If you read the more febrile reports about the various riots in London and in some other English cities, you may believe that an entire generation of young people have risen up against society.
There have been some dreadful incidents of mayhem, assault, theft, arson and murder. Individual incidents like the trashing of charity shops raising money for Oxfam and a local charity for underpriviledged children in Ealing and the "good Samaritans" who helped an injured boy to his feet only to steal from his rucksack are simply sickening.
Two important facts that are emerging as the events progress and we start to look beyond the spectacular images of landmark buildings on fire or a woman having to leap from her burning apartment.
First is that the first court cases are showing the criminal elements include those as old as 47. They are by no means all "youths" and incluide some who live outside of London.
Second and more important is to emphasise that the numbers involved are tiny. Each incident consists of a few hundreds at most. A BBC reporter who was at one of the larger incidents in Clapham put the number at 200.
The overwhelming majority of young people in London are decent, hard working at school or college and highly responsible. Barnet one of 32 London boroughs has 1000 people under 18 who act as carers for a sick, frail or elderly relative. Not least young people have been instrumental in starting Facebook and web pages so the local communities affected can, men women and children, go onto the streets to clear up the mess. In Clapham there were noisy demonstration of many dozen people demanding to be let past the police cordons to sweep the streets.
It has to be acknowledged that there is a small minority of alienated and disaffected young people. The reasons for this are explored in these comments from a variety of experts. What they point to is a wide variety of causes to do with a failure of education and parenting and a consumer culture of instant gratification. Even the Labour leader Ed Milliband is not trotting out the "Tory cuts" line that former mayor Ken Livingstone has been repeating. These causes are something to explore in much more detail in another diary. For the moment I would prefer to concentrate on the vast majority who are engaged and the great community spirit in all parts of London and the country that opposes the few thugs.