Last night saw hordes of young people out of control in the United Kingdom – countless stores were smashed and looted, including pawn shops, jewellery shops and bookmakers. A lack of personal finance and access to money may lead to people wanting to get their hands on jewellery and other ‘freebies’. The children are doing this because they may have nothing else to do, children as young as 11 years old have been seen setting fires on shop fronts. So what has caused this? It may not be a political swipe by the rioters, but the UK Government has reduced funding for many youth centres and youth projects in London which leaves young people with no direction or sense of purpose. There is a lack of employment and the young people have an inordinate amount of time on their hands and the only way they can make a statement is by causing chaos.
There is now a clear revolt against this and social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook are now being used to help galvanise the retaliation. People have been meeting up to help clean the streets and this has brought a sense of unity amongst some of the boroughs in London. So will there be more trouble this evening? Let’s hope not – many innocent shop keepers may need to apply online for a payday loan to get funding quickly to help pay for some of the damage and the bills could very well escalate. Once the situation has calmed, they will need to access sound financial advice and a good relationship with their insurance company as the damage inflicted could very well lead into the thousands of pounds.
