Just read your last posting Brian ...yes indeed you are against narrow- mindedness but
as I read all the postings on here I can see fairly clearly the characters within the writer
Not trained or specialist but everything I have done in life has been done from instinct and I feel that with in everyone there is a little tinge of narrow-mindedness even in those who say they are not narrow-minded.
In my last five years in the UK I was part time lecturing within a department of criminology, by my own qualifications I am a social anthropologist and probably harbour prejudices against narrow-mindedness and unjust labelling of social classes.
Carol what insurance are you referring to? and we didn't work for anyone, it was a voluntary job. We were all unemployed. Was there some sort of insurance against being unemployed in the mid 80s that 3 million of us were unaware of?
We had a contract as much as was legally possible at the time. the owner had agreed a price, on paper, but because of the rule that allowed him to change his mind at the last hurdle, we were cheated. As owner, he had all the cards and the final say. Like I keep saying, laws are squewed towards the rich and it has always been the case.
If we had been more activist and less naive, whe should have squatted the building and forced him into action or giving it up to the community. Our aims were totally community oriented and all the buildings would have been held in trust. It was worth 28,000 at the time
I'm interested in asking those of you who own a second, mainly unused home, who are really concerned about people in the area noticing that it is unnoccupied and attempting tresspass and squatting, how many unoccupied homes should our society take as an aceptable figure?
David cameron, for example, has 5 homes.
Spot on Carol, "criminal underclass" seems to only refer to working class criminals who commit small-time robbery and vandalise things. Our cabin workshop was robbed and vandalised here in France 2 years ago. I found a glove belonging to the thieves, but the police wernt interested in taking it as evidence.
The real criminals are the banks themselves who profitfrom offshore accounts for tax avoidance, the tax exiles who avoid the tax and the politicians who refuse to change the laws to enable a fairer tax system.
gazumping to name but one!
I really hope people will hear my pleas for a better distiction between responsible squatting and tresspass with vandalism, which is what most people Carol; Jane, Barbera,Glen (when posing the discussion) are using as a general term to cover ALL squatting. Squatting is NOT the same as tresspass with vandalism but lumping it together it is being used as an excuse for landowners who have not got the resources to keep a property safe or for good use, to avoid compulsory posession.
If we continue to mix the two groups of tresspass together like this, together, and deem all types of tresspass under one heading of destructive vandalism, there will never be any fairness or justice for all the people who have worked their socks off for decades to renovate something which has truly been abandoned.
Squatting is absoloutely not stealing...please read my links to the law on squatting. It is use of ABANDONED property, by people for growing food, living on and for community facilities. I doubt very much there has ever been a case of a squatter gaining ownership to any property that the original owner actually cared about, for if the original owner cared, they could simply evict and renovate the derelict prooving to the community that they were using the place.
I worked for years on a project to buy an abandoned place and it was a total waste of time. The place is still derelict 25 years later. we should have squatted it.
And modern day criminals are a mix of Biggs type cockneys and the Saville row
smarties who can lie themselves out of any situation.
Celeste, you are a squatter, not a tresspasser. Real Squatters have excactly the same attitudes as you are describing and will turn a tip into a garden to be proud of. Tresspassers don't care and just look for a place to crash until they are evicted. They are usually alchohol or drug abusers or runaways from violence and terror.
Agree with that Carol.
But Jack the Ripper .....he was not working class...SO we are lead to believe.
What was his motive for killing?
Have we all moved away from squatting towards The good, the bad and the Ugly?
Ian, what ridiculous thing ?
I understand your point Carol.
Perhaps if I used the word escape it is used instead of "retreat to tranquility" I can do that
here. In London I faced everything head on ....everything from nonchalont doctors in the local
surgery, in the hospital, social workers who seemed to hate their work so so much.
Cruel people should not be employed to work with the sick or ederly.
I know that I have not found Utopia Carol.
I never look for perfection.
To my mind it does not excist...
I struggle here with the phone co s just as I did in UK.
I have problems with the tax offices like I did in UK.
What is different?
Firstly I have my own little Holland Park.
The sense of space and light continues from the vines to the
garden and then inside to the rooms which were once tired and depressed
and now welcome guests to a feeling of well being and a fresh approach to
country life.
And, maybe most of all....No longer do I feel like I need to keep up with the
Jones's or be amongst those who try. I am who I am without a PR company,
designer clothes and needing to be seen in the right places.
uk Is too crowded with an odd balance of good and bad...
As I have mentioned before some of us come to France to find ourselves and
re-direct our energy.Taste the space and survive.
DI
which piece are we looking at Brian? the link gives me quite a few to choose from and nothing I can see with scotland or land deeds etc..in the title
I still find the term 'underclass' dubious. Was the last CEO of Barclays part of the underclass? or is that term saved to be used with pimps and prostitutes? In the Victorian age the assumption was that criminals came from the working classes, so the term fitted their definition of 'underclass'. Today with so much white collar crime, I think the word 'class' or 'underclass' is out of place....criminals come from all 'classes' all parts of society
The definition of Shangrila is, 1. An imaginary remote paradise on earth; utopia. 2. A distant and secluded hideaway, usually of great beauty and peacefulness. The point I was making Barbara is that if you were escaping London or more specifically the UK because of the state of affairs in government, you havent escapted to utopia here...it is really no different, they just speak a different language.
Carol Shangrila is that not a little further away than Folkeston?
Always thought that it was a holiday resort for the James Bond crew.
Well may I say wether the politicians, bankers and decision makers are
making a bigger mess of things in Uk or France....too many of them
have been too greedy. It reminds me of one of those thrillers when you
need to decide who are the goodies and who are the badies and suddenly the
last twist in the story line comes....there are no goodies.
Barbara, it is openly allowed in France! Just look at the salaries MP’s pay themselves here, without any scrutiny!
The criminal underclass also includes drug dealers, pimps, con men and extends to human trafficking, prostitution, protection and gang warfare!
All these activities have people who suffer.
Banks who bring out dubious products and then sell them aggressively and insurance companies whose small print is almost always couched in such grey language as to make a claim almost impossible are also guilty of causing terrible problems for people who fall foul of their catch all approach!
My daughter who is a financial investigator would totally agree with this mind set of a certain section of our population! This was not how she was brought up, it is totally due to practical experience.
This makes me feel just how the stats really show the true state of affairs within a very contentious section of the UK population.
Yes you're dead right on the shady dealings of the French politicians not to mention their philandering too.
I think up until recently the British politicians have actually tried to adhere to an unspoken code of ethics, they seem(ed) to have cleaned their act up.
In both cases, there is a quotation that fits (and I cannot rember who said it) but : "The desire to become a politician should automatically disqualfy you"