Every cloud has a silver lining!

It’s almost a week since the rioting first started in Tottenham and spread to parts of London and other cities in the country. What began as a peaceful protest has fast turned into social unrest copied across the country, with looting and burning and it cost five innocent people their lives and many more their businesses, homes and private properties. It sparked debates on entitlement, personal responsibility, parenting and the relationship between the state, the police and the public. It was ugly to watch, difficult to understand and it changed many lives for ever.

But like every cloud, as dark and as destructive this cloud was, it also had a silver lining.

The lessons learned in policing – regarding their numbers, the powers they have and able to employ and the public’s understanding of them have all improved. Politicians saw the damage some past decisions had on their communities and understood the need to altering and strengthening them. The public acknowledge that the state has many duties but some such as parenting and personal responsibility are not one of them.

Best of all we saw how as a society we Britons are stronger when we come together and unite behind all that is good about our culture. We might not always know who lives next door to us or even talk to one another but where it counts, we always unite!

The riots cost us lives and money but at the same time they gave us back our sense of unity and opened our eyes to the cancer of dependency and the mistakes of the past that might have been intended as compassion to those who need a hand up but held back a generation. Now going forward we can use what we learned to rescue those welling to be saved, reprimand those who offended and build a brighter hopeful future for the next generations.

Who said good can’t be born out of evil – what we saw happen this week in London and other cities across the country is a testament that it can.