...Panic on the streets of London

As the riots and looting grip the nation I will answer the loud mouthed idiot Mayor of London, Boris Johnson's twitter "does anyone have batman's number?" with the words of the Stranglers' frontman Baz Warne, "No more heroes anymore".

It's times like these the country needs a real hero, someone who will really command respect and speak to the kids, with no one stepping forward other than the organizers and participants of the clean-up teams we must look further back in time for him.

Rioting:

Please step forward the Smiths and the ultimate anti-hero, Steven Patrick Morrisey with the ugly scenes of violence and rioting spreading across the length and breadth of the capital since erupting three days ago.  The trouble initially flared on Saturday night following a peaceful protest in Tottenham over the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan by police. But by the early hours of this morning a large number of London boroughs had been left devastated by the trouble from Hackney to Peckham and Ealing to Croydon were huge groups between 250-500 people gathered, torching buildings, cars and hurling petrol bombs at riot police. The most apt Smiths track containing the lyrics “oh, the devil makes work for idle hands to do, I stole and I lied because you asked me too", taken from there self titled, debut album the brilliant ‘What Difference does it make?’...

Looting:

Scores of local businesses around London have been broken into and looted by troublemakers - many of whom were wearing hoods and masks. 500 youths gathered in Peckham High Street, vandalising shops, lighting fires and targeting officers with missiles whilst Clapham also witnessed violence with looters preying on shops and causing widespread disruption. Targetting everywere from fancy dress stores near Clapham stealing masks to conceal their identities before going onto raid Debenhams, Tesco, Curries, Footlocker and in Enfield 40 fire fighters tackled a blaze at the Sony Warehouse. The Smiths track ‘Shoplifters of the world unite and takeover’, which doesn't appear on an original album but can be found on 'The World won't listen' compilation and contains the lyric which pretty much sums up the root cause of all the troubles “I was bored before I even began”...

Violence:

With violence also erupting in other cities, copycat riots taking place in Liverpool, Birmingham and Bristol. From Liverpool were "a number of isolated outbreaks of disorder", including burning cars and criminal damage to West Midlands Police making 100 arrests after rioters rampaged across Birmingham city centre and surrounding areas, were hundreds of youths gathered close to the Bullring, which closed its doors early in anticipation of violence before they went on to set a police station on fire. As Morrisey predicted almost 30 years earlier “Panic on the streets of London, Panic on the street of Birmingham, I wonder to myself, would life ever be sane again?”, taken from the Smiths brilliant 3rd album 'The Queen is Dead', combining with Johnny Marr's floating riffs, the classic 'Panic'...