Snippets and gleanings - it's a riot

He wouldn't know a police dog if it bit him on the arse
28 year-old Hartlepool man, Ryan Sheers, had an unfortunate encounter with the police - specifically, with a police dog - "on his way back from the bingo". Clutching a can of lager (like you do) he goaded officers managing an anti-immigrant demonstration. According to a police statement 'he did not move back and as a result the police dog bit him on the right hip buttock area.' Apparently he cried in court as sentence was passed - well, if you'd been bitten on the butt you would, wouldn't you? The rest of us are crying with laughter - talk about the biter bit! One can only hope the dog's okay.

Those who begin by burning books...
The German-Jewish philosopher, Heinrich Heine, famously warned where book-burning can lead. So when far-right thugs in Liverpool set fire to Spellow library, destroying hundreds of books, any thinking person will have been alarmed. Okay, so as cultural vandalism goes it's hardly up there with the torching of the Library of Alexandria but it nonetheless hit at the heart of an area already struggling to get by in difficult circumstances. Public libraries are not only repositories of knowledge they are also, where they still survive local government cuts, a focal point of community activity. Burn a library and you sear the soul of the people who value it. The fact that over £136,000 has already been raised in public donations shows that civilised values prevail. Government take note.

Nans Against Nazis
Another heartening aspect of the response to the riots has been unexpected interactions across the divide. From Muslims in Accrington on their way to protect a mosque being embraced by pub-goers, to The Clumsy Swan in Birmingham receiving an offer from the local mosque to pay for the damage after patrons were mistakenly targeted as fascist sympathisers by local Muslims. From an Imam in Liverpool taking hot food out to protesters outside his mosque to a Reform Party voter accepting an invitation to a Muslim convention in Hampshire, there is another narrative. Amidst the chaos and division, small acts of humanity are a beacon in the darkness.

Update 12/08/24
Today's Standard carries a disturbing story of another apparently random stabbing of a child, this time in London's Leicester Square. The child has serious though not life-threatening injuries and the mother only mild injuries thanks to the prompt and brave intervention of a security guard at the TWG Tea shop who floored the assailant, wrested the knife from him and sat on him until the police arrived. According to the report "The guard gave his name as Abdullah". Just saying.

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