London Riots

Ranchu said:
Nice, that sounds very helpful of the "Catholic lay people". We should be grateful to the rioters as well, they're clearly teaching many, many people that Life Isn't Fair. A valuable lesson, I'm sure we all agree. Perhaps Cameron could arrange a monetary reward for their efforts? Tuition, so to speak?
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Not helpful at all .
Sorry , I must not have made that clear enough.
My point was that the failure of some doesn`t negate the value of others.
I say again that I`m not in favour of similar draconian measures to resolve this .
We need to think our way out of this problem .
There are deep seated social issues that will not be resolved by money alone.
 
I'm not one for talking politics, it causes too many arguments and usually ends up with ill feeling.

However, I will chip in this.

Social/council housing in the UK is at a premium, there is a shortage and local authorities up and down the land have waiting lists that are not just long, they are ridiculous, and all of these people are on the list prioritised by housing need (there was a good documentary on this on BBC Four about 3-4 months ago), I find myself asking -- if a parent or parents have let their children of a young age (and by this I mean 15 or under, 16 it gets a bit difficult, for one I did go out to pubs at 16, naughty me eh?) well gone 11 o'clock at night, you have to wonder what is going on in that family unit.

Unless there is a damn good reason why a parent can't keep tabs on where their children are late at night, then there is some form of dysfunction (sorry, you might not like that but gone midnight with 10, 11, 12 year olds on the street is dysfunction so far as I am concerned).

What I am getting to is that some of these parents have got away scot free for years with their lack of discipline of their family unit, I have seen these small minorities (and they are small) terrorise neighbourhoods, their kids show a complete disrespect for public and private property (smashing up and vandalising play equipment, racially abusing people etc.) and the worst that has happened is a talking to by the authorities. If this is the latest in a series of anti-social behaviour then there are probably more deserving people on housing register for that house.

I'm just not personally convinced you can be nice and supportive to turn these family units around, a recent case local to me saw a whole close (a cul-de-sac, dead end road in suburbs) terrorised with death threats should they ever go to the police and grass them up, in the end it took their eviction after many years to actually bring this to an end. The question then is where do they go? Well, I don't know what goes on in these people's heads but then maybe they should have thought of that before they got evicted.

You are always going to have problems, there is no solution, there are no multiple solutions, there is only reduction to a minimum, it is my belief there will always be inequality but its to what degree that inequality exists, it seems in human nature to try and better oneself through whatever means that is (steady eddie promotion, drug dealing, pimping -- goodness knows what.) There is however a distinct lack of true opportunity for a lot of youngsters and that surely breeds some of this malcontent.

To me though, the issue at heart of this tinderbox scenario is more to do about community and the lack of connection people feel to their community, if they even think one exists; and on top of that, society as whole seems to have let slip of its own responsibilities and instead looks and blames the local councils and authorities for all their ills, some things just can't be done by town halls, if people had affection and belonging to where they live they wouldn't let their neighbourhoods fall into the deprived and derelict physical, environmental and emotional places they have become.

Anyway, just a personal opinion, I don't sit anywhere politically really, I'm afraid I'm one of those fickle humans that picks and chooses. I'm a liberal probably at heart because I do and want to believe the best in some people, but as I have got older and seen some truly horrific things, some people are deserving and some just don't.

I'm reminded out of all this of Oscar Wilde, and though he said this of a cynic, this somehow underlines where I have got to in my thinking, they know the price of everything, but the value of nothing.

Out of all this though, the people who helped clean up afterwards are my real heroes out of this (and there are many mind), they are the embodiment of a spirit that I do so love, and I hope it never disappears, but a planner's and idealists' dream can always be crushed underfoot.

There are so many issues here, I can't even begin to comprehend them myself. In reality, I can only feel a real heavy and lonely sadness for all of this.

Vicky
 
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Perhaps a refusal to talk about politics is the root cause of much of the problem. Politics is, after all, concerned with the rights and duties of a citizen. If we exclude this from common discourse, because 'discussing politics always leads to trouble', then we should examine our premises. WHY should it lead to trouble? If we leave political discussion only to those who are 'interested in politics' then we can hardly complain if our views are marginalized or ignored, and we cannot be surprised if, in discussion only with totally like-minded people, the views of bigots and extremists are self-reinforcing.

The easiest way to understand someone else's point of view is through discussion, and the only reason I can see for refusing to discuss anything with anyone is a complete unwillingness to accept that other people may have other views, and a fear that some of those views may actually be more rational and defensible than your own.

