By Kabir

London is a lot like Toronto. Both are among the wealthiest cities on the planet, the bases for some of the biggest and most notorious corporations in the world, the financial heart for both their respective nations. And at the same time, they are places of enormous inequality. Like Toronto, London’s poorest neighbourhoods are highly racialized, & infected with crooks and thieves- harassing residents and plundering what meagre resources they have. And, like in our city, these criminals even engage in outright murder.

On the evening of August 4th a 29-year old father of two was executed by the uniformed thugs of the Metro Police in Tottenham (a borough in North London), after his mini-cab was pulled over. The initial claim by officers was that the black victim, Mark Duggan, was a gang suspect who had first fired at them. However a civilian witness maintains Duggan was shot four times while he was face-down on the ground; and the bullet lodged in a police radio, that Duggan supposedly fired, was found to be from an officer’s weapon. On August 6th hundreds peacefully marched from the housing projects Duggan resided-in to the local police station demanding justice. But after a 16-year old female demonstrator was beaten by cops, the fury of the masses erupted- two police cars were torched, and responding officers were pelted with rocks & bottles.

Within hours the youth of Tottenham were in full out rebellion, and after a few days the insurrection spread to not only other impoverished & working-class areas of London, but cities across England including Liverpool, Nottingham, and Bristol.

While British politicians rave about “monsters taking over [the] streets”, and their corporate/state media lament burnt buildings & repair costs the real crimes and criminals fail to be pointed out. Duggan lives in a community with the fourth highest child poverty rate in London, where over half of black youth can’t get a job. Throughout the U.K. unemployment has nearly doubled in the past three years- while the current regime of PM David Cameron engages in a campaign of economic terror; gutting social programs and tripling tuition fees.

Never mind the 333 people in England killed in Police custody since 1998, for which a single officer has never been convicted.

Our local thugs have a similar rap sheet, one that has left 30% of Toronto families in poverty, communities mired in unemployment and significant numbers of black and other disenfranchised youth pushed out of the legal economy altogether.

As Ford eagerly prepares to gouge out more of our services and structures, he, along with the bandits at Queen’s Park & Parliament Hill, should be feeling the heat from London’s flames: There’s only so much the people will take!