So it's all kicked off in Totenham !!!
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http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri= ... TJcparImeQ
Local in Hackney giving it to looters. With subtitles for those that might need them
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I read the Guardian and I think you're a moron who should go and live in Saudi Arabia. Will that do?OffTheBackAdam wrote:Here's the sort of maggot that inhabits the area, the criminal, unemployable scumbags who just need a bullet in the head.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... Nh-fTv1Gm8
Pretending to help some poor guy who's been beaten up by some thug (Who also needs a bullet in the head), whilst really just looking for an excuse to rob them!
Come on you bleeding heart, Guardian readers, start moaning about me & this post.0 -
So, Manchester got trashed !! On th eplus side, the weather is closing in and I'm sure that the scum bag won't want to get their newly looted trainers wet. 100mm of rain expected in the North West in the next 24hrs. Perhaps they'll start attaching garden centers and looting Hunter wellies ?
Gloucester and Cambridge got hit as well ?!!?!?!
I'm waiting for the headline:
"Riots hit Eastbourne. Hundreds of old people are reproted to be trundling down the main street on mobility scooters and zimmer frames, throwing Worthers Originals at Police. The smell of lavender oil and p*ss is overbearing. The Police are said to be bored."Science adjusts it’s beliefs based on what’s observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved0 -
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[Warning - meandering semi-coherent socio-political economic rant follows]
Last night does amply demonstrate the law-by-consent which we enjoy in this Country; This isn't a police state, we don't have, or indeed need, layers of paramilitary law enforcement, and fortunately for the moronic yoot involved in the looting, police brutality is an exceptional event. If anything more than a tiny minority choose to break the law, there simply isn't the capacity in the system to deal with it.
We'll have the inevitable short-term knee-jerk reaction from the cretins at the top. They'll either further emasculate the police in an effort to protect the feelings of the disenfranchised, or squander millions getting some Lord to spend six years writing a 3000 page report explaining what everyone already knows. Or they'll ban something to appease the Daily Reich readership.
The bigger worry is that if the cretins don't do something dramatic, and soon, this will become a feature of daily life. Whilst the lot in Tottenham may have had a genuine grievance, the copycat in the more affluent areas of London, and provincial towns and cities have nothing to do with disaffection - it's just kids thinking 'we'll have some of that'. Otherwise, the scene played out in Ealing last night - where 70 or so men aged between 20 and 40 took to the streets in vigilante groups will also become a permanent fixture.
That aside, I am beginning to wonder if we're not on the cusp of some dramatic social upheaval. The post-war era of rampant consumerism appears to be drawing to a close, the planet's population is too big to support without fearsomely destructive intensive farming, economies cannot provide employment for all, the wealth divide - both globally and locally - is getting very large indeed, and at the top of modern societies sits a ruling elite who seemingly have almost no connection with those they rule by a mixture of regulation and taxation.
Here in Blighty the class divide has re-emerged and grown under the Labour Government - the working class pay enormous sums to keep the scrounger class in houses and satellite television, whilst the idle rich get ever richer of the backs of both. An interesting juxtaposition occurred yesterday in the Telegraph (or may have been the Evening Standard) alongside the pages and pages of pictures of looting, there was an article about people in Sutton complaining about the constant stream of Helicopter flights over their houses - some 40 a day, and seems most of these are piloted by mega-rich young men showing off to mega-rich young girls. Now this may seem churlish, but to read past the rather non-story, the cost of buying a helicopter, maintaining a helicopter, learning to fly the thing, and then filling it full of fuel, is expensive beyond compare.
When you look at this, and then consider the sums earned by just about the only role models the disaffected youth seem to have - Footballers and Rappers - it's no wonder some of them have little desire to get an education, get a job, and pay taxes. If you can deal and steal your way to a comfortable lifestyle with little chance of any meaningful punishment, whilst someone else pays for your house, your council tax, your healthcare, and ultimately your pension, they why the hell wouldn't you?
The biggest con is that these two groups have managed to pull off is that their lifestyles are effectively funded by the working class. The wealth generated in the middle flows down or up to grasping hands. What amazes me is that nobody in the working class - and I can include myself in this group - has seemed really that bothered by all of this.
We've not had social change in this country since Thatcher broke the unions and sold off the housing stock. The consequential growth in consumerism was driven largely by the young - nobody who lived through the 80s can forget the pictures of young stockbrokers and their rolls of £50 notes. (aside I am both a Thatcherite and a child of Thatcher, but I can see the pros and cons of that social change - so no need to rake over that ground again. The Blair years served to reinforce the social divisions which Thatcherite policy had brought about, but rather hijacked the Conservative ideal of 'all ships rise with the tide' by seeking to both control the tide with excessive fiscal policy, and disproportionately increase the amount of ships on the tide with unfettered immigration and welfare handouts.)
