With the passing consolations of a royal wedding and a triumph at cricket, England endures a turbulent summer, as riots sweep through the cities, newspapers fulminate, and politicians pontificate. Yes, 1981 seems almost like yesterday—which makes it eerier that history should repeat itself just 30 years on.
And repeat is the word. Four nights which saw a wave of looting and pillaging have been followed by two weeks in which the country has been swept by another wave, of blather and bluster driven by hot air. This tsunami of pontification has been as predictable as it was pointless. Ten years ago, TNR ran “Idiot Watch,” cataloguing the mindless preening inanities that followed 9/11, and another sottisier could have been compiled in England this month. Having endured this daily barrage since the first buildings were torched, I’d say that the most charitable verdict is William Goldman’s famous apothegm about Hollywood: Nobody knows anything.
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