So, what are we to make of the chaos and disorder that swept through London and other British cities last week like scenes from a JG Ballard novel? For some, the violence and mayhem brought back memories of the riots that tore apart Britain’s inner cities in the late seventies and eighties. There is, in fact, no comparison. In the 1980s, British cities exploded in response to mass unemployment, entrenched racism and, in particular, oppressive policing. The rioters were part of no organized political movement but they had a sense that they were taking collective action against racist police. They were driven by a burning sense of social injustice and a desire for social change.

Last week’s riots were different. There was no sense among the rioters of being part of a collective, no desire to transform society, just an inchoate, nihilistic desire to cause mayhem and to profit from the looting. The riots were not ‘protests’ in any way, but a mixture of incoherent rage, gang thuggery and teenage mayhem.

There was certainly looting in the 80s riots but such looting was incidental to the confrontation with the police and the authorities. Last week, smashing up stuff, and stealing it, was what defined the mayhem. In the 80s, people living in Brixton, Tottenham, Handsworth and Toxteth, in the very places wrecked by the disorders, nevertheless supported the rioters. They recognized that the violence and the destruction were not ends in themselves but part of a necessary challenge to an oppressive system. Today, the fiercest opposition to the rioters comes from those who live in the areas they have trashed. There is real rage in these areas against the orgy of destruction.

Many on the left, while condemning the riots, argue that they are nevertheless protests against poverty and social exclusion. ‘Many of the people involved’, the criminologist professor John Pitts