Prior to Thatcher it was the youth of the early 60s, as the young discarded the shackles of austerity and the Victorian values of parents and grandparents. Before that it was the end of the First World War - although this time driven by the death of youth; The 97% casualty rate for public schoolboy officers effectively removed an entire generation of the ruling class. A ruling class which otherwise would have gone off to hold power at home or in some far flung dominion - the First World War may have been won on the playing fields of Eton, but the Empire was lost on the killing fields of Flanders.
All of those moments of change have things in common - not least of which is the stagnation of previous ideas or policies. The First World War signed off the Victorian era. The early 60s the end of the depression of the twenties and thirties (delayed by the second war), and Thatcher capped off a period of immense problems in the UK through the 70s.
Back to the here and now. What the answer is, I don't know. But at the risk of sounding a like a loony-leftist, the problem is undoubtedly at the bottom of the social pile, but I rather suspect the answer lies at the very top.
However, what'll happen now is that the media will beat itself into a frenzy over the disenfranchised, and the politicians will expend a lot of energy being seen act. Meanwhile the poor sods in the Police will have to cope with it, whilst us in the middle will have to continue to pay for it.0 -
Well put (not quoting the above thread).
One of the better summaries I've read here with a grasp of recent historical events and their cyclical nature
AndrewWhen I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells0 -
I don't think this will change much, beyond a hardening on either side of the political spectrum.
The French riots which were comparable (mainly Paris but also other big industrial cities) lasted longer (so we shouldn't be surprised if they kick off here again), and they just get subdued for another 10 years untill another generation is angry and does the same thing.
There isn't the political will in either France or England to sort the problem out.0 -
I have the solution !!!!
Science adjusts it’s beliefs based on what’s observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved0 -
Gove was on breakfast this morning with his usual one dimensional approach.
The positive was that he was talking about giving teachers more powers of discipline which is good. (Although how this actually pans out I don't know. Surely eu law will take precedence and leave our teachers still powerless).
The typically negative was that he doesn't acknowledge that there is a black hole in the education system for non-academics. Just blathered on about hard work etc. The current system offers a significant minority of these, very same males that are running riot, very little.
I don't support our current government but I acknowldege that the problem is not their creation, it is a creation of the previous two governments. However, simply tightening up discipline without tackling why so many are disengaged is sticking plaster and gaping wound stuff.0 -
lifeform wrote:[Warning - meandering semi-coherent socio-political economic .
I think you're playing fast and loose with a few of those terms aren't you? Utter drivel. If being able to wiki is the sign of a lazy mind, by all accounts yours is still in bed fast asleep.
The only scrounging class is this country lives in a family whose mum wears a crown, but thats another story.
The behaviour of the last couple of days had nothing to do with disenfranchisement; can a man in his forties who's held the right to vote for years really feel not part of a democracy.
Do you remember the steaming phenomenon of a couple of years ago, well thats all this is but on a grander scale. Gangs of ignorant scum burning and robbing for the sake of it. No political agenda, no ulterior motive, no sense.The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns
momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.0 -
fast as fupp wrote:
I think it's really important that when the Police and community workers try to assess how to reslove the issues these riots present and move forward, they should not at any stage make any mention of the racial composition of those who participated in the riots or seek to identify which communities they originate from.
It will be so much better for everyone if this aspect is completely ignored.
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Salford looked almost exclusively white! How does that fit with the race argument?0
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Cleat Eastwood wrote:lifeform wrote:[Warning - meandering semi-coherent socio-political economic .
I think you're playing fast and loose with a few of those terms aren't you? Utter drivel. If being able to wiki is the sign of a lazy mind, by all accounts yours is still in bed fast asleep.
The only scrounging class is this country lives in a family whose mum wears a crown, but thats another story.
The behaviour of the last couple of days had nothing to do with disenfranchisement; can a man in his forties who's held the right to vote for years really feel not part of a democracy.
Do you remember the steaming phenomenon of a couple of years ago, well thats all this is but on a grander scale. Gangs of ignorant scum burning and robbing for the sake of it. No political agenda, no ulterior motive, no sense.
Cleat, at least counter an opinion without resorting to insult, eh?
Perhaps if I reword Scrounging Class to Subsidised Class. Whether you like it or not, and whatever the reasons for the existence, every single penny of your income tax goes on welfare - plus some more from other tax receipts because income tax doesn't cover the welfare bill any more.
