Welcome to New Labours Britain

[ShadesWolf]

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Funeral car attacked by teenagers
A funeral limousine taking mourners to a cemetery has been attacked by missile-throwing boys, said police.
The black limousine was part of a funeral procession following a hearse towards Widnes Cemetery in Cheshire.

As it passed a gang of about five teenagers, one of them hurled a piece of wood which shattered the windscreen.

Nobody was injured in last Wednesday's incident, but a Cheshire Constabulary spokesman described it as the "ultimate disrespect to human dignity".

Pc David Thomason said: "We obviously see a lot of criminal damage but this was specifically targeted at a funeral cortege.

"It is sick and the family are totally disgusted by what has happened. The offenders clearly have no respect or regard for the grieving relatives."

It is understood that the nieces of the deceased were travelling in the car following a funeral service for their aunt.

The party was travelling from Our Lady of Perpetual Succour Catholic Church, in Widnes, to the cemetery when it was attacked.

Police said a "substantial" piece of wood was thrown at the vehicle, shattering the windscreen before embedding in the side of the car.

Despite the serious damage to the vehicle, the driver continued on the short journey in an attempt to limit the family's distress.

The youths were standing outside Bankfield School when the wood was thrown, but they were not wearing school uniform and are not thought to be pupils there.

Police said they were still investigating the incident which occurred at 1320 BST.

Scrum, and nobody can say anything else about them.

[Adrian II]

Link to article in full



Scrum, and nobody can say anything else about them.

Scriminals, indeed. But what does this have to do with New Labour? Have they engaged in funeral-bashing lately?

[ShadesWolf]

Scriminals, indeed. But what does this have to do with New Labour? Have they engaged in funeral-bashing lately?

All im saying is this is what we have come to during the 8 years reign. But dont u worry all u lib's they prob came from a poor background, couldnt afford that skoda they wanted. Probably arent in work because they cant get a £350,000 jobs.

Lawlessness and anti-social behaviour will be what new labour will be remembered for.

[Idaho]

All im saying is this is what we have come to during the 8 years reign. But dont u worry all u lib's they prob came from a poor background, couldnt afford that skoda they wanted. Probably arent in work because they cant get a £350,000 jobs.

Lawlessness and anti-social behaviour will be what new labour will be remembered for.

What the devil are you rabbiting on about? Where they asylum seekers of something? And why would Liberal Democrats be responsible for New Labour inspired funeral desecration?

[ShadesWolf]

U arent defending them in court next week Idaho are you mate.

Nice to see you are still around.

[LittleGrizzly]

Welcome to New Labours Britain

Funeral car attacked by teenagers

i see the future, occasionly we'll get storys of british people doing sick things, this never happened in the good old tory days...

[Crazed Rabbit]

What do you expect when you institute a massive welfare state that teaches people to rely on the state for everything, and never, ever tells them they are in the wrong about anything, that its always somebody else's fault?

That people would be virtuous and hard working?

Crazed Rabbit

[LittleGrizzly]

What do you expect when you institute a massive welfare state that teaches people to rely on the state for everything, and never, ever tells them they are in the wrong about anything, that its always somebody else's fault?

have new labour done this ?

That people would be virtuous and hard working?

our economys doing that badly ?

[Tribesman]

But dont u worry all u lib's they prob came from a poor background, couldnt afford that skoda they wanted. Probably arent in work because they cant get a £350,000 jobs.
From the article shades it appears they are school age children , hence the referal to them not being in school uniform , so could you tell us what schoolchildren are allowed to drive a skoda if they can afford one and what schoolchildren can get a £350,000 job ?
Definately nasty little bastards , but what has it got to do with Labour ?

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

What do you expect when you institute a massive welfare state that teaches people to rely on the state for everything, and never, ever tells them they are in the wrong about anything, that its always somebody else's fault?

That people would be virtuous and hard working?

Crazed Rabbit

What on earth are you talking about? Wherever you're describing, it isn't Britain.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Ok, ok, I was using a wee bit of hyperbole. /sarcasm off

My point, lost, apperently, in the hyperbole, was that kids need to work so they can learn responsibility, and need to be told some things are wrong. You can't give handouts and avoid criticism and expect responsibility and morality. Otherwise, some'll be deliquent tramps and do disgusting stuff like vandalize funeral processions.*

Crazed Rabbit

*NOTE: This is a gross generalization.

[English assassin]

Ok, ok, I was using a wee bit of hyperbole. /sarcasm off

My point, lost, apperently, in the hyperbole, was that kids need to work so they can learn responsibility, and need to be told some things are wrong. You can't give handouts and avoid criticism and expect responsibility and morality. Otherwise, some'll be deliquent tramps and do disgusting stuff like vandalize funeral processions.*

Crazed Rabbit

*NOTE: This is a gross generalization.

