This is what happens when uneducated people get bored, lack of education leads to violence….protesting about nothing

Ahh, yes, I remember – THE LAST TIME YOU TWUNTS WERE IN POWER

Of course this is all a result of the current government, not. It is a result of years of issues, not just a few months of this government. Imo it is all about stupidty rather than anything more deep.

I am surprised at people blaming the Government for the unrest.

I am also surprised at Alistair Campbell political point scoring on Twitter too – let’s leave the posturing until the riots have stopped ehh?

People always misquote it so in full..

I think we’ve been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it’s the government’s job to cope with it. ‘I have a problem, I’ll get a grant.’ ‘I’m homeless, the government must house me.’ They’re casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It’s our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There’s no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation.

And no, I’m not a fan.

You can argue with her politics all you want but that quote taken on face value is fairly on the ball whichever way your political leaning are.

I am surprised at people blaming the Government for the unrest.

The government are to blame – one way or another
They either didn’t cuddle them enough or they failed to beat them enough, it’s the balance they got wrong

Nobody in this country is oppressed. Everyone has access to free education and healthcare, everyone is subjected to the same laws and social structure. The disenfranchised need to get over it and take some personal responsibility for their actions.

Nobody in this country is oppressed. Everyone has access to free education and healthcare, everyone is subjected to the same laws and social structure. The disenfranchised need to get over it and take some personal responsibility for their actions.

Agree 100%

For me, one of the things I struggle to understand is the claims in some quarters that these people cannot find work and are stuck in a lifetime on the dole yet people come to this country in search of work and seem to find it quite easily – whenever I go to a bar, eat in a restaurant or stay at a hotel there is a large proportion of staff that are clearly from overseas.

My brother in law used to work at the quite posh Cowley Manor hotel in the New Forest and at one time he was the ONLY English employee below management level.

That quote from Thatcher shows her foul dog eat dog ideology and is a large part of the reason we are in this mess now.

As for this

The disenfranchised need to get over it and take some personal responsibility for their actions.

Yeah – pull yourself together – its your own fault 🙄

Yeah – pull yourself together – its your own fault

Would you really feel the same way if it was your block of flats they looted and burnt to the ground?

Well it isn’t my fault. Is it your fault?

Nobody in this country is oppressed. Everyone has access to free education and healthcare, everyone is subjected to the same laws and social structure. The disenfranchised need to get over it and take some personal responsibility for their actions.

They do, but the quality of these services is so varied that the statement is meaningless.
The opportunities afforded to a kid in Totenham are vastly different to those of someone of Cameron’s background. How many people on here would willingly school their child in an inner city school? We know the likely outcome of that for all but the very brightest.
Swathes of people on here mock the quality of city life, especially in London, yet you’re shocked when the underclass go on the rampage?

Growing up in the 80s/early 90s I saw some pretty shocking social division at my school. Kids from the rough estates or who had awkward older siblings were put in the lower ability classes, even if they were bright, and kids from the ‘nice’ areas were put in the top classes, even if they were a bit dim. ‘Dim’ might be a bit harsh, it might just be that they had always been spoilt – because they’d never had to put any effort in to be rewarded, they never tried.

Either way, it didn’t do a lot of kids any favours – you had pupils in classes that were above their ability falling behind, but they couldn’t be moved down because their parents wouldn’t allow it, and smart kids being bored and disillusioned in the lower sets along with kids that had geniune learning difficulties.

I didn’t know that was a Margaret Thatcher quote, but I agree that at face value it is fine.

You look after yourself and your family and you contribute to society to pay for things like health education and to support those who are unable to support themselves.

The problem is defining those who are unable to support themselves and differentiating those who are unwilling to help themselves.

The unfortunate conclusion of that argument is that as everyone has access to education, it could be argued that unless you are mentally or physically unable to work then you should support yourself.

Somewhere that unable/unwilling needs to be sorted out…

Ahh, yes, I remember – THE LAST TIME YOU TWUNTS WERE IN POWER

Of course this is all a result of the current government, not. It is a result of years of issues, not just a few months of this government

I am surprised at people blaming the Government for the unrest.

I wasn’t actually blaming the Govt…

Just commenting on my amusement at Theresa May’s comments… 😆

Do the Met need to put the kettle back on???

The opportunities afforded to a kid in Totenham are vastly different to those of someone of Cameron’s background

Agreed but they’re not vastly different to most people’s opportunities and most of us seem to make a reasonable go of it

Oh, and presumably it not that Teresa May??

