A YOUNG Ealing man made his views about local rioting crystal clear during a visit from London Mayor Boris Johnson today.
While Mr Johnson was addressing scores of residents and journalists at The Green, 26-year-old Amiri Howe, a nearby resident, shouted his opinions at the mayor disturbing a TV interview recording.
He said: "It costs young people £30,000 to go to university now. Did you pay to go to university Boris? Did you go to university? It’s £30,000 to send a youth to prison. D’you pay to go uni? You’ve got money to send youths to prison, but you ain’t got money to send youths to university."
Police tried to calm him down, but he continued to shout at the Mayor.
When Mr Johnson eventually moved on to another part of The Green, Mr Howe stood with a crowd of residents who had gathered around him to hear what he had to say, many of them filming his speech on their camera phones.
He said: “I’m utterly, utterly devastated about what’s happening, and I’m sorry about the guy in Birmingham who lost his son. I’m dismayed because no one cared about Mark Duggan. I didn’t see it on the news when he died, I didn’t see it on the news when there was a peaceful protest, but you saw it on the news when there people rioting.
"When students went on a friendly protest, nothing happened. When you do a friendly protest, you realise nothing happens. When you riot, something happens.”
“This is the first time I’ve seen this guy in Ealing” (referring to Boris).Some (rioters) were from Ealing, they are generally from all over London, all over the UK, all over the world.
“I’ve got a lot of anger vented up, I want to express it in the right way, because I’m smarter than that. When you’ve got uneducated youths running around doing this madness, it’s not because they’re opportunists. It’s because they’re not educated enough to know why they’re doing what they’re doing. They don’t understand what they’re doing. I’ve been stopped and searched one today, twice yesterday. People look at me like I was out there doing it.”
Speaking after the incident, Mr Johnson said to the Ealing Gazette: "He has a point of view, and I welcome that from everyone. I'm not sure I agree with everything he says because I do not think this rioting is fundamentally caused by cuts, it is a whole host of issues and a variety of factors."
