and then came a shot ...

I sit and sip my Wednesday morning cup of tea. It acts as a good wake up mechanism for cold winter mornings. It works like a boredom cure through out the day, great for the intervals from my daily routine. Apply for work. Get some cash. Worry about life.
It just happened that this mornings tea decided to drip onto a tabloid newspaper. ‘The Killer and his crew of cowards’ it read. On the front cover a solemn looking young man scolds back at me, he doesn’t look like a killer, he looks like a little boy. He could be riding past my window on his bike any minute now . He looks like that kid in the spoons on Saturday who bought me a drink and left when he found out he wasn’t getting any. Well, no world's perfect.

This "man" was jailed yesterday, along with five others for shooting dead a little kid. Rhys Jones. Gunned down in his football kit as he walked home from practise.
What a relief it must have been for Rhys' family. These people had been shut away from the world for the majority of their lives. But the conviction seems insignificant, because a pain like that can’t be fixed.

As we clog up the prisons with yet another gang of angry young men. I ask myself why little boys are shooting at each others with big guns? It doesn’t take a genius to work it out. All we need to do is look in the mirror. The anger that comes spewing out of us, fiery flames burning as they go, hot with sweat and red with fury. Few of us step over that line, that thin red line where fury becomes rage and jealousy becomes a bullet hole. A little boy was caught up in this fury and however stupid their anger was, it killed a family, it killed a family stone dead. Powerful.
Yet this anger, this fury, it’s at the heart of me. It’s at the heart of a generation.
The country expects so much but appears to give so little. We’re in the middle of the worst recession in years and even kids with a degree can’t get work without screwing someone. I try to avoid the looks, the looks I get working in "Shamesburys". What kid wants to work with ready meals their whole life?

When bad things happen people need to pay for them, no doubt about that, Rhys’ killers will pay the price for the blood on their hands.
But what about the lives of millions of young people? Let down by society and their peers? If the tabloids want to talk about "change", let's talk about building a better Britain. One that stands independent from America and doesn’t rely on trade from other nations. Natural produce. Renewable energy. Community rather than individuals. A house of commons where mps sit around and discuss the issues effecting our society, rather than a bunch of five year olds flinging insults across a room. It’s like they’re the kids. Give em a gun, god knows, they might blow each others head off.

This is Britain. Remind me again who pulled the trigger?