Working Class Brits...

If you want to see the real British working class look behind the headlines. Read about the places where crowds of ordinary people turned out prevent looters coming down their street, the 3 lads mowed down by a car defending their Mosque, The old couple who braved it all to come out of their house to serve the cops tea off a discarded riot shield and the hundreds who appeared spontaneously to clear up Croydon. Don't rank these lawless scum with us but when the Brits do get angry god help you if you're not on their side.

 

I think some people think i am actually subscibing to this theory...i didn't, and now still don't. As i said previously, this statement came from a pom..or ex-pom who incidentally has a working class accent...i don't think he was being neccessarily derogatory...it seems he was just being wrong. It was my ingnorance on this that prompted the question. Thanks to all who just answered it.

 

I have been hearing news reports that the British PM keeps floating the idea of hireing a American to head Scotland Yard because of the troubles. Not sure if I should be proud or concerned about that idea. Of course it will never happen, and the PM knows this, so why does he bring it up I wonder?

 

'Heading Scotland Yard sounds like a typical media exagerration : -

BBC News - US 'supercop' Bill Bratton warns riot arrests not only answer

In any case, Mr Bratton has already started saying the 'wrong' thing ( eg 'arresting your way of trouble' isn't the answer, the problem is societal, etc....). Special advisers have a way of quietly fading from the scene when they start telling politicians what they don't want to hear....even if it may well be the truth.

 

Or perhaps Texas can spare a Ranger, One Riot, one Ranger?

 

here is a cute 'toon.

View attachment 13903

 

Like all good political cartoons, funny and so true!

 

Is this country so incapable in sorting its own problems out that we have to look else where outside the UK now? Looks like it.


The British empire has fallen and is now dust being flogged in plastic bags for £1.55 plus P&P.

Well that's a rap for the UK, anyone want to go to the pub?

 

Perhaps the UK could petition Canada to become its newest province, then call in the RCMP? Or have the Queen order J.K. Rowling to write up another half dozen Harry Potter books, that money alone could keep England solvent for decades to come!

 

The only good guys to come out of this with any semblance of dignity...Asian who lost his son in Birmingham area and Asian panasonic shopkeeper in Totenham. Both called for calm..no thoughts of vengance..no wish to ratchet up tension..both who wish the law to proceed as it should and always has done. More British than any of the idiots calling for the army..its over..the law will have its day as it did in 81 and will do in 20 years time. We have short memories.

 

Your faith in the British justice (or in justice in general) is honoring you,but,please,do not be to naive :I am afraid that there is no more justice in Western Europe,only impunity for the criminals .Maybe it is time to restore corporal punishment and death penalty (both to be executed in public).
One question :who will pay the damages(some 150 million pound) ? Of course not the criminals ,but the honest,hardworking and taxes paying citizen .

 

These riots are the ultimate demonstration that modern 'policing' has lost touch with the public it is supposed to serve.

It's high time that governments all over the Western world start to take a damn good look at current Police practice in the wider community. Sitting Police officers in a well appointed communications centers and despatching them 50 at a time to "trouble spots" is obviously not working. We need to go back to the Police Service as part of the community, with the average police officer making constant contact with a small section of the community, and putting it all together in a network of social relationships. Individual misdemeanors are 'sorted' by the Police officer that knows the district/individual the best, with more of a 'move along' attitude to enforcement, rather than simply writing a citation for absolutley EVERYTHING.

The Police, worldwide, are immune from public and private criticism, are always 'right', and are backed up by a justice system that lets them lie in court to protect their own self interest. Add to this self-serving lawyers that simply rip-off the community, and a prison system that preaches reform but does not practice it.

When our house was robbed of everything inside it by the people who were supposedly looking after the place, (rental), we phoned the Police asking for their assistance. We were told that 'no crime had been perpetrated' so no action could be taken, (before), and after our property went missing, also told there was 'nothing they could do', even though we had informed these bludgers for TWO MONTHS prior to the robbery that our house was in danger of being ransacked.

The police are marvellous at handing out traffic tickets, but as far as doing the job that they are supposedly in unform for, they make excuse after excuse, year after year, and cost more and more to run for less and less in the way of actual results.

It's time the Police as a body started to take responsibility for their lack of action and results, instead of spending their entire careers praising their own kind and giving us more excuses as to why they cannot act effectively, except under the most blatant of circumstance, (when the crime is 95% solved by the public before it gets to be on record.)

Police in London have obviously lost touch. Thier arrogance and feathering of their own nests has come back to bite.

 

For the average career Policman, their job is all about the pension, the perks, and the privelages, (such as ringing forward ro avoid speed traps and random breath tests). They don't socialize with the community at large, preferring even to marry other police. They take no responsibility for their lack of results, are pompous, arrogant, self-serving braggards.

If you are a policeman, or an ex, hang your head in shame for the job you are supposed to do. What's the excuse this time?

Furthermore, can you provide an explanation that does NOT include 'The system' as a catch-all excuse for plain and simple failure to perform?

The Police Force in the Western World are social parasites of the lowest order, lower even than the lawyers. When they can take a good look at what is not happening and take steps to remedy this state of affairs, only then will the wider community begin to trust and co-operate. For now, all we get are excuses, higher costs for taxpayers, and an increasingly self-righteous group of uniformed and plain clothes dickheads, telling us in a thousand different ways why they cannot or will not perform to the expectations of the public, and justifying the funding that keeps them there.

