5haz do you understand what £4Trillion of national debt means? It means the country is broke.

... and by the way I spent most of my youth in council estates with benefit claimants. I was your typical youth - getting chased by gangs, friends getting stabbed, friends getting arrested for drugs.. Don't think I'm some toff rich kid. They got plentiful opportunity for jobs etc... Life was hell, but not an excuse for what we're witnessing. I'm fed up of apologists. it's bollox. they have so much opportunity. Maybe they don't see it or choose not to.

Quote from Electrik Kar :

Who ever went to a 'youth club' when they were kids, or thought that was a cool thing to do? I don't really believe that those kids rioting right now are doing so because they don't have access to public trampolines. I don't really understand it- but I'm inclined to agree with Intrepid here if kids on the dole in that part of the world are anything like the kids on the dole in mine.

Adults find something to do and then go out, kids go out and then find something to do.

I am not saying that youth clubs are the only solution, but in a few words I was trying to explain the concept of how we have ended up with a "them & us" situation. I was not highlighting the closure of a youth club as the cause of a riot.

Whilst Intrepid does raise a valid point of personal responsibility controlling personal destiny, the problem there is that this is Britain - a country that feels the need to warn you that peanuts may contain nuts.

I feel that engagement and empowerment is a better solution to that problem, if people have control over their own destiny then they take responsibility for it. You cannot achieve this with an authoritarian response.

Also for those asking for more violence to curb the rioting, may I also say that we have dealt with riots in the past and did not feel the need to shoot people then - so why would we now?

PS: I never saw a trampoline at a youth club.

Unemployment benefit is to tide you over until you get a job, not to live off for a 'real amount of time'.

Its because they are too used to being fully supported by benefits that they do not seek employment. Now that changes are being made to make it more worthwhile to actually be employed rather than on benefits, they don't like it.

Quote from Intrepid :

5haz do you understand what £4Trillion of national debt means? It means the country is broke.

Perhaps that has something to do with three wars which are effectively off budget and bailing out banks when they played with fire and got burned. Also, perhaps if we prioritised compassion over profit then the disorder problem would not be so severe.

Quote from Intrepid :

... and by the way I spent most of my youth in council estates with benefit claimants. Your typical youth - getting chased by gangs, friends getting stabbed, friends getting arrested for drugs.. Don't think I'm some toff rich kid. They got plentiful opportunity for jobs etc... Life was hell, but not an excuse for what we're witnessing. I'm fed up of apologists. it's bollox. they have so much opportunity. Maybe they don't see it or choose not to.

Then why does everything you say sound like its been copied from some pious conservative publication? Funny that you seem to have extensive first hand experience of every subject of debate that comes up on this forum.

There is no excuse for what we're witnessing, but such massive unrest doesn't develop from by itself, you can't deny that there is a cause for these riots. Young people are not naturally conditioned to raid shops and smash windows unless there is a major problem with the structure of contemporary society that is being willfully ignored by the powers that be.

Quote from Bean0 :

Unemployment benefit is to tide you over until you get a job, not to live off for a 'real amount of time'.

Its because they are too used to being fully supported by benefits that they do not seek employment. Now that changes are being made to make it more worthwhile to actually be employed rather than on benefits, they don't like it.

If there are no jobs, then the reality is people will be living off unemployment benefit for a long time. A lot of people seem to think that just because job prospects are good in their area that the situation is consistent everywhere. In some parts of the city there really are no jobs, and to deny that is to be very narrow minded and ignorant.

Do you seriously believe I've taken that from a Tory publication and made it up? Yeah, I make up the fact a friend of mine was stabbed. grow up mate.

And there is no jobs because the economy is ****ed. No govenment can fix that despite what people think. Only thousands independent people with ambition to create a good worthy business and thus wealth can do that.

Well people from London have been getting trains now to the area where I live. Gillingham high street is being trashed, bins set alight, a car torched.. To be fair it will probably give Gillingham a nice make-over and make it look better than it did, but that's not the point.

Edit: 3 cars torched in Chatham now, just down the road. ****, if they come near my house I'm running them all over before they can torch my car.

Quote from Intrepid :

There are communities of people all across the UK who didn't use excuses as to why they were poor. They got on with it, started businesses, become independent, and became part of the community.

