Thinking about those riots and what may follow.

The recent riots with attendant looting and burning of property were not political. If they had been political uprisings the rioters would have been targeting the big banks, the Houses of Parliament, MI5/6 etc.

At the top end of the economic scale the banksters are looting and pillaging and so we have looting at both ends of the spectrum, but nicking a laptop from Curry's and selling it on Ebay is not a political statement.

What bothers me, though, is that trend analysts, like Gerald Celente and Max Keiser, are forecasting the worst economic collapse ever, in which case we will possibly see real political uprising. Meanwhile, our government could use the recent riots to impose draconian measures that will close down the social media in the event of any civil unrest and give the police far-ranging powers to quell protests.

The social media, which has been lauded as boosting change in Arab states, is not being seen as such a wonderful channel for social change in the UK. Those yobs had access to Twitter, Facebook etc, and look what has happened! In the UK power to organise criminal activity has been handed to those who will clean out PC World and Primark! You don't need a weatherman, said Bob Dylan, to know which way the wind blows and it doesn't take a psychic to predict that David Cameron's coalition will give itself power to close down the social media in the event of more unrest.

At the top end of the socio-economic spectrum, the banksters and stock brokers are looting and pillaging, the US is printing money and the whole of Europe may need bailing out when there's no one left to do the bailing. When real political unrest happens, as it will I am absolutely certain, the police will be able to quash any demos with impunity because of powers now being handed to them.

There seems to have been a coincidence between stock markets world-wide taking a dive and those riots kicking off. If we are to give credit to people like Gerald Celente and Max Kaiser, there's going to be incredible civil unrest following a major economic collapse. By introducing draconian measures as a result of what seems to be obvious criminality, the police and the government get support for those measures. Deal with those yobs! Bring in the army! Oh yea! Let's impose curfews. All in place to deal with mass protests should there be hikes in food prices as well as fuel prices and more companies going into liquidation with mass redundancy. More police will be trained in riot control. Perhaps I am being paranoid, but I think I detect a hint of forward planning here.

Gerald Celente has advised American people to get prepared with guns and food for the coming economic collapse. Well, I'm glad to say that we in the UK can't walk into Walmart (aka ASDA) and pick a firearm off the shelf, but maybe we should be stocking up the freezer and the pantry!

Paranoid? Moi? Maybe, but I'm still stocking up the pantry!