It’s because David Cameron turns a blind eye to corruption between Murdoch and Metropolitan Police that alienation makes riots inevitable. – derekrootboy

I don’t agree with riots but was inevitable when working classes are being fucked over like this. – mollymccowen

Riots inevitable in people who cannot express their anger in any other way. Historical precedents a-plenty. – Jos21

The riots were inevitable. That’s the first thing I said when I heard about the shooting. Anger and hot summer nights are a lethal cocktail – iheni

tottenham riots Soh dem mash up Tottenham, !!! Was inevitable after the shooting of Mark Duncan (sic). Wasn’t rocket science in my book – Mafia1065

Historically it’s inevitable there are riots when there are cuts like this – HelenReloaded

the climate in our country is terrible and riots were inevitable but the looting and destroying of places of work saddens me – evey_moriarty

This was inevitable..tory government. Riots. Protests. Cuts. Unemployment. Disaffected Youth. Strikes. Recession. Police Brutality. – xxlucyxlucyxx

When people are attacked by ideological cuts and suffer racism from the police, riots like this are inevitable. – PennyRed

Riots were inevitable given building unhappiness with the manner in which the police conducts itself – dr_rita39

The Guardian is giving front-page space today to a video from a week ago in which a young man from Haringey asserts that the closure of local youth clubs will lead to riots.

Dave Osler at Liberal Conspiracy skilfully avoids the i-word but you can tell he means it:

[S]uch is the degree of disconnect between all the major parties and the street that the chances of positive engagement are next to zero. There is instead the recourse of riot.

Back at the Guardian, Dave Hill offers a slightly more nuanced explanation:

In such a climate [of economic deprivation and government cutbacks], an event such as the shooting dead by police of 29 year-old father of four Mark Duggan on Thursday night is more likely to provide in some minds, especially young ones, a pretext, a rationale or an opportunity to jettison any respect for the law or regard for fellow citizens and let rip.

These widespread views about the supposed inevitability of rioting need closer examination.

Those who make the case for inevitable rioting are rarely speaking about themselves. Journalists and commentators on comfortable middle incomes are less likely to be seriously affected by a sluggish economy, government cutbacks and police thuggery than those at the bottom of the social pile even if they’re as angry about it as anyone else. They won’t be out at 5am torching John Lewis or looting the local Jigsaw.

Nor will the people in the Guardian’s youth clubs video or those discussing the rioting on Twitter. Many of these people are likely to be in very similar circumstances to those burning, looting and attacking the emergency services.

What’s notable about the Tottenham riots and rioting in the UK in general is the scale – not how large and commonplace riots are but how small and rare. Anecdotes suggest that people were coming from across London to join a riot just a few hundred strong in Tottenham. As some of those arrested give their home addresses in court this week we’ll see whether this can be confirmed. Rioting as an activity relies on the disinhibition and physical protection of strength in numbers. Tottenham by itself may have been too small a place to recruit a critical mass of rioters.

All of which suggests that the rioting in Tottenham may be far more about the those few rioters themselves than the society in which all of us live. Rioting stems not from the social grievances and frustrations of the many but from the desire for mayhem and the lack of self control of the few. Even in boom times the UK has around a million people unemployed and looking for work. Why isn’t there a riot every day of the week?

There are adequate good reasons to provide effective public services and social opportunities for people of all backgrounds without resorting to political blackmail: do this or riots will inevitably follow. Whether you want better student funding, good youth clubs or a competent and honest police service, public policy shouldn’t be run like a protection racket. Politicians should fear the masses casting ballots not the mob casting stones.

So people need to be very cautious when talking about the supposed inevitability of riots. If one person riots but the majority of his neighbours in exactly the same circumstances do not, that’s a matter of individual differences not social breakdown. The solutions to this kind of behaviour are found in psychology and criminology not politics.

Those who talk about the inevitability of riots show gross disrespect to the vast majority of people who live peaceably with their neighbours and abide by the law despite deprivation and injustice. They show disrespect to the rioters too. If some people can’t help themselves rioting they are put outside the proper demands of the community and the law, stripped of any meaningful citizenship. They’re robbed of their moral agency too – deprived of their ability to discern the right course of action whatever the circumstances and to act accordingly.

We need to have higher expectations of everyone than that.

So when Boris announced that the scheme had just passed its one millionth journey milestone it seemed like a good time to ask Transport for London for the journey data. It’s an easy enough job: Just a single database query to fetch the times, origin and destination of each trip. If I could load this data into my simulator I might be able to see where extra bikes and docking stations might be needed. I put in a Freedom of Information Act request, confident that I’d have the data within the 20 working days limit required by law.

That was three months ago on 8 October. I’m still waiting.

