London's welfare state has endangered its general welfare.
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair decried the growing lawlessness pervasive in London's streets. Vandalis, petty theivery, and other thuggish activities are a direct result of generous entitlements handed out by the British Government. Growing unemployment with the lack of civic investment by its citizens have diminished citizens' solidarity in the day-to-day maintenance of the sprawling metropolis. Those who leach off the government grow more dissatisfied and corrupt, demonstrating no connection to the communities which have inadvertently permitted them to contributing to their own lives or those of their neighbors.
Add to this the growing number of unemployed youth, disaffected immmigrants, and sudden curtailing of state funds called for by the current government to offset rising nation debt, there is little reason to wonder why people are rioting in the streets of London.
If the world is witnessing the potential fall out of socialist governments turning against their entrenched habits of handouts and tax hikes, let us all hope that Prime Minister David Cameron and his ruling coalition will hold against the disgruntled and spoiled child-elitist who have grown fare to accustomed to receiving handouts instead of getting their hands dirty and shifting for themselves.
If the current government makes every effort to establish order in a timely fashion, it will also induce Londoners, and Britons as a whole, to reengage themselves to respecting the law and caring for their communities for far too long abandoned to lawless hoodlums unmoored from any civic accountability and bent on destruction for its own sake.