London's Burning

[Big Sarge]

As you can see in my profile pic, I'm always prepared for solar flares!!!

[DanaC]

Thanks for that be-bop. Last time I saw burning cars in Salford was in the early 90s.

[DanaC]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england...ester-14478498

Rioters in Manchester and Salford have been told that they face being evicted from their council homes if they are identified on CCTV footage.

Both city councils have issued warnings that if any of their tenants or their children have been involved in violence or looting they will be "thrown out".

Oh, well that'll help the situation no end, making a bunch of families homeless. Can't see how that could possibly backfire and cause greater social unrest and public expense.

This sort of thing really pisses me off. Because, see, here's the deal: local councils have legal obligations when it comes to little things like ensuring children are not homeless or in other dangerous situations. All the councils are doing by following this line is to shunt these families out of the stable (however deprived) setting of a council house and into the unstable setting of hostels, guest houses and other comparatively expensive forms of temporary accomodation.

If these kids are already disconnected from society, then throwing them and their families out to try and survive on family's floors, and shared lodgings, disrupting whatever structures do exist within their homelife and probably interrupting their education, possibly necessitating a change of school due to moving to a new area, is not going to help anybody. It's just Look Tough nonsense. 'Common sense responses' that are anything but.

[DanaC]

Saw a Manchester woman vox-popped on the news, and one of the things she said was: well, they've been labelled scum, so now they're acting like scum.

There's been a near constant narrative in the last 5-10 years in the tabloid media and within political discourse, of 'feral youth' and 'broken Britain'. I've seen some interesting statistics about youth crime and youths as victims of crime, and some interesting survey results on perceptions of crime. Basically, the fear of youth crime far outweighs its incidence rate in people's perceptions. And by far the most common victims of youth crime, are other young people.

Despite the regular caveats thrown in about this not being 'all' young people. but a minority, the tone of the media and political analysis has actually served to suggest the opposite. And the responses to problems have at times been ridiculously heavy handed. I have to say my own party was responsible for some of that when they were in government. The anti-social behaviour order, known as an 'asbo' are an incredibly blunt instrument in judicial terms, and whilst many are fairly harmless, some have done real social harm.

Changes in policing, and in how children are treated if they end up coming to the attention of the authorities have both helped and hindered. We're more likely to identify those young people in vulnerable situations, but we're also more likely to criminalise them at a much earlier, and in some cases inappropriate stage. Petty nonsense that 20 years ago would have had you being taken back to home and handed to your parents by a policeman, but not actually booked as an incident, now ends up with an official caution, and the tentative beginnings of involvement with the criminal justice system.

We incarcerate more young people than anywhere else in Europe. We place them under constant surveillance. If they gather in groups larger than 3 or 4 the police can and will intervene to disperse them. The police might be doing all sorts of outreach work, and running all manner of football and boxing clubs, but they're also the ones stopping young people and searching them whnen all they're doing is hanging about the street.

Hanging about is something young people like to do. I used to like to do it too. Hanging about in a group and larking around. Now, there's always been a battle of wills at the edges of that activity, with raucous behaviour bringing calls to be quiet, go home, stop being a nuisance, and maybe a cop coming over to tell you off and warn you to behave yourelves. But there used to be a general acceptance that whilst it wasn't desirable as a full time occupation, hanging about was something most kids were going to do and we were pretty much left alone to do it if we didn't get in anyone's way.

Now, the very sight of a group of youngsters raises tension, and even if they aren't actually doing anything wrong there's a good chance they'll be interrupted and possibly dispersed by police. Not the case everywhere, but definately the case in a lot of places.

[Aliantha]

The idea of hanging about on the street is a bit odd to me. I know teenagers like to congregate, but - at least in my experience myself and with my kids - they'll usually do it at someone's house, or at a sporting event. Occasionally they'll take themselves down to the shops to feed their faces, but other than that, you don't generally see groups of kids just hanging around 'making a nuisance of themselves'.

I think the fact that this is seen as the norm in the UK points to a bigger social issue really if the kids don't feel happy and better off to be hanging about at their own homes or the homes of friends.

I'm not saying we don't have social issues here, just that the idea of just hanging about aimlessly is a problem I think. Boredom leading to trouble is the most likely outcome from what I can see.

