My take on London's Riots

[Tim Lund]

Cliff Richard is a complete disgrace. He spearheaded the successful campaign to get copyright on music extended from 50 to 70 years. Of course it's wrapped up in a whole lot of sanctimonious stuff about how concerned he is for other, less fortunate musicians from his early years, but the main economic effect of such changes is to make very rich musicians, like him, even richer. No wonder Tony Blair was happy to accept his hospitality in his Caribbean villa, but less so for the rest of the world to know about it.

I suspect that this case got caught up in the famous wars between Tony Blair & Gordon Brown, since GB commissioned an ex editor of the FT to report on copyright extension - who as a good economist concluded there was no case for enriching "Sir" Cliff further.

[Eagle]

Sir Cliff , or Harold webb was born in The Raj so in dispute whether he is British or not. This is like saying children on service people born overseas are not British.

In Germany you are not automatically a German national if you are born there. Not sure of the situation in the United Kingdom.

Have the overseas nationals been sent home? I think we know the answer to that.

[digime2007]

I'm pleased to say that having a cup of tea and little lie down has restored my liberal compass so I'd like to retract my comment about deporting Sir Cliff.

I now think a community service punishment would suffice. At the next sign of trouble we'll wheel him out, mic him up and "Manilow method" them into submission.

[sfhyouthforum]

I've never met albeit virtually such people who completely miss the point. MISS. THE. POINT. So when shall we talk solutions?

Have you ever thought that because people are migrants or 'visibly' different to the Eagles of the planet, that they often are the ones who don't get jobs offers, are subject to discrimination, and feel less part of the community? It isn't as if being an immigrant automatically brings with it criminal behaviour.

It makes it harder to loot if they had people like Eagle taking time to integrate them, get to know them and care about their welfare. People who are reckless don't care about society. They reject their rejectors. Imagine spending all of your life wanting a better life and have no access to it aside from watching television and the smartly dressed suits in the street? They are not right to loot. In fact they are so pervesely wrong to think stealing and looting is an option. But as long as the Eagles and Mikecgs want to focus on the negatives, we'll see no progress. You too, are part of this problem. Because you want to harp on about the stuff that doesn't make things better. You want to be content that immigration is clearly the root of all evil, instead of picking the fingers from your keyboards and dialling a mentoring service or meeting with the excluded or being a penpal to a young prisoner and taking some time and effort to get them on the straight and narrow. Those actions and words help.

[sfhyouthforum]

if anyone is interested, here are my views on justice and punishment: http://www.scribd.com/doc/47710952/Wake ... side-ASBOs

You cans skip part one and go straight to part two and three.

[Savvy]

Thankyou STF... Hear Hear all the way xx I don't know how you have the patients to carry on knowing that some people really are too narrow minded, selfish (and lets face it, just not very bright) to understand what you are saying. But I do, and I thank you.

[CaptainCarCrash]

Let's be clear about this copyright extension.

Who in their right mind, in a pretty much worn out music industry is going to be sampling Batchelor Boy's vomit inducing cold war era Americanised pap from a low grade Elvis impersonating, meglomaniac religious cult following has been? So I doubt it will matter in his case. Copyright his music for 70 years? Why?

He should be deported for crimes against humanity.

I can't imagine anyone buying his music in 2011, can you? especially now we have file sharing sites and digital media pretty much handing the hammer and nails to the grim reaper as he nails shut the music industries coffin.

As far as I'm concearned a lot of the people who rioted were scum, looked like scum and behaved like savages. All they have achieved really is to place a heavier burdon on the tax payer and bolstered their position within our communities as unemployable failures that we have to support.

Anyone know what happend to the daughter of the rich family who was caught with 5k worth of looted swag in her car?

[Eagle]

Dear Syd Forum and Savvy

All your previous posts seem to want to encourage native youngsters into work. Now you seem to be turning 180 degrees and offering these jobs to conviced foreigners or even non convicted ones.

Really cannot understand your about tuen and indeed it is very sad.

[CaptainCarCrash]

I've never met albeit virtually such people who completely miss the point. MISS. THE. POINT. So when shall we talk solutions?

Have you ever thought that because people are migrants or 'visibly' different to the Eagles of the planet, that they often are the ones who don't get jobs offers, are subject to discrimination, and feel less part of the community? It isn't as if being an immigrant automatically brings with it criminal behaviour.

It makes it harder to loot if they had people like Eagle taking time to integrate them, get to know them and care about their welfare. People who are reckless don't care about society. They reject their rejectors. Imagine spending all of your life wanting a better life and have no access to it aside from watching television and the smartly dressed suits in the street? They are not right to loot. In fact they are so pervesely wrong to think stealing and looting is an option. But as long as the Eagles and Mikecgs want to focus on the negatives, we'll see no progress. You too, are part of this problem. Because you want to harp on about the stuff that doesn't make things better. You want to be content that immigration is clearly the root of all evil, instead of picking the fingers from your keyboards and dialling a mentoring service or meeting with the excluded or being a penpal to a young prisoner and taking some time and effort to get them on the straight and narrow. Those actions and words help.

