London's burning.

The UK riots illustrate the paradigm shift which has taken place, until now surreptitiously, in our society. By choosing to shift the boundaries of crime and punishment in favour of the criminal classes, we have simply disguised reality.

What we are now seeing should not come as a surprise; it is no more than an extension of what we have chosen to ignore for some time, what has been building for years, and what, if we do not stamp it out with all necessary force, will threaten to end law and order as we know it.

This is not a protest against economic failure, against a loss of sovereignty or against declining values. It is a group of people running riot publicly, merely an extension of the way they behave on a day to day basis in their schools, their housing estates and the streets which they have been given by the Police.

They have moved out of their natural habitat and into ours, and it is very very frightening.

But it's nothing new, just more visible. In the UK, to be sent to prison, you must now commit a crime of some severity, or a white collar one. If you transgress on a more ordinary basis, such as shoplifting, mild violence or similar transgressions, then there is no punishment; earnest people will try and assuage your guilt, if indeed you feel any, by understanding what difficult social circumstances drove you to this anti-social behaviour.

It is crime without consequence for those who commit it.

In a prison where inmates significantly outnumber the guards, there is a delivate balance which preserves the peace, brought about by a combination of regime, control and consequence.

This is evidenced on a macro scale in society. We do not have enough Police to contain a full scale national rebellion. Slowly but surely, bit by bit, we have eradicated regime, control and consequence. The preliminary results of this are now being witnessed by the world.

This is Britain's darkest hour. It is a time for leadership, strong and resolute leadership. It is also a time for action. The nest of vipers must be stamped on. Anything but the strongest of messages to would be rioters of the future will fail to deter.

So far David Cameron has fiddled in Tuscany whilst London burns. Mayor Boris Johnson too has been curiously quiet during his foreign sojourn.

Cameron has shown himself time and time again to be a broken reed. Johnson might simply be timing it right to challenge for the Tory leadership. Home Secretary Theresa May has offered little more than words, pathetic words at that. She is hopelessly out of her depth and has entered a state of irrevocable failure.

If the Right cannot stand up to the forces of anarchy, then all is lost. The Left will simply seek to mitigate their activities through a more sensisitive analysis of their motivations.

It is likely the rioting, in time, will die down. There are only so many cellphones and TVs any aspiring youth can own. And that is when Britain's future will be determined.

Based on historical precedent, the authorities will congratulate themselves for containing the situation. A few rioters will be made an example of, and in the ghettos estates of London, Birmingham and Bristol, youths will roll up their sleeves and show the scars they had on this most metaphorical of Crispin's days. They will exchange arcane handshakes, brag to girls of the time they "had one over da pigs", and wait in readiness for the next twitter message on their new smart phone alerting them to when it all starts again.

As Douglas Adams put it, "Don't be afraid, be very afraid"

The world of the news

The outpouring of gleeful vitriol towards Rupert Murdoch, Rebekah Brooks etc al over the NOTW scandal is little more than an expression of relief and distancing born of the "there but for the grace of God go I" principle.

For years other media have survived by reporting on stories broken by the Murdoch empire. Without these they would have foundered.

Faced with such an accusation, self apppinted apologists would doubtless point out that it was not they who tapped phones. True - that's why they were scooped, time and time again. Since time immemorial, reporters have striven to out-scoop each other. Their rodentic methodologies have driven them to the gutter.

On this occasion, the NOTW simply came up with a better way, by moving with the times and embracing technology.

Rest assured, had they the courage or the daring, other papers would have employed similar tactics. We expect nothing more from them.

What is sad is the others who have been tainted. At least Met Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephens has had the decency to resign, albeit on full pension.

Whether the rather forlorn figure of David Cameron follows him remains to be seen. I somehow doubt it. If nothing else, this affair has confirmed our long held suspicion that Dave is nothing more than Blair wearing blue eyeshadow. For him principles are no more than state school headmasters.

It underlines the suspicion that putting little boys, or girls for that matter, in charge, is not a good play. Thousands of years, and millions of lives have helped put the great into Britain, but now a gang of political adolescents hell bent on leaving a legacy are destroying a once great institution - much like the bonus eager bankers have anihilated what was the global flagship of the financial sector.

To err is human, but if in public office, it is not acceptable.

There is another, lurking irony in this story. Twice in the last century, the USA lent a hand when Britain was flagging. It may be that federal charges in America are what finally topple Murdoch, who's inevitable mea culpa may is fact entirely accurate.

Leaders must take responsibility. Stephens has, Murdich will, and Cameron should.

The Children of the Too Hard Basket

622,000 children in the UK are being prescribed Ritalin.

That is one percent of the entire population with so called ADHD - Attention Deficit Disorder.

Over half a million children are being chemically anaesthetised every day.

