Tony Blairs words on society

Interesting debate. I think the parents play the crucial role in all this. The schools used to but we've made them toothless now.

Two examples from my 70's childhood.

First (infant school) - two of my slightly rougher mates break a brand new pencil on purpose. Teacher tells the passing Headmaster who puts each over his knee and delivers a firm smack to the ass. Both cry, both are embarrased. After school the kids tell the mum of one of the lads who was smacked - she is mortified - not that her son was smacked but that he behaved in such a way as to warrant a smack! No inquest, no "you hit my little darling" - she probably told him not to do it again and kindly agreed not to tell his dad. This family were very much working class but good people.

Second incident. My brother buys me a nice catapult. I go round on the next estate with a couple of mates and fire some small stones at the windows of a house (not big enough to break the glass by the way - just annoying). Anyway, the bloke in the house comes out and catches me (as my mates scarper), gives me a vigorous shaking and throws my new catapult in the river. My reaction - I'm terrified that my Mum and Dad will find out that I've been misbehaving (and hope my brother won't ask about the catapult he bought me which is now at the bottom of the river). Can you imagine what would happen these days - bloke would be up for assault and would have to pay for the missing catapult!

What strikes me with a lot of the chavy type youths today is two things - firstly they don't seem to associate hard (school) work with making money - ask the ones hanging around on street corners what they want and you'll inevitably hear that they want to be rich but they haven't twigged that they might have a better hope of getting this if they were at home doing homework rather than sitting on a wall getting wasted.

The other thing is that a lot of kids seem to want to be famous but when you say famous for what they just say - I want to be famous. I guess you can blame the Jody Marsh gang for this i.e famous just for being famous but it's another example of wanting something without working for it or, at the least, without having any idea of how to get it.

As to how to break the cycle of undesirables breeding more undesirables this is a tough one, assuming buying their fertility (for say £5K) is a bit non-PC. Really you need to get them away from their parents and I guess this is where something like the armed forces could come into play.

So, yes, I'm going to be the first to touch on National Service (and yes this is a lot easier now I'm too old to do it). It might be worth looking at with some modernisation. I don't know if any of you watched Bad Lad's Army where ITV took a bunch of bad lads (nothing really bad but some of them had done time) and basically put them through however many weeks of 1950s style National Service. Now, a few of them just couldn't cope with it and left. Most found it really hard going but once they got used to it they went from loathing their Corporals to being virtually willing to put their lives on the line for them. I can honestly say probably 70% of them came out much better people than when they went in. Bottom line was that they were given strict boundaries, strict discipline but given a real purpose as part of a team and most of them responded. I know it was only a TV show (and an ITV one at that) but it took these guys out of their cushioned, easy lives and gave them a kick up the arse and the majority ended up grateful they'd taken part.

Matt.

 

I blame Murdoch! He's brought American culture to our living rooms all day everyday. The sky generation are hitting their teens and look at em, the biggest waste if space we've ever produced. Now we've got hordes of little s**ts running round dressing like american gangstar rappers and the like, acting amazingly dumb and running riot.

Just think how many of the worlds greatest discoveries were made in this country by British people and look what we have to look forward to now!

 

Role models.

Hmmm. . . . Sir Alan Sugar or The Jody Marsh gang as role models - a hard one but with the help of The Murdoch Empire and others of that ilk I think I know who will get the most exposure and have the best chance of passing their traits and values be they good or bad on to the next generation

 

The whole celebrity thing is awful isn't it. But as long as people are buying Heat magazine by the bundle and watching crappy programmes featuring the endless supply of 'celebrities', we're stuck with these vacuous goons and their endless stories from the top of the mountain of consumerism.
My favourite celebrity is Leslie Ash...more of a fckup is hard to imagine. Screws her face up with botched cosmetic surgery then after having 'rough sex' with her footballer husband is laid up in hospital where she catches the superbug that leads to disability. Although a close second has to be Suzanne Shaw and Darren Day....renowned 'love rat' Darren gets her pregnant and she insists he's changed...2 months later he's cheated on her and she's a single mother! Thens theres Jordan, Geri Halliwell, the list is endless.
Get some respectable people on the front pages, theres plenty about who deserve the cheques from Heat and Now magazine more. According to these magazines we're surrounded by idiots.