Social Welfare was designed at a net to catch those fallen on hard times, not a flipping hammock for people to lounge in at their leisure whilst others toil to keep the net taut. If you're perfectly happy with that, then I'm amazed. That's not the fault of those lounging in the net, it's actually the fault of the people paying for the ruddy thing - we've let successive Governments - mainly the last one - to both systematically increase the scope and scale of welfare in this country, and preside over a cost of living increase that means climbing out of the net is virtually impossible if you're in it for any length of time.0 -
Obviously you have never tried living on the pittance that they dole out. Perhaps you should try to before you start spouting such utter tosh.0
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Well maybe not, and I know that the claims of satellite tv are probably lacking credibility. However, there are many places where generations of people have been lifetime unemployed. Although, I would love to see a break down of public spending, fairly sure income tax doesn't just get spent on feckless dole collectors. Or is our defecit really that bad that all our nhs/education/defence etc is totally funded on borrowed moneyYou live and learn. At any rate, you live0
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I anticipate this may be an unpopular view but. . .
Moral development, or lack of: At all levels in society there is an increasing trend to judge the acceptability of one's actions on the basis of "what do I want", "will I get caught", "do other people do this" rather than on the basis of what is the impact on my fellow human beings.
This is the moral reasoning (or lack of) behind the actions of the BMW 7 series driver speeding whilst on his/her handheld mobile phone; the white collar tax evader; the people flouting parking restrictions; the (dare I say) RLJ'er, and yes, the looter too. The nature of each misbehaviour may be determined more by where you are on the social (and economic) spectrum, but the morality is much the same.
I accept it might be wishful thinking to hope for the ideal that we could as a society attain a higher level of moral reasoning amongst the masses, that probably won’t happen any day soon!
Looking at the other side of the equation, we have a police force unable and probably unwilling to act on all sorts of what might be described as "minor" offences, and this has lead to the belief and for a large part, the reality, that one can behave anti-socially and criminally with impunity. If fear of being caught and punished and “what’s in it for me” is the level at which looters et al are functioning in terms of moral reasoning (i.e. the level of an infant), then we must make the fear of being caught and punished a very real one, by virtue of a well resourced police force engaged in zero tolerance, and that includes the speeding motorist as much as the litter lout and the looter!
I think I am getting old
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Jez mon wrote:Well maybe not, and I know that the claims of satellite tv are probably lacking credibility. However, there are many places where generations of people have been lifetime unemployed. Although, I would love to see a break down of public spending, fairly sure income tax doesn't just get spent on feckless dole collectors. Or is our defecit really that bad that all our nhs/education/defence etc is totally funded on borrowed money
Apologies, I got the figures wrong.
Total income Tax receipts for 2010-11 was £148bn, of which around £10bn was returned as overpayment, or charity contribution.
Welfare budget (excluding nhs, education, etc) was £110bn, predicted to increase to £111bn to April next year, from a total Government budget of £669bn
£138bn, versus £110bn.
Scary link;
http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_year2011_0.html0 -
You need to include NI contributions as well, these are intended to fund the majority of benefits, if that's what you mean by welfare budget. I can't find tax receipts or NI info on that site, is it there?0
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I understand NI is solely for funding pensions these days?
For tax receipts you'll need to lose the will to live on HMRCs website0 -
I think it pays for all contributory benefits but not means tested benefits of tax credits. Apparently there is a surplus (w/pedia says) that will be £114bn next year which is "borrowed" to offset national debt . . . or something. So at least part of the welfare budget and presumably all of pensions is funded by NI.0
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lifeform wrote:Apologies, I got the figures wrong.
Total income Tax receipts for 2010-11 was £148bn, of which around £10bn was returned as overpayment, or charity contribution.
Welfare budget (excluding nhs, education, etc) was £110bn, predicted to increase to £111bn to April next year, from a total Government budget of £669bn
£138bn, versus £110bn.
Scary link;
http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_year2011_0.html
This would be scary if it were the norm, but income tax revenues will be down at the moment and welfare spending will be up because millions of people have lost their jobs or had their wages cut.
What are the normal figures outside the recession/depression?0 -
El Grosso Bastardo wrote:I think it's really important that when the Police and community workers try to assess how to reslove the issues these riots present and move forward, they should not at any stage make any mention of the racial composition of those who participated in the riots or seek to identify which communities they originate from.
It will be so much better for everyone if this aspect is completely ignored.
OK, let's not ignore ethnicity. Some of the cretins were black, some white, probably some Asian (but I haven't seen pictures of Asians yet). Is this good enough for you?
And do we have to do the same the next time there is any (mainly white) football-related violence? Or is that different?0 -
johnfinch wrote:lifeform wrote:Apologies, I got the figures wrong.