The way to make things better is to have a system of governance which sets a standard for people to come and make a better life for themselves in this country. at this stage in our history this country is the whore of the world and will have anybody, no questions asked. I know there is a borders agency that tracks down people who don't really cause any problems and who work in an indian restaurant etc because they are an easy target, the real troublesom dangerous and problematic freeloaders aren't that stupid.

[sfhyouthforum]

Mikecg: Stick your head out the window: Can you hear that? It's the dull thud of my head against your brick wall.

[CaptainCarCrash]

*Sighs*

[sfhyouthforum]

Imagine meeting thirteen year olds who have alcohol dependent parents, ones that sexually abuse them, never cooks a hot meal, has an empty fridge, won't take them to the doctors, lets all sorts of drug addicts in to the home, a home steaming with fleas and urine...

These kids don't wake up one day and decide to be this way. It is a failure by adults and then a lack of resilience and self esteem on their part. And let's face it, even private school educated rich kids suffer and don't make it to being a functional 'normal' young adult. Only their parents can afford to pay their problems when they smash their car drink driving or have to get their stomach pumped in A&E.

Their worlds are too small to care about your car or house possessions. Doesn't make it right but instead of being so angry, let's think of ways forward. If the point is to have a better community, then it makes more sense to teach these kids how to do good things and reward them, rather than put them in police cells and let them hate the cold harsh world more. It makes more sense to enforce their bodies to motion and act in good ways, like cleaning streets, caring for others, learning a skill.

Do you know how sad it is that these kids never hear 'I love you' come from their parents mouths. Instead they hear 'it's our little secret that you touch daddy here'. Do you know how screwed up it feels when your mother let's her drunk best friend into your bedroom for you to have to lick her places as a young boy? Or that as soon as your step-dad runs out of cans and money he is shouting swear words right in your face, before swinging punches. And then you're lucky enough to have a parent still home. Do you really think these kids give a crap about looting a shop? The most worth they feel is when they wear new trainers. The most power they feel is when they burn something and can see in real life the self-destruction that most cannot articulate into words. It's no excuse but your being angry only fans the flames.

Then we have to also look at how we deal with white collar criminal actions going on that cost our society, with millions of potential tax sitting in havens, money lost that has seen welfare reduced, and allowed billionaires.

Tax evasion and thieving go hand in hand.

Doing a bit of cash in hand work aka benefit fraud and fiddling expenses as an MP go hand in hand.

(And I'd like to see the ratio of MPs who fiddled expenses to those who fiddle their benefits.)

As far as I'm concerned we all know better. High brow, low brow, mono brow - the in-fighting and reducing things to left vs right is an acceptance of being caught in a trap of bipartisan politics. There are other ways to see things. If someone cuts, they bleed, put a plaster on it.
Don't ask them their views on immigrants before choosing to add antiseptic. We have a responsibility to teach our children this. We all can clean up our acts a bit and the first task is to stop being so angry and spiteful and start looking for common ground.

[mosy]

I don't like that our youth tends all to be demonised by the current government: If they're educated and don't have a job, they're being lazy, if they're relatively uneducated or not academic they don't want to work and are probably benefit cheats etc. I'd love to turn on the TV/radio and hear anything positive being said. Usually it's that oldies will be relying on youth to fund their own pensions, so displaying more self interest than that of the welfare and development of our youth - and many who say that are sitting pretty, possibly from the benefit of taxpayers' money.

mikecg, to me, makes a point that many are making at the moment., i.e. that for as long as the government can turn the spotlight onto petty theft, it can keep bigger issues in the shade - such as there being few jobs for people of virtually any age despite extending pensionable age.

Some people steal because they think they can get away with it, some don't because they know they won't which is different from not stealing because it's morally wrong. Many office workers who'd describe themselves as being law abiding wouldn't think twice about nicking envelopes, the odd stapler whatever and blame it on the cleaners, tsk! Many oldies will probably have shoplifted or nicked at least something in their lives. Petty crime is different from smashing windows and setting light to buildings which is just wanton destruction.

Prime Minister's question time is up about now, so will see what's said.

[Eagle]

Syd youth forum

I appreciate you are trying your best for the youngsters and you should be congratulated.

We are not that far apart but you usually miss the point and answer with another statement rather than the question.

My question that how you can support unlimited unskilled immigration and also want jobs for as many of the natives as possible has not been answered , although this is what you implied.

[Tim Lund]

As far as I'm concerned we all know better. High brow, low brow, mono brow - the in-fighting and reducing things to left vs right is an acceptance of being caught in a trap of bipartisan politics. ...
We all can clean up our acts a bit and the first task is to stop being so angry and spiteful and start looking for common ground.

