Riots in London

[Lightworker]

Yeah I think education is a big factor. Since clearly, for the most part, their parents are failing them, educators need to step up. I was reading this book by a teacher that used to work in an inner city school and they had the same problems in school. When fights broke out, people would get involved just for the sake of it.

I think one way in which the government can take responsibility is by providing a higher calibre of educators. This is not to say that the teachers are not good, just that I think when teachers go to work at inner city schools, I think they have pre-conceptions about the type of students they will have. In the book, the lady was pretty much the only one who pushed her students to be the best they can be.

Nobody tells these children that if they work hard, they can be doctors, lawyers, engineers, bankers etc...they are usually left to think that all they can aspire to is menial jobs. No one encourages even the exceptional high achievers to apply to Oxbridge. When they leave school they are now at a loss for what to do.

Whilst I think perhaps a more strict approach is necessary, that should be one of the last resorts because if you are finding that you need to bring in the army or whatnot, man it is indicative of a classic fail, I don't know on who's part yet. I will say though, if the current govt is making huge cuts on things like Sure Start, which are geared at supporting parents in needy areas..the very areas which produce these potential rioters, then surely you must ask yourself, are you suprised? Are the government suprised when they give such little help to the parents of children who may one day turn to this kind of violence? Is there any long-sightedness in their policies?

And hell yeah, children in the UK have it so easy. Universal education until A-Levels. Small classes (small compared to some African classes). However, you can never expect them to understand just how easy they have it if they have no opportunity to acquaint themselves with children who have a million times harder. Children that have to walk miles barefoot everyday to school, and still go home and herd the cattle and whatnot. The whole system, the whole society's approach to education, child policy, benefits system just needs a thorough overhall as this is what is at the bottom of these riots. My 2 cents/pence. x

 

[Lightworker]

I think the book I mentioned is called To Miss, With Love

 

[marley2580]

I think one of the things that needs to change is society's tendency to automatically blame the underclass for everything - as soon as the riots started everyone started shouting 'cut their benefits' but going from the recent court appearances the looters have come from all walks of life.

 

[Nibblenic]

Thing is though Lightworker. A secondary school teacher has over 150 children in their care per year. Yes some of the really good ones may be able to get to a handful but its not enough.

As for the riots im not buying into they are protesting about lack of opportunity/jobs/money/benifit cuts. The northeast of England has the highest rate of unemployment, the highest job cuts in the recession, the least number of job oppertunites and the highest rate or children living in poverty.


There was not riot or criminal behaviour up here. None!

So explain that?

I personally think it is because there isnt a big poor/rich divide. In the north east the poor do not live alongisde the rich.
There is still a really good sense of community up here. I have been able to name at least 10 of my immediate neighbours the 3 address i have lived in. We do help eachother.

I think there are huge cities in thie country where no one knows eachother. Even smiles at eachother in the street. It 'takes a whole village to raise a child' We have lost our villiages! We shouldnt be looking to the goverment to resolve this. We should be looking to ourselves and our neighbours

 

[KatieB]

Thing is though Lightworker. A secondary school teacher has over 150 children in their care per year. Yes some of the really good ones may be able to get to a handful but its not enough.

As for the riots im not buying into they are protesting about lack of opportunity/jobs/money/benifit cuts. The northeast of England has the highest rate of unemployment, the highest job cuts in the recession, the least number of job oppertunites and the highest rate or children living in poverty.


There was not riot or criminal behaviour up here. None!

So explain that?

I personally think it is because there isnt a big poor/rich divide. In the north east the poor do not live alongisde the rich.
There is still a really good sense of community up here. I have been able to name at least 10 of my immediate neighbours the 3 address i have lived in. We do help eachother.

I think there are huge cities in thie country where no one knows eachother. Even smiles at eachother in the street. It 'takes a whole village to raise a child' We have lost our villiages! We shouldnt be looking to the goverment to resolve this. We should be looking to ourselves and our neighbours

I'm originally from Durham and this is true, me and my mum said we'd be surprised if it happened at home.

 

[Lightworker]

Nibblenic, yeah I totally get you, and I know teachers are doing their best under the circumstances. I think I was just trying to show that the riots are symbolic of a multi-faceted problem with society today. I think the means to remedy the problem is by evaluating key factors such as the education system, services for children, social policy etc.

