Civil War by any other name? Youth Versus...

[Bandidoz]

Looters could have been could rounded up, herded into deignated areas, parks with barbed wire fencing, and processed at will.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMHDBL7CNA4

We'll round them up...
Put them in a field.....

[Little John]

Discontented Youth...?

No - disrespectful youth. A whole fecking army of them waiting to be manipulated to join a crusade. We've seen two this week:

1) Opportunists who have realised that the police can't be everywhere at once, and using that to their advantage.

2) Right Wing Nazi thugs, spoiling for a fight, now having something to get all righteous about.

We have to be very careful what we say about intergenerational injustice; it will be seized on by the hard-of-thinking as an excuse for bad behaviour and the associated riots will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I'd agree with your analysis that the young are rebels, as yet, without a cause. However, they have good reason to be rebellious and that reason wont go away. Remaining silent won't help. Making sure they rebel for the right reason will.

[emordnilap]

Indeed.

We're in the middle of a situation which Cameron can use to the benefit of himself and the right-wing: the classic never-let-a-good-crisis-go-to-waste shock doctrine.

Alternatively, we can all hope that some good will come of it all; the water is muddy yet though.

[Little John]

Indeed.

We're in the middle of a situation which Cameron can use to the benefit of himself and the right-wing: the classic never-let-a-good-crisis-go-to-waste shock doctrine.

Alternatively, we can all hope that some good will come of it all; the water is muddy yet though.

Yep

The worst that can come of this is that our leaders persuade enough of us to put up with a futher loss of our freedoms in return for greater "security".

Which brings to mind a quote by someone, I can't remember who....

"Those who would give up their freedoms in return for security deserve neither"

[DominicJ]

Your faith in Davids abilities is inspiring.....

[ujoni08]

@Steve, very well said.

[Lord Beria3]

First of all, I object to the title. The 'youth' of Britain are not rioting, the vast majority of appalled by the violence as much as other age groups. A tiny minority of youth are causing violence on the streets, they do not represent the youth of Britain.

Secondly, there is an assumption here that the middle classes will join future riots against the government. This is a fatally wrong assumption because the middle classes have a stake in the current system (many are property owners) and have no desire to join any 'revolution'. The most likely long-term political impact of the violence is to encourage a move towards far-right fascistic movements like the 20/30s in Europe.

Hitler and Mussolini came to power on the back of similar scenes of violence on the street, mass unemployment, inflation and a general collapse of faith in our political class. Sound similar? Of course, other countries saw takeovers by conservative and military elites instead of brownshirts (a more likely future for the UK in my opinion) but the general Rightwing trend is common.

So the prospects of a left-wing revolution are small indeed.

[An Inspector Calls]

People who were born in the West just post the 2nd world war were the luckiest generation alive, ever. This is not to castigate them for their good fortune. I am merely stating facts. They bought into our economy at the very bottom in terms of asset prices. In particular, house prices. In real terms, even when you take into account monetary debasement due to inflation, house prices were fantastically low for this post war generation.

On top of the above was the "job for life" many of this generation enjoyed. They were born into a world where, if you kept you nose clean, if you kept you head down and worked hard, you could be guaranteed a decent private pension and a house that was affordable for one major wage earner. However, if you were not a big wage earner, you could be guaranteed to be looked after by the state in terms of cheap housing, healthcare, education and, finally, a state pension that would allow you to live a dignified old age. Beverage's "cradle to grave" society, in other words.

I don't buy this vision of the past at all.

Just in terms of asset prices, particularly house prices. The ratio of average incomes to house prices seems better now than previously. When we bought our first house we had to have a 20 % deposit, and we could only get a mortage at a rate of 2.5 times our joint income. many building societies made no allowance for a wife's income at all, reducing the ratio to 2. The mortgage interest rate was 7.5 % at the time, and soon went up to 15 % for a short period.

I look at the average salaries of today (male £30,000, female £25,000) and local housing stock and there's plenty of housing available, similar to what we bought on that salary multiple - at that price range. It won't be a nice, neat, three-bedroom, in a desirable area, but then we couldn't afford that either.

Oh, and we didn't get a house until we were 30 - too busy saving the deposit.

Job for LIfe - you must be joking - you must have missed Thatcher.

As for pension: well, yes, I'll get a good pension. Could be that's because I'm saving 25 % of salary per annum to do it.

The guy downsizing his house? Seems perfectly reasonable to me. he's disposing of his wealth before he dies - in other words, he's doing his damndest to die beyond his means - the perfect solution!

Support organisations such as NHS, education were better? Come off it, the NHS is now huge and if you can write your name you can go to university - probably as a lecturer!

Perhaps the younger generation needs to get real on their expectations of life and not assume it's going to be handed to them on a plate? Judging by their levels of personal debt, I rather think it's them that's living off the older generation as we watch soaring inflation and low interest rates destroy savings and pensions?

[cubes]

The worst that can come of this is that our leaders persuade enough of us to put up with a futher loss of our freedoms in return for greater "security".

Which brings to mind a quote by someone, I can't remember who....

"Those who would give up their freedoms in return for security deserve neither"

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

I believe this is the quote you're looking for.