Of course there are underlying question of beliefs and world-pictures, but even these can change: my politics have certainly changed over my lifetime, as a result of both discussion and observation.

Cheers,

R.
 
My own reluctance to discuss my own politics is not about not wanting to listen to others, in fact I find that much more interesting to listen to other people's point of view, I'm more of a sponge than loud-hailer. Hearing other people's opinions has often shaped so far how I see things whether by agreeing or disagreeing.

I think by listening to the people in the situation, and seeing the patterns I'm better placed to understand than by applying my own view of how I'd solve a problem with no consultation. That doesn't mean I don't have the stomach for being decisive when the time comes and nothing is moving forward.

But I was brought up in a family where expressing our political views was a private thing, we just talked about many other things instead, the private thing was not for any real reason so far as I can work out, just that we preferred to talk about other the more flowery things I suppose; not that it was easy at times some of that conversation.

Vicky
 
Roger Hicks said:
...

When we'd established how we knew each other, and that he'd been in that class, he said, "Us thought us didn't learn f*** nothing from that class, but now I know that I learned more from you than from the rest of the f***ing school put together."

While I'm glad I wasn't his English teacher, I've always treasured that as one of the greatest compliments I've ever been paid.

Cheers,

R.
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Roger, I missed your post the first time around, and have to say this is one of the best "teacher stories" I have come across. You treated the students with respect, which in the end will break through some of the thickest skulls. My hat's off to you.

Randy
 
Roger Hicks said:
There's a big difference between explaining and excusing. By your logic, stealing a loaf of bread to feed a starving child is the same as stealing money out of the till to pay for a drug habit. You don't care why they did it: it's just theft. That's implicit in "little or no reference to the underlying cause". Hang 'em all!

Cheers,

R.
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sorry to go back to this, I've been away for a few days...

Sorry if I've not been clear, I'm saying that in these circumstances I've no appetite to understand the underlying causes. That's significantly different than saying in any circumstances.

I'm sure you understood that and you were just 'Reductio ad Absurdum' to make your point.

Cheers.
 
scarletfawth said:
sorry to go back to this, I've been away for a few days...

Sorry if I've not been clear, I'm saying that in these circumstances I've no appetite to understand the underlying causes. That's significantly different than saying in any circumstances.

I'm sure you understood that and you were just 'Reductio ad Absurdum' to make your point.

Cheers.
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Indeed, 'no appetite' is understandable.

But equally, I just listened to an old BBC programme about machine breaking/ Luddite riots.

They were not rioting 'against progress' (as most of us were taught iin school) but rather against loss of livelihood.

Many of the recent rioters had no livelihood, and no prospect of one.

Of course there were chancers and opportunists among them, just as there were among the Luddites.

But that is not a sufficient explanation of the whole.

Cheers,

R.
 
Does anyone in Britain see the obvious in what I am about to relate?

Sky news this morning:- Dealing with the 'criminals' in the riots i.e. kids from broken homes; bad parents etc

Next news item:- Train fares are to rise by an average of 8% i.e. 5% inflation and an extra 3% because the 'government' has removed restrictions on the service providers!

How many people will demonstrate in the streets over the 2nd point? I wager none will. But, as more and more people are marginalised and the wealth gap increases and the attitude of 'evict them all to outside the county boundary' grows, there is only one vision looming for this country.

One last thing:- Stagecoach, who are the largest public transport provider in the UK, making a £100 million + profit last year, have cut the only remaining bus service to one of the poorest estates in the North East. Why? Not profitable now the governmet has cut subsidies. Now we have each day, elderly people walking 3/4 mile at least to get their provisions (they can't afford taxi's) and walking 3/4 mile back, in all weathers. Workers from Chorus (steel makers), who live on that estate walk 6 miles home after a days work and of course 6 miles back in the next day, now the bus has gone.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Many of the recent rioters had no livelihood, and no prospect of one.