The good news is that the data has just been made available in TfL’s developers’ area and some people are already starting to do interesting and useful things with it. But behind that happy fact is another example of a public body deciding to completely ignore their Freedom of Information Act responsibilities and the rights of an applicant in pursuit of its own perceived interests.

Data delayed is data denied

Under the law, public bodies have got 20 working days to reply either with the information requested or to claim an exemption. The time limit is there for a good and obvious reason: Without it, public bodies can string an applicant along indefinitely, and with many requests being time-sensitive this can often past the point where the information would be useful.

Fortunately I didn’t have a specific deadline for using this data but it certainly would have been more useful to me sooner rather than later. I could have been working on it for two months by now. And if TfL had been keen for other developers to use it, they could have had it too. Some developers were keen to get hold of it for the Open Data Hackday on 4 December last year but that came and went without any sign of the data.

So why was the data delayed? I estimate that there would have been less than two hours work to produce it and send it to me, or to put it on an open website where anyone could download the file.

“Your free information is in this locked box. Sign this contract and if we like what you’re doing you can have it.”

The answer lies in TfL’s desire to wrap the data in a complicated contract rather than make it available to me or anyone else directly and legally unencumbered. This might make sense in the context of some data and some data users but it’s directly inimical to the aims and indeed the law of freedom of information. The data in TfL’s developers’ area isn’t open data and it’s not available to everyone. As the site says:

Please complete the registration form below to use our syndication feeds. Before we give permission to use any feeds, we need to know how they will be used, where they will be used and how many people are likely to view them.

So why should anyone have to apply for permission to get access to their freedom of information answer? Why not just send it to the applicant?

The Information Commissioner, who regulates public bodies’ compliance with the Freedom of Information Act is quite clear that information must be supplied regardless of the identity and motives of the applicant. His guidance (PDF) states:

A request therefore has to be considered on the basis that it could have been made by any person; the identity of that person is not a material consideration when deciding whether or not to release information. It is for this reason that we do recommend as good practice that requests under obvious pseudonyms should normally be considered unless there is reason to think that any of the matters below need to be taken into account.

There follows some general exceptions regarding vexatious requests, people requesting their own personal information and costs issues, none of which apply in this case.

On the issue of the applicant’s motives:

There is also no specific reference in the FOIA to the principle that requests for information must be considered without reference to the motives of the requester.

However, there are no references in the Act indicating that anyone can be asked to provide a reason for requesting information and it is from this absence that the principle [of disregarding the applicant's motives] is drawn.

The Information Commissioner then quotes the Lord Chancellor’s code of practice on freedom of information:

Authorities should be aware that the aim of providing assistance is to clarify the nature of the information sought, not to determine the aims or motivation of the applicant. Care should be taken not to give the applicant the impression that he or she is obliged to disclose the nature of his or her interest as a precondition to exercising the rights of access, or that he or she will be treated differently if he or she does (or does not).

But if I want to get a response to my FOI request from TfL I am asked to enter into a contract with them whose terms include:

2.1.2 [You shall] only use the Transport Data in accordance with these Terms and Conditions and the Syndication Developer Guidelines, and not use such information in any way that causes detriment to TfL or brings TfL into disrepute. The rights granted to You under these Terms and Conditions are limited to accessing and displaying or otherwise making available the Transport Data for the purposes stated by You in Your registration.

So not only is TfL’s contract explicitly asking me to state my motive as a precondition of access, it also constrains me from using the information for any other purpose and arguably prevents me from using that information to criticise TfL, thereby causing it “detriment” or bringing it into “disrepute”. If I don’t agree to this they can deny access altogether and if I subsequently break the agreement in their view they can revoke access. This is a funny kind of free information.

The Freedom of Information Act is designed to enable scrutiny of government. It’s inevitable that some information requested may cause embarrassment to the public body providing it or even bring it into disrepute. If the law is going to be workable at all, public bodies must consider each application on its merits alone without concerning themselves with the applicant or their motives. To do otherwise would allow public bodies to effectively pick and choose which requests they answered. TfL’s decision to require me to enter into an extremely restrictive contract with them to get a response to my freedom of information request is applicant and motive discrimination by the back door. It’s not something that should be tolerated from TfL much less adopted by other public bodies as a way to weaken FOI applicants’ rights. Free information should not come wrapped in a restrictive contract wall. That’s why I won’t be accepting TfL’s terms and I’ll simply have to leave the analysis of this Cycle Hire data in the very capable hands of others.

If you’ve ever wanted to whistle up a pair of wheels while walking around London, now you can. Friday’s launch of the Barclays Cycle Hire scheme puts 6000 short-hire bikes at 300 docking stations within a few hundred metres of any point in the centre of the city. No matter where you are, you shouldn’t be more than a few minutes’ walk from a hire bike.