 

BOLLOCKS. There WERE no benefits in the modern sense until after the war; people used to give charity to benevolant funds, Bernardos etc, and there was no chance of a person getting free cash for doing nought; when work became available, it was EXPECTED of you to work.

I'm sure you'd rather have food in your stomach and be cleaning bogs, than lying in the gutter and starving.

Corporal punishment worked - fact. The cane at school was one of the best methods of dealing with yobs - and maybe Mick is right re the birch - although that might be a bit too far. How about a Borstal of EPIC proportions for any crime over a certain limit (not sure what - stealing a penny chew might well be a good start, since zero tolerance = no crime).

I feel propesctive parents should be LEGALLY BOUND to take a parenting test, and maybe we could do well from China's 1 kid per family rule. Mothers should get ZIP for having a kid to get a council house; if you refuse to name the father and thus get CSA, the kid is force-adopted. I'd far rather be with my adoptive parents than the slapper of a mum I left behind at 3 months old, and let's face it, most of the kids of the current crop of mothers getting free council houses would be better off being adopted.

Julian - don't beat me up on this - this isn't directed at single parents in general; I'm talking of the cash-for-kids ones here. I know of 3 cases in extended mate circles where the free house/free cash/free everything for using your new kid for currency has happened. If that's just me, god alone knows how many cash cows are out there raking it in on the back of their defenceless kid (who won't have as many opportunities as one who was really wanted, as opposed to just being created to get the mother out of a job). For those who want to use a new child as currency - hello workhouse, 3 bowls of gruel, and hard labour. Sod the pinko brigade - it worked in Victorian times.

You can educate people all you like, but I don't see why hardworking people should have the piss ripped out of them by yobs, ASBO-heads and lowlifes. I fear the criminal justice system and the "rights" brigade are some of the real root causes of the problems we face - too many do-gooders think you can talk the evil out of a crim. Hard labour, no liberties, and iron-fist rule seem to be the only way.

...but do you want to know who I *really* blame, both for the current rash of kids-for-cash mums and bad yoof in general? Maggie. If it wasn't for her instilling the greed motive into the 20-somethings in the mid-late 80s, property prices wouldn't have rocketed so fast, one parent would have been able to stay at home and look after the kids (due to cost of living being lower), and thus almost all cases of the "latchkey kid" would be removed, solving the bad kids phenomenon almost entirely, since at least one parent would know where their kid was between end of school and end of workday. As soon as the cycle is broken, and yon latchkey kid goes on to have kids, "it was OK for me so it's OK for them" becomes the mentality, and the rot's out there, and will get worse for every generation.

As for Beckham - anyone being paid that much money for a silly kid's game would be the first one against the wall, come the revolution. A junior doctor doing a 80 hour week on low wage must feel sick to their stomach when they some some twat like Rooney raking in cash for doing naff all.

 

Attitude changed during the war, attitude towards establishment and law.
As most police officers were called up this left a rather large opening for crime. It was the start of modern crime gangs, people like Franky Frazer. They were called up but chose to become cowardly deserters and spent their time robbing/mugging etc.
Unfortunately with these people, corperate punishment did NOT work at all, most were captured at the end of the war, some sent to millitary prison as deserters and suffered millitary disciplin, but they still carried on as before when released.
It happened, it changed our society, we cant change it back. Sad but true.

 

I guess we go back to role models and famous people, its cool when pop stars thow Tv's out of windows etc. Jade fkucing Goody how in gods name can such an obvious waste of human life be famous? On magazine covers, I can't believe people actually want to read about her and her spawn - why do we let these people breed?

Tougher CJ system partnered with a benefit system that looks after the right people, not Wayne and Shazza and their 7 kids who have never had any intension of earning a living, why should they when they can get it given?

I'm not an out and out capitalist but full on socialism doesnt work in the real world - I honestly wich it did.

Back to the respectless sh1ts though - they breed from an early age and cant teach social behavior as they don't posess it themselves, the next generation WILL be worse, I expect to be a scared, skint (robbed the working to give to the lazy government) OAP if I stay in my homeland - which I probably won't.

 

...and this is one thing that REALLY P*SSES me off! These lazy sods also have the gall to accuse disabled people of being lazy (I've seen it). Now - WHO chose to live on the dole, and WHO chose to be disabled? I tell you one thing - *ALL* the disabled people I know want to work. Some of them will not be able to do paid work (due to insurance etc.) but in those cases they still do voluntary work.

