I predict a riot!!!

[clv101]

http://www.spectator.co.uk/spectator/th ... dren.thtml

A very good article from somebody who actually knows and talks to the criminals and gang members.

The state education system has much to blame for the rise of the underclass.

Great article.

Well I'd agree that education, especially literacy has a major role to play. It's just crazy how poorly educated the bottom quartile end up given the resources invested in education.

[Ludwig]

http://www.spectator.co.uk/spectator/th ... dren.thtml

A very good article from somebody who actually knows and talks to the criminals and gang members.

The state education system has much to blame for the rise of the underclass.

Oh honestly. So were the rioters in 1981 Callaghan's children?

The causes of social unrest are many and various. In this case, it's clear that one reason they got out of hand was the deliberate hands-off approach of the police. There are any numerous possible reasons they took this approach.

One could argue that if the "underclass" hadn't had state benefits there'd be even more of them rioting.

I was more shocked at the behaviour of some of the participants in the student protests last year than with the events last week. Students should know better, the idiots who participated in last week's riots don't.

Since we're on the subject, I'd argue that the lack of social responsibility shown by many young people is as much due to Thatcher's implementation of an ultra-individualist society as to Labour mollycoddling. I'm not denying that the latter built on the former, either. The thing that both governments did wrong in my opinion is to emphasise rights over responsibilities. (I know Thatcher herself claimed to be big on personal responsibility, but her policies sent out the message, "If many fall by the wayside, hard luck to them" - well, you can't expect people who aren't cared about to care about anyone else. Without full employment, a safety net is essential if the country isn't to slip into a scenario of unmanageable crime levels.)

As for educational standards, I agree that these are woeful, and it's clear that the blame lies not in funding of education (which was generous under Labour) but in the fundamental model of our schools, which turns them into competing "businesses" whose sole concern is their individual educational "balance sheets", rather than the less easily measurable factor of how well-educated the populace as a whole is.

[biffvernon]

It's just crazy how poorly educated the bottom quartile end up

It's hard to know whether this is a new phenomenon or was always thus. Clearly the modern world leaves less opportunity for the illiterate and innumerate worker.

The recent research by Melissa Libertus et al on Approximate Number System at John Hopkins Uni supports my long-held view that some kids are born hopeless at maths.

[biffvernon]

it's clear that one reason they got out of hand was the deliberate hands-off approach of the police. There are any numerous possible reasons they took this approach.

I tend towards cock-up rather than conspiracy, but the events have proved a win for the police. The cuts won't happen and and the police are given a raft of new powers. And this morning we hear Sir Hugh Orde telling us that the riots were not the fault of the police but the police stopped them without the help of holidaying politicians.

Sir Hugh Orde denies Theresa May riot claim

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14501236

[DominicJ]

Well I'd agree that education, especially literacy has a major role to play. It's just crazy how poorly educated the bottom quartile end up given the resources invested in education.

Wow, you've almost reached the point where you can accept that "spending more money" doesnt help if you are doing the wrong thing.

The education budget may have doubled, but class sizes are still 30+, schools just now have an outside contractor who runs the chess club, you wouldnt believe what I've seen a school pay for 3 evenings a month of chess club, hint, the fourth week, the coach was on holiday.

I've told you the solution dozens of times, abolish LEAs, give the education budget, equaly divided, amongst everyone 0-21.
Parents arent stupid, even the stupid ones know which schools in the area are good and which ones are hopeless.

[featherstick]

Well I'd agree that education, especially literacy has a major role to play. It's just crazy how poorly educated the bottom quartile end up given the resources invested in education.

Wow, you've almost reached the point where you can accept that "spending more money" doesnt help if you are doing the wrong thing.

The education budget may have doubled, but class sizes are still 30+, schools just now have an outside contractor who runs the chess club, you wouldnt believe what I've seen a school pay for 3 evenings a month of chess club, hint, the fourth week, the coach was on holiday.

I've told you the solution dozens of times, abolish LEAs, give the education budget, equaly divided, amongst everyone 0-21.
Parents arent stupid, even the stupid ones know which schools in the area are good and which ones are hopeless.