I do like the whole "it takes a village" sentiment, and agree with it to some extent, but in some areas, more than half the village is dependent on alcohol, drugs, or are physically abusive, or depressed etc. That kind of village cannot be expected to raise a significant amount of well adjusted children.

So while we need to have more of a community spirit, other issues need to be changed as well, like the policies I mentioned above. Its no good the government " oh we will come down hard on these rioters etc" fine, yeah that will solve todays problems, but what about tomorrow? It does not appear to be a long-sighted approach to me.

 

[Nibblenic]

I do like the whole "it takes a village" sentiment, and agree with it to some extent, but in some areas, more than half the village is dependent on alcohol, drugs, or are physically abusive, or depressed etc. That kind of village cannot be expected to raise a significant amount of well adjusted children.
.

I think however thats my point. In pockets of the northeast where there are 50%+ unemployment, well above the National average. It is bleak there. Vastly different in terms of crime anti social behaviour to other areas of the NE. There is still a sense of community. It isnt great but its obviously enough to stop mindless rioting. Or maybe there is actual poverty where the cannot afford blackberrys!

I think its going to be equally as important to look at the areas that did not riot and as ourselves Why as well as the places that did.

 

[lynnikins]

whatever the policys that come up to deal with this even if they are the greatest in the world its not the goverment that needs to act is the communities and in places where there is a lack of community then others from areas who dont have those problems can step in and help

theres no point putting blame on a "reason" for what happened or the motives of the people involved the criminality needs dealing with in a way that discourages future repeats of the problem but then the situations that led to the problem need dealing with. the problem of young people who arent in school caus of behavioural problems which are grounded in them as they havent ever been shown another way, the ones with issues that caus them to be angry which leads to them getting stuck right into the middle of things like this caus they cant control that anger and dont know why except they are angry.

its gonna take all the decent people in this country actually doing something to help rather than talking about it to fix this country.

 

[PeanutBean]

Sorry I haven't yet read the thread (I will) but wanted to post this article: https://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/...r-society-is-as-bad-at-the-top-as-the-bottom/ and, if anyone's around, let you know Ed M is debating the riots on Radio 4 right now.

 

[indy and lara]

I think one way in which the government can take responsibility is by providing a higher calibre of educators. This is not to say that the teachers are not good, just that I think when teachers go to work at inner city schools, I think they have pre-conceptions about the type of students they will have. In the book, the lady was pretty much the only one who pushed her students to be the best they can be.

Nobody tells these children that if they work hard, they can be doctors, lawyers, engineers, bankers etc...they are usually left to think that all they can aspire to is menial jobs. No one encourages even the exceptional high achievers to apply to Oxbridge. When they leave school they are now at a loss for what to do.

I can't agree with this. As a teacher, all the colleagues I know who have chosen to work in inner city and challenging areas have gone there because they feel they can make a difference. I know I have very high expectations of what the kids can achieve and I constantly push them. That is how my whole school works. Through the career education part of enterprise in education we bring in professionals such as engineers, vets etc to let the kids know how they can follow these career paths. Going in with your eyes wide open to what you will face is very different to going in with low expectations. Just because you know a child will have no parental guidance and support does not mean that you will not bother trying to push them to break that cycle.

When you choose to teach in a deprived area, you are much more than a teacher. Personally I have given kids breakfasts because they haven't eaten since 5pm the previous night, got them winter coats and so on. Actually this post has made quite annoyed as it is so very far from my professional experience over the last 12 years and those of all the teachers I know. Teachers are an easy scapegoat but we are very often the only people who are fighting the kids' corners.

 

[PeanutBean]

I think the government is to blame. Not just this one though this one is astonishingly bad and there's a reason the riots happen when there is a Tory government. I think the government is to blame for two reasons:
1) They are responsible for adequately funding our police/security and ensuring they are equipped to deal with any eventuality. The response was crap at the outset and not helped when Cameron finally, begrudgingly, came home from holiday. I think the army should've been called out to support the police in troubled areas. I think the army's main roles should be support for civil unrest and for natural disaster.
2) We elect MPs and devolve power to them in order to have our society structured to be safe, secure and stable. The riots demonstrate the intrinsic instability in our society. Whenever there has been rioting like this in the past it has come with a backdrop of economic depression. It is the government's duty to use our taxes responsibly, distributing them so as to ensure that every individual is supported to reach their maximum potential and that opportunity is available to all. The Tories' policies in light of the global economic crisis have plunged our economy into further recession, stagnating growth and opportunity, particularly for young people.