I don't like bipartisan politics because it suggests there are just two positions, and instead of thinking, people just need to know what to say given how they've aligned themselves. So if you identify with the poor, you back off from blaming benefit cheats, but fiercely condemn allowance fiddling MPs and tax evaders - and probably assume that all rich people have something to be ashamed of.

But I'm also suspicious for thinking 'we all know better' - I think there are a fair number of difficult customers in the world who just don't. Take for instance the sorts of people caught up in the culture of Wall Street, as described by Michael Lewis in Liar's Poker. It's possible that these sort of people, deep down, know better, but I think it's more likely that anyone challenging them would be answered by an extreme Social Darwinism ideology - the law of the jungle. It's comforting to think we all know better, by we meaning the people we come into contact with, and associating bad people with groups we don't actually come across - so, in a possibly bipartisan way constructing 'the other' to be demonised.

So we have to expect to have to deal with such people on occasions - at which point looking for common ground is not a good place to start. Most people's response to reconciling two positions is to try splitting the difference - which the unscrupulous - or merely experienced negotiators - can exploit by making outrageous initial claims. Given this, disputes are better resolved by reference to principles - which is what courts of law do - and accept that one or other party may feel aggrieved, and not see any common ground as having been reached. And remember - these difficult types aren't necessarily 'the other' - they may be one of us, even our friends or family. Maybe we will still want them to continue friends - maybe they're not actually wicked, just badly misguided, maybe one day they'll realise they were wrong ... and maybe they're even us, being completely unreasonable.

[hairybuddha]

The enquiry found that Duggan was in the process of ridding himself of the gun when the fatal shots were fired.

I think you'll find that the jury found (8/2) that Duggan had already rid himself of the gun when the shots were fired. Which, although doesn't affect the verdict of "lawful killing" is quite and important detail.

[stuart]

I think we should consider this seperately from the two angles: Duggan & The Shooter.

Clearly the police should not shoot a person unless their is a high imminent risk of that person killing another. In this case the shooter would have known the target was carrying a gun and prepared to use it. His finger (as would ours) be a flick away from a pre-emptive shot. He claims (and we know no more than anyone outside the court) that risk was there. His judgement appears to have been wrong but was it unreasonable? In the end that decision is based on the jury's trust in his evidence. Given the fiasco of plebgate was can assume that at least a few of the jury would now be wary of accepting police evidence at face value. But they are the best to make the decision right or wrong. So I have to go with that.

Now turning to Duggan or anyone else packing a gun. If you are surrounded by armed police then it really is your responsibility to unequivocally demonstrate it is not a threat to the police. That can be difficult in fast moving and unexpected circumstances but that's the risk of having the gun. It would appear he did make an attempt to to take the gun out of the equation as we later discover. But the jury decided not unequivocally enough. Hence he cannot (if he had survived) be surprised he would get shot at.

Which is why I believe the outburst by the family and friends was wrong (though one should be forgiving of how they might also over react under pressure).

Which as Rod pointed out is rather different from the other case where no gun was being carried and unless the victim was knowingly using the piece of wood to simulate a gun then he cannot take any blame for his own death.

The bottom line is I do find it unbelievable that the police are still not videoing the actions of armed officers as routine. It isn't about cost as these officers have the most expensive equipment lavished upon them (BMW X5 appears to be the motor of choice). The need to be able to reflect back on any armed event for training as well as legal reasons at leisure is surely obvious. Just as the events are so fast moving and confused with heavy pressure on everyone that any review based on clear recollection from those involved is untrustworthy no matter how honest they may try to be.

Stuart

[Eagle]

I am flabbergasted that this matter has surfaced again. Also why has it taken so long to pronounce on this.

Whether the man had a gun at that time is surely not that relevant. All information supplied informs us he was someone used to crime.

Why attack the Police for doing their best to keep such persons away from society.

Was he working ? If not how did he afford his car ??

[hairybuddha]

It would appear he did make an attempt to to take the gun out of the equation as we later discover. But the jury decided not unequivocally enough. Hence he cannot (if he had survived) be surprised he would get shot at.

This can't be correct. The jury was not asked to decide the degree of equivocation in Duggan's attempts to discard the gun. They were asked to decide whether or not the gun had been discarded by the time the shots were fired. They decided that it had been. They were also asked to decide whether the officer who fired the shots had a genuine belief that his life, or his colleague's lifes, or those of the public were in imminent danger. They decided that his belief was genuine. Hence the verdict.

The reasoned decision from the jury is available today in all good (and some bad) media outlets.

[stuart]

HB - I think you are finding a difference where there isn't one.

Duggan apparently made an attempt, as I said, to take the gun out of the equation and this was implicitly accepted by the jury. If this had been seen and recognised by the marksman then, unless he was felonious, the shot would not have be taken. The jury decided that despite the gun probably being thrown away the policeman reasonably acted on his belief it was still present and presenting imminent danger.

Therefore Duggan did not achieve unequivocal separation from the gun in the eyes of the people around him. There are no degrees to be decided. I hope this clarifies.

Stuart