I’m watching Newsnight and am appalled by the sheer lack of understanding by politicians of the problems that lead to the riots; or maybe they do understand and are just too cowardly to admit it. Too afraid to agree with the young man who pointed out that Britain is a society built on greed, that Britain was built on precisly the kind of actions the young people are engaged in, namely going in and looting from other countries. What are we doing in Iraq? Maybe at least some of these young people watch the news, and understand that there is a view that we went into Iraq on false information, and have stayed because of oil.

What happens when prople feel they have nothing to lose? For some of them, not all, they will act irresponsibly. I have great sympathy for the people who’ve lost their homes and livelihood. If it’s not to happen again we need to really start understanding that this society created these young people. We can’t expect them to change until we do. It takes a whole village to raise a child – actually with the advent of the media, it takes a whole country. We are all responsible for what is happening.