I completely agree that it has been unjustifiable and those participating have largely been doing so for their own gratuitous ends. I don't condone it for a moment. But it doesn't happen when things are going well in the country.

I don't think we can say it's down to teen parents or poverty or race or.... The profiling done on those rioting has shown they are from a diversity of backgrounds. But it's not enough to say these people are scum and criminals. When thousands of people from all walks of life take to the streets like this there is something endemically wrong in the country.

 

[summer rain]

Erm all the riots in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford in 2001 were during a labour government when people had supposedly 'never had it so good', also there were extensive riots in some areas of Birmingham in 2005; again under labour. not to mention the riots at G20 in 2009, a whole year before the Tories got in. I'm not a tory supporter (I am apolitical) but this whole 'people only riot under a tory government' is a load of b********. One could argue this time around it is labour who have fostered the selfish materialistic attitudes and misplaced sense of entitlement that are a big part of these riots.

 

[PeanutBean]

I said not just under this govenment and we're talking about riots with no obvious apparent cause. G20 were protests. Riots in Oldham etc were from racial tension. Sorry if I wasn't clear but I was referring to mass rioting as we have just seen. The last time we saw riots like this was in the '80s. I don't think the government is culpable for materialistic attitudes though I agree these attitudes exist. I think the media and the people are responsible for that. I out a more in depth post on another thread. I'll try and find it and copy it here.

Eta here's the post https://www.babyandbump.com/general-chatter/695929-all-these-riots-everywhere-258.html#post12188329

 

[summer rain]

riots in the North west were not just due to racial tension but many other factors as well, it could be argued the race issue was just an excuse just as here the shooting of Mark Duggan was an excuse. In Oldham at least, white people were taking part in the rioting with the Asians on the same 'side' so to speak as they wanted to cause mayhem and destruction, IMHO the Oldham riots were started by gangs really. I used to live next to Oldham and had many family and friends living in the riot areas who I used to live with so saw things from the inside, also have friends in Burnley who reported similar circumstances. When I used to live in that area my ex-OH and I noted there were three types of gangs active in those areas, drug dealing and gun gangs who rioted to show their bravado and power over the community and different areas, violent gangs who seemed to be just in it to cause mayhem and criminal damage, and 'good' gangs who fought the other two types of gangs and perceived themselves as guardian angels of the community. All three types of gangs were ethnically mixed overall though it seemed with the drug dealing/gun gangs each gang seemed to be more mono-ethnic if taken individually.

The riots in Birmingham in the mid-noughties started off on a spurious rumour based on an Asian man sexually assaulting a Jamaican girl, but the violence and criminal damage that followed was nothing to do with that. Labour didn't only do good they stirred up a lot of ethnic tensions as well; picking on Muslims and asking them to spy for MI5/MI6 (including my own husband and father in law), and most ethnically segregated estates/areas are in areas where labour are in overall control of the council. I know in Oldham white people who have asked to live in the estate in Glodwick for example and been told they are not 'allowed' by the council. The labour council also used to pressure those of the 'wrong' race for a particular council estate to move if they already lived there as well. My friend lived in the Glodwick estate and her neighbour told us of her experiences regarding this; she didn't want to move. This just doesn't happen in councils who are of NOC or run by tories or lib dems. The report after those riots blamed the policies of the labour government and local labour led council. A couple of years after the riot a housing association wanted to build an ethnically mixed housing estate close to the bus station in Oldham, again the labour council blocked permission for this saying it will cause more rioting and trouble despite hundreds of local people of all ethnicities putting their name down for it.

Labour's encouragement of materialism and people getting into sometimes hundreds of thousands of pounds of debt is hardly praiseworthy either. I'm sorry but you cannot blame the coalition government for suddenly destroying the fabric of society and creating mindless thugs within just a year; it has gone on far longer than that and a lot of this gang culture has blossomed under labour.

 

[PeanutBean]

A lot to respond to there. Firstly I think we are all agreed that with perhaps the exclusion of the first riot in Tottenham all the riots had no trigger like racial tension/political protest etc.

