Ok so I’m holding my hands up - this post isn’t really about corruption…
So what do YOU think about the riots in the UK?
Keep it polite ( as us SFN people generally do…) and I promise not to call you ‘puerile’, snot off or close the discussion…
There are some very good comments coming out now, some I agree with & some I don’t. This does not make them any less valid. I think my previous comments have made it plain where my sympathies lie!
With regard to the banks I have always felt that if a business is not working because the product is not selling, change the product or close the business - that goes for banks, too. Iceland (the country) let the banks fail but after a few difficult years it seems to be back on track. I don’t think pumping government money into failing businesses helps anyone long term.
Would you all please stop making so many excellent points!
( Excellent points by the way Jane…!!)
We have a political system whereby we vote out governments we feel are not working. We can also lobby our M.P.'s. Not all our press resorts to disgusting tactics and they help to take government to task. Taking to the streets and smashing bank windows is not our way. Recent governments of both colours have not grasped the nettle and separated investment banking from that on the high street. This has been the problem that has caused so much pain in the UK, together with far mtoo much personal debt.
Children out of control is not mis-management by councils etc, but a lack of parental guidance and discipline. I would like to see Trident scrapped and sincerely hope that it will be and I applaud the Quakers quiet protests at Faslane nuclear base and Fairford air base.
There seems to be a ready market for drugs and prostitution in the UK and it is an indictment on those who use these “services” that they fail to make the connection between their “innocent pleasure” and organised crime of the worst kind.
I have walked through London on protest marches organised by the Countryside Alliance where there has been no trouble of any kind. It is not necessary to be violent to get your point of view across. How many of these strangely blinkered middleclass people do you know personally, to speak with such authority?
I do hope that you do not tell your local vignerons that they are dealing with one of the nastiest drugs on earth. You may really then not be able to survive France!
And Anne M too!
Excellent points Jo.
Good comment Jo 
I feel that looting and rioting, drug wars and mis-management by councils and governments all go hand-in hand. I feel that there are some people that don’t care about anyone else, but they arn’t always on the “side” of the rioters, or the public or the police and I feel that a riot involving looting, is a shameful waste of a good opportunity for a sad but sometimes necessary political statement. I feel the 3 men that were killed were murdered by gangters and not by disenfranchised kids stealing stuff to get back at the government.
To be absoloutely honest, I would gladly go and smash every window of every bank throughout the country if I felt that enough people would do it at the same time as me and if I could be more sure that those who don’t care,those who want to profit out of it, wouldn’t follow me around and try to steal other stuff afterwards.
I would also gladly risk being arrested for posting these views on facebook or any other network or forum. I think that doing damadge to property is historicaly, occasionaly, the only way that a community can publicise it’s voice.
In 1981, I helped tear down the fence at Greenham common. Not because I’m a drugged up thief, but because I felt I need to make a political point. I felt that nuclear power was too expensive, too unsafe and an excuse to make bombs and lots of money for a very few people. The whole point was to try and get arrested and get the argument out into the media. The lady next to me in court was 72.
I feel that the real baddies in the UK and France, are the bankers and their bonuses, the drug-dealers and the arms dealers, and more importantly all the educated, yet strangely blinkered middle-class people who invest their savings in unfair trading deals with a get-rich quick label. These are typically the ones complaining about the youth and insisting on making drug laws tougher.
I feel young people need youth-clubs, fair wages(who said you don’t need as much to live on if you’re under 25?) apprentiships and free education if they arn’t rich. And people with money can all help massively by not buying so much rubbish and by investing it in sustainable, fairtrade development. It’s not rocket science.
Whichever government in power makes little difference but if they can get their heads around the connection between drugs, guns and extremism, I think they’ll realise that they should decriminalise…legalise drugs and put the black market dealers out of business, fund rehab centres and deal with the fact that the biggest, nastiest drugs on earth are probably tobacco and booze. If they weren’t legal, they would be able to afford to govern. If the gangsters get their funds cut off. They wont be able to run extremist criminal and political gangs any more. Oh , and don’t get me started on religion.