@ ‘no one is oppressed in this country’ you are so so so wrong. one of the notable things about here is that kids, not ones that are smashing things up, but just kids, were excited to find they can just ‘be’ out on the street last night as if they were free.as if where they lived actually belonged, in part, to them, that the stigma of immediate and prejudiced criminalisation was violently shaken off. There is a papable sense that a very real and direct oppression was temporarily lifted, a sense of freedom. i can’t imagine my childhood without feeling free to go out and play. people get harrassed, have nothing to get their teeth into, nothing to express themselves with, no one they trust pointing the way towards things they might want to do. some of you people are so clueless, and the police will end up really hurting people tonight to protect your self appointed right to cluelessness.

I always essentially trusted the adults around me growing up, this is so not true for the people in my area, they are suspicious, scared and angry of almost all authority figures for good reason, regardless of the good intentions of a benevolent few.

Mr, you are so so so wrong.

[Agreed but they’re not vastly different to most people’s opportunities and most of us seem to make a reasonable go of it ]

This is spot on. Well done Sir

@ ‘no one is oppressed in this country’ you are so so so wrong. one of the notable things about here is that kids, not ones that are smashing things up, but just kids, were excited to find they can just ‘be’ out on the street last night as if they were free.as if where they lived actually belonged, in part, to them, that the stigma of immediate and prejudiced criminalisation was violently shaken off. There is a papable sense that a very real and direct oppression was temporarily lifted, a sense of freedom. i can’t imagine my childhood without feeling free to go out and play. people get harrassed, have nothing to get their teeth into, nothing to express themselves with, no one they trust pointing the way towards things they might want to do. some of you people are so clueless, and the police will end up really hurting people tonight to protect your self appointed right to cluelessness.

I always essentially trusted the adults around me growing up, this is so not true for the people in my area, they are suspicious, scared and angry. You are so so so wrong.

If I lived in an area where there had been trouble and I had teenage kids, I would make it very clear that they shouldn’t be going out tonight and if they did, then the consequences would be on their own heads.

Any young people who gets mixed up in any trouble tonight and try to excuse it by saying that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time deserves whatever they have coming to them because going out is just plain stupid.

and Tom84, I think it is the young people’s threatening behaviour which is oppressing many other members of society who are afraid to walk the streets. Whatever ones social background, there is no excuse for no know the difference between right and wrong.

If I lived in an area where there had been trouble and I had teenage kids, I would make it very clear that they shouldn’t be going out tonight and if they did, then the consequences would be on their own heads.

I would imagine that the parents who allow their children to grow up in such a manner would applaud their kids and probably ask them to grab them some gear too.

it isn’t ‘behaviour’ it is a position of alterity which has been essentially forced upon them, at least where i am. no one ever threatens anyone in camberwell but sometimes i get scared because i imagine that whoever it is hates me, which i can understand.

Nobody in this country is oppressed. Everyone has access to free education and healthcare, everyone is subjected to the same laws and social structure. The disenfranchised need to get over it and take some personal responsibility for their actions.

I also 100% agree. If anybody has a right to feel oppressed, I guess it would be the people of East Africa, who are thirsty and hungry again!

When I grew up my parents taught me right from wrong. My Dad was a real disciplinarian but I knew exactly where I stood with him. Cross the line and I would get the belt (It was then 70’s and 80’s). In 89 when I was 17, I fell out with my Mum and was asked to leave home. At the time I was at college but I needed to earn some money. I ended up full time at Midland Bank (HSBC for you younger readers 😉 ) earning approximately £4000 per year (Probably the equivalent of todays minimum wage). The money wasn’t enough to live on but I got my head down and took responsibility for my future actions. I wanted a car but that wasn’t going to happen and I got the bus everywhere. Slowly I got promotions and payrises but I still couldn’t see when I’d ever be able to afford a house! Over time I changed jobs and developed new skills. Finally in 1998, I bought my own home. Then over time by disposable income got to the stage, where I could afford things without thinking about it. It took me over 15 years to get to this stage. Two years ago I was made redundant and I had to cut my cloth accordingly. The mortgage and bills needed to be paid and food needed to be put in my daughters mouths. Was I entitled to any benefits? Only Jobseekers allowance for 6 months. Did I go out and loot shops? Of course I didn’t, I got my head down again and spent the next year looking for an employment opportunity until I was finally offered the right position.

The way I see it, is that the teenagers of today want everything now but they don’t want to work for it. They receive benefits and yet blame society and blame the government for their own failures. Do they want to work? Well not for minimum wage and certainly not for 35 hours or more a week. They want everything now but yet they want to spend all their free time with their benefit mates, smoking skunk. They can’t accept that they will have to start at the bottom and through hard work and a willingness they will progress.

Nods head in agreement with Shotsaway.