Of course there were chancers and opportunists among them, just as there were among the Luddites.
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That is by no means necessarily the case. A key feature of the developing British underclass is that many of them are not prepared to accept relatively low-paid physically demanding work because it doesn't offer significant economic advantage over what they can achieve on welfare and through the black economy. If they were, the UK would not be a destination of choice for migrant workers from elsewhere in the EU - particularly the former Eastern bloc countries - who are prepared to work hard for minimum wage or thereabouts. Evidence of this is everywhere. I'm having some building work done at my house in London at the moment: the tradesmen are all Polish. There's also some work being done at the house next door: the workers there are Rumanians. When I go to my house in the Welsh Marches this weekend, the whole area will be awash with eastern European seasonal workers who have come to work on the farms. I doubt they will be fighting in the nearby towns though: that'll be the local kids, out of their heads on cheap cider.

While these events were deeply disturbing, we do need to keep a sense of proportion. It was not an 'uprising' or 'insurrection': it was an outbreak of chaotic criminality sparked, so far as I can see, by the realisation that the police had been wrong-footed by the violent follow-on to the original Duggan protest, fuelled by an, as it turns out, misplaced sense of impunity. Many of those who took part, and have been arrested and charged are probably now beginning to dimly realise that they've made an unthought-out spur-of-the-moment choice which, while it seemed like fun at the time, will quite possibly have a life-long impact. There are lots of these choices available and - in my opinion - the failure of British society over the last fifty years or so has been not to educate its members that they can't - and shouldn't - necessarily be protected from the consequences of their choices by the government.
 
Well, I did say "But that is not a sufficient explanation of the whole".

No, I'm not comparing them closely with the machine-breakers, but I am suggesting that (a) there is an ever increasing wealth gap which (b) fosters a sense of injustice that is (c) stoked by unrealistic expectations promoted by various media, especially television.

I'm sure you're right about 'chaotic criminality', but again, I'd repeat, "that is not a sufficient explanation of the whole".

The point about Polish, Romanian, etc., temporary workers is substantially beside the point, as they are not (yet) part of British society. Societies suffer from malaises, and I believe that Britain is suffering from quite a bad one.

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Well, I did say "But that is not a sufficient explanation of the whole".

No, I'm not comparing them closely with the machine-breakers, but I am suggesting that (a) there is an ever increasing wealth gap which (b) fosters a sense of injustice that is (c) stoked by unrealistic expectations promoted by various media, especially television.

I'm sure you're right about 'chaotic criminality', but again, I'd repeat, "that is not a sufficient explanation of the whole".

The point about Polish, Romanian, etc., temporary workers is substantially beside the point, as they are not (yet) part of British society. Societies suffer from malaises, and I believe that Britain is suffering from quite a bad one.

Cheers,

R.
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The odd thing is that the 'temporary workers' are increasingly well integrated and are undeniably becoming part of British society now: a big chunk of the 'English' working class are now from Eastern Europe. All of the builders currently working on my house speak good English (three or four years ago, a similar group would have been nodding their heads and smiling, now we are discussing Vilas-Boas's team selection at Chelsea), and their boss has lived in London for the best part of ten years.

I agree with you that there is a malaise in British society but I don't think it's difficult to identify the reasons (on the other hand, solutions will be immensely difficult to find). The malaise is that various groups are becoming increasingly alienated from the mainstream of society. These include south Asian Muslims, who have problems integrating culturally; poor Afro-Caribbeans who face cultural and economic problems, having borne the brunt of racist attitudes over the years; and, increasingly, the poor white underclass who struggle economically, but are also beginning to de-integrate from mainstream culture as well.

I admit I don't have any solutions but I would suggest that 'multiculturalism' and over-generous 'welfarism' have both been tried and found wanting.
 
Ade-oh said:
The odd thing is that the 'temporary workers' are increasingly well integrated and are undeniably becoming part of British society now: a big chunk of the 'English' working class are now from Eastern Europe. All of the builders currently working on my house speak good English (three or four years ago, a similar group would have been nodding their heads and smiling, now we are discussing Vilas-Boas's team selection at Chelsea), and their boss has lived in London for the best part of ten years.

I agree with you that there is a malaise in British society but I don't think it's difficult to identify the reasons (on the other hand, solutions will be immensely difficult to find). The malaise is that various groups are becoming increasingly alienated from the mainstream of society. These include south Asian Muslims, who have problems integrating culturally; poor Afro-Caribbeans who face cultural and economic problems, having borne the brunt of racist attitudes over the years; and, increasingly, the poor white underclass who struggle economically, but are also beginning to de-integrate from mainstream culture as well.