[JavaScriptDonkey]

Just in terms of asset prices, particularly house prices. The ratio of average incomes to house prices seems better now than previously. When we bought our first house we had to have a 20 % deposit, and we could only get a mortage at a rate of 2.5 times our joint income. many building societies made no allowance for a wife's income at all, reducing the ratio to 2. The mortgage interest rate was 7.5 % at the time, and soon went up to 15 % for a short period.

I look at the average salaries of today (male £30,000, female £25,000) and local housing stock and there's plenty of housing available, similar to what we bought on that salary multiple - at that price range. It won't be a nice, neat, three-bedroom, in a desirable area, but then we couldn't afford that either.

As for pension: well, yes, I'll get a good pension. Could be that's because I'm saving 25 % of salary per annum to do it.

Perhaps that is the case in your part of the country.

To buy the very average house I grew up in now would cost you the thick end of £350,000. A 20% deposit would be £70,000 and you would need a salary of £112,000 to buy it with a 2.5 mortgage.

That's just a 2 & a box council semi completely out of the buying range of the majority of wage earners.

I remember a few years ago a news piece showing that the average house was beyond the purchasing means of the average couple throughout nearly all of the SE. Sussex, Kent, Surrey, most of Hampshire and of course London.

15% pa interest on £20,000 calls for no holiday and maybe a second job.
15% pa interest on £200,000 is a deal breaker.

[Bandidoz]

I've split all the discussion about whether people can afford a house in the North East to here -> http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/vie ... hp?t=19070

[PS_RalphW]

Inspector,

My brother is 55, got his first job at 19, and changed employer once a couple of years ago without moving desks when his job was privatised. He got a full, inflation proof pension from his old job, and a pay rise in his new one.

My dad changed jobs twice, once in 1945 to become a teacher, then back to his previous employer (also my brother's ex-employer) a year later. The MOD.

I bought my first house for 45k when interest rates were 15% , and sold it 7 years later for 30k. I have had 6 jobs in 25 years, contributing to a pension pot for the last 10.

I do not expect to receive a pension when I 'retire', not a private one, or a government one. They will be history after the economic collapse and demographic bubble this country is facing. I very much doubt you will see a penny of your pension pot ever again.

[woodpecker]

I'd say the generation who benefited are in their 70's now. So would have been born in the 30s or early 40s.

Very few have been able to retire at 50 with a full pension. So we are talking about someone retiring at 60+, someone who faced the job market *before* the 1970s, and someone who was able to buy a substantial home *before* 1974 (the first big price rise in property). If they were born after the war, they would have had to buy a first home when they were extremely young to avoid that. And of course they would have to have been male: women were hardly able to buy property or take out debt until the late 70s (with equality legislation), and certainly didn't benefit from jobs, good salaries and pensions. Indeed many of them were forced to leave the job they had (if they got married).

[Prono 007]

Are we seeing a true uprising?

Discontented Youth...

Discuss?

Absolutely. Of course the mainstream media have gone overboard into trying to provide a false narrative to what has happened. There has been a virtual media blackout on what the rioters and their supporters actually think (though no shortage of people wanting to come forward according to one World Service journalist - who then failed to interview any of them).

I've heard several first hand accounts on radio chat shows. The message is always the same. They are f***ed off with the police, police powers and stop and search. They feel disrespected by their elders and the rest of society. They have no chance to find work. Some have also mentioned the cuts. In Harringey for instance this lead directly to the closure of 8 youth centres. The youths then ended up on the streets where they were subjected to continual police harassment and abuse (racist comments, such as being arrested for no real reason).

One guy, who said he didn't join the riots only because they didn't happen in his area, said with or without the shooting of Mark Duggan this was going to happen anyway such is the level of disaffection.

Of course after it became apparent that the police were just letting people smash stuff etc with no intervention word obviously got out to a wider section of society. No doubt some of these were just out for themselves but how many they were will probably be hard/impossible to ascertain. The hatred of police does seem to be the common theme though.

The demographic from those captured is something like 90% are unemployed in London. Most are young people.

Last night on C4 news there was a sob story about an old age pensioner who would be plunged into fuel poverty by the recent rises. She gets £160 pw. Young unemployed people get just £42.50 pw, almost a quarter of that which this poor OAP was getting. I don't actually know how people can live on that. That's £6 a day for food, bills, transport and everything. It's hardly surprising that people try to grab free stuff whenever they see the chance. If I had only £42.50 a week I'm sure I would too.

So in answer to the question yes I do see it as an uprising but not in a coordinated, revolutionary kind of way. It's an outpouring of shared anger felt felt by a specific demographic and it's no surprise that it comes after a deep recession and the draconian cuts of the Tory party.

Listen to those involved (if you get the chance) and not the BS narrative so generously rammed down our throats by the corporate media. They're the only ones who really know why they were out on the streets.

[madibe]

Hi Prono,

Interesting to hear an alternative take on this; as you say the media in general has focused mainly on the outrage and little on the background - which I suppose is to be expected.

It is unfortunate though, that when the dicontented where given voice the selection provided by the media consisted of 'nutters' and the educationally sub-normal. This skews the public perception of 'discontented youth'.

Which begs the question that you hint at: To what extent has this episode been an exercise in political 'priming' or manouvering?

Whatever the answer to that question, it is unfortunate that ordinary folk and small business suffered at the hands of the mob, rather than the true culprits of their dissaffection.