The Rabbit's right. Its called moral hazard. With the best will in the world, you provide welfare so that, say, people who lose their jobs get tided over 'til they find another one. The trouble is people adjust their behaviours as a result. Next thing you know people are thinking life's not so bad on the rock and roll, especially since there's always a few cash in hand jobs to be found.

(NB before anyone asks, I do know what its like and I know its not all Dom Perignon. I also know if you grow up in my part of London your only chance to get a home is either to be very well paid or to be unemployed and preferably pregnant. If you can manage a mental illness and not speaking English that would be better still. Together with means tested benefits that ensure you are no better off in a lowly paid job, oops I mean that redistribute wealth to the most needy, there is a huge moral hazard. I regularly see people whose family live locally, who grew and went to school here, who have a job like, say nursery nurse or shop assistant, and who cannot for the life of them understand why they will never get a council flat whereas if they were unemployed they would be tiop of the list. nor can I.)

Mind you I don't think the welfare state is responsible for teenagers throwing stones, but a culture where if a policeman asks them what they are doing they are off down the Police Complaints Authority bitching about harrassment is.

[Al Khalifah]

What do you expect when you institute a massive welfare state that teaches people to rely on the state for everything, and never, ever tells them they are in the wrong about anything, that its always somebody else's fault?

Oh you forgot makes all your decisions for you and spends as much of your money for you as possible on inefficient public services that you rarely use.

They'll probably just get ASBOs.

On the subject of ASBOs and the like, I was disapointed to see on my return to God's Own Island that a group of losers have been given them to stop them from hanging around infront of our local Tesco Express because they were harassing people. So now they hang around in a dark public underpass, harassing people.

Well done Tony, an inspired suggestion, move your problems to another place in the hope they'll go away.

[Idaho]

U arent defending them in court next week Idaho are you mate.

Nice to see you are still around.

No I'm not defending them. I got a substantial payment from the state to do so but I still decided to pass. I am going to keep the money though. I'm taking a bus load of flies on holiday to Africa. They'll enjoy Somalia - but should they?

[Adrian II]

Mind you I don't think the welfare state is responsible for teenagers throwing stones (..)

How refreshing.

(..) but a culture where if a policeman asks them what they are doing they are off down the Police Complaints Authority bitching about harrassment is.

Right you are; they should have their f****** faces bashed in before being booked on trumped up charges. That'll teach them.

[BDC]

Nothing to do with the welfare state, we have had it for nearly 60 years, and this is a pretty modern thing.

[Idaho]

Nothing to do with the welfare state, we have had it for nearly 60 years, and this is a pretty modern thing.

No it's not. It's as old as the hills. Plato used to grumble about the rowdy and disrespectful youth. Why do you think Moses made it one of the commandments to respect your mother and father? Because mom and pop were no doubt getting dissed too much even back then.

[Duke Malcolm]

We youth have just got worse in recent years... Rock music and the Euro Techno dance trance stuff is probably what caused it...

[English assassin]

Right you are; they should have their f****** faces bashed in before being booked on trumped up charges. That'll teach them.

..."its the only language they understand"...

I think there is probably a half way house between unrestricted police brutality and Baroness Helena Kennedy QC writing why oh why articles before popping down to the old Bailey and pulling in £50 grand of taxpayers money defending murderers, don't you?

But, I'll bite. There was no evidence in the Indy story that the boy WASN'T a rapist was there. Or a robber. if you are a policeman and you see people waling the streets who got off on serious charges, and you reckon they did it (and generally when the police prosecute they do reckon the person did it) it can't be easy can it? And if I was free to start a tape recording when I liked I bet I could get the Archbishop of Canterbury on tape calling me a [merchant banker] if I'd sworn at him enough before I pressed record.

(Well, OK, not the Archbishop of Canterbury. But the Bishop of Oxford would be a cert. Just tell him you believe in God and think homosexuality is a sin, press record and listen to the expletives fly.)

[Adrian II]

I think there is probably a half way house between unrestricted police brutality and Baroness Helena Kennedy QC writing why oh why articles before popping down to the old Bailey and pulling in £50 grand of taxpayers money defending murderers, don't you?

So murder suspects have a right to legal defense in your country? Tsk tsk, what is the world coming to?

Oh look, now Japan has gone socialist!

Erm, just between you 'n me, English Assassin: you don't suppose yobbism has anything to do with capitalism and consumerism tearing up the social fabric of otherwise decent societies, do you?