The project wisely keeps the bikes on a very short leash, charging a small flat access or membership fee and a progressively more expensive price for the time you’ve got a bike. The first half hour is free, so if you’re just hopping from A to B you can often ride without paying usage charges at all. Access costs £1 a day if you pay daily down to as little as 12p a day if you buy yearly membership. The aim is to keep the bikes coming back to the docking stations to maximise availability for riders and minimise the chances of vandalism and theft.

The bikes don’t come with locks. While some riders see this as an inconvenience — you could always carry your own — the message is don’t lock it, dock it. Given the rate of theft of bikes in central London it’s far safer in the docking station than bolted to a lamppost, no matter how good you think your lock is. If a bike gets stolen while in your charge, you’ll pick up the bill.

Along with the bikes, TfL has released some of the data behind the project, giving independent software developers the chance to build their own smartphone apps and maps. You can use these to locate the nearest docking stations and there’s even realtime data via my own Boris Bikes API so you can see whether a station has bikes available or spaces left for you to dock. It’s great that developers have risen to the challenge and Londoners have a range of great apps across various platforms to choose from. If you want to talk about the scheme there’s also an independent web forum for cycle hire users.

It isn’t all happiness and joy. Barclays’ branding of the scheme is crass and overbearing, not least given that banks and bankers don’t ride high in many Londoners’ affections. But given their £25 million contribution towards the project Barclays were always going to want a prominent role in return their money. If it weren’t for the money talking we might still be walking.

The first day saw a few glitches with overtightened brakes leading to stiff wheels, crashes on the supporting website and problems docking the bikes for a few. TfL responded sensibly by waiving everyone’s usage charges for the day — if your bike’s not docked you’re still being billed, so watch for the green light before you leave it. But overall the experience has been positive, with thousands of journeys being taken without incident and even a healthy contingent of cycle hire bikes on Friday evening’s Critical Mass ride.

Even for non-cyclists, the cycle hire scheme has brought a spinoff benefit for everyone by putting the excellent clear Legible London maps on the monolith at every docking station, allowing walkers to find their way around far more easily than before.

Hopefully the future will bring an expansion of the scheme further out of the centre with more docking stations and bikes over a wider area, but for now the ability to pick up a bike and whizz around a park or from the West End to the City without braving the buses or the Tube is a delightful and joyous privilege.

While many tip Boris Johnson as a future Tory leader and prime minister, whether he keels over tomorrow or makes it to the very top, I suspect his finest legacy will always be that London’s bikes are Boris Bikes – a spontaneous and popular rebranding that no amount of sponsorship money is going to reverse.

What a wonderful mid-summer gift to the city.

—

All photos are by Charlotte Gilhooly on Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution licence.

Unnamed: The protester who died. Photo: public domain via Guardian

Photo by Alex Watts.

I’m shocked and saddened that a man died during the G20 protests in London yesterday.

Every death potentially related to police activity is automatically investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. But while their inquiry is in progress, the truth about this incident needs to surface, and soon.

Mainstream media reporting has spun this story away from its most obvious potential substance — policing tactics — to the alleged behaviour of the protesters themselves who the police say attacked police medics trying to give assistance to the dying (or perhaps, dead) man.

The Telegraph dutifully repeats the police allegations as fact without troubling themselves with any corroboration:

[A]s officers went to the man’s aid, they were pelted with bottles and other missiles, forcing them to retreat.

The Times at least paraphrases its source:

The Met said that as the officers tried to revive the man they came under attack from protesters who threw bottles at them

The Guardian is also happy to repeat the story without corroboration:

A man died last night during the G20 protests in central London as a day that began peacefully ended with police saying bottles were thrown at police medics trying to help him.

Meanwhile over on Twitter, @jdodds writes:

Talking to eye witnesses from yesterday.protester who died had symtoms related to a head wound.was seen to be hit by truncheon

If true, this puts a wholly different light on events. There isn’t any dispute that the man died within the police cordon near the junction of Birchin Lane and Cornhill between 7 and 8pm yesterday. Did he die from natural causes? Were these aggravated by effectively being detained on the street, possibly without food or drink? Did he suffer a head wound and was it caused by the police? Did the cordon itself prevent him receiving timely treatment? How did the other protesters react? Violently? Helpfully?

We don’t know, but given that the police have been very quick to tell the tale about the “attack” on them by protesters but were wholly unable to give any indication as to why the man may have died, it’s about time we found out.

As I write there is a protest against the man’s death taking place near the Bank of England, where tributes have been left.

R.I.P.

This is The Hamptons — not the real ones on Long Island, New York but a housing development in the south London suburb of Worcester Park.

But as ever there is trouble in paradise, or at least the contemporary spectre we call the fear of crime and “anti-social behaviour”.

Like most new developments, The Hamptons features a mix of tenures, with owner-occupiers holding homes valued up to £800,000, down through tenants in privately-rented properties and social housing tenants.