Dom, you are making a cardinal error in assuming that everyone is as rational as you. There are plenty of parents around here who a) were 14-15 year old kids themselves when they became parents, b) are (if not actually stupid) functionally illiterate and innumerate, c) refuse to accept that education is a partnership between parents and teachers, not a battle, or a babysitting enterprise, and d) will NOT do the best for their children, as it is too challenging. I've met them. They would very quickly marketise their vouchers for fags and booze, and let their kids run around the streets again.

[Little John]

At the beginning of the industrial revolution we had an empire to pillage

Following the First World War, the game was beginning to be up for the UK. But, we had enough infrastructure and expertise built up over the preceding 100 years or so to be able to live of the fat of it for a while.

Then came the Second World War. Following which the game was more or less fully up for the UK. We just didn't realise it yet. We had the initial bounce of rebuilding following the war but, bit by bit, our economic place in the world slipped away. By the seventies we were in a pretty piss poor place, amply aided and abetted by intransigent unions, I am bound to add.

And then we got Thatcher and monetarism. Thatcher came in at just the right time. North Sea oil was beginning to pay huge dividends. Also, Thatcher had the capacity to sell off the old utilities. All of the above coupled with the big bang deregulation of the city under her tenure meant that for a while, despite the lack of a manufacturing base, we could all party like it was 1984. And so we did. Thatcher's boom years were born basically off the one time draw down of North Sea oil and the one time sell off of all the family silver. I should say, here, that the situation facing the UK, as described above, was more or less mirrored, with local variations, across much of the old Western economies

By the time labour came to power in the late 90s, the cupboard was basically bare. North Sea oil was on the decline and there were no more one time bonanzas to be had from the selling of utilities. All that was left was the financial system built up by Thatcher. Labour knew this and so followed their lead in financial deregulation with gusto. They basically let the market rip. But, so did all of the other Western economics since they were more or less in the same boat. In other words, when everything else had been exhausted, debt was the only engine of "growth" left. Any country that did not join the debt-fuelled party would have been penalised and so everyone was dragged to it kicking and screaming whether they liked it or not.

In other words, if central banks at the behest of governments who lacked the imagination to come up with alternative solutions to our declining position in the world had not made cheap credit so easy to obtain for the commercial banks such that any commercial bank who did not take it would be penalised by their shareholders for not out competing their competitors, if commercial banks had not pushed this down the throats of domestic lenders who were under exactly the same competitive pressures, if domestic lenders had not flooded the only "safe" investment market in town (real estate) with the easy credit, thus putting an inexorably upward pressure on prices, in turn putting exactly the same competitive pressures on Joe Public to take the credit for fear of never being able to buy their own place.......we wouldn't be in the shit we are in.

The only way that a country could even hope to avoid the stupidity of the above scenario would be if it went in for old fashioned economic/social engineering that was supposed to have been swept away by the likes of Thatcher/Regan and the neo-con agenda. Indeed, I find it ironic that the very people who would criticise the likes of New-Labour for the above policies often tend to be the same people who would be the cheerleaders for the kind of economic and political landscape that made Labour’s debt-fuelled growth strategy and the economic strategy of political parties like them the only show in town in much of the Western world over the last few decades.

Germany is one example of the kind of country that, at least partially, held onto its manufacturing base by investing heavily at the state level in all of the infrastructure necessary to succeed on such terms. Do you remember how they were vilified throughout the nineties and early noughties as belonging to an "old Europe" that had no place in this shiny new world of endless, debt fuelled growth? Having said all of the above, Germany has played it's own monetary inflationary games by exporting much of it to peripheral EU countries and so has its own trouble right now with the Euro. But, that's another story.

I guess central the point I am making, is that there is no escape from the matrix unless you are fully prepared to destroy it with all of the consequences that entails. To the extent that New-Labour did not do that they are responsible. But, no more or less than the rest of the Western world's governments.

So what’s all this got to do with the current riots?


Absolutely everything, I would argue.




Got to go to work.

Will continue this later.

[DominicJ]

Featherstick
Treat someone like a child, and they will act like one.

Before the government began funding education and made attendance compulsary, 95% of children went to some sort of school.
Even if they didnt have shoes to wear there.