When I grew up my parents taught me right from wrong. My Dad was a real disciplinarian

So completely equal then to the child of the single parent family with no positive role models. 🙄

This is the point you guys seem unable to grasp – equality of opportunity does not exist and its a very different society from 30 years ago.

So TJ – single parent families produce lawless, unemployable yobbo’s do they?

I’m sure there’s a good few people on here who would tell you you’re talking out of your anus (again!)

TandemJeremy – Member
…..the child of the single parent family with no positive role models.

Bit of stereotyping there ?
why would a single parent child have less chance of a positive role model (not even sure what that means ?!?!) than one with both parents…

ooh gosh, thanks for that short bio, so you’re a financier from a violent, disfunctional family, great, what’s your point again and how is it relevant here?

my dad wouldn’t join the army and was kicked out of home. he worked as a washer upper all day and did his a levels at night school, doing his homework on the circle line because he didn’t even have lights in his shitty little room where he’d come home exhausted to get 4 hours sleep a night. he managed to get to oxford where he was bullied and harrassed by oiks like cameron but ended up changing social policy, being the head of a university blah blah blah. but that is all bollocks compared to what is important, which is that he remained generous, sympathetic and crucially maintained awareness of difference. he could think and imagine about experiences alien to his own and be open to them.

idiot

I can’t work out whether TJ is a brilliant, intricately developed troll, or the most naive, least aware person ever to grace an internet forum. Either explains the phenomenon, but which one is it? Nothing personal TJ 🙂

Hilldodger – the point is that Shotsaway had two parents who were positive role models – gave him values and discipline. Now he has a better start that someone who came from a background where they were not given this. Not sterotyping at all I did not say all single parent families are like this.

watch this, i’m too upset to keep arguing and watching my local area burn down

TandemJeremy – Member
Not sterotyping at all I did not say all single parent families are like this.

I didn’t think so, just checking…

..still don’t ‘get’ this positive role model thing though – I assume it means conventionally ‘responsible’ adults who have an influence on a young child.
Presumably not always direct family members (so sporting heroes, media figures, authors, etc would also count ??)
And does the RM have to have some direct mentoring influence or can it be purely inspirational/aspirational

And, what (if any) is the evidence that the presence of such role models has a positive effect (and by inference the absence a negative one) and if the RM doesn’t have to be direct family surely anyone can have a RM from some aspect of public life irrespective of family background or personal history.

Sorry for disjointed post, but the whole RM thing has always struck me as psychobabble of the type you are usually so opposed to 😕 and now you seem to be suggesting it has an important (necessary??) role in personality/behavourial development

Positive role models can come in many ways I guess – perhpas all the ways you describe. I think there is evidence out there. I have certainly seen it quoted in the past.

equality of opportunity does not exist and its a very different society from 30 years ago

TJ have you ever seen the film Kes?, that was about 35 years ago
The conditions that people were living in on that South Yorks mining estate were pretty much spot on, that was mine and a hundred other people’s lives that I know

Don’t tell me that opportunities then were very different to today because they weren’t
There were lots of differences between then and now but youth opportunities wasn’t one of them

oh and pretty much all of those folks I knew from back then have made a decent life for themselves, there was the odd bad ‘un that did borstal and prison but on the whole they all bettered themselves through hard work.

You do realise there were riots in the 80’s far worse than those seen so far over the past couple of days.

IMO it’s about taking responsibility for yourself, your family and especially your children and ensuring somehow that your net effect on society is a positive one, not a negative one.

The trouble of looking out for yourself and those who are your immediate concern is you aren’t looking out for others. This has led to an indifference in peoples attitudes to the problems of society as a whole.

The previous Government threw money at the problem and it didn’t really work that well, the current Government and a few on here want to remove that money and what we’ve seen over the last few days will get worse.

We should stop imposing idealogical individualism to such an extent that it has created individuals that only consider their own “responsibilities” but take no responsibility for the results of their actions on others. This has been played out over the last few evenings.

I’m fed up with the left and right bitching about this, that, and the other, who’s right or wrong or whatever. We must not retreat into individualism by saying its the Governments responsibility, or those individuals who caused all this, but it’s not ours, or nothing will get sorted.

If we want to prevent the next generation from being the same or worse we have to re-engage as communities and as a society and Government to educate, guide or coerce to create the society we want. We have left it in the hands of no one in particular, and todays country is the result. We have to offer incentives to encourage those who would normally fall by the wayside.

The current generation, those looters last night among many involved in criminality, or those stuck in poverty, inequality, are currently a lost generation to society.

We have to offer incentives to encourage those who would normally fall by the wayside

Really very difficult to do though, isn’t it?

But not impossible. There is a price to all this, the question is do you want to pay it or continue paying the price we are currently?