[DanaC]

Much of it is most likely to do with the fact that we have much smaller houses in the UK than in most other countries, and that is doubly so in the innercity areas. The middle-class paradigm, which tends to involve bigger houses and kids all having their own space, is one of kids not being out on their own much, and mainly playing with their friends in bedrooms, on playstations. This has been a source of much concern as we ponder the less active generation and the less independant kids whose parents remember hanging about the streets entertaining themselves outside :p

The working-class paradigm, which tends to involve smaller houses, often with kids sharing bedrooms, and much less social space for the kids to hang out in, is one of kids hanging around outside congregating at bus shelters, or street corners with handy seat level walls etc.; then possibly having a kickabout of a football in a carpark.

[Aliantha]

Well maybe there needs to be more sporting and cultural programs in place for these kids. Youth centres or what you might call them where there are a variety of activities available.

I understand what you're saying about space being a factor, and I guess we're lucky here in that most people do have a yard to play in or hang about in even if the house is small.

Still though, it's a shame that kids can't just plop down in front of the telly or at the kitchen table or whatever.

I hope the situation there is not so bad that it's beyond the point of no return. Aside from the current riots which will hopefully peter out when they get bored of it.

[DanaC]

Unfortunately youth programmes and facilities have been shrinking for some time. And I don;t see local councils being able to initiate much more for them, given they're attempting to effect massive budget cuts across the board.

[Aliantha]

I think it's so sad that the kids feel they have nothing better to do than destroy other people's lives. I'm sure they disassociate themselves from that actual thought when they're in the process.

Honestly, I just want to give them all a big hug and tell them there's a better way to live, but I'm realistic enough to realize they'd probably punch me in the face for my trouble.

[DanaC]

Youngsters have always hung around on street corners an bus shelters, and kicked footballs around carparks, and drunk cider in secret, down by the kiddy play park (this is amost a unversal :p) in Britain. But they haven't always rioted.

And this is more than just social deprivation, or boredom. Amongst the rioters arrested last night, were a grammar school girl (so either wealthy enough to pay for private education, or clever enough to pass the 11+ and gain a scholarship) and a teaching assistant.

[Aliantha]

Yeah, but just because they've always done it doesn't mean it's the best thing for them to be doing.

I know I come from a very different culture, but if I knew my kids were hanging around aimlessly, I'd be finding them something to do. I know this because when we first moved here, Aden got hooked up with a group of kids that do just hang around the streets. He got himself into a bad situation, but was lucky enough to have us to help him find a better way. He's never looked back, and he's so much happier now. I can go into details if you like.

[TheMercenary]

Tonight a group of the rioters blamed it on the "rich", and these were their neighbors. The business people who served their communities, again, pull out and let them rot. See how that works out for them.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

I remember the first time I clapped eyes on British punkers -- would have been down Bath way, around 1984. The whole ensemble and the worldview it symbolized was strikingly off-kilter -- an excrescence of Euro-socialism and of the welfare state, even then.

It was not merely distasteful philosophically, it was ugly-looking too. ("They ductaped me into a chair to give me this hairstyle. Then they boxed my ears a few times to impart a properly scroungy air.") And the scrounginess was widespread. Had to get up into Scotland and a year and more later to see any of it done with style -- scrounginess now being refreshingly absent, at least up there.

The sort of thing we're hearing now seems of a piece with that. The root cause of this is the existence of the welfare state. Absent that and things will freshen right up.

Marx outlined and theorized what caused this -- and it's a purely European idea, this classist thinking, this rigidity. Marx could not have come up with the error he did had he lived in America. But he didn't make it that far west.

Now it comes home to roost. England may have the best chance at turning from welfarism to a libertarian paradigm, as much of the libertarian philosophical literature is in English.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Tonight a group of the rioters blamed it on the "rich", and these were their neighbors. The business people who served their communities, again, pull out and let them rot. See how that works out for them.

While the "rich" may be at fault, these looters fail to make the critical distinction between "richer" and terminally "rich."

It's not the fault of the richer, and if you are not terminally rich then you are unlikely to ever encounter one of them.

People are just knuckleheads. Angry knuckleheads.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

While the "rich" may be at fault, these looters fail to make the critical distinction between "richer" and terminally "rich."

It's not the fault of the richer, and if you are not terminally rich then you are unlikely to ever encounter one of them.

People are just knuckleheads. Angry knuckleheads.

Agreed.