Gunsmith - there's no link, other than that there was a social media aspect, which is what people are saying. Whatever you think of the motives of the Arab Spring movements, people have grievances and they organised in a certain way. Here, people had desires to loot, and they organised in that same way. Student tuition - again, whether you agree with their motives or not, I'm somewhat sympathetic to a generation of children who've been told that in the main their education is going to cost them 20-30x more than mine did, and a lot more than the free tuition that the members of this government, and the last one, got. Particularly when those who got free uni tuition and now charging for it include Eton educated David Cameron, privately educated Tony Blair (started under last government) and most of the cabinet went to Oxford or Cambridge with no tuition, something that will now cost £9,000p/a. Those politicians have also devalued a university education by massively expanding Higher Education to try and get up to 50% of school leavers into university, a ploy intended to reduce youth unemployment statistics.
But, I also happen to think that the country can't afford it any more, and that the concept of back pay tuition fees to people who have benefited over the last 40 years should have been explored. These kids have been told that the old argument that paying back through tuition through taxes now isn't valid for them, but it is and was for everyone born before 1979/80. There's a lot there for the youth to get annoyed about in the ways they always have done, without it being some grand Islamist/Marxist co-conspiracy.
Hawkmoon - my suspicion over people drawing conclusions on this is twofold. One - an axe to grind 'the welfare state did it', 'me first society did it' when we actually have no particular clue right now, and it seems those being arrested include people from professional jobs. Two - everyone will rush to a diagnosis, and it's forgotten about next week. Oh and thirdly, and I'm being careful how I say this, because it doesn't apply to anything said here - there is no small amount of racist commentary going on too. As Iapetus points out, relatively poor young urban blacks living in most of the areas hit constitute a fair higher percentage of the demographic than they do in the rest of the UK. I watched the video gunsmith put up of Darcus Howe, and then watched the comments streaming in underneath it. Depressing is not the word.
Iapetus - I saw that chap too - "gotta do it, there's all these Poles coming over and taking our jobs". Same as it ever was, with less monkey and Paki "jokes".