Interesting comments, my heart goes out to the father who lost his son (was it 2 sons?) He did behave with dignity when asking for calm and no revenge for the loss of his son(s) Although I am sure that he had delayed reaction to his loss, and I cant imagine the poor man’s suffering today. I remember the Birmingham riots many yeras ago (early 80’s) I was in an office working in Erdington, Birmingham, I worked for the Auto Trader at the time and it was deadline night There was no way they were gonna let us leave early !!! When the rioters came over the bridge at six ways island it was so very very frightening, we were in the offices actually on the island !!! All the lights were on and we felt so vulnerable and scared, we were innocent people as sitting targets for the rioters!!! Fortunatley they carried on up the Kingsbury road and headed for the town centre, it must only have been for 10 minutes however it felt like a life time !!! Innocent people were hurt and injured in those riots, I mean who in Gods name robs from a young injured man, incapable of defending himself!!The products stolen were products bought honestly and decently, who gives anyone the right to take from innocent people. People lost businesses and homes during those riots, so lets not forget that. I have family in Birmingham, my niece is a nurse in the childrens hospital, she was too scared to go home after nurses had been approached and threatened in the hospital car park!!! My nephew works in the city centre, he could not go to work during these times !!! I dont think its all ethnic, I believe that there is a sincere lack of discipline in bringing up the children, I am not perfect never have been, but the one thing I have always tried to do is to let my kids know that we have to respect our neighbours and that we have to live decently and not to hurt people either phsically or menatlly, they had smacked bottoms when naughty, they went into corners, they were sent to bed with bread and milk :-), they had lines when naughty in school, and they have turned out fine upstanding lads, Mom and Dad pulled together at least 50% of the time (I would be a liar if I said 100%) (as most moms would agree lol) Those kids unfortunatley will never have to fight and work as we did when we were younger, they have it all on a beautiful social security plate !!!
Thanks for that James, though I was going senile - maybe I am
Thanks for the link to that excellent article Nick.
James
John, I deleted the personal comments, maybe that’s why you didn’t see them.
and downright rude.
There could be riots on S.F.N. !!! James - The Free Speech Police Commander
Sorry James but did not see anything un-civil in any of the discussions.
Excellent piece on the Riots by Hitch in The Slate, what a little cool reflection adds to the debate.
Regards
Nick
Let’s keep this discussion civil please.
Agree with Mark - if you aren’t causing trouble keep WELL away! Though that can sometimes be easier said than done!!
Also agree with John! Outrageous that peolpe who have contributed nothing to the system can claim so much! I have a friend who was working in some “claims” department (forget exactly what) and there was a chap who had been claiming family allowance for a large family - all of whom were still living happily in wherever he came from!!
As I said earlier - no simple solution as it isn’t a simple problem! But HOPE that politicians of all sides will unite to find a sensible way forward!! (Seriously doubt that they will - but I can live in hope!!!)
Excuse me? “protest about the killing of a man execution style by the police,”? Alison, really! A non police issue gun was found nearby, police act on information received so unless you were an eye witness I don’t think you are in a position to judge the police action. I feel that I can walk anywhere & not be in danger from the police, using common sense to avoid “protesters”. If you are doing wrong & showing agression then be afraid, be very afraid of getting caught by our law enforcers. If you object to police agression, don’t put yourself in a position to be on the receiving end. Simples!
Some good comments there, but apart from the lack of respect by thye majority of youth today I still believe that the main crux of the problem is immigration and benefits. Why should somebody who has never done a days work in their lives in England be given any benefits? I have worked 39 years of my life here and always paid my taxes and since becoming redundant I have had nothing but fights to get any sort of benefits, yet every time I reluctantly have to go to the job centre it is always full of Poles, Lithuanians,and other Eastern Europeans there claiming - and getting benefits. If as I would like to do, moved lock stock and barrel to France then I would not be able to claim from the French goverment and why should I I have never contributed to the French economy apart from shopping there. What we should do is bring home all the troops from Afghanistan, Lybia and where ever and have them sweep the counrty for illegals and also have them work with the customs preventing illegal entry to the country. After all it is the brief of the armed forces to protect the home country. We also need to moniter the ammount of money been taken out of the country. There must be millions if not billions of pounds of money “SENT HOME” by illegal and legal immigrants.The UK has only so much space and so much money and if it keeps disappearing the country will become bankrupt.