Small Town, Big Riot review: A lack of housing, food and money . . . the boiling anger behind the riots, writes ROLAND WHITE

Small Town, Big Riot (BBC3)

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If you want a bit of sound common sense, ask a cabbie. In Small Town, Big Riot, it was taxi driver Neil who best explained why people in his home town of Kirkby might be tempted by the occasional riot.

‘We have a lack of opportunities, a lack of housing, food poverty and wage insecurity,’ he told Bafta-winning journalist Mobeen Azhar. ‘So everyone is on the brink, everyone is on edge.’

When a large group of young men suddenly appeared in the town, on the outskirts of Liverpool, last year and appeared to be getting preferential treatment in a well-known local hotel, frustration boiled over.

A supposedly non-violent protest outside the hotel turned ugly and a police van was set on fire, amid scenes that became familiar all over the country. Mobeen spent more than three months in Kirkby trying to find out why.

He was admirably industrious, but didn’t tell us much that we we couldn’t have guessed. The spark for the riots was social media rumours that the unwanted guests were propositioning and even kidnapping young girls. 

A lack of opportunities, lack of housing, food poverty and wage insecurity are found to be factors contributing to the riots (pictured: Kirkby)

There was no evidence of kidnap, but a widely-circulated video showed a 25-year-old asylum seeker asking a 15-year-old local girl for a kiss and her phone number.

Mobeen not only found the exact spot where the video was taken, but also spoke to the girl’s mother. ‘I don’t want to talk about this stuff because people will say we’re racist,’ she said off camera. ‘I’m not racist, but it’s their culture. They are paedos.’

In another scoop, an Iranian asylum seeker suggested that the video was genuine, but rejected the idea that this behaviour was typical.

‘The truth is in the video,’ he said. ‘It was wrong. In my culture in Iran, if you do that people react the same. In my culture it is a really, really bad thing.’

Showing an admirable sense of self-preservation, he also pointed out that the man in the video came ‘from a different country’.

Many people in Kirkby (pictured) — the council, the police, young men facing charges after the riot — refused to talk to Mobeen

It was taxi driver Neil who explained best why people in his home town might be tempted by the occasional riot

Many people — the council, the police, young men facing charges after the riot — refused to talk to Mobeen. Who can blame them when a misplaced word might make matters worse? So he was often reduced to driving round the town to the accompaniment of dramatic background music.

What causes riots, and are there lessons to learn about this year’s disturbances? We could start by trying to understand the boiling anger of ordinary people. Sometimes Mobeen could barely get a word in for people shouting at him.

‘If you’re not feeling great about your circumstances and you see a whole bunch of strangers move into town,’ he noted, ‘it becomes easy to point the finger at them.’

The Home Office clearly understands this. As the Iranian asylum seeker revealed, he and his friends were smuggled into the hotel under cover of darkness. It’s almost as if officials were hoping Kirkby wouldn’t notice.