The curfew at the Hamptons comes courtesy of Twickenham-based Thames Valley Housing which runs the social housing on the estate and is implemented through its tenancy agreements. Parents of children under 15 must ensure that they’re inside after 9pm or risk losing their homes for breaking the terms of their contracts.

As a modern, progressive and socially-conscious organisation, Thames Valley Housing is keen to ensure that its policy and practice avoids prejudice and discrimination:

Thames Valley Housing believes that no person should suffer disadvantage by reason of their race, colour, ethnic or national origin, or because of their religion, gender, sexual orientation, appearance, age, disability or marital status and opposes any discrimination which denies this.

Paradoxically, it sees no conflict between this policy and a requirement of tenancy on the estate that residents under 15 must be indoors after 9pm, in contravention of their legal rights and accepted social norms.

One might expect that such a curfew would meet a fair bit of resistance from the locals, but if the Sutton Guardian is to be believed, many of them quite like it. In fact, not only are the young social housing tenants observing the curfew, but some of the adult residents too. In the words of one local mother:

We all have to be in by 9pm, it’s adults as well. They don’t want people wandering around the estate at night. But it doesn’t really bother me as I’m in by that time anyway.

Another comments that her children aren’t allowed to sit on the grass in groups of more than four because “this could be seen as intimidating”.

Very few people would defend the kind of inconsiderate and malicious misbehaviour that blights many people’s lives, whether it’s vandalism, violence or persistent late-night noise. I’ll oppose those strongly where they happen. But in the rush to be seen to clamp down strongly on “anti-social behaviour” our society seems to have forgotten the nature of society and sociability and thrown the baby out with the bathwater. If this were sex, we’d be advocating chastity as the antidote to rape.

Society and that much abused concept, “community”, arises from people living together, working together, playing together and forming numerous reciprocal relationships at varying degrees of intensity. As we’re not all (yet) a homogeneous mass of automatons, this interaction causes friction. Often this is experienced positively, as new ideas, opportunities and ways of living arrive serendipitously in our lives. Sometimes it’s negative, as others innocently or maliciously transgress our personal and collective boundaries.

In seeking to resolve these conflicts as they inevitably occur, we are forced to answer the perennial question, How should we live? The answers apply to ourselves, of course, as well as those we may consider to have done wrong. Therefore, while addressing the (perceived) misbehaviour of others, we clarify our own responsibilities towards the community and strengthen our own commitment to meet them. The Golden Rule, that we should treat others as we would like to be treated by them, remains paramount.

Using a curfew as a prophylactic against potential disorder ensures that the possibility that the normal functioning of community may be disturbed is replaced by the inevitability that it will be. To prevent people occupying common space and socialising with each other, even passing by and exchanging glances, nods and smiles, reduces the space in which real social relationships are formed and nurtured. Using rules rather than customs imposes values on people rather than allows people’s own values to be expressed. The post-9pm teenager sitting with her friend becomes a deviant and a threat, regardless of the purpose and nature of her conduct.

I’ve long believed that the real cure for disorder on our streets isn’t to scour them clean of humanity, but to fill them up with people of all ages, classes and “lifestyles”, to encourage diverse activities and to promote the notion that we as citizens have equal responsibilities to be tolerable and to tolerate the reasonable behaviour of others. The notion is as old as cities themselves and defines the very essence of citizenship. The alternatives, seen far too often in contemporary Britain, are disconnection, alienation, segregation, mistrust and a paralysing fear that becomes more potent than the feared object itself. We need an anti-curfew that fills our streets with the vast mass of well-behaved and well-intentioned people, rather than just the marginalised few that have no private space to which to retreat. It’s not the presence of bad people that creates disorder but the absence of good ones.

If community is to become a reality rather than a cute marketing euphemism we’ll all need to get out more, not less. The one thing that worries me more than those imposing curfews are the Stepford Wives (and husbands, and children) that blindly follow them, naively hoping that heaven is a quiet house in an empty street where no-one knows your name.

Every year 10,000 gallons of urine is at risk of ending up in the city’s streets and alleyways through irresponsible and anti-social behaviour.

But help is at hand thanks to the new Sat Lav service, which promises to locate the nearest public convenience for a modest 25 pennies:

Just text the word “toilet” to 80097 and you will be texted back with the location and opening hours of your nearest public toilet.

So despite being comfortably ensconced in my well-provisioned Stonecot Hill chambers I decide to give it a go and find the location of my nearest Westminster toilet.

But no, foiled!

Sorry, we cannot locate your current position. Please try again later (Service is not available on Three or Virgin). You have not been charged for this reply.

I wonder if this later is the later when Three and Virgin’s services become compatible with Sat Lav’s system (or vice versa), or the later when I decide to switch my mobile phone network.

Either way, I doubt nature’s call will wait that long.