Terry Murden: Riots are one thing, but crime is too commonplace

VERY pleasing to see the UK government compensating businesses trashed by the yobs and thieves. It should ensure the shopkeepers, cafe owners and other retailers living on a knife-edge can continue trading.

Of course, some may think otherwise. They may have been so scarred by the riots that they'll decide it's not worth spending night after night worrying that the savages may return and will hand over their keys and leave yet more empty units boarded up.

For those intent on defying the looters the compensation scheme includes 30 million to repair high streets, an extra 28 days for businesses to claim for damages they have suffered - even if uninsured - an exemption from business rate liability for the worst hit properties and a fast track planning regime to bring these buildings back into use.

That's not a bad response and shows that government can act quickly when it is forced into action.

The high street has already undergone a transformation as small shops struggle to make ends meet. But there will be another change as a result of this idiotic behaviour. Want to go window shopping in future? Forget it. More and more shopkeepers will be ordering shutters. As for industrial estates, they'll have more security guards than a prison compound.

The Association of British Insurers yesterday doubled its estimate of payouts to 200m, but as far as the government-backed compensation package is concerned it's the taxpayer who will once again pick up the tab for the actions of the verminous mob, many of whom will be back on the streets within weeks despite Prime Minister David Cameron's promise to get tough.

More on the riots

• In cold light of day, looters and rioters facing justice

• Cameron's blueprint

• Pester power has the beating of Glasgow's gangs, says policeman

• 11-year-old girl smashed shop windows in 11:30 rampage

• Riots: Dancer and would-be lawyer end up in dock

• David Maddox: Scots out in force to have their say on 'English problem'

• George Kerevan: Young people are just as alienated north of Border

• Joyce McMillan: Greed gets its grim comeuppance

• Leader: New measures needed, but public most want protection

They'll no doubt return to their old tricks. Not necessarily rioting, but still robbing and vandalising and causing distress to local businesses. It's the sort of behaviour that goes on with monotonous regularity in communities around the country and it's a pity that it has taken civil unrest to bring it to the notice of politicians who were hitherto happy to pass it off as "petty" crime.

Too many of the young are drifters, picking up values from their wayward peers instead of from elders in the workplace. The natural flow of young people from school to factory floor, or into a trade, or whatever was mapped out for them by previous generations is no longer applicable. Now they leave school with little more than the hope of getting a job. Any job. If none is available, they'll choose crime.

We've made it worse by creating an uncivil society in which the young believe they are untouchable. They've seized control and insist on their rights. They have no respect for others and no sense of shame, whether they're binge drinking, swearing at teachers or grabbing what they can when the goods are freely available in a wrecked shop.Without a proper structure to their lives that is built on self-respect and self-discipline they'll continue to seek their thrills in whatever way they choose.

It's time to provide proper support for businesses of all sizes in all communities that are attacked by these thieves and hooligans on a daily basis. It's a crime that is too often seen as victimless, particularly when it involves the bigger, "faceless" companies that are seen to be fair game.

If shopkeepers in Clapham high street deserve protection for having their windows smashed, then so do those in Glasgow's Sauchiehall Street, or Edinburgh's Rose Street who are routinely targeted on Saturday nights. The past week's violence may have been on an unprecedented scale, but let's not pretend that attacks on business premises are somehow unusual or that they're an exclusively English problem. A yob's a yob for a' that.

Family fortunes

RUPERT Murdoch acknowledged yesterday that his preferred choice to succeed him as chief executive of News Corp is chief operating officer Chase Carey. Son James retains his full support and may yet get the post, although this looks like a first acceptance by the octogenarian that things have to change at his media empire. Even so, it appears he's ready to face down any shareholder or critic who suggests the family relinquishes full control of the group.