Yes, those smug bastards make you want to throw up. The fact that the pictures are a product of Britain's internationally shaming culture of video surveillance is hardly remarked upon.
But then the country that raised two generations on Orwell's Nineteen- Eighty Four are not keen to point out that Airstrip One turned out not to be a vision of the Soviet Union, but Blair's Britain. In a spookily Blairite exercise in Newspeak, the George Orwell school in my borough of Islington has just been reopened as the Islington College of Media and Arts, with a new 'superhead' and re-painted. Mind you after the revelations about Orwell's role as police spy, perhaps we ought to have had it renamed after some more admirable figure, like the spy George Blake.
The Police are particularly 'off-message' in their hysterical reaction to the City riots for the obvious reason that they sat back and let them happen. The City of London police are renowned for their naivety and cowardice. In the Stop the City demonstrations they excelled themselves, all convinced that these protesters were harmless environmental types. So on a charm offensive they got ready to join in the carnival atmosphere and have a rumba with the crowd.
Of course, nothing could be more designed to provoke the spoilt brats of the Stop the City demonstration than this pathetic attempt to make friends. How dare those pigs try to make out they're like us, Tristan. Too right Tamsin, let's show them whose boss - take that you fascist bootboys!
Amazingly the one serious injury of the entire conflict happened when a police van, fearing that it was going to be turned over, reversed in a panic. In the process, a woman's leg was run over. 'Police Brutality' said the crowd, stamping their feet. Hardly.
Between the police's apologetic cringing and the self-righteous wrath of the children of the elite, a pretend riot was the inevitable result. Now to have the police act all hurt that their hand of friendship was spurned is doubly vile.
In message <006801bf1c00$22b30ac0$d3e13ecb at rcollins>, rc-am
<rcollins at netlink.com.au> writes
>=====================
>BBC Thursday, October 21, 1999
>
>Internet search for City rioters
>
>Photographs of women taken during the City of London riots are among
>several posted on the internet by police who still hope to identify those
>involved.
>
>The images were taken from footage of the violence on 18 June in which 28
>police officers and 14 members of the public were injured.
>
>The violence in the Square Mile was the worst seen in London since the
>Trafalgar Square poll tax riots nine years ago.
>
>Seventy pictures of rioters, mostly male but all "connected to serious
>offences" have been released.
>
>The protest, dubbed Carnival Against Capitalism, was publicised on the
>Internet and police now hope to catch the organisers by using their own
>website - www.cityoflondon.gov.uk.
>
>A police spokesman said: "There were a significant number of women.
>
>"Some are on the face of it perfectly respectable people, but have been
>involved in these serious criminal offences.
>
>"All criminals live in a community somewhere, and we would urge people to
>examine these photos and if they think they recognise them, to contact
>us."
>
>More than #2m of damage was caused to the London International Futures
>Exchange building when 6,000 demonstrators ran riot.
>
>Police are also seeking information on another woman, not pictured, who
>was seen by members of the public.
>
>Described as smartly dressed in office clothes, she was overheard issuing
>instructions to rioters over her mobile phone.
>
>Another ringleader wanted by police has been nicknamed Catwoman, after she
>was photographed wearing a distinctive mask as she broke up concrete
>blocks to make missiles.
>
>Three other women were caught on camera.
>
>Some involved were smartly dressed. One, wearing a black V-neck top, was
>pictured handing over a bottle to a fellow rioter. A second was snapped
>making an obscene gesture at police.
>
>A third, with long dark hair and sunglasses, was photographed in the
>middle of the rioting.
>
>Detectives believe that "Catwoman", in her 20s, was among a group of two
>dozen rioters who attacked the Rabo Bank.
>
>They used steel scaffold poles to smash their way into the building, which
>they ransacked.
>
-- Jim heartfield