I admit I don't have any solutions but I would suggest that 'multiculturalism' and over-generous 'welfarism' have both been tried and found wanting.
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True enough, but that still doesn't address the point of the wealth gap, and the fostering of unreasonable expectations. When I look at how hard my mate John works (he's a small builder) and what he's paid, and what people are paid for being 'something in the city' (I know about this one as I have relatives who are exactly that) I find the latter's salaries hard to justify.

I also read an interesting piece recently about how progressive taxation, with very high top tax rates, is less about redistributing wealth, and more about encouraging reinvestment over consumption.

Your point about integration is well taken, which is why I put (yet) in brackets in my previous post: I did not realize it had progressed quite so fast, though I was sure it was going to happen.

On multiculturalism, my own view is that it just happens, even when you do absolutely nothing to encourage it. We have a Bulgarian friend who is a seasonal melon-picker, and we were invited to a party at the house he shares with other Bulgarians in the next village. It was a LOT of Bulgarians! Inevitably, people tend to stick together for mutual support and succour, but trying to encourage that and that alone, instead of encouraging integration, reinforces the Thatcherite view that 'there is no such thing as society'.

There's an old Cornish joke in the form of a prayer, about those who deny the existence of society: "God bless me and my wife; My brother Jack and his wife; We four, no more."

Cheers,

R.
 
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alistair.o said:
One last thing:- Stagecoach, who are the largest public transport provider in the UK, making a £100 million + profit last year, have cut the only remaining bus service to one of the poorest estates in the North East. Why? Not profitable now the governmet has cut subsidies. Now we have each day, elderly people walking 3/4 mile at least to get their provisions (they can't afford taxi's) and walking 3/4 mile back, in all weathers. Workers from Chorus (steel makers), who live on that estate walk 6 miles home after a days work and of course 6 miles back in the next day, now the bus has gone.
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You've provided a few illustrations of the primary weakness of a market economy. I.e., it is dependent on profit. Essential goods and services will not -- can not -- be provided by the market when selling them is unprofitable, or when that is perceived to be unprofitable.

That, for example, is the core of the health care debate here in the U.S. Corporate supporters on the right argue that the market can provide care to all, ignoring the fact that it never has. What will change to motivate suppliers to sell at a loss to those who cannot afford to pay?

Ditto for the transport cutbacks you mention. Public policies and private initiatives encourage people to commit themselves to lives built around certain key assumptions. When belief and ideological fervor, or just simple greed, render those assumptions invalid, real people suffer. I have little use for people who value adherence to belief more than relieving suffering. And no use at all for people who value their wallet more than their neighbor's life.
 
@Roger

I'm not sure what your point about the wealth gap is. There has always been a gap between rich and poor and it has always fostered resentment, without necessarily leading to the torching of sporting goods shops. Of course zero is a hard stop line, but the average person living below the 'poverty line' is considerably better off now than at any time in the past: I read recently that the life expectancy at birth of the average person living 'in poverty' in Britain today is more than twice that of Queen Victoria's children. And I wonder whether the media fosters expectations any more unreasonable than, say, Hollywood in the 1930s?

I agree with you about multiculturalism. A degree of it is inevitable - and probably desirable - in any society which is open to immigration, but it seems to me that there is 'soft' multiculturalism and 'hard' multiculturalism. Soft multiculturalism celebrates immigrants' roots and accepts that immigrant communities will inevitably, and rightly, tend to stick together even as they integrate into their host society; 'hard' multiculturalism, which I think we have seen quite a lot of in the UK, includes elements of denying the validity of the host society's cultural norms and sometimes tolerating practices - for example 'honour killings', female circumcision and Sharia - which are entirely alien to the host culture, are often amongst the reasons immigrants left their home countries in the first place and which will inevitably lead to strife.
 
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Ade-oh said:
@Roger

I'm not sure what your point about the wealth gap is. There has always been a gap between rich and poor and it has always fostered resentment, without necessarily leading to the torching of sporting goods shops. Of course zero is a hard stop line, but the average person living below the 'poverty line' is considerably better off now than at any time in the past: I read recently that the life expectancy at birth of the average person living 'in poverty' in Britain today is more than twice that of Queen Victoria's children. And I wonder whether the media fosters expectations any more unreasonable than, say, Hollywood in the 1930s?

