Young people lead clean-up after looting

Young people with brooms in Piccadilly Gardens


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Published: 29 August 2011

The Bishop of Manchester reports on the clean-up after the looting in Manchester and Salford.

Early on the morning after the riots, I visited the disgraceful results of criminal thuggery, vandalism and theft.

These were unlike protests that sparked an earlier generation of street violence. This was selective looting prompted by opportunism and sheer greed.

A shopkeeper whose premises had been wrecked spoke tellingly of the contrast between our young people out in Afghanistan bravely risking and giving their lives for others, and the young mobsters here whose destructive selfishness and stealing had violated the law and order that allows us to live freely and in peace.

A whole range of issues will need to be examined in the wake of what has happened. But whatever political and social issues there are, let us not flinch from facing the moral ones.

Our consumerist culture at its worst can produce appalling scenes. But a sight I shall treasure is hundreds of young people with their brushes and shovels voluntarily cleaning up the city centre. It was a wonderful counter-image to the self-centred grasping youths who had done so much damage the night before. And it was a heart-warming sign from young people who thankfully recognise the importance, for society’s moral well-being, of putting service before self.


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