What: "Imagine the Bastille with BlackBerrys", The Independent
When: August 10, 2011
A glimpse, of sorts, into the London riots:
But whatever else they are, the riots can't just be driven by criminality. Professional shoplifters are probably furious, as there's nothing left to steal. Nick de Bois, MP for Enfield North, insists criminal gangs organised the riots, "stashing the stolen goods in their Volkswagen GTIs". So that explains it; it's a mass robbery planned in advance by thousands of people across Britain, with help from the Volkswagen GTI owners' club.
It's more likely that he doesn't know, just as most of us don't know, why exactly this is happening. But everyone likes to have a guess. Some people are blaming BlackBerry phones, as if throughout history it's not been possible to organise a riot without a BlackBerry. Before the storming of the Bastille there must have been criminals across Paris sending messages such as "C u by drawbridge 2 mash da Kng shd b gr8."
One thing that's probably true is that the more stable and secure your life is, the less likely you are to smash windows and set fire to an assortment of buildings. For example, it's unlikely the managing director of an investment bank would announce to the shareholders: "Our strategy for increasing profits in the third quarter is to decrease investment in oil futures, and instead do in the windows of Foot Locker in Ealing and shove hundreds of trainers in a Volkswagen GTI."
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