riots in South London

[Dombo]

[quote="marco"] ...I even remember there was someone on here stating they had no problem selling some busted up old crap on ebay to a chump in the states....

[Dombo]

No, I said I wouldn't sell it to a club member as I'd get more on ebay!
Just as I don't mind criticism where due, I won't accept higher moral praise than I deserve .

[Tony]

As many have stated, if the senior executives of UK plc (let alone senior bankers) can use their power and influence to engineer society and its rules to take way in excess of the value they add, then why shouldn't the fleet-footed youth not behave similarly but in their own particular way? Their behaviour showed a lot of enterprise - new technology, partnership with rival groups for a common course, etc. In fact, of these two groups, the rioters occupy the moral high-ground, since they do not claim compliance with the law to imply they are doing nothing wrong.

Of course, their behaviour is still 100% unacceptable. Dependency-culture, no boundaries, no discipline are all to blame.

The answer requires excesses at both ends of society to be addressed. The biggest disappointment of the previous government is they did nothing to stop executive excess. I thought that is what labour governments were supposed to do! Until this is addressed, getting the rioters to fill the 100,000s of low-skilled jobs that there are out there picking fruit, sweeping streets, cleaning hospital toilets rather than getting high on gangster-rap all day funded by benefit handouts will be a hard challenge.

[Paul H]

[quote="kieran"]Load of cr*p that article, lets all go back to some mythical past of happy families, full employment, where women and children knew their place, and where child abuse, wife beatings etc was all hidden and not reported, happy families indeed.

[Tony]

[quote="kieran"]Load of cr*p that article, lets all go back to some mythical past of happy families, full employment, where women and children knew their place, and where child abuse, wife beatings etc was all hidden and not reported...

[Marcus]

I have chosen not to post on this topic because most of what I would say has already been said.
I do however think those who felt the need to go out, destroy others property, take what doesn't belong to them with zero regard for others, cannot and should not have any defence whatsoever.

It is interesting what David Starkey had to say. Some will like me laugh, there may well be some who agree.
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU5TcTSa9kk[/url]

[Marcus]

Ok, this is the problem of trying to have a discussion like this without being accused of racism.

I have listened to DS speak before and do not believe he is very good at getting his specific points across. I don't think he is racist. He may or may not be misinformed.

Some of what he had to say was correct and both black and white would agree.

There are youths of all races who have adopted the wearing of baggy trousers, hoodies or talking in patios who may well be regarded as gansta rappers, American or Yardy gang culture, but who dislike rap music and are not violent but may well have been looted in the riots.

Rioting is not just a black thing which is how I think DS comments have been interpreted.

Black gang culture is a certainly a thorn in societies side, but when football hooligans are hurling bricks at police, stamping on an opposing fans head or smashing shop windows there are not doing so because they have become black.

Difficult topic

[Mike I]

For what it's worth, I think that this is a far more complex problem that most commentators are prepared to admit - both in terms of cause and solution.

But, look! It seems that rioting was predicted more than a year ago - by (you couldn't make it up) our deputy prime minister...

[url]http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2010/4/11/clegg-uk-faces-greek-style-unrest[/url]

Of course, Mystic Clegg only said this would happen if, for example, there were police cuts, a VAT rise to 20% and cuts to the public sector wage bill. I wonder if he shared his thoughts with cabinet colleagues.

[Andrew G]

Has anyone been through Mystic Clegg's blackberry to see what messages he was sending last week?

[Marcus]

[quote="Andrew G"]Has anyone been through Mystic Clegg's blackberry to see what messages he was sending last week?

[Steve W]

May Day had always been one of the very few holidays for the apprentices of London and that year, 1517, urged on by older, ill-intentioned men, they took to the streets instead of dancing round the maypoles.
Anyone dressed in outlandish clothes was set upon and beaten up. Men who answered in strange accents when challenged suffered the same rough treatment, and then the boys turned on the property of the hated strangers. Merchants slow to put up their wooden shutters found their shops broken into and ransacked, and if they tried to protest they were cuffed and kicked; a few were even killed. Catholic chapels had their windows broken and even the houses of ambassadors were attacked and looted.
The masters of the apprentices tried to restore order, but the riot had grown too big. It was several days before the Lord Mayor sent in soldiers to arrest the ringleaders and restore order.
The king was furious, and to pacify the equally furious foreign ambassadors he was merciless in his treatment of the young rioters. After a brief trial a dozen apprentices were hanged outside their masters’ houses, while another 400 paraded past the swinging bodies to Westminster Hall to await the judgment of the King himself. All day they stood waiting with halters round their necks expecting to be hanged.
As darkness fell the King entered Westminster Hall with his Spanish wife, Catherine of Aragon, and stood glaring down at the trembling boys. They were sure their last moments had come.
Then Queen Catherine knelt before him and begged for their lives, and raising her to her feet Henry ordered the ropes to be removed and the apprentices to be sent back to their masters for a whipping.

Apprentice boys riot London 1517

[Elliot M]

Good to know Max Hastings was on the ball even then...

[quote]Have to agree with Marek and Rob. A very good article.
Here's another:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/artic ... ouths.html

[quote]
I did 2 years national service in a period of transition in South Africa (Another whole discussion there)
But my personnel experience of national service and I’ve also spoken to a lot of colleagues from European countries that still have national service as well as having friends from Israel and the general consensus is that national service was a good thing for us. This is mainly in terms of learning to have respect for authority (however this starts from school and I’m afraid to say that is not the case in many of the schools in the UK now) Also respect for fellow human beings and learning to have pride in one’s self and ones country no matter what your ethnic or religious background. In lots of countries training in a trade or skill is offered in national service. Now there is the argument when doing national service these kids could be taken off to war, but overall I would say this wouldn’t be a bad thing.