 

Volga, there are some very fine police officers in the Western World. In fact, there are members here that would take issue with them being called "social parasites", myself included.

 

Firstly, the working class ''Brits'' TAG IS NONSENSE-apart from half a dozen spotty youths -since arrested -fr trying to incite Scots to emulate the Criminal morons in England, Scotland has had none of The stuff going on in England happen on its streets.
In fact, right now the streets of my hometown of Edinburgh Scotland's capital city Edinburgh are revebrating with joys occasioned by the Edinburgh International Festival as people from all over the world come to enjoy cultural pleasures.
True, the Ednburgh working classes are still on their peripheral housing estates during this middle class cultural beanfeast but then again because in Scotland we have a more left wing outlook than our Southern English neighbours (only one Conservative MP. in Westminster is from Scotland) and up herE we call Mr Cameron and his Tory chums ''the DODOS'' because they are unelectable in Scotland WHERE THE RULING Scottish National prty and Scottish Labour push the Conservatives into poor third and fourth place positions at elections)) the Scottish working class are better of benefit wise and so many other ways than their English counterparts As our Parliament in Edinburgh, for example, gives free care to the elderly-while the English old folks have to mortgage their homes to pay or their care
Scots sudents don't pay university tution fees which cost the English student in England between £3-6,000.
We also do not have large immigrant ethnic populations like England does-there is no Scottish town or city equivalent toLondon , Bradford, Burnley, Brixton, Liverpool or Manchester. I state that as fact- not as a race point because I have ethnic family members of whom I am proud.
What we do have trraditionally in Scotland is sectarianism between people calling themselves Protestants and Catholics which spills into violence before during and after soccer matches between Celtic and Rangers in Glasgow. But we are working on that and mass shop looting has never been a part of Celtic v Rangers fans battles.
Given that Scotland-thus far-has shown no desire to go down the London/Manchester. Liverpool road and our working class have most generous welfare beneits in the United Kingdom there is something seriously flawed with the ideas of those who blame the English street troubles on welfare benefits.

 

One of the interesting things about last weeks events is that everyone ( 'experts', social commentators, politicians, etc etc ) have looked into it......

....and found exactly what they want to find.

 

1)Every society is founded on law and order
2) Without law and order,no society can survive
3) In every society there is (a lot of) scum that's threatening law and order
4) In last resort,the protection of law and order is depending on the willingness of society to use violence
a) violence by the police
b) violence by justice(punishment)
5) If,as now,police is unable,and justice is unwilling to use violence,people will (as in the Wild West)substitute to police and justice,resulting in a lynchjustice .
On the actual situation :2 exemples from Belgium(and I would not be surprised if one could find analogue exemples in Britain,France.....
A man who violated his daughter (several times) was "condemned" to a conditional punishment of a year
Police is no more daring to go in a lot of districts of Brussels,Antwerp.....
Essentially,the reason for this situation is that there is no more such thing as individual responsability,a criminal being the victim of society ,of life,of an unfortunate youth,and blahblah.
Of course,this is only BS:we all have had reverses:my grandfather lost two of his children,my father lost his mother at the age of three,etc and they did not use this as excuses to commit offenses .
There is a French proverb,saying :La peur du gendarme est le commencement de la sagesse.
Rough translation :fear for the police is the beginning of wisdom.
But,today,I don't see much fear for the police,I don't see much respect for parents,teachers,......etc,etc

 

We are searching either for some profound truth or some simple explanation (depending on your politics) for an event such as Britain has felt recently. It is not a failure of the police, or the fault of greedy hooligans. A failure of this political party or that one. It is within ourselves. We are the mob, we are the police trying to corral the mob. We are the firemen, EMT's and doctors giving aid to the injured, we are also the victims. And of course we are those who sit on the sidelines and shake our heads and say in my day such things never happened.

We curse the police who do not arrest, the prosecuters who do not convict, judges who do not punish and prisons which do not reform. Yet we are the those who patrol our streets, prosecute and judge the accused and guard the convicted. We elect those who run the judicial system, and we pay their wages and cover their costs. We decide what laws we want, and more importantly, the laws we will enforce. Within each of us lies the DNA to be either Hero or Villen or passive Observer.

When Ceaser ruled Rome there were mobs, and 100 years from now there still will be mobs. So long as we have large cities filled with people all the ingrediants needed for a mob will be at hand. I would love to tell you what the answer is to prevent this from happening again, but I don't have it. Surely more police, prosecuter's, Judge's and larger prisons might help, but that isn't going to happen in any meaningfull way because we are unwilling to pay for it, arn't we? And it isn't like we can transport all our undesirables to Australia anymore, can we?

 

Certainly not naive..faced worsein bad old days of Belfast.We have due process in this country. We are not a bananna republic. The crinimal element in this country is rooted as much in its higher echelons ss it is in the lower ones. We have laws. They are working today. The causes are another matter. Naivety belongs with those who would and do advocate knee jerk rections without thought to any ratcheting up of the situation. Due process is what will occur and what is occuring. Anyone who advocates different is as much a problem and will be dealt with by the same due process. Get a grip.