Mailwatch(ed) Forum

There are reports of an ongoing riot tonight in the Harehills district of Leeds. The reports I've seen so far have blamed Muslims or alternatively Romanians. The clips I've seen show an ethnically diverse group (some of whom might be Muslim or Romanian, but others who don't look like either) throwing burning bins and overturning a police car.

We may find out the cause in due course.

Roma angry about social services taking some kids away is the most reliable report. But Muslims according to Tommeh and his pals.

I’m really sad to hear this. Harehills was my home from 1970 to 1972 when I was a student at Leeds University. It was a very pleasant area - not as posh as Roundhay which was just up the road from there, but nicer than Chapeltown just down the road a bit.

Malcolm Armsteen wrote: ↑Thu Jul 18, 2024 10:19 pm

Yeh it’s the Tories to blame. Is he from an 80s yoof TV speak your branes show?

The part time MP for Clacton acting, sorry being, the cunt as usual.

lambswool wrote: ↑Thu Jul 18, 2024 10:47 pm I’m really sad to hear this. Harehills was my home from 1970 to 1972 when I was a student at Leeds University. It was a very pleasant area - not as posh as Roundhay which was just up the road from there, but nicer than Chapeltown just down the road a bit.

Since writing the above, I realise I sound like a starry-eyed old biddy who waxes lyrical about when it were all fields around here.

It’s dawned on me that it’s about 50 years since I set foot in that part of Leeds. Like a lot of places, there is now a great deal of poverty and disenfranchisement that I’ve been largely unaware of.

Yeah, 50 years - yet I still sort of take “ownership” of the city. It’s a fundamental part of me.

Uncanny the alacrity with which the the right-wing commentariat has seized on the opportunity (as they perceive it) afforded by an incident of unrest in a Yorkshire city to claim that this is the first instalment of the race-rioting disintegration of the UK under a lefty shambles of a Labour government. That has been in power for [checks notes ] 16 days.

What happened to social workers being over zealous Guardian reading busy bodies with too much power over ordinary people’s lives? Their actions in this case sounded correct but social services are usually damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

Slightly off topic, but I heard one person being interviewed on Radio 4 and their half-Romanian, half-Leeds accent was an absolute wonder. More of this on the Today programme, please.

I don’t pretend to be a particularly brave man but still…ye gods rather him than me.

The nutters don’t know how to process Mr Ali after having to backtrack on the Muslim riot angle and discovering they wouldn’t have the balls of a Green councillor.

All the best for his ward