...and then there's Wayne and Waynetta, who claim disabled people are a waste of space etc. And it's always the disabled who are up against the wall first when some penny pinching sh*t in the government decides to cut spending. "Oh no - we'll support YOU 'cos of all your illigetimate offspring and your 7 bedroom council house, but 'cos Bloggs with his stick, or Blakes with their chair can't fight back, we'll nab their cash instead". Tossers. Maybe I should just go on the dole and beat the lazy sh*ts ar their own game.

Sorry - waaaaaay off topic there. There IS one thing no-one's mentioned yet... The current 20-somethings are the first generation EVER to be worse off than their parents. Something gave already, and it's gonna give much worse in the future...

 

It's too simplistic. What about those who are genuinely unable to work? Do you give to charity? Would you give more if there were no welfare state system?

The trick is how do you make life unbearable for those able but unwilling to work - so they are forced to accept the harsh reality whilst protecting the weak, the young and the ill?

What is difficult about politics is solving problems which are at odds with each other. This slash and burn approach is easy when you're shouting from the sidelines.

How is it a fact? I had the cane several times and it didnt bother me one bit - just undermined my opinion of the school.

And what do you punish them with when they dont turn up for the test? I do think a sense of responsibility is something that needs to be instilled into kids, but when their parents dont followup at home the role of the school is limited.

On one hand you seem to want less legislation regards benefits but more legislation - which brings with it pressure on the police to enforce it.

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But this country is suffering from a falling birth rate!

You cant judge everyone who has a child whilst living on a council estate as being a slapper whose kid would be better off being taken for adoption. I think either you believe everything you read in the Daily Mail or have formed big opinions about things you know little about.

You're not looking at the root of the problem.

In what way did it work? What do you know about Victorian times and the success of social policies (or the lack of them)?

I have an image of Mein Kampf on your bookshelf.

But most of what you say above concurs with their (the Tories in the 80's) view of society.

I do agree that both parents working full-time damages their children.

Life and purpose is not all about money, but the market economy is all about commecial value. If a junior doctor is in the medical "game" for short term financial returns he/she is in the wrong game.

 

'If you can't afford children don't have them' is an argument I have had with a few people before. They insist its their right (which it is, but so is being resposible) but my reply is I would like a bigger house or faster car but I can't afford them so have to do without. People just SO WANT children but if they can't afford them what are they teaching them? I just SO WANT a ferrari enzo or Porsche Carrera GT perhapse I should stop working and start spawning.

I go back to my earlier post, no free money to able people there must be a plethora of good deeds for the genuine needy that can be done to earn that money. As said (cant remember by who) ask kids hanging around what they want they want to be rich and/or famous they never say 'I want to EARN a lot of money.' More people want to win the lottery than be a self made millonare! The world is lazy, anyway that took some typing I'm off for a lie down

 

Indeed. Society has been wrestling with the problem of what the Elizabethans called 'sturdy beggars' ever since the dissolution of the monasteries. Various stick and carrot approaches have been tried; none has been 100% effective. To quote H L Mencken 'For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, straightforward ... and wrong'.

 

In my opinion...
The industrial revolution in this country drew people from the countryside into the towns and cities - housing patterns were established to accommodate large numbers of people working in factories.

Over many years, further housing projects have tried to tackle the problem of accommodating large numbers of people based around factory work or similar modes of labour.

The result of this are large housing estates, some ok, most poor in design and some really bad.

The working classes in this country were good for doing lots of manual work, keeping their aspirations low along with their income was good to help British industry thrive. The Pub gave them something to do, kept them occupied and work kept them getting up in the morning and busy all day.

One of my Grandfathers was a steel worker in the Black Country - hard work, lots of beer (beer rations had them sinking 15 pints per day to keep their fluids up after working in the hot environment of the steel works.

My other Grandfather was a solider and then a copper, again in the Black Country. He spent most evenings collaring and often fighting drunken navvies and foundry workers. He used to wear brass knuckes under his gloves.

This type of society was also great for producing good soldiers and is partly why Britain has such a strong military tradition.

However the factories and foundries and mills disappeared. The type of work good for employing great swathes of people dwelling on council estates disappeared....

