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Load of bollocks if you ask me.
The problem's not a lack of discipline, it is how that discipline is meted out. Schools will expel rather than deal with problem students. The problem is not dealt with, it is just excluded, swept under the carpet. You can only sweep things under the carpet for so long. There's nothing wrong with taking kids out of mainstream education if they can't or won't behave, but you have to give them something to replace it and we don't. Rehabilitation is seen as "soft on crime" when, if anything, it's the exact opposite.
We need to make prison worthwhile again, we need to train offenders to give them the skills to live in society. Our prisons have a revolving door because prisoners aren't given a chance to overcome their problems.
G-Raffe, the real problem is that the Metropolitan Police will kettle students and beat the shit out of peaceful protesters in Fortnum and Mason but then when you get proper violence they're nowhere to be seen. They're big and hard when they're beating the shit out of a kid in a wheelchair but when some little scrote has a Molotov cocktail they vanish into thin air. That's what people are upset about.
It starts strong, offering the pretence of taking a non polarised look at the situation, but, as you'd expect with The Guardian, eventually falls off into its standard "they were given the wrong type of hugs" liberalism.
What we need is the fear of police to be installed again, so that when the police turn up they can deal with people effectively. If an American cop orders you to do something, chances are you would or you'll get shot. Here the attitude , IMO, is "what can the police do without permission from the higher powers... nothing. Therefore are there any immediate repercussions of me looting. No. Well they I shall"
This country is screwed in terms of policing. Cut back paper work and allow common sense again. That may do the trick.
I agree the police need to be more active and have less paper work, but welcome to the politically correct world where you can't say something out of tune, everything needs to be written down in case of legal threats. It's sad and there isn't really much we can do to stop it without changing all of society. I really don't want to have an American attitude to policing here in the UK. That is not the solution, it would cause friction. It started from the police shooting somebody, would that help if more police had guns right now? What about in a few months if the same policy was in force to keep problematic areas calm, and it made people feel more caged in and feel like they're in a more severe police state?
There's a hard line between the right solution. We can't go in with rubber bullets, water cannons, mounted horses, extreme riot gear, because you would start to see the same kind of behavior with peaceful protests. You only have to look back a few months to years to see the effects when the rules are changed - even if they're promised to be a temporary solution, I don't trust those decisions anymore.
I said something like that the other day on Twitter and was told that I was being too cynical
As the police are responsible for the costs of the riots it probably wouldn't be in there best interests to stoke them or not deal prompty
http://vbulletin.thesite.org/showthread.php/148575-Not-in-our-name-London-tomorrow
http://www.youthnet.org/2011/08/close-encounter-of-the-cameron-kind/
Ooh you cynic you!
FWIW you're right...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/11/london-riots-davidcameron
This is the crux of the matter as I see it. Left and right have immediately reached for their cookie cutter explanations and have made gaining proper insight largely impossible.
I have seen so many people on the right lament when they could beat the fear of God in to children... Many people on the left, often people with no shared experience of living on a council estate are struck with class guilt. Many trots and other lefties are talking about how the cuts are hurting the youth...
Yet there are adults involved too... At first, it was a 'black problem'... Then it's a 'youth problem'... Then we see all kinda people arrested, from various class backgrounds, racial and age groups.
If you ask for an explanation or try to debate it, you get accused of either siding with the rioters and something something Africa, or not listening to the working class... My experiences anyway.
This is way more complex than just one thing.
I just thank god that my two sons weren't involved, and were as surprised and shocked by it all as most of us were.
ps.. I have to say that I thought the brixton riots were worse (1981 I think) Just so much more burning and violence. I was on the periphery of that (as a bystander) and I thought the whole of London would go up in flames!)
Yeah but that, along with Broadwater & Toxteth, were proper politically motivated riots. This was just mass larceny. Kids these days have no style.
http://www.youthnet.org/2011/08/i-didnt-predict-a-riot/
http://www.youthnet.org/2011/08/close-encounter-of-the-cameron-kind/
Though call me cynical if you must; I'm a little perturbed that it is being hosted by unison and RMT? If it is an event in which these unions are trying to protect services their members work within then that is fine. What makes me a little uneasy is that some might view this as the unions trying to politicise these events.
There weren't actually many union speakers... Or the speakers ma have been in unions, but it wasn't dominant. For example, one guy who is a Unison member and whose union is invplved in a campaign against closures of child services was speaking... But you also had activists, community members, members of political parties... It essentially had no real bias to it.
My only concern is that it will just be left as a talking shop... We shall have to see.