General Chat

just seen the news
and labour think thy have all the answers pmsl twice
shame they didnt sort it when they were in power


funny as its their fault things are this bad

The more I think about it..the more i think that knowing the consequences are so harsh WOULD make the majority think twice before doing it again.

Just musing out loud.......

BUT if this lad was aware that his actions could've lost his mother and his sister as well as him their home...would he have been less likely to loot/riot? Instead of thinking he had nothing so no one could touch him as he had nothing to lose? Or that there would be no consequences to his behaviour?...or whatever the hell it was that was going through his head when he walked into that shop? x

My sympathy is also with the victims Joy, always, but does moving the problem to another place sort the problem out? It's the same as those happy to evict the travellers because they don't want it on their doorsteps, it's only moving the problem on to someone else's doorstep, then they move them on and a vicious cycle begins, while the problem is still there.

I will also say, I will admit I haven't seen anything about the mother being in arrears with her rent, but plenty of reports on the kind of person she actually is, which is pretty much the kind of model parent and member of the community we are all asking these people to be.

Yes it can be argued that the 18 year old should have thought of his family first, and that goes without saying, but there is still a 6 year old involved in this, and eviction will only serve to destabilise her life. Does she deserve that? Does she really deserve to be made to take the punishment for her brother's crimes?

If the mother is in arrears with her rent, then I can only sympathise. Please don't assume that if someone is in arrears it's because they can't be bothered to pay. Money is in short supply, and housing is damn expensive in that area. Housing benefit, IF she was in receipt of it, does NOT cover the whole rent, in spite of what others may think. Lots of people are losing their homes during this recession, for a multitude of reasons. I have every sympathy with someone who is clearly struggling to keep a roof over their head.

Sorry, but I cannot take the hard line and just endorse throwing a 6 year old out of their home, probably breaking up her family, her school life, taking her away from her friends and so on. It's not right, and won't serve any purpose.

I think at the moment lots of people are in debt on their rent or mortgage...decent people who have had a good wage and lost it... so while that's regrettable there may be circumstances which mitigate having that debt..I don't know in this case what those reasons 'could' be.

I would expect he will be convicted and in prison, rather than living with his mother where ever she is , so don't see the point in moving her out?

well why dont they just give the mother a choice
he goes or they all go after all he lives under her roof
and why does she owe £1806.09 rent arrears
right figure of the comunity she is

maybe it will make him think before he acts next time

sorry but my sympathys with the vicims
i am on a anti social behaviour focus group run by the local housing ascosiation and if a tenent has been evicted through anti social behavior
or the ASB of somebody living at the address
they do not have to rehouse them

Yeah most likely...but it all comes down to the rights with responsiblities issue again.

She'd shout from the rooftops if the Council failed to keep to their side of the contract......works both ways.

As i say...not convinced one way or another on this...but her attitude hasn't helped my stance.

It still doesn't address the problem though. The council still have to rehouse them BY LAW because of the 6 year old girl. They cannot legally make a minor homeless, no matter what the reason.

It is also the same council that has to rehouse them, so in all, it achieves nothing, it's just political posturing, nothing more. There are plenty of convicted criminals under the same council who have not been evicted.

I can't comment on the tenancy agreement, as I haven't seen it, but many councils (and private landlords) do have somethng similar. If they were going to act on that agreement, then councils should have made it a normal course of action long ago, not suddenly bring it into force now.

I'm sorry, but I see this as a kneejerk reaction, and does nothing to solve the problem. It won't help to make people homeless, it will give the thugs another excuse.

The conditions state that no one living at the property should ‘do anything which causes or is likely to cause a nuisance’ or commit ‘an arrestable offence’. It also points out that the family is £1,806.09 in arrears with their rent.

....read this earlier......

I guess they're legally within their rights to evict judging from the above.

I'm not set 100% on this issue one way or another btw...but I'm edging towards agreeing with it when I also read about her spurting bile about police brutality and lack of human rights for her little darling.

Joy, he's 18, he's an adult ...it may be tempting to think of one's child as a child still at 18...but he's not, he's a grown man responsible for his own actions... his young sister is being evicted from her home...why? she's done nothing to deserve it surely..

The mother is a well known community figure, working for community projects and charities, a churchgoer and the kind of example we think parents should be. She also as a 6 year old daughter.

Is it really fair that she is evicted? We dont' all know what our kids are up to, and it's easy for people so say they should, but it's not always possible...kids do lie to their parents,

This eviction trend, will not only exacerbate an existing problem but as there are children involved, the council has to BY LAW rehouse them. So is this just a PR exercise by the council. I think it is.

my heart bleeds for that woman who might be evicted NOT
when her child who was her responsibility
never gave a monkeys flip flop
about the innocent people made homeless
by the mindless action of the rioters

Re the woman who is being evicted...is it her fault that her adult son has commited a crime? arguable... it certainly isn't her younger child's fault and she may be the one made to suffer.

Isn't the point that ( much as I hate to quote DC) "if you're old enough to commit the crime you're old enough to receive the punishment" ie YOU, not anyone else taking responsibilty for your actions... isn't that why a lot get into trouble in the first place? that 'someone else' can always be blamed?

Ah, but Pamela, I thought we'd agreed they were Britton's words and not mine. I opened my post quoting what Britton said, no comment from me about whether or not I agreed with him, just a straight quote from the man himself

My point was and still is that Britton will be saying things that Cameron may not want to hear.

That's the point I tried to bring to the discussion and have been misunderstood twice. This is becoming tedious, so I'll leave it there.

Ah but you did mention assertive policing Guinevere....you opened your comments by quoting "if the police had been pulled back from assertive policing" etc. etc.

Hi Pamela (sorry for the mistake before), I thought you'd misunderstood my point because you mentioned Tony Blair was in power in 1997 in response to my first post. I replied that he had nothing to do with what I was saying. I was talking about the USA and Britton's actions there in 1997.

I also didn't mention anything about the police being assertive or aggressive (I do know there is a difference) what I said was that Britton's belief is that community policing is the long term solution to violence in the inner cities. Community policing is expensive and Cameron is intent on cutting police funding, although a lot of people in his own party don't think that's a good idea either it has emerged in recent days.

I also believe our own police probably have a better idea of how to solve problems in the UK than Britton, as several high ranking officers said yesterday

Gwynne

i think its still early days for Cameron
he is still trying to put right the mess the labour government left behind
he is doing the best
i also wonder if labour would of tryed to continue
to sweep that mess under the carpet as it did whilst in government
if they had won the last election i dread to think :-(

I think you have missed my point Guinevere (and my name's not Pauline by the way).

Surely even the community police have to be assertive otherwise what is the point of having any police at all? If it is against the law to,say, drive while using a mobile phone and the police (community or otherwise) see someone doing this they ought to be assertive and stop it.

If the police are not allowed to be assertive, then more estates will become "no go" areas.

It is possible to be assertive without being aggressive and the two should not be confused.

You seem to have misunderstood my point, Pauline. Bratton was talking about a situation in the USA and his view was that assertive policing (such as happened here after the riots and claimed as a victory by Cameron) is counter-productive long term.

His view is that community policing is the long term solution - not what The Tories want to hear right now.

The quote is nothing at all to do with Blair in 1997.

Gwynne

When me and my husband was in Singapore the PMs son was community work because he thown paper on the ground could not believe it, but I think the goverment have got to look at the human rights bill again and amend it. Mrs Blair made a mint out of that and untill we get that right things wont change.

That woman who might be evicted from her council flat is already sprouding her human rights.