Of course 'racial' riots are mote complicated than that, you will know if you lived in Oldham that it is a very deprived area. Areas like Oldham, Bradford, Burnley and many inner city areas have racial tension because of other social pressures such as poverty, low educational attainment, high unemployment etc etc. It is all part of the same social picture. A combination of not enough to go around mixed with prejudice (be it against race/rich/whatever) turns people against each other. Prejudice is based on ignorance. I'm probably not explaining this very well - got question time on, an unhappy baby and am seriously unwell myself! What I'm trying to say is that there are different triggers such as political protest, race, religion etc but they only trigger violence like this when the underlying social situation is pressurised by other factors.

There is a cause and effect issue about your Labour councils. Labour is almost always in charge in those areas which are deprived - much of the North and inner cities. To suppose this means Labour councils cause these issues is IMO to misunderstand the socio-political issues of such areas. There may well be instances where the council has been found to have acted in a way contributory to tension or trouble but that doesn't follow it is down to the political allegiance of the council rather than it being in hindsight not the best response to complex situations. We'll never know if a Tory council would handle it better as they are unlikely to ever have control in such areas.

To blame Labour for the debt culture is frankly ludicrous. This is taking the discussion to the global economic crisis which is entirely down to unscrupulous financial practises across the capitalist world. We can blame Labour for not regulating more strongly, a mistake I think Gordon Brown has conceded, but the culture if materialism very much predates Labour. This current consumerism can be easily traced to the '80s.

Finally I do think the Tories (for there is not a jot of Lib Dem in their social policies) to blame for the second recession, increased unemployment, removal of support for young people from foetus to graduate. However, again, I said not just this government for the issues of social exclusion though I do believe that Labour put in place a variety of initiatives to try and tackle these issues such as EMA, Sure Start, family tax credits, etc. They made mistakes too and antisocial behaviour has been growing a long time (ignoring that it has in fact always existed). When I refer to Government in my first post I mean those people elected to represent us and create our society regardless of political affiliation. If government bears no responsibility for this breakdown in social integrity then what on earth are they for?

 

[summer rain]

In the North many councils in deprived areas are labour controlled (not all though) but in London and other areas this is not always the case; there is always a huge difference between those deprived areas run entirely by labour and those that are run by Lib Dems or NOC or rarely, mainly tory led councils there is always more segregation and mistrust in the Labour run areas. This borough is in some areas very deprived and some wards are amongst the poorest in London; the council is mainly Tory and Lib Dem (I believe it is Tory controlled) there are no racial tensions in this area whatsoever. As I said the independent and official report on the Oldham riots found this as well that it was specifically the labour led council who had a huge role in what happened. Just look at Phil Woolas trying to court racist far-right voters in his constituency by lying and saying the Lib Dems and Tories got funding from 'Islamic extremists' thankfully he was found guilty as he was and struck off. The comments of Jack Straw both on the niqab and more recently on 'Asian paedophile gangs' deserve a mention as well. I am blaming labour for encouraging personal debt; not debt of banks and large organisations.

 

[PeanutBean]

I still don't see how a report can conclude it was because a council was Labour as you seem to be implying.

I agree Phil Woolas was a jerk but there are always rotten eggs.

I understood that you are blaming Labour for personal debt, I am blaming banking and capitalism for personal debt.

 

[TwilightAgain]

I think its because people have seen they have strength in numbers and the police couldn't do anything. So aslong as they went along in their massive groups then it was ok to rob and they'd get away with it. I think people thought "well they can do it so why can't we" and copied. I think at first it was about causing damage and getting as much free stuff as they could but then it just seemed about causing as much hurt and damage as opposed to stealing pricey goods.

The thugs are to blame. They are responsible for their actions. There are plenty of people struggling but don't resort to criminal damage and theft. In my opinion they should shoot the lot of them to rid the country of these evil people but I know that is controversial and would never happen.

 

[Eternal]

I think its because people have seen they have strength in numbers and the police couldn't do anything. So aslong as they went along in their massive groups then it was ok to rob and they'd get away with it. I think people thought "well they can do it so why can't we" and copied. I think at first it was about causing damage and getting as much free stuff as they could but then it just seemed about causing as much hurt and damage as opposed to stealing pricey goods.

The thugs are to blame. They are responsible for their actions. There are plenty of people struggling but don't resort to criminal damage and theft. In my opinion they should shoot the lot of them to rid the country of these evil people but I know that is controversial and would never happen.

i agree, there are many studies in pychology which suggest the same, people will be more fearless and do things they wouldnt normally do alone. I dont think that excuses anyone, bceause they clearly know its wrong, but the majority wouldnt do that if alone or in a small group.