""But if the stuffed shirts who've spent the last few days calling for water cannon, baton rounds, eviction notices, benefits withdrawal, more police, more riot gear, tougher sentences and God alone knows what else, had been born into dysfunctional families on sink estates with no jobs, no hope and no prospects, would they have made better citizens than the kids who've been out rioting? I scarcely think so.""

You obviously haven't been following the conversation very long, but if you had you would know that I was born (with the exception that I had a VERY functional family) in exactly the circumstances you describe, and I believe I can say hand on heart, that I did turn out to be a better citizen. And I did so by willingness to work, which meant I was fully employed from leaving college in 1957 to drawing my Old Age Pension in 2006. Nobody ever GAVE me a job, I went out and FOUND one when necessary.

""And if those stuffed shirts had been brought up faced with celebrity culture, overpaid bankers and company directors, dishonest MPs, and shops crammed with goods they would never be able to pay for, would they have reacted any differently to the way the disaffected youths of London, Manchester etc reacted between Saturday and Tuesday nights?""

It is often amusing Fred to listen to those who know little about a subject tying themselves in knots, amusing but somehow sad.

We had celebrity culture, with Hollywood film stars as the idols. We had Fat Cat businessmen, and they were less controlled than now. We had shops crammed with goods we couldn't afford.

You know what?...We took whatever job was available and stuck at it until something better came along, and in time we bought those goods.

We could have stolen them, but we had too much pride and self respect to sink to that level.

Some of us actually made it to the top by hard work, not corruption, and some of the rich people who are so despised and reviled by many here came from the same background.

Incidentally, I'm not one of those you describe as wanting ""water cannon, baton rounds, eviction notices, benefits withdrawal, more police, more riot gear, tougher sentences and God alone knows what else,"" in fact I've posted against it, but I do want these kids taught that crime doesn't pay, by suffering the realistic punishment so often not delivered by our over soft judiciary.

Don T.