[King Henry V]

Well, desperate times call for desperate measures, and I think now is the time to bring back corporal punishment, starting with a flogging in the public square. The wounds shold then be rubbed with salt, then lemon jiuce. Then we would have some order!

[Adrian II]

Well, desperate times call for desperate measures, and I think now is the time to bring back corporal punishment, starting with a flogging in the public square. The wounds shold then be rubbed with salt, then lemon jiuce. Then we would have some order!

So how long have you been King of England and France then?

[English assassin]

Actually the case I was thinking of was a so called "cut throat defence", where Baroness Kennedy, well known doyen of the liberal left, was acting for one of three scumbags. Said scumbags were all present at the beating and stabbing to death of a victim, but what do you know, each scumbag swore he was just standing there while the other two got busy with the knives.

So of course each one of them had to be separately represented at huge expense by QCs, who went home each night to their million pound houses, who would never been seen on the estates where these gangs rule, but who are only too happy to write long articles in the Guardian saying how terrible the breakdown in society is how its all the fault of capitalism, and how we ought to be much nicer to the yobbos.

Meanwhile the people who actually have to live with the yobbos just want them locked up, if not taken down to the canal and shot.

In the end of course the three were all convicted, because juries aren't totally stupid. And yes of course murderers have to have a defence, even Hitler would have to be defended if he turned up. But be honest isn't there something in this story that just slightly sticks in the throat? Other than the knives wielded by Ms Kennedy's clients I mean.

you don't suppose yobbism has anything to do with capitalism and consumerism tearing up the social fabric of otherwise decent societies, do you?

You know, everyone laughed when GW said he thought the cause of crime was criminals, but when you think about it there's a lot to that. (It helps if you releate to it as something like a haiku, I find). Yobbism has a lot of causes. Some of them, with my JAG hat on, are in the hands of society and need to be removed. You can't ask a 14 year old boy to work hard and pass his exams if he thinks its going to make no difference to him if he does or he doesn't. Some yobs come from a terrible background and know no better, though that may not be much consolation to you as they kick your head in. But ultimately in most cases the yob has made a choice; shall I be nice or shall I be nasty? And its not capitalism that makes him choose to be nasty.

Oh and BTW I agree with whoever it was said this sort of thing has been going on for a very long time.

[Adrian II]

But be honest isn't there something in this story that just slightly sticks in the throat? Other than the knives wielded by Ms Kennedy's clients I mean.

Perhaps the knife you just put in the Baroness' overpaid back. As far as I can Google, she has never ever said one should be nicer to yobbos. I mean, it is her views you take issue with, or are you just jealous at her income?

Some yobs come from a terrible background and know no better, though that may not be much consolation to you as they kick your head in.

I'm talking about social fabric, not backgrounds. What were they doing there out of school, out of uniform, out of a job, apparently out of watchful parents, alert coppers, etcetera? Oh, and they're out of biographies, too. We lack any detail about their identities. For all we know they may have been the Baroness' own £90 grand nephew and his toff friends doing a 'Prince Harry' on that funeral procession.

[King Henry V]

So how long have you been King of England and France then?

Ever since the death of my father, Henry IV.

[Duke Malcolm]

This yobbery is a result of the ban on corporal punishment in 1987. The yobs do this yobbery because they think that very little will happen to them ; a caution, or a wee fine, or something. And then there are these liberal types who say that they do it because they "aren't understood", or "have no-where to go". If there was a threat of pain, then the yobs wouldn't do the yobbery, which is already proven in their gangs. We children are well-versed in our rights, and, if need be, are probably willing to recite the entire body of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, if we thought one of our rights had been breached. If we made a reservation against the part of the convention abolishing capital punishment, and repealed the Standards in Schools (Scotland) etc. Act, then we would be singing...

[Tribesman]

..."its the only language they understand"...
So you think it is right that an officer who is supposed to uphold the law uses racial abuse and threatens with violence do you ?
You sad man

[ah_dut]

..."its the only language they understand"...
So you think it is right that an officer who is supposed to uphold the law uses racial abuse and threatens with violence do you ?
You sad man

Err can I defend him? I never claimed that racial abuse was the solution, neither do I think that the threat of violence is neccesarily a solution...I think 1 or 2 bobbies on the beat might help...I am not ribbing anyone, I am totally serious, I haven't seen a bobby on the beat where I live for weeks if not months...granted that there's very low crime where I live but when you do get mugged or whatever it would be reassuring for a policeman to be less than 10 minutes by car away in Wimbledon...

Well corporal punishment may help some extreme cases...but I dobt it's a general solution, neither is a boot camp. Pikeys and trevs are very brave against people perceived to be weak...they're just cowards inside. The yobbos can only