Our Darkest Hour

I have been genuinely scared only a handful times in my life.

Last night was one of them. Walking through Clapham Junction at 8.00pm, the smell of expectancy was thick in the air. Instead of yummy mummies with pushchairs, hundreds of hooded teenagers were milling on the streets, waiting for their chance to mindlessly destroy other people’s homes and livelihoods. Clutching my boyfriend’s hand, I felt nauseous and frightened as I overhead some boys, no older than 15 talking about doing over a bottle shop. I have never been so relieved to get in my front door.  

With London essentially a war zone, and the police ineffectual and powerless to take control due to policing by consent, I would like know how the parents in London have let a generation of children grow up with no respect for other people’s property.

London has a long and strong history or picking itself up after troubled times. It has survived a thousand years or plagues, fires, invasions, treason, and in our time The Blitz and terrorist bombings. And in all these times Londoners have stood together, side by side and carried on.

But this time, the threat is internal. Local youths are destroying their local shops. With the police powerless, and calls for curfews and the armed forces to be brought in, it’s hard to remember that these criminals are teenagers. Youths with no greater political or religious purpose, taking over the city suburb by suburb in the quest for flat screen TV’s and trainers.

I find myself thinking about the inspiring words of Winston Churchill during the war.. We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength… We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be… We shall never surrender.

I bet when he was telling this great nation to never give up, he never imagined that the threat would be coming from within.  If the acts of Londoners during the Blitz was our finest hour, then surely this is our darkest.