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