Total income Tax receipts for 2010-11 was £148bn, of which around £10bn was returned as overpayment, or charity contribution.
Welfare budget (excluding nhs, education, etc) was £110bn, predicted to increase to £111bn to April next year, from a total Government budget of £669bn
£138bn, versus £110bn.
Scary link;
http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_year2011_0.html
This would be scary if it were the norm, but income tax revenues will be down at the moment and welfare spending will be up because millions of people have lost their jobs or had their wages cut.
What are the normal figures outside the recession/depression?
A fairly steady increase year on year from £80bn in 2000... with a slight dip at 09-10. 10-11 is same as 08-09.
2001 welfare budget - £57bn, against just under £100bn tax receipts.0 -
lifeform wrote:johnfinch wrote:lifeform wrote:Apologies, I got the figures wrong.
Total income Tax receipts for 2010-11 was £148bn, of which around £10bn was returned as overpayment, or charity contribution.
Welfare budget (excluding nhs, education, etc) was £110bn, predicted to increase to £111bn to April next year, from a total Government budget of £669bn
£138bn, versus £110bn.
Scary link;
http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_year2011_0.html
This would be scary if it were the norm, but income tax revenues will be down at the moment and welfare spending will be up because millions of people have lost their jobs or had their wages cut.
What are the normal figures outside the recession/depression?
A fairly steady increase year on year from £80bn in 2000... with a slight dip at 09-10. 10-11 is same as 08-09.
2001 welfare budget - £57bn, against just under £100bn tax receipts.
Is that nominal or inflation-adjusted?
Because I've had a look at the charts available on the site to which you linked and government spending would have doubled since the mid-1980's if the figures are reliable and inflation-adjusted.
If you look at the amount of spending as a % of GDP, the long-term figures show a downward trend overall.
http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/downc ... r=c&title=0 -
It's nominal I think.
GDP isn't absolute tax revenue though is it?
GDP for 1985 was £336bn, welfare 10% of that.
GDP for 2010 was £1453bn, welfare 7.3% of that.
Proportionately less of the total theoretical money in the system is spent on welfare, but absolute against Income tax receipts it's up from 50% ten years ago, to 85% or more now.
Otherwise we'd not be in the dire economic straits we're in now.
It's not the welfare budget which has buggered the system up - it's the great Labour spending spree of new hospitals, schools, wars and so on, from their second term onwards which has shot the books to hell. Then there's the ticking timebomb of PFI.0 -
lifeform wrote:It's nominal I think.
GDP isn't absolute tax revenue though is it?
GDP for 1985 was £336bn, welfare 10% of that.
GDP for 2010 was £1453bn, welfare 7.3% of that.
Proportionately less of total theoretical money in the system is spent on welfare, but absolute against Income tax receipts it's up from 50% ten years ago, to 85% or more now.
Otherwise we'd not be in the dire economic straits we're in now
No, GDP isn't absolute tax revenue, which is why more statistics are needed to distract me from writing my wedding speech.0 -
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Wedding speech?johnfinch wrote:lifeform wrote:It's nominal I think.
GDP isn't absolute tax revenue though is it?
GDP for 1985 was £336bn, welfare 10% of that.
GDP for 2010 was £1453bn, welfare 7.3% of that.
Proportionately less of total theoretical money in the system is spent on welfare, but absolute against Income tax receipts it's up from 50% ten years ago, to 85% or more now.
Otherwise we'd not be in the dire economic straits we're in now
No, GDP isn't absolute tax revenue, which is why more statistics are needed to distract me from writing my wedding speech.
Do tell.
In need of a topical joke or two?0 -
Rick Chasey wrote:
Wedding speech?johnfinch wrote:lifeform wrote:It's nominal I think.
GDP isn't absolute tax revenue though is it?
GDP for 1985 was £336bn, welfare 10% of that.
GDP for 2010 was £1453bn, welfare 7.3% of that.
Proportionately less of total theoretical money in the system is spent on welfare, but absolute against Income tax receipts it's up from 50% ten years ago, to 85% or more now.
Otherwise we'd not be in the dire economic straits we're in now
No, GDP isn't absolute tax revenue, which is why more statistics are needed to distract me from writing my wedding speech.
Do tell.
In need of a topical joke or two?
Next Saturday there is to be a Mrs johnfinch. Wedding's in Slovakia, so don't know if any topical jokes would go down well, unless they're about increased efficiency in car production or something equally hilarious.0 -
Topical jokes are tricky to pull off at the best of times, never mind if the speaker or audience are trying to grapple with an unfamiliar language.
Have you got a slapstick routine you can fall back on, pardon the pun.0
