British beach invasions

the uk has received a bit of a pasting in todays news, but which raises even more potential problems with europe;
one has been the stunning situation of the dorset beach invasions, and the associated antisocial direct and indirect health concerns raised,
with open borders between the uk and france being mooted can france take the risk of importing such behaviour; in my view no we cannot;
two is the story where the uk is directly uoted as being ‘blind’ to the abuses against non eu hgv drivers;
are we looking at the uk as a rogue state in the making;

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in a word, yes. but it’s not just beaches is it. The reports of 100 plus people locking themselves in a Liverpool pub and then abusing Police when they arrived to turf them out and riots against Police in London when they broke up an illegal street rave are very worrying.
Still, what can you expect when the PMs chief adviser disregards the law and is supported by his boss? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander :roll_eyes:

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Are these the people who want to come to France? I doubt it. Let’s not forget the great majority of sensible people. What I do see here is a disregard among certain parts of the population for any sort of authority.
I was thoroughly disgusted by the litter left on the beaches.

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12 tons at Bournemouth including people sh!tting in burger boxes and leaving it

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These are people who just think that they want to go to the beach and do not have the brains to think of the consequences because there is not sufficient car parking, no toilets open etc. etc.
In other words idiots.

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After the summer here the woods around our beach are disgusting, everything from used tampons to rotting food. And the tourists here are mainly french, and no British. To see them you would think all would models of civilised behaviour.

I have to declare an interest - my wife runs a gites complex in Brittany, with over half of the guests coming from Britain - but I do agree with you Michael - a big part of the tourism issue is the old story of the ‘lager lout’ aspect of British culture - but obviously there are other Brits that are socially and environmentally responsible.

This is slightly separate from the ‘rogue state’ question - though obviously the culture of a place does affect how people vote among their other behaviours. I’m pretty sure the brexit campaign and vote was seen as legitimising overt racism and xenophobia - maybe this applied to other anti-social behaviour?

I also think in the Tory party there was a clear tendency to depart from the rule of law and other norms of international relations, and I think you can still see this working through the current UK government - for example in the fact that the ‘political declaration’ agreed as part of the withdrawal agreement as the basis for post-brexit relations, is now being virtually ignored by the UK.

It was also a weekday. What’s the weather forecast like for the weekend?

They were all on furlough!

The scenes from Camber Sands were a disgrace. We’ve been there many times but never seen so much rubbish or crowds. It’s true that there aren’t enough bins there but our local beach here in C Maritime is always clean. People seem to take their rubbish home. It’s not difficult.

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I remember that there were always drownings at Camber Sands . I suppose they were too packed together for anything like that to happen.

I do not wish to condone the behaviour because I think that it is nuts but it is worth remembering that telephoto lenses compress the apparent distance between objects - so on the ground people might have thought that they were keeping to 2m spacing.

Plus with pubs, restaurants, zoos, some parks etc still closed there was a deficit of alternatives.

Nevertheless it is clear that the public are interpreting the loosening of lockdown and the widely telegraphed opening of pubs and businesses as “life nearly as normal” and not as cautious permission to loosen up a bit while remaining aware of the dangers.

That’s what you get when you rely on “The good sense of the British people!”

Also a deficit of loos - sadly law of unintended consequences. There has to be a rethink on keeping loos closed - open sewage in the beaches is just an invitation for virus infections of all kinds - not just C-19.

The best type of facility would be those like we have at Leclerc, that just do a complete wash/disinfect between each visitor. Makes them pretty uninviting places to visit, but at least they are clean.

As they say the problem with “Common Sense” is that it is not terribly common.

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In Bournemouth the local government spokesperson said the toilets were open. People didn’t want to queue.

Bournemouth beach

Excerpt +
“Much is being left to the good judgement, common sense and personal responsibility of people.”

Which is a joke, right ?

This is referring to the stupidest people in the observable universe.

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I didn’t think generalisations were allowed on here? :astonished:

Well, you’ve managed to answer the question I asked myself yesterday when I saw the footage of the thousands of people on the beach ie I wonder what how they manage when they need the loo?!! Yuk…

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