Friday, September 2, 2011 9:22am ET by  
Comments (0)

, , , , , , , , ,

Pete Doherty slams consumer culture as the cause of London's riots and looting

Pete Doherty has spoken out about the riots and looting that rocked London and other major cities in July, labelling the events as the "perfect reaction to the consumer society we live in". 

The former Libertines star explained to BlagSound that because of a post-prison enforced curfew he was restricted to one particular residence, but witnessed the shocking behaviour from where he was staying:

"I’ve got this tag thing when I came out of prison because I have to stay on a curfew so I literally wasn't allowed outside my front door. But at the same time all down Camden High Street where I was staying there were police vans, people running around with baseball bats and masks, and I stuck my head out and it was like: 'What the f*ck is going on'.”

Slamming consumer culture as the driving force behind the riots, Doherty added:

"We do live in a material world and we have it dangled in front of us all of the time. It's insane. It's not that it's not on, it's almost like the perfect reaction to the consumer society we live in – it's like they've been asking for it.”

Watch his performance of 'Albion' from 2011's Reading Festival here: