The Future Of The UK, Uneducated & Chav Populated

There's a Facebook group of this name, who say;

The key is two government policies which are totally messed up, namely the cut in child benefit and the cut in unviersity places and funding.

That would be "is that there are two government policies"

If you are not familiar with these cuts, they propose that families who earn over £44,000 per year will no longer receive Child Benefit where as lower income families will continue to receive it. University funding will also be cut forcing a reduction in the amount of available places for students wishing to go to university.

I was fairly certain the policy was if there was ONE person earning over £44k there'd be no Child Benefit, rather than families earning over £44k.

It seems that the fact some families can earn nearly £88k and still get Child Benefit when others - where say the mother stays at home and the father earns £45k - won't get Child Benefit is where the actual arguments have started.

So if you put this into reality this will create a society where people who are higher earners will think twice about having a child, as the cost of the upbringing will have to be covered solely be them, where as a lower income family will not think twice about having another child as the cost of its upbringing will be met by the government in the form of child benefit and tax credit payments.

I think that the latter part of your suggested future is already happening.

If a single woman has more than one child, she is moved higher up the Council Housing ladder. You may also be interested in reading about these women who get quite substantial amounts of Child Benefit.

Also, if I were part of a family of higher income tax payers, just how much difference would my £20.30 (for first or only child, £13.40 thereafter) really make in my decision to have a child?

So what does this mean for the future of the UK, simple. The UK will end up being an uneducated, underachieving nation.

As opposed to now?

I ask you has the government never here the term "spend money to make money", if you increase university places, you get more educated people, who in term get better jobs, earn money money and pay more taxes, likewise if higher earners continue to propogate they will, in most cases, produce children who will also go on to be high earners and again pay more taxes.

Hell of a sentence there fella, you might want to start using full stops. Oh and "here the term" should be "heard the term" and then put a question mark after "money", okay?

If you increase University places, you do not necessarily get more educated people. If you apply a reasonable entrance requirement, you could easily end up with less people doing degrees. However, for the sake of argument, let's assume that increasing University places will increase the number of people with degrees.

If you increase the supply of something, without increasing the demand, the price of that object will fall. This is basic economic theory. If you increase the number of University graduates without increasing the number of jobs specifically aimed at University graduates, then the graduates will not get a higher salary than someone without a degree.

What you may do is make a degree a requirement for the most menial of jobs, as employers can pick and choose, meaning that graduates actually get paid less as a result of increasing University places. People without degrees - as people whose skill level is worth less than the minimum wage currently - will not be employed. The higher the entry requirements to work, the more people will be unemployed, the higher the tax burden on those with jobs to pay for them.

But I think the UK will end up being a CHAV populated benefit run society.

Which is, I think, where we were headed under Labour.

And I speak as someone who is unemployed, old enough to remember the horror of living under some of Thatcher's regime, and lived in the North of England when everything was shut down. I'm what was called a traditional Labour voter. Then NuLabour came in and frankly destroyed the country. While I don't agree with some of the Coalition's policies - nor the actual way in which this one is being rolled out - I do not agree with anything you have written. And I'm not going to join your Facebook group either.

Educating Ritas, Bobs & Sues.

According to the Local Government Association Chair, Baroness Eaton, children need schools to be "safe, clean and attractive places in which they can learn."

Why? Okay, so I understand the safe bit as it can be distracting learning your times tables when someone is stabbing you - although there is research suggesting you learn things better when you are under stress - but do children really need clean and attractive places to learn?

We live in clean houses, with double glazing and central heating. Kids are kept inside to avoid them being raped and killed by paedophiles. They don't experience the dirt & germs of a normal childhood. A friend of mine used to lick the gravel in his garden as a kid, he's a healthy adult now. There was one kid with asthma in my entire school, the incidence has gone up a bit since then. Keeping kids in clean environements hasn't really helped them being healthy, I think a bit of dirt in their schools may actually help.

What point is there in making a school attractive? First of all, attractive to whom? The children, their parents or the staff? Because I doubt you're going to make anything attractive to all three of those groups. Something children find attractive - young children particularly - is likely to be life-threateningly gaudy for the teachers. Something parents find attractive is likely to be dull and disappointing to children. And something teachers find attractive is likely to be worrying to parents and scary to children.

If school is part of the way in which children are prepared for work, then schools should be dull. Classrooms lacking in stimulation should allow teachers to provide the only point of interest for children to focus on - education. You want to look at pretty walls? Go to an art gallery.

Perhaps it's my hatred of children leaking out again, but I do feel kids these days are mollycoddled and over stimulated. Part of my childhood was being bored, and I deal with being bored now much better because of it: I can make my own amusement. 13hr car trip? No worries, I can do something to amuse myself on the way. I don't need to watch a DVD or play handheld computer games to deal with the trip.

So Baroness Eaton, while I understand your attempt to grab money for schools, you may want to use a better argument.

Perhaps I'm Horrified At The Wrong Part

Read this story (the link is from the Daily Mail, I read it in the Metro) yesterday on the way to work, and couldn't work out what was bothering me about it.

The headteacher of a primary school where London Mayor Boris Johnson sends one of his children has been suspended over claims he watched pornography in his office

Having reflected on the above information, I realised that it wasn't those facts that bothered me. The story is obviously old (suspended in October last year), the reason for the suspension is obvious (pr0n at work is "bad", when your workplace is a school this is obviously doubleplus bad), and the first paragraph mention of Boris Johnson is being used to justify the exposure the story is getting now.

No, none of that bothered me.

This, bit, however, did.

Jay Henderson, 35, is awaiting the outcome of a disciplinary inquiry possibly due this week.

35?!?! Thirty fucking five? And he's the fucking headmaster? What the fuck? How? Shouldn't he only have progressed to head of year or something? How old are the rest of the teachers? Twelve?

As I said, I think I may have been horrified by completely the wrong part of this story.

Tom Harris MP

A Labour MP at that, it should be noted at the outset, has a posting on his blog that he has labelled "political suicide". I shall leave you to determine just why it would be labelled as such after you read it.

From here

The return of morality
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

When Carolyn was in hospital, having just delivered us of wee Reggie, a very young girl in the bed opposite was also celebrating the arrival of her newborn. As was her proud father, who made great play to anyone who might have been listening (me) of how proud he was of his daughter. She was, I guess, about 16.

I don’t think he should have been ashamed. And it’s great that this youing girl had such a loving dad to support her.

But proud? Proud that his teenage daughter was not only sexually active but was now a mother? Proud that any chance of a decent education, followed by a decent job, was now remote at best? Proud that she was, in all likelihood, about to embark on a lifetime of depending on benefit handouts for her and her child?

I’m a Labour MP, so some will undoubtedly be surprised, and shocked that I’m writing this. But I can no longer pretend that the army of teenage mothers living off the state is anything other than a national catastrophe.

A previous commenter on this site got it spot on: many (though not all) teenage girls do not become pregnant accidentally because of ignorance, because of a lack of understanding of how their bodies work. They become pregnant because they have absolutely no ambition for themselves. They have been indoctrinated with the lie that they’ll never amount to anything, and have fulfilled that prophesy by making no effort to achieve any qualification. Very often they live with parents (or a parent) who have no jobs themselves, who are setting the example of benefit dependency for all their offspring.

Such young women see parenthood as one way of achieving a level of independence and self-worth. And they’re right, because that’s more or less what they get: a flat and therefore some privacy, an income for the first time in their lives. And in fact, many of them make a decent job of parenthood despite the awful circumstances. But even they are nevertheless rearing the next generation in an environment where the main adult isn’t working, but claiming.

I was lucky. I was brought up in a relatively poor household, but both my parents worked for most of the time I was growing up. When my dad was out of work in the early ’80s, he was depressed because he felt a responsibility to earn money to provide for his family. And so he started up his own business and got back on his feet. That’s the example I and my brothers and sister were lucky enough to have set for us.

A few years back I was shopping for CDs in Tower Records in Glasgow of a Saturday evening. It must have been about ten at night. Outside there were two very young girls, about 15, all dressed up for a night out. Apart from the fact that wherever they intended to go, they were clearly too young to drink, there was only one problem: one of them was pushing a pram. The child inside was a few weeks old.

This horrified me. It was wrong. There is right and wrong and it is wrong for anyone to choose to have a child without knowing what’s involved in its upbringing, without being prepared to sacrifice your own lifestyle for it.

That father in the maternity ward was telling the world about his love for his daughter and his new grandchild, and I’ve no doubt his pride was genuine. People shouldn’t be ashamed of their circumstanmces, but neither should we avoid making value judgments about others’ choices, especially when those choices result in a greater burden on the state, and lead to the continuation of the underclass.

Teenage girls shouldn’t be having underage sex. Why? Because it’s wrong.

Teenage girls shouldn’t choose to have babies as an alternative to getting an education and a career. Why? Because it’s wrong.

Parents shouldn’t teach their children that a lifetime on benefits is attractive or even acceptable. Why? Because it’s wrong.

(Please assume all the usual caveats: some people have no choice but to claim benefits, lots of single parents do a great job, etc.)

So what’s next, I hear you ask. What am I going to do about all this? What’s the government going to do?

This post isn’t about policy, yet. I’m going to take up a previous commenter’s suggestion that I have a coffee with the estimable Frank Field to discuss ideas for reform.

But policies are one thing; winning the argument about why they’re needed is another. And we have to start by making it clear what we believe is right and wrong. How can we expect parents to teach that to their kids if our political leaders aren’t prepared to say the same?

Being accused of agreeing with the Daily Mail’s agenda is not the worst thing my critics can say about me. Being accused of accepting the current appalling state of affairs, of pretending that the concepts of right and wrong are meaningless - that is far worse than being accused of pandering to the right.

And, of course, it is a complete load of bollocks to suggest that the ordinary working class people of Glasgow South and in hundreds of other constituencies throughout the country don’t agree with me. The most vociferous critics of the dependancy culture and of deliberate worklessness have always been those who live in the same communities, those who resent paying their taxes to help other people waste their lives.

Don’t interpret this as any kind of “back to basics” crusade; I’m not remotely interested in what adults do in the privacy of their own homes, and I’m not sounding the rallying cry for Christian or religious morality. But when the actions of others has such a debilitating effect on the rest of society, it’s time to stop being polite. It’s time to stop worrying about how people’s feelings might be hurt if we question the choices they’ve made.

Because very often, those choices are wrong. And it’s about time we said so.

H/t Obnoxio

No Shit, Sherlock

Apparently the UK is still an "unequal place to grow up" according to some research posted on the BBC.

To compound the "no shit" element, the report has found "success in life (is) largely determined by parents' backgrounds and earnings".

As if this alone wasn't enough of a shock, Martin Narey, chief executive of children's charity Barnardo's, said education had "not become the great leveller that many people believed it would be" and investment had "disproportionately benefited the middle classes". Which will come as no surprise to anyone who has ever met a middle class parent and discussed the subject of education with them.

The report also suggests child tax credits should be available only to low-income families and that they should also have access to affordable credit such as interest-free loans. Rather than the current state of affairs where they're available to pretty much everyone, one presumes.

Just Something That Caught My Eye

In the on-going debate about the death of Baby P, I see that a former social worker, Nevres Kemal, claims she sent a letter to the Department of Health in February 2007 stating her concerns about Haringey Council's failings with regard to child protection.

The bit in this report on the BBC that caught my eye, however, was the following:

Ms Kemal has been banned from discussing the matter after local authority took out an injunction against her.

For what, exactly? Being right?

How can a local authority take an injunction out against a former employee (or indeed anyone else) for discussing something SHE brought to THEIR attention?

Anti-Drinking Campaigns


The above image comes courtesy of the Drink Aware Trust and is on display across London (and probably the rest of the UK) at the moment.

It suggests that just by looking at your recycling bin your friends & neighbours can condemn you for being drinking too much alcohol. Given the amount of interest the Council also have in your recycling and trash habits, you can also infer that the Council will be coming to the same conclusion: you drink too much.

The text accompanying the advert on the website says:

Recycling. You feel good when you do it, don't you? You're doing your bit to save the planet after all. But do you ever look at the wine and beer bottles you're putting out and wonder 'just how did we manage to get through all that since last week...?'.

But hang on just a tick, shall we?

First up, we only have recycling collections every fortnight. Over the course of two weeks there's a very good chance that even following the Government's own recommended alcohol intake (which they made up, by the way) a family of four (as children are allowed to drink alcohol from the age of 5) could get easily get through the amount of bottles shown in the advert.

Secondly, what the fuck has my alcohol consumption got to do with the Government? I pay tax on what I buy, the manufacturers pay tax on what they produce, and the Council Tax gets paid towards the cost of collecting the empties. So what's the problem?

If I cause myself or anyone else an injury or become a nuisance, then I should expect to be punished accordingly. There's no "second hand drinking" argument like there was with smoking (even though that has yet to be proved to exist either) so I fail to see why the Government or the Council should be interested in the slightest.

More to the point, it would be beneficial for young children to see alcohol being consumed (in moderation, naturally, and at appropriate times) around the house as they are growing up. They're then less likely to drink to extremes once they are legally allowed to go into pubs and clubs (assuming there are any pubs still open once they get to 18).

This Nanny Government has decided that alcohol consumption is bad for the general public, so they're on their way to making it socially unacceptable. So children won't be exposed to it, won't know how to deal with it, and will, in all probability, get fucked off their face as soon as they possibly can. Which will let the Government go to the next level and introduce prohibition. And that was a raging success in the States, wasn't it?

The New Puritanism

Obviously keen to follow up their campaign to make smokers into a demonised section of society - latest plans show that smokers won't be allowed to adopt or foster children - the Government are now going after the other big revenue generators: drinkers.

In the past month I've seen proposals to increase the minimum age for purchasing alcohol to 21 (and hasn't that worked out brilliantly in the US?), for there to be a separate area in shops for alcohol so that customers have to queue twice (so that their "alcohol purchases can be scrutinised by other shoppers") and in Scotland, a proposal that while you can buy alcohol in pubs at 18, you can't buy it in a shop until you're 21 (which won't cause any confusion at all, will it?)

This is on top of the on-going campaigns the Government have to get fat people to eat less, and everyone else to eat what the Government decides is healthy and good for them. Combined with the recent call, by Ed Balls, to ban the opening of fast food outlets within a certain radius of schools, and you would suspect the Government are actively going after the Nanny State title.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol are both still legal, yes? Burger King, McDonald's and the like aren't force-feeding anyone, are they? We're not in some weird Arab state run by keep-fit non-smokers, are we? At least not yet, at any rate.

So why the hell are the Government insistent on interfering in people's lives to this extent?

You'd think that with the current financial crisis - nothing to do with Gordon Brown's management of the economy over the previous decade, oh dearie me, no - the Government would have less time to fuck about in the petty areas they seem to love. But no. You'd be quite wrong. Because the Prime Mentalist himself waded into the "scandal" of Jonathan Ross & Russell Brand's radio show to give his two pence worth.

Despite it being FUCK ALL to do with him - although handily deflecting public glaze from his general cockpuppetry - Brown demanded action be taken.

Why, you incompetent fucksock, are you getting involved? Oh wait, I know. It's because he's a fucking Puritan dictator.

He's the one who will decide what is good for us and what isn't. Anything that is bad will be banned, and the only things that are available will be those that are personally allowed by the Prime Minister. We people, you see, aren't pure enough of mind or deed to be allowed to make these choices for ourselves. We're too stupid to see the benefits or failings ourselves, so we *need* someone to tell us what to eat, what to drink, not to smoke, to do more exercise, to believe in a vengeful God who will punish us for not looking after the planet properly, to understand that the Prime Minister is doing a good job and not destroying the economy single-handed.

He is, in short, a cunt. A righteous cunt. A complete and utter righteous cunt.

Well here's something from me to you, Gordon. I will drink & smoke as I please and I will die when I'm supposed to. There's nothing you can do to stop me, because I am the revolution, and I want my fucking liberties back.

Obscenity

You may, or may not, be aware of the law regarding the publication of obscene material - called obviously enough The Obscene Publications Act. The OPA also extends to t'internet, although up until now it had not been used in that context.

Yesterday, however, a Civil Servant from South Shields (had to be a fucking sand dancer, didn't it?) was in court for a trial over a blog posting he made, regarding the kidnap, torture and murder of "pop group" Girls Aloud.

John Ozimek from The Register noted

This is the first such prosecution for written material in nearly two decades – and a guilty verdict could have a serious and significant impact on the future regulation of the internet in the UK.

The case originated in summer 2007, when Mr Walker allegedly posted a work of fantasy – titled Girls (Scream) Aloud - about pop group Girls Aloud. The story describes in detail the kidnap, rape, mutilation and murder of band members Cheryl Cole, Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh, and ends with the sale of various body parts on eBay.

The piece was brought to the attention of the Internet Watch Foundation, whose remit includes the monitoring of internet material deemed to be criminally obscene: they in turn handed details over to the Police.

The true significance of this case – and the reason for our interest – is that it is the first prosecution under the Obscene Publications Act 1959 in respect of written content since 1991, when Manchester magistrate Derrick Fairclough ordered the seizure under section 3 of the OPA of David Britton’s Lord Horror. This would have allowed the book to be destroyed without jury trial. Again, the decision was overturned by the Court of Appeal.

The significance of this prosecution cannot therefore be understated. At present, the UK effectively has no sanction against written material, no matter how apparently obscene. The implication for UK surfers is immense. If a not guilty verdict is returned, then written material on the internet – as written material elsewhere – will return to its present near-privileged status. On the other hand, a guilty verdict could change much.

Interestingly, there are many 'swear bloggers' that may have to change their style quite significantly if a guilty verdict is returned.

I may be one of them. Cunts.

Stop Having Children Or The Planet Dies

From the Register, an article about the attempt of two doctors to reduce the population of the UK. Sadly, there's no Harold Shipman type slaughter of the elderly being proposed. Wonderfully, however, they do recommend a reduction in the number of children - so it's not all bad news after all.

And while I would normally support such a call for less children, I have some reservations. Because the doctors are suggesting that controls are needed because kids cause carbon emissions and, therefore (at least in their eyes) climate change. The ecopalypse! Noes! We're all going to die!

Sorry, I got a bit carried away there. The two medics suggest that choosing to have a third child "is the same as buying a patio heater or driving a gas-guzzling car" and that "GPs should advise their patients against it". Yes, you did read that right - Doctors are comparing children with consumer goods. How splendid is that? It makes my heart swell to hear the medical profession talk in such loving terms.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, John Guillebaud (emeritus professor of of family planning at UCL) and Pip Hayes (a GP) raise the spectre of global population explosion, and suggest that the children of the developed world are a particularly severe carbon burden.

You think? I have three words to say to you: Too. Fucking. Late.

There is no "spectre" of a population explosion, there's already been one. If you're over 40 years old (and thankfully I'm not quite old enough to be in this group) the population of the planet has DOUBLED since you were born. I am old enough to remember being taught there were 5 billion people on Earth - the figure now is around 6.75 billion.

There are too many people on this damn planet. To quote Bill Hicks; "How about we take a moment out of our frenzied rutting to work out the whole food/air deal, huh?"

While some - China - have set limits on the number of children a family can have, and the birth rate has fallen in most Western countries, family size in third world/developing countries has actually increased.

In 1984, when Band Aid exhorted us to "thank God it's them instead of you", there were 42 million in Ethiopia and 8 million of them were starving. There are now 78 million people in Ethiopia, and 10 million are starving. When Band Aid suggested we "feed the world", I think they would have been better advised to teach family planning.

From the Country Studies site of the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress (as part of the Country Studies/Area Handbook Series sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Army between 1986 and 1998) a short paragraph giving some insight into why this may have happened.

In 1990 officials estimated the birth rate at forty-five births per 1,000 population and the total fertility rate (the average number of children that would be born to a woman during her lifetime) at about seven per 1,000 population. Census findings indicated that the birth rate was higher in rural areas than in urban areas. Ethiopia's birth rate, high even among developing countries, is explained by early and universal marriage, kinship and religious beliefs that generally encourage large families, a resistance to contraceptive practices, and the absence of family planning services for most of the population. Many Ethiopians believe that families with many children have greater financial security and are better situated to provide for their elderly members.

Analysts believed that reducing the population growth rate was a pressing need, but one that could only be addressed through a persistent and comprehensive nationwide effort over the long term. As of early 1991, the Ethiopian regime had shown no commitment to such a program.

Funny that, as feuding tribes (and Ethiopia was at war with two different countries during the 90s) don't really like this option. Unfortunately, religions don't like this option either. Both for the same reason, weirdly. If there's less people on your "team" then there's more chance of you being taken over/killed by the opposition. This "breeding for God" approach does no-one any favours.

Sadly, using the fear of the ecopalypse to encourage people to breed less also fails to do much good.

How Not To Name Your Child

Something from yesterday that I didn't get time to do, a child in New Zealand has had her name changed by a judge. Her parents had initially named her Talula Dances The Hula From Hawaii. Which is quite some name.

Judge Rob Murfitt said that the name embarrassed the nine-year-old and could expose her to teasing. No shit, you think? "The court is profoundly concerned about the very poor judgment which this child's parents have shown in choosing this name," Judge Murfitt wrote. "It makes a fool of the child and sets her up with a social disability and handicap, unnecessarily."

"New Zealand does not allow names that would cause offence or that are longer than 100 characters" Registrar-General Brian Clarke said. "Officials often tried to talk parents out of particularly unusual choices that could embarrass their offspring" the Associated Press news agency quoted him as saying.

Which is fair enough, when some people have attempted to call their children: Yeah Detroit; Stallion; Twisty Poi; Keenan Got Lucy; Sex Fruit; Fat Boy; Cinderella Beauty Blossom; Fish and Chips (twins)

However, this does fall down slightly when you see the names they have actually let through: Violence; Number 16 Bus Shelter*; Midnight Chardonnay; Benson and Hedges (twins)

Strange people, Kiwi's, strange people.

* I'm presuming this nomenclature is similar in rationale to Brooklyn Beckham's, although obviously a great deal less glamorous

South Central

Not Los Angeles's infamous suburb, but the wild lands that are South London.

Following on from last week's mob attack on two policemen who tried to get a girl to pick up litter, news today of a woman being slashed by a 10 year old boy who wanted a cigarette off her.

The woman, in her 50s, was confronted by the boy and his friend outside Selhurst railway station in south London on Wednesday. He tried to grab a lit cigarette from her mouth and attacked her when she shouted back at the pair. Passers-by rushed to her aid as she bled heavily from the wound which was inflicted with a craft knife or razor.

South London: it's the place to be, I tell you.

Gordon Brown On The One Show/Knife Crime

Unbelievably, the Prime Minister spent yesterday evening on the comfy sofa of BBC1's 'The One Show'. I say unbelievably, as you'd think the fucker would have more important things to do with his time than being 'interviewed' by Adrian Chiles. And when I say 'interviewed', I mean "thank you for explaining Government aims and policy to us Prime Minister".

Obviously attempting to build on his "stunning" appearance on American Idol, Brown seems to think that by being on a non-political TV show (and note his lack of appearances on Newsnight, Question Time, Daily Politics, or even Channel 4 News) spouting his usual political platitudes, "real people" will believe him. Mind you, Tony Blair did do Richard & Judy, so there is a precedence.

On "The One Show" he re-iterates that carrying a knife should be punished and knife crime eradicated from society. But that he doesn't believe, unlike Cameron, everyone should be jailed. He seems to think that there needs to be more visible policing, but that it needs to be Community Support Officers! Which is ironic, given that just last night three actual policemen were hospitalised by a gang of people who beat them up for asking a girl to pick up some litter.

A more effective approach, I suspect, would be that advocated by the actor Lennie James in an open letter published in the Observer, that I feel needs as much viewing as possible.

To whom it may concern,

My name is Lennie James. I am a 42-year-old father of three. I grew up in south-west London. I was brought up by a single mother. I was orphaned at 10, lived in a kids' home until I was 15 and was then fostered. I tell you this not to claim any special knowledge of how you've grown, but to explain how I have, and from where I draw my understanding.

I want to talk to you about the knife you're carrying in your belt or pocket or shoe. The one you got from your mum's kitchen or ordered online or robbed out of the camping shop. The knife you tell yourself you carry for protection, because you never know who else has got one.

I want to talk to you about what that knife will do for you. If you carry it, the chances are you will be called on to use it. It is a deadly weapon, so if you use it the chances are you will kill with it. So after you've killed with it, after you've seen how little force it takes for sharpened steel to puncture flesh. After your mates have run away from the boy you've left bleeding. When you're looking for somewhere to dash the blade, and lighter fluid to burn your clothes. When your blood is burning in your veins and your heart is beating out of your chest to where you want to puke or cry, but can't coz you're toughing it out for your boyz. When you are bang smack in the middle of 'Did you see that!' and 'Oh, Jesus Christ!' here's who to blame...

Blame the boy you just left for dead. Blame him for not believing you when you told him you were a bigger man than him. Blame him for not backing down when you made your chest broad, bounced into him and told him about your knife and how you would use it. Blame him for calling you on and making you prove yourself. Tell yourself if he had just freed up his phone or not cut his eyes at you like he did, he wouldn't be choking on his blood and crying for his mum.

Then blame your mum. When the police are banging down her door looking for you, or she hears the whispers behind the 'wall of silence', tell her it's all her fault for being worthless. Cuss her out for having kids when she was nothing but a kid herself, or for picking some drug or some man over you again and again. Even if she only had you and devoted herself to you, even if she is a great mum, blame her anyway. Blame her for not being around more to make sure you took the chances she was out working her fingers to the bone to give you.

When you're done with her, blame the man she picked to make you with. Blame him for being less than half the man he should have been. When he comes to bail you out and starts running you down for the terrible thing you've done, tell him straight: 'I did what I did coz you didn't do what you should have done.' Even if he did right; respected your mother, worked to provide for his family financially and spiritually, taught you right from wrong and drummed it home everyday... Even if he nurtured you as best he could, blame him for the generation of men he comes from.

The one that allowed an adolescent definition of manhood to become so dominant. The one that measures a man by how many babymothers he has wrangling his offspring, or by how 'bad' his reputation is on the streets of whatever couple of square miles he chooses to call his 'ends'.

Damn them for letting you believe that respect is to be found with gun in hand or knife in pocket. Damn them and everyone who feeds the myth of these gangsters, villains, thieves and hustlers. Anyone who makes them heroes while damning hard-working, educated, honest men as weak, sell-outs or pussies.

If you are black, blame white people for the history of indignities they heaped on you and yours. For the humiliation of having to go cap-in-hand or get down on bended knee or having to burn shit down before you are afforded something so basically fundamental as equality. If you are white, blame black folk and Muslims for taking all your excuses. Failing that, blame a class system that keeps you poor and ignorant so the 'uppers' and 'middles' can feel better about themselves.

You have good reason to blame them all. I wouldn't be you growing up now for love nor money. Your generation has so little room to manoeuvre. We had more space to step around the bullshit. We weren't excluded at the rate you lot are. Teachers hadn't given up or lost their authority over us. They still tried to protect and guide us even through our most disruptive years.

The police stopped and searched us, but we fought that right out of their hands - we hoped into extinction. But they want to bring back that abusive practice. They are still hooked on punishment rather than prevention. They seem ignorant to the fact that they are feeding you acceptance of an already prevalent gang mentality. As far as you can see, the police are not protecting and serving you, they are coming at you like just another street gang trying to boss your postcode.

When I was where you are now, generations of state agencies, social services, policy-makers and politicians had not abdicated all responsibility for me. We weren't left to our own devices like you have been. Is it any wonder that you end up expressing yourself in such a violently pathetic way?

We should be ashamed. I am. You have shamed us into a desperate need to do something about ourselves. We have collectively failed you and we should take all the blame that is ours for that... but so should you.

I blame you. I blame you because as a generation you are selfish, self-centred and have little or no empathy for anyone but yourselves. You are politically stunted and socially irresponsible and... you scare us. What scares us most is that you would rather die than learn. Your only salvation may be that still most of you aren't playing it out dirty. The vast majority of young men, even with all that is stacked against them, are finding their way around the crap. The boy you will kill, should you continue to carry that knife, almost certainly had the same collective failures testing him. He probably felt no less abandoned and no less scared. He also, almost certainly, wasn't carrying a knife.

Whatever it seems like, whatever you've read, whatever you tell yourself about protection being your reason, statistics show the life you take will be that of an unarmed person. That is what that knife will do for you. It will make you escalate a situation to where it is needed. It will give you a misguided sense of confidence. It will make you the aggressor. That knife will make you use it. It will bring you nothing worth having. There is no respect there. The street may give you some passing recognition, but any name you think you might make will soon be forgotten.

Your victim will be remembered long after you. Name me one of the boys who killed Stephen Lawrence. Once you've bloodied that knife you may as well be dead because you'll be buried for 10 to 20 years. Banged up for that long, only a fool would look back and think it was worth it. You'll be nothing more than a sad, unwanted, unnecessary statistic.

If you were mine, this is what I would tell you. I would make myself a big enough man to beg. I'd get down on bended knees if I had to. I would beg you to take that knife out of your pocket and leave it at home. I would tell you that I know you are scared and lost and that I know the risks involved in what I'm asking you to do. I know that what we could step around, you have to walk through, and that there is always some fool who isn't going to make it any other way but the wrong way. I'm just begging you not to be that fool.

Be a better man than that. Let the story they tell of you be that you exceeded expectations... that you didn't drown. Don't spend your days looking to be a 'bad-man' - try to be a good one. Our biggest failure is that our actions have left you not knowing how precious you are. We have left you unaware of your worth to us. You are precious to us. Give yourself the chance to grow enough to understand why.

Be safe.
Lennie James

Now, ask yourself, who is talking the most sense? Lennie James or Gordon Brown?

Jacqui Smith, Please Fuck Off.

The deluded Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith (the woman who didn't give the Police the full payrise an independent pay review panel recommended) is now proposing that people who commit knife crimes should visit the person they attacked in hospital.

Good work there, you dumb bitch.

Few things you might want to consider, and I've only had one cup of coffee today, so there could well be more;

First up, person in hospital might not be terribly thrilled to see their attacker.

Secondly, the attacker would find it quite easy to finish off the job as their victim is likely to be bed-ridden.

Thirdly, the attacker is presumably some sort of street chav and probably up for a bit of thievery - and hospitals aren't renowned for being secure, are they?

Fourthly, your average street chav isn't exactly going to help hospital cleanliness levels are they?

Fifthly, why, if you know who the attacker is, isn't the little cunt in prison? Rather than being out on a jolly to a hospital, wasting more resources being transported there securely (to avoid them fucking off) and presumably monitored the whole time (to avoid points two, three and four).

Madness I tells ya, madness.

Unnecessary Censorship



Just hilarious.

Hat tip to Dizzy

Racist Toddlers

When "Yuck" can be a racist phrase, apparently.

Via Mr Eugenides, comes this rather depressing report from the BBC about a 336-page guide(!) aimed at helping 'identify potentially racist attitudes in youngsters'.

The guide says: "A child may react negatively to a culinary tradition other than their own by saying, 'Yuck!'". That may indicate a lack of familiarity with that particular food, or "more seriously a reaction to a food associated with people from a particular ethnic or cultural community".

Guide author Jane Lane said: "The book is about being alert and asking questions, being sensitive and never attacking a child, but always trying to think about why they may have said or done something."

Because of course, the child wouldn't just say "Yuck" because you were trying to feed it something it didn't like, would it? No, they're all racist! That's the thing with children, they are inherently racist and can immediately tell if you're Muslim as well. Plus, they *just know* that the curry you've given them doesn't come from the right part of India, the organic muesli is an anachronism & the hand-knitted mung beans are fucking disgusting.

For the sake of fuck. Please pass me my gun.

What culinary tradition does the UK actually have? Chicken Tikka Massala is one of the most popular dishes, Thai is increasingly the only option in pubs, fatty foods are frowned upon and nowhere South of Durham does a decent stottie. When was the last time you actually went out for 'an English'?

Define Voluntary

Because if you were to, I doubt it would come out as anything like the definition being used by the Devon & Cornwall Police.

From LPUK a rather depressingly familiar tale of authoritarianism.

Well, in Redruth, Cornwall, 'voluntary' clearly has a new definition to the one I was brought up with. A report in yesterday's Times explains how 'voluntary' curfews are to be imposed on teenagers in the town, with all under 16s required to be off the streets by 9pm.

Police have written to local residents, asking for their co-operation in this 'voluntary' measure. Fair enough, you might think, but what will happen if they don't comply?

"Parents who do not agree to the scheme, and whose children are found out after 9pm, could be subject to parenting or antisocial behaviour orders."

So that would be 'voluntary' in the 'compulsory' sense then.

While I'm all for gangs of menacing teenagers being off the streets and being under the care of their parents or guardians, wouldn't it be more prudent to actually introduce more police? You know, doing what police are supposed to do and stop anti-social behaviour rather than clamping down on the law abiding majority?

This country is fucked.

Bum Flute

From the ever wonderful b3ta


Just quite what they were thinking remains a mystery.

Stop Having Children

Following on from my many posts advocating not having children, the BBC have a nice piece about the benefits of having children and then ask the question "why don't people who don't have children receive the same?"

The comments at the bottom reveal the depth of feelings on this subject very nicely indeed.

The Perfect Man For The Job?

The BBC are reporting that the chair of the committee conducting an inquiry into dangers on the internet and computer games - Conservative MP John Whittingdale - today discovered that his own daughter was breaking the rules of a social networking site.

During a hearing on Tuesday, the MP asked what the minimum age was appropriate for joining Bebo - and was told under US legislation, 13 was the minimum age. The following is, according to the BBC, the exchange that took place:

He said: "My daughter is 12, she's been on Bebo for at least 18 months. I think every single one of her friends is and she spends, oh, hours on it - it's universal, way below 13 - do you think that that is inappropriate?"

Dr Rachel O'Connell (Bebo safety chief) said when parents reported under-age use, the child's page would be deleted.

Mr Whittingdale asked: "But you said in the US it's 13 - whereas there is no such thing here." However, Dr O'Connell replied: "That applies for our whole service."

Mr Whittingdale said: "So my daughter shouldn't be on Bebo?" Dr O'Connell answered: "That's true."

So obviously that'll turn out to be the internet's fault, and not him failing to adequately supervise his child. It has been said for YEARS that children should not have a PC in their room and that their use of the internet should be supervised so that they don't sign up for something only appropriate to adults. While demonstrating this quite so eloquently, Whittingdale will probably demand more net censorship thus removing his responsibility to his own child.

As I've said previously, if you want children, you take the responsibility. Don't try and stop me from doing something just because you're worried your child will be offended by it.