It is 1987, Britain has seen its fair share of recent inner city rioting. A gang of young men, in matching gang colours drunkenly lay waste to a restaurant, smashing windows, glasses and plates. The police are called, the gang make a run for it, some are arrested, none are charged. This is not the anger of inner city youth on display, rather the arrogance of upper class wealth. This could just as easily be 1992, 1913 or 2005; the Bullingdon club has a considerable pedigree, it has seen princes, presidents and prime ministers pass through its initiations.
When former Buller, David Cameron talks to us of responsibility, does he pause for a moment of self reflection? Does he consider his own youthful antics? Probably not; perhaps Andy Coulson could have reminded him of his own past exposure.
Maybe Mr Cameron would retort that the Bullers at least paid cash upon their excess, thrusting £50 notes into the faces of those whose property they had done their best to destroy. Is that what responsibility for the Prime Minister and the Mayor of London amounts to? Would the recent events in Tottenham, Croydon and elsewhere have been more acceptable had those involved left a tip?
Members working themselves into a frenzy in Parliament on Thursday seem to lack just as much in self reflection as they do in understanding. An ideological line has been drawn, there will be no phoney talk of causes - for that amounts to condoning - what shallow theorizing there is will be confined to blaming the other side. Labelling sections of society as 'sick' is meaningless; blaming police cuts that have yet to come into effect is out of touch with reality.
The Westminster gangs, the press and public opinionistas are determined to see what they want to, and to ignore their own part in this big society. Public trust in the state authorities has been eroded with particular efficiency of late. From the petty thievery of MP's expenses, the bankrolling of fraudsters and incompetents in the City of London to the heady brew of political, police and press corruption of the recent news international scandal. A feeling has set in the minds of much of the population; that the powerful cannot be trusted to do anything but further their own ends. It does not matter how politically inarticulate the disenfranchised may be, or how directionless their rage, people are angry, and the current response from Westminster and Wapping is just making matters worse.
None of this is particularly new of course. Darcus Howe reminds us that in 1981 during the Brixton riots -sparked by racially profiled policing - further unrest snaked around the country, much as it has in the past week, in 1981 there was even rioting in Cirencester. Howe also notes that the reaction this time around indicates that certain persons have really not been looking and listening carefully enough. To the immediate causes, this is pretty simple and uncontroversial. A man was shot dead in Tottenham on Thursday, the police went to the press before the family, they did not even send liaison officers to the family and two days later a protest began to ensue. The protestors grew angry that the police would not answer their questions. An IPCC report has indicated that Mark Duggan - contrary to initial reports - had not fired on police, later a young female protestor was filmed being beaten. The rest is history.
The Duggan family do not excuse the violence that has followed, but one doesn't have to excuse it to see that there were reasons to begin with.
These go further than just the killing - some would say execution - of a member of the community. Black males in London are 26 times more likely to be stopped and searched by police than white counterparts. Community leaders in London have been campaigning to have stop and search reformed since the Blair government extended police powers in the name of the War on Terror
When social norms breakdown there is always opportunism, you don't have to be on benefits, crack or a bmx. People of all walks of life will take advantage of changes in circumstance, just as MP's, journalists, financial engineers and the Met have done very recently. Just because the ideological reasoning of the master grievance - inequality, racism and a lack of trust in authority - is not seen all the way down the chain does not mean that there are not valid grievances present.
The spontaneity of recent events has seen corresponding spontaneity from Westminster. Cameron has put his weight behind Eric Pickles' draconian proposal to have rioters - and their families - punished by eviction from council housing; such action is already being taken up by various local councils, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they will have to re-house those they evict at some point. The ghosts of Coulson and Campbell can be seen in Cameron's decision to hire 'super cop' Bill Bratton as a consultant, simultaneously alienating the police and the public in one fell swoop. Action for actions sake, in both cases ill conceived and counterproductive.
The Bullers who have engaged in orgies of destruction have rarely received more than a caution for their excesses; the sentences for last week's rioters now spiral into the thousands. Maybe we will have to wait another 26 years for the next round, if the powerful have their way, it will be sooner than they think.