I agree with you about multiculturalism. A degree of it is inevitable - and probably desirable - in any society which is open to immigration, but it seems to me that there is 'soft' multiculturalism and 'hard' multiculturalism. Soft multiculturalism celebrates immigrants' roots and accepts that immigrant communities will inevitably, and rightly, tend to stick together even as they integrate into their host society; 'hard' multiculturalism, which I think we have seen quite a lot of in the UK, includes elements of denying the validity of the host society's cultural norms and sometimes tolerating practices - for example 'honour killings', female circumcision and Sharia - which are entirely alien to the host culture, are often amongst the reasons immigrants left their home countries in the first place and which will inevitably lead to strife.
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Well after a lenghthy thread I think you`ve have summed it up well.
Lets not forget that there were a fair number of people arrested who were not economically disadvantaged such as the Oxford law grad who also had a Masters from the LSE in Economics.
He is in court accused of attacking police as he walked home from a job interview with an organisation that helps promote a more tolerant society
 
Ade-oh said:
@Roger

I'm not sure what your point about the wealth gap is. There has always been a gap between rich and poor and it has always fostered resentment, without necessarily leading to the torching of sporting goods shops. Of course zero is a hard stop line, but the average person living below the 'poverty line' is considerably better off now than at any time in the past: I read recently that the life expectancy at birth of the average person living 'in poverty' in Britain today is more than twice that of Queen Victoria's children. And I wonder whether the media fosters expectations any more unreasonable than, say, Hollywood in the 1930s?

I agree with you about multiculturalism. A degree of it is inevitable - and probably desirable - in any society which is open to immigration, but it seems to me that there is 'soft' multiculturalism and 'hard' multiculturalism. Soft multiculturalism celebrates immigrants' roots and accepts that immigrant communities will inevitably, and rightly, tend to stick together even as they integrate into their host society; 'hard' multiculturalism, which I think we have seen quite a lot of in the UK, includes elements of denying the validity of the host society's cultural norms and sometimes tolerating practices - for example 'honour killings', female circumcision and Sharia - which are entirely alien to the host culture, are often amongst the reasons immigrants left their home countries in the first place and which will inevitably lead to strife.
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Second para: I quite agree about 'hard multiculturalism' and 'we mustn't interfere with their (more repulsive) customs', but on the first para, my point is simple: bigger inequalities ALWAYS lead to a more fragmented society, because the rich and poor lose touch and demonize one another. This is regardless of absolute poverty, which has, as we have both said elsewhere, diminished drastically.

As for the fostering of expectations, sure, there's not just 1930s Hollywood but modern Bollywood too. The trouble is that "Jack's as good as his master" used to apply to morality, capacity for hard work, etc., whereas now it is taken to mean that Jack is entitled to everything his master has, whether or not he cares to work for it. And, because the poor are much richer, and because of the rise of 'realism' in drama (as distinct from pure Hollywood- or Bollywood-style fantasy), they feel they are entitled to what they see in 'realistic' movies.

Decades of reading on this and allied subjects has led me to the very clear impression that no reasonably egalitarian society has anything like the level of violence, whether expressed in murders or riots, as unequal societies, and I think you (or anyone) would be hard put to come up with any studies or even anecdotal evidence that showed the contrary.

EDIT: What I see from the media coverage is that too many people are trying to find a single cause (their favourite one) for the riots, whereas my own view is that riot is always closer to the surface than most people like to believe, so that while any one of the cocktail of potential causes may be insufficient to explain things, small worsenings of two or three causes of grievance (real or imagined) can tip the balance. It's not a question of keeping your eye on the ball: it's keeping your eye on sevrral balls at once, and knowing which balls you can safely ignore.

Cheers,

R.
 
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Roger Hicks said:
EDIT: What I see from the media coverage is that too many people are trying to find a single cause (their favourite one) for the riots, whereas my own view is that riot is always closer to the surface than most people like to believe, so that while any one of the cocktail of potential causes may be insufficient to explain things, small worsenings of two or three causes of grievance (real or imagined) can tip the balance. It's not a question of keeping your eye on the ball: it's keeping your eye on sevrral balls at once, and knowing which balls you can safely ignore.

Cheers,

R.
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Absolutely agreed. The media are looking for simple causes and simple solutions where none exist. Indeed, I suspect the causes of each of the outbreaks of violence have been slightly different anyway. My teenaged son went out to see the new 'Planet of the Apes' movie in London last night and as he left the cinema, a group of about 30 'youths' (as I think we have to call them) were menacing a couple of beat policemen nearby. It all came to a sudden halt when several van-loads of riot cops showed up but it now seems to have metamorphosed into a stupid, high stakes game for bored kids.
 
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