The problem with your argeument is, you havent argued where mine is worse, or yours is better.

Could some parents use their childs educational funds for beer and fags, yeah, probably.
Do you think those children get an education today?

Some children are just born ****ed.
The difference is, in my system, the ones currently doomed to attending the local comprehensive, will have an option of something better.

[Mean Mr Mustard]

It's just crazy how poorly educated the bottom quartile end up

It's hard to know whether this is a new phenomenon or was always thus. Clearly the modern world leaves less opportunity for the illiterate and innumerate worker.

The recent research by Melissa Libertus et al on Approximate Number System at John Hopkins Uni supports my long-held view that some kids are born hopeless at maths.

Biff, Chris,

Being curious about my maths aptitude, or lack of it, I checked out the reference. Took this test -

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008 ... APHIC.html

and scored 97% over 50 questions. Seemingly exceptional ANS, as the norm is 75%. But it's only a visual acuity thing. Despite good attitude at school etc, with A Graded English O level, I only scraped a CSE level 3 in maths, and still freeze at the sight of algebra and equations. For me, the correlation just isn't there as they claim.

Attitude comes before Aptitude - but to succeed, you need both. Bad attitude = failure...

[biffvernon]

Will continue this later.

Good

[Mean Mr Mustard]

At the beginning of the industrial revolution we had an empire to pillage... ...So what’s all this got to do with the current riots?

Absolutely everything, I would argue.

Steve,

Exceptional synthesis. Keep it going! My 2/6d (in old money) -

The UK was a net energy importer from 1950 to 1980, at its most vulnerable in 1974, production at 4Ej outstripped by consumption at 9Ej. (~44 % self sufficient.) This was briefly reversed, at the 1999 oil peak gaining ~120% self sufficiency, (12Ej over 10Ej) since relapsing as fields have depleted, with coal production all but ceased. This position further compounded by future decommissioning of aged nuclear generating capacity...

I think we just saw the first 'Alex Scarrow event' in our bigger picture catabolic collapse. JMG recently wrote - "...the foreshortening of history cuts both ways; it makes small but sudden events look more important than they are, and it also helps hide slow but massive shifts that will play a much greater role in shaping the future."

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/ ... lapse.html

[Totally_Baffled]

Yep very good post Steve +1

[DominicJ]

I dont believe we just saw an "alex scarrow event".

The looters were scum who wanted sportswear and games consoles, not ordinary people who wanted food. Although apparently there were families out looting Lidls.

So far there have been 1,500 arrests.
So lets say say 15,000 people took part?

Now imagine next time, there are 150,000 people taking part, and they arent after some trainers, they are after food for their starving children.

[clv101]

I dont believe we just saw an "alex scarrow event".

The looters were scum who wanted sportswear and games consoles, not ordinary people who wanted food. Although apparently there were families out looting Lidls.

So far there have been 1,500 arrests.
So lets say say 15,000 people took part?

Now imagine next time, there are 150,000 people taking part, and they arent after some trainers, they are after food for their starving children.

Indeed the magnitude of this event was tiny. Don't think we can learn much about any serious event from this.

[stumuzz]

At the beginning of the industrial revolution we had an empire to pillage

East India Company built on trade, not pillaging.

Following the First World War, the game was beginning to be up for the UK.

Roaring twenties, the phrase emphasises the period's social, artistic, and cultural dynamism, or as you put it ‘the game was almost up’

Then came the Second World War. Following which the game was more or less fully up for the UK. We just didn't realise it yet.

Following the end of World War II, there was a long interval without a major recession (1945–1973) or as you put it “the game was more or less fully up for the UK”

then we got Thatcher and monetarism

Thatcher, created social leveling never seen previously in the UK. She told poor boys from poor backgrounds that they could get where they wanted to go on merit. It did not matter where you came from, what school tie you wore or who your parents were.
These are poor boys who today are millionaires, been the first in their family to go to university and changing the life chances of their children because of Thatcher.

Steve, your essay is little more than ideological loaded opinion. It is so wide and general it becomes far too easily challenged. Like you, I have work to do.