...but the housing estates and the drinking and the low aspirations and everything that went with it remained. But the unemployment and the lack of alternative local opportunities created apathy and bitterness. In some parts of the country generation after generation have endured this purposeless existance. The smart ones got out onto better things and the lazy, the dumb, the disorganised and the old stayed put. For many they would rather stay local with their family and friends, claim benefits and do a bit of scamming and dealing to pay their way, than move away to find work.

Inevitably crime increases as does a lack of respect and lack of purpose. Seems to make sense the yout group together looking for support and identity amongst each other and making up their own rules. I'm not justifying the yob crime. The drinking and the drug taking makes the problem 100 times worse.

Britain has basically ended up with problems which are of its own making via its industrial past. Changing large parts of society in the way it seems everyone wants to is extremely difficult. To think its all about tough laws and harsh sentencing is childish.

The solution must combine disincentives to do bad stuff, with incentives to do good stuff - basic parenting really. If, as a parent, you constantly chide and punish your children for doing wrong, leaving no scope for their mistakes, but dont praise them when they do well, or give them a vision of what they could be doing/achieving then you are being a bad parent.

I'd apply the same ideas to social politics. It's not all about defending peoples rights. I think a big problem for the police and schools is indeed kids who think they have the upper hand - they think they know exactly how power less their teachers are and the exploit that sense of control. The same with the police - they know whether they are likely to get arrested for doing this or that. Whether the police are going to bother attending a scene after someones car window has been smashed. Again they sense control.

There is lots of scope for policing which invades the space of teen yobs and makes it difficult for them to feel that sense of control. But there also needs to be effort made to increase the the alternatives - stuff to do in the evenings, places to go. Places which bar the idiots and encounrage in inbetweenies - those who could go either way.

Trouble is at the moment the idiots response to being barred is to burn down the youth project or whatever - this type of thing needs to be fully backed up by the police otherwise its all wasted effort.

The police and community workers need to work closely together to ensure problem kids are dealt with and the easily influenced are influenced in the right direction.

Its easy to look at a group of kids wearing baseball caps and hoodies as a bunch of yobs and amongst them there probably are a couple of arseholes, but generally the hangers on are just trying to fit in with their peer group. As they grow up, if they have had exposure to more positive people, roles models and influencers, they will probably end up normal productive people.

If you paint broad brushstokes and tar all teenagers, who look similar to each other, with the same brush you are disposing of the both the chaff and the wheat. Some paint the broad strokes along racial lines, or regarding illegal immigrants, or Muslims. Others paint according to hoodies and baseball caps, or age or accent or whether they are a single mum or whatever...

It's easy to do this - to talk like the Daily Mail - but you are taking the easy option if you do. The alternatives take thought, effort and strength of character - something most right wingers lack.

Equally most left wingers lack the honesty to admit that if you dont come down on those kids who try and ruin anything positive then you are failing everyone else. Its no solution to alway apologise for the *upsetters*

Achieving solutions is all about striking the right balance and being clear on exactly what it is we, as a society, are actually trying to achieve. With well thought out goals then we can start working on the solutions.

This involves housing policy changes, grasping economic shifts, education, benefits, policing and the courts. Any one taken on their own will solve nothing.

 

Just been listening to the radio whilst on my travels this morning, the news was full of stories about gangs of youths roaming the streets and attacking people. In the north west alone in the last few weeks we've had a gang of youths killing a chinese take-away owner in wigan, numerous accounts of serious bodily harm and of course the machester teacher who fired a pellet gun around a gang of youths that had been a menace for months; she got a jail sentence and has now been sacked from her school. The is something going seriously wrong in this country, it fills me with dread whats going to happen in next few years. Worst of all, these little shats are probably the most fertile humans in society and thus will multiply at an alarming rate.

 

The curates egg.

This is what Tony thinks will address some of the hot button topics discovered on the doorsteps prior to the election. At such a high level overview It all sounds so good at such but once Paxo gets stuck into the low level detail on Newsnight then the picture might change some.

 

Exactly.

Back in the day, people physically unable to work would be in a sanitarium or dead, IIRC. That was a harsh fact of life. Remember - I'd have been there too, being partially sighted, as I'd have got zero-ed from the system.

That's why I said "most children" and thus emplying "most" mothers - not all. Maybe I should have said "some" - though based on what I see round Exmouth and Exeter, that SHOULD stand as "most". I'm not saying ALL people who live on council estates are wasters - of course they're not. It's the ones who single out a life of dossing, with (female) or without (male) a kid to finance it that I'm having a snipe at.

