It has been said that rain is nature's ASBO and it seems that the sort of weather we normally curse in summer came as blessing last night.
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The recent outbreaks in England for which we in Wales have be so far spared (by mostly chance I fear) has filled many of us on the Progressive Left with despair.It is not only those on the right who are calling for Water Cannons,Plastic bullets and the Army to be deployed on the streets but ordinary members of the public this also coincides with calls for swift judicial retribution. and if it is difficult as we witness the mindless arson and looting to argue otherwise.
But we must ! Draconian action will only alienatethe us of Water Cannon ,I would argue made the matter worse.
It would be ironic that it will be LibDems who will be part of the Government that will authorise this and presumably it will hang heavily on them if there are serious injuries to members of the public and a change of attitude from Joe-Public from the deployment of plastic bullets especially when we consider the apparent age of many of those taken part.
In my youth I was never in a gang though this is is probably becuse I lived in the small village of Penycoedcae not because I was a particularly well behaved child.
But even if I had been by the age of sixteen if I although had not joined the small number then that had taken A Levels and the even small number that went to University . I went like virtually all my friends straight from school to some form of work in whichand if Ihad come from a larger Town I would probably hanged around with a gang of people my age but in which I would then have gradually drifted away from by the time I left my teens.
For some of the youths today there is no prospect ahead for any of them. From the time they enter their Teens they see no chance of full time work just as their parents saw no prospect as the devastation of the manufacturing industry in the 80's under the Thatcher government created a class of permanently unemployed.
The current problem we are facing I would argue we can trace this back to the tremendous rift in our society which was started under Magaret Thatcher.
They are part of a circle of deprivation as they receive no encouragement from their parents in improving themselves by education in School or after by further Education and they will pass this attitude on to their offspring.
Alienated from School they son become alienated from society and the only people they see who have any power and money around them will be criminals ad drug dealers.
I'm not excusing the actions of these rioters. But unless we stand back and understand this we will not breal this circle of deprivation. we will certainly not break it by as Cameron when said the "Fightback begins".
You can haul the rioters before Magistrates give a draconian sentence to a 13 year old and give him a criminal record and permanently ruin a already appalling future but it will mean people emerging from the justice system even more hardened and alienated than they were already.
I know that I am in small minority here Few elected politicians will remotely have the courage to speak out against the furious understandable backlash against the rioters and arsonist. It is one advantage I have of of being an Independent blogger.
It is clear that the current carnage on our streets is not directly as a result of the ConLib dem cuts but we must not allow the Tories in particular to exploit the situation to stifle genuine peaceful opposition to their polcies by attempting to connect the opposition to the rioters and using this as a excuse to stifle debate.
The disgust that is shown by the huge majority over the current crisis should not be seen a golden opportunity by the right to continue in their policy of demonizing the underclass and blaming them for the current economic crisis.
You may well think " There goes a bleeding heart liberal again making excused for what is simply evil criminality" But we can't solve the problem by being more and more draconian it may put a lid on things for a short period but it will never be a long term solution and will only make the gulf between the deprived and those who they see as the well off worse.
2 comments:
The rift in society goes back beyond Thatcher. These are 'Labour's Children', these are the children of the idealistic, liberal, left-wing 1960s.
When authority is bad, when anything goes, where people can drink on the street, wear what they want and then sue if they can't get a job because of their 'right' to have a stupid hair-cut or right to do this and that.
This is the harvest of the 1960s social liberalism. Much of that social liberalism is good - women's right, gay rights, minority right etc. Good. But it's also created a culture which the intellectuals of the left, mostly grown up in Sunday School or to 'good families' take for granted their privileged upbringing, not priviliged financially, but privileged in social mores. The left talk a lot of society and community but have systematically undermined it. The litle social/community mores of telling people not to drink and eat in public, to keep their kids quiet in public places rather than 'express themselves', to dress decently in public etc etc.
These are Labour's Kids. These are the Children of the Hippies. They, the left is to blame.
We need less 'progress' and more 'conservatism'. Good on the 'conservative' ethnic minorities - Sikhs and Turks, where community actually means something, for defending their property and showing to Louts that they're ready to fight them not understand' them. The Left - in Plaid and Labour - have lost the plot. Johnathan Edwards, Plaid MP was a discrace on telly last night. Wake up and smell the coffee - the Left has to share the blame here.
Work it out, take some of the blame, otherwise, as a Plaid voter I'll be voting Tory next election.
I think if they were children of the sixties you would have seen more wheelchairs and walking sticks, as for you voting Tory why change your writing is enough to tell you cannot count very well.
This is about something sparking a Riot and then people seeing shops, and then sadly breaking in and off it goes, that is what riots do.
Go look at Brixton 1980's go look at LA in the good old USA. I mean for god sake Camerons idea to stop this is to go and get an American ex cop to tell us how to deal with riots or crime, Blair and Cameron lovers of the good old USA.
I left school in 1966 went to work down the local coal mine did not like it took a job in an office in the council hated that, went to work for a large building firm called Balfour worked my way up from tea boy to supervisor.
I never even knew a gang or wanted to know one, but I'm dam well proud to be working class and to the left something a lot of people think they are , when in fact they are more to the right, lovers of the Blair type of politics
I ended up running contracts worth millions the last one was worth 400 million.
sadly we live in a world of have's and have not and some times dadly the have not get annoyed, worse is that many of those in courts are not poor they are Labours beloved middle class.
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