Ah the classic land-of-opportunity belief, where the poor must simply be lazy.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Ah the classic land-of-opportunity belief, where the poor must simply be lazy.

Wouldn't say lazy. They just have a different set of motivations. There will always be people attracted to criminality. No amount of youth clubs and state-bribery will stop it... and Britain is still the land of opportunity compared to most countries around the world where starting a business could end you up in jail.

Maybe the first hour of this was a 'demonstration' but after that it's just knobheads smashing and stealing because no-one is stopping them.

Yes, the issues of why it happened need to be discussed, but what's going on is illegal and people's lives and property need to be protected. I'm a huge liberal and pacifist but I think they need to get the hoses and teargas in there and start hauling these ****ers off to jail.

Argh, that never happens in Lithuania. Parlament building windows were smashed once and that's all... Boooooring

Shame i didn't emigrate to London, like majority of Lithuanians...

I'm actually surprised more communities haven't come together to protect their own property like the Turks did. I suspect we might see more of that tonight.

Quote from Intrepid :

Wouldn't say lazy. They just have a different set of motivations. There will always be people attracted to criminality. No amount of youth clubs and state-bribery will stop it...

And how do you explain the fact that these people all seem to live in the same places? And would you go on to postulate that the lack of opportunity in those areas is a symptom of the malaise of the locals rather than a cause, or would that too myopic and preposterous even for you?

Quote from Crashgate3 :

Yes, the issues of why it happened need to be discussed, but what's going on is illegal and people's lives and property need to be protected. I'm a huge liberal and pacifist but I think they need to get the hoses and teargas in there and start hauling these ****ers off to jail.

People need to be protected certainly. Perhaps if most of the police budget wasn't spent on surveillance hardware instead of police officers they might be doing a better job of that.

Quote from Intrepid :

And there is no jobs because the economy is ****ed.

Are there jobs or aren't there? Make your mind up.

Quote from 5haz :

Are there jobs or aren't there? Make your mind up.

Over 10% unemployment in Tottenham. I remember unemployment being around that level nationally when I was about to leave school in 1990 and most people where I lived had little expectation of finding work. It's as bad if not worse now, and we've got another sympathetic tory government to ease the pain...

Quote from 5haz :

Are there jobs or aren't there? Make your mind up.

Hence the second sentence in that paragraph which bemoans a lack of ambition. The opportunities are there to create your own job and your own wealth. These kids don't have to pay for healthcare, for education (up to 18), and for clothes and food. I'm sorry even with a tough job market they've got it so much easier than millions of people around the world.

If you get free healthcare, free education, and then free welfare and still riot... there are no excuses.

There this very lame hope that somehow the government can come in and fix everything. We don't have an abundance of natural resources to subsidise these 'youth programs', it's all pie in the sky. This social experiment of paying for everything seems to produce the same results had they not done anything at all. If not worse. It's the same old bollocks. The same old arguments of the 'ignored youth'.

http://audioboo.fm/boos/434411 ... ooters-on-bbcworldservice

"yh it's the rich people with all the businesses" -yep all those multi-billionaire OAP barbers.

Incidentally Alan what is it that you do for a living?

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Incidentally Alan what is it that you do for a living?

Firstly - None of the your business.

I do many different things. I'm a self-employed jack of all trades. Don't make excuses. I do what needs to be done to get what I want.

Want me to write an article on motorsport for a publication? I've done that! Want me to move your house? done that! Want me to create a website? Done that.

All with some average GSCEs and a lame BTEC Nat Diploma in Popular Music. No bloody excuses. If I fail it's my own bloody fault

So you haven't got a job?

Quote from thisnameistaken :

So you haven't got a job?

I'm self-employed. Did you not read that part?

I do many different things. I like to work for myself as I have more freedom to do what I want and have a bit more spare time.

Just because the number of formal jobs are low doesn't mean the opportunities aren't there. That's my point. It's all excuses.

So are you a registered sole trader or some kind of limited liability organisation?

I was hoping I could see how right wing are you:
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=75560

Do you live your life in some kind of Only Fools and Horses fantasy life, Intrepid? Fancy cleaning a chandelier for me?

I'm getting a sneaking suspicion that our habitual BBC public funding complainer doesn't actually contribute any tax to the economy at all.

Quote from DevilDare :

Are they the people who are going to clean up after?