The law-abiding masses look on in quiet despair as London burns...

Shortly before he died Mark Duggan sent a message to his girlfriend: "The Feds are following me." This piece of urban slang presumably derives from the American FBI. Gangs are apparently united with the Guardian classes in their admiration of The Wire. The other great cultural influence in Tottenham on Saturday night was the video game Grand Theft Auto.

As soon as the pictures of burning cars and looted shops appeared on the news, Twitter's social analysis began. A cause frequently cited was the closure of youth clubs, thanks to Government cuts. I would like to think that a game of pool on a Saturday night could compete with real life Grand Theft Auto but I don't believe the hooded youths would have been so easily satisfied.

And here we go again, fretting over the bored, the alienated and the angry. Meanwhile, an 88-year-old barber, Aaron Biber, stoops to collect the glass and detritus from the shop he has run for 41 years. And a bus driver, too afraid to give his name, shrugs: "They don't have to pay for this damage, we do. Working people do. What do they have to lose?" More...

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