These are the children of the too hard basket, the products of the welfare state, materialism which drives both parents to work, socialist principles which outlaw competitive games in schools and of the all pervasive and inescapable influx of American born so called culture - a culture of moral dishonesty, of commonplace violence and of disrespect.

Children are like dogs.

They are high spirited, but physical exertion saps them of the negative aspects of this abundant energy.

They are naughty, but training, and boundaries, and indeed punishments teach them to restrain their naughtiness to acceptable levels.

For most of these children, their apparent ADHD is a product of our failings; as parents, as moral guiders, as teachers and as plain old human beings. We have children, but without accepting the full responsibilities that procreation brings.

ADHD is our excuse, the fallback which absolves us from blame, in the case of both our own children, and of those born in the society we have helped to shape.

The dealers of this filthy drug, the cohorts of big pharma, are not without their share of the blame. Their dollars funded the research chicken that laid the ADHD egg.

We wring our hands in despair, and blame the labour party, political correctness and any other convenient popular punch bag. Yes, they have not helped.

But until we accept that we have allowed our world to stray from it's true path, and only we can right this, by action rather than by words alone, then we will remain the parents of overdiagnosed children with artificial chemical intakes, and they will remain the children of the too hard basket.

And we should hang our heads in shame.

We have so little time.

The all pervasive nature of modern media is well suited to this. Headlines scream at us, the surround sound attack upon our thoughts demanding attention, acceptance and outrage.

This breeds neither moderation, nor consideration. Instead we react, and react with vehemence, because the extreme nature of headline reporting engenders extremes. We have forgotten how to respond, preferring instead to pass immediate judgement with ill advised sound bites.

Public opinion flows like the tide, back and forth with monotonous regularity, between high and low, never pausing to consider the interim stages.

We have lost the ability, once so precious, to argue without rancour.

Disagreement descends quickly into personal abuse, because behind most opinions is little more than a reaction born out of an ill considered headline. We have become shallow.

The case of Osama Bin Laden illustrates this perfectly.

Whatever your position, there can be no delight taken in watching the Masses of America dancing in the streets to celebrate. Be it his death, their revenge, the ability of US special forces to undertake covert missions on foreign soil with all guns blazing like so many John Waynes, there was something rather barbaric in the behaviour of ordinary America. They had been whipped into a frenzy, and revealed for those who did not already know that they are no different from their adversaries.

Their comments, too, put one rather in mind of Churchill's comment; "to become disenchanted with democracy, all one needs is 3 minutes conversation with an ordinary voter"

There can be no right and wrong in this matter, just opinions and conclusions which are based on the principle of might is right, be that might economic or militaristic.

Yes, 9/11 was a horrific attack on America and caused the death of thousands of non combatants, but it was the only foreign attack of any significance on American soil for a very long time.

During that period, America has dropped 2 Atomic bombs on cities populated, at least in part, one presumes, by equally innocent citizens.

It has overtly effected aggressive military action in Cambodia, Vietnam, Kuwait, Iraq, Libya, Honduras, Grenada, Afghanistan and others, and god knows how many covert operations it has enacted.

These actions were all justified by a variety of reasons - none of which could be genuinely justified by a threat to domestic America, unless of course you take into account economic impacts of oil prices, trading practices etc.

I make no judgement on this - America has built itself into a position of strength and influence, and will of course use this to it's best advantage.

But from a moral perspective, it makes it hard to see why Osama is evil and America is right in all things.

Surely this is a debate clouded by shades of grey.

Then there is the debate of culture. America has exported the very worst aspects of its culture through cinema, rap music and Macdonalds. Collectively these have done more to erode our fundamental values than anything else.

Again, I make no judgement. We are as much to blame for our acceptance, our enthusiasm even for what they are selling.

But it confirms my supposition that we should be careful of presuming that the way of the strongest is necessarily the best.

To say Osama was a passionate man, who hated America, what it stood for and it's influence is his world is true.

To say that he was prepared to take extraordinary action to justify his perspective is true also.

But to say that he was right or wrong, or to say he was evil is not true - these are judgements, and in the world that we live, where individual intelligence and the desire to think for one's self has been suppressed to a bare minimum, it seems, then it is dangerous for our leaders to pass judgements as facts, for all this does is further inflame the masses.

This can never lead to resolution.

America truly believes it's unique brand of liberal democracy to be the best form of governance for the world, just as Stalin and co espoused communism as the solution. Osama Bin Laden preferred a third way, and in that he was not without support. The Moslim faith and creed are materially different from the way we live now in the west, but they are the chosen life of a huge number of people.

It is in the nature of leaders to try and convert those around them to their own way. But it is the playground bully who resorts to violence to enforce this.

We must all take a step back from this debate, and consider for a while. It is time to remember there is no right and wrong here, just opinion, and strength. There is nothing wrong with honesty, even if it has no place in the world we have created.