In the 1980s when my mum were too skint to buy tights some weeks (no joke) and dad's car (needed for work) was on its last legs, Wayne and Waynetta, 10 minutes walk away in Southway council estate (Plymouth) had 1 car per 17+ adult, a BSkyB satellite dish, and posh clothes. Funny how people there in social housing can afford all that while people like my folks were bustin' their onions and getting nothing much in return. In that respect, my viewpoint was always "if you can afford a satellite dish, you can afford to pay proper rent for a normal house". Sorry if that's harsh.

As for things I know little about - my "slapper" mum was 18 when she dropped me. Since the lazy cow made no attempt to try to contact the father (1 night stand or pure carelessness - who knows?) I can only thank God for being adopted. I don't know if she was council or private, and I don't much care either. Knowingly spawning a disabled kid is pretty fekking low if you ask me (she had a congenital X-linked syndrome that WAS diagnosed in 1975, despite what my adoptive folks try to placate me with when I "diss" natural mum). I'm not saying I'd want to be dead, as my disability's not that bad, but she knew she was having a disabled kid and had one anyway. I'd have had a termination.... I've managed to live with the disability, but this is one simple reason I'll NEVER have a kid - it's not fair on them (my daughters'd pass it on to their sons, and any son I had would have it - IIRC). I could care less if someone calls me selfish for not wanting kids, but no-one has the right to tell me what my opinion of my birth mother should be.

As for Mein Kampf - that's funny. One, I'm "brunette", two, disabled. Oh- and three - Cornish. Therefore not arian race, and dead if the Nazis had won. As for racial prejudice and all that rubbish - when you're always having the pee ripped out of you for a visible disability, the last thing you're going to condone is singling other minorities out - think about it.

Back on track - the whole situation is tricky. I mean, what *is* the cause of the problem that gets some lazy git to get pregnant and drop out on our tab? It might not be their parents' fault - peer pressure perhaps?

If you take this benefits doss to its logical conclusion, there'll be a small fraction of workers paying out 99% tax, while everyone else sponges. Something has to give.

I know the birthrate in the UK is falling - given 30 years there'll be enough space reclaimed that the UK won't feel crowded any more OK - that's being silly now!

 

You should have kept it in the fridge.

 

Damn - got there before the edit! Mind you - that book IS dripping in BS.

 

dom, youv'e used my name with with the thrird quote but its not mine, please amend. ta

BTW love to have a chat over a few beer with you on this.

I do agree there should be a welfare system in place to look after the elderly who have put much into the system, the dissabled, and the between jobs (max 1yr).

One problem (and the pc will have a go here) is the ever growing poulation of ecconomic or religeus migrators. Generally people are having less children (I have none and don't want any) but there is an element breeding with a purpose (FACT - one part of Islam is to breed other religions out), have 4-5+ children send them home to marry a stranger who in turn moves back here to have another 4-5+ who in turn marry abroad bring them back and so on. These 4-5+ children are all supported by the state as one of the partners is unable to work due to language issues, if its the guy, when the kids come no one works! Do not brand me a racist for this, I am not and have close asian friends with a similar atitude to me on this, the last true racists are the ones with their hands out like Hamsa whilst preaching his warped hatred and plotting violence against the hand that feeds, and as a country we are stupid enough to keep paying them.

 

Sorry but that is very general and arguably incorrect.

I can say without a shadow of a doubt that my little one is much better off attending a decent nursery full time where he mixes with other kids and is cared for and taught by fully qualified staff than he would be at home full time with either me or my wife. The kind of attention the kids receive and the variety of things they do and are taught is excellent and they receive regular assessment of their development.

I’m sure not all nurseries are as good but if I thought for a minute he’d be better off at home with me I’d give up work immediately as we don’t need two incomes. As it is, I’m able to work (and stay sane), he gets a great start in life and the extra (notable) income means we don’t have any money worries and will soon be able to move to a nice big house with plenty of space for him to play in.

Matt.

 

Also, children are very different; what works for one might be disastrous for another. For that reason we sent our two to different secondary schools. My one serious regret about their education is not taking our younger daughter out of a primary school that was clearly failing her (though it had suited her elder sister very well). I'd add that anyone who is not a parent is not really in any position to comment on those of us who are.