I find myself much in agreement with Ake here - not a little surprisingly.
One of the interesting interviews of the week was with a young Salford woman who hadn't taken part in the rioting, but explained quite articulately how, if she found somebody's lost mobile phone she would take the trouble to try to return it, but she didn't see any great problem in helping herself to goods being looted from a large department store - "If they can do it to us, why can't we do it to them?"
I was also interested to hear of Wandsworth (my home for 20 years) Council's efforts to evict the family of a looter from their home in revenge for the looting at Clapham Junction - echoes much of the middle-class mindlessness to be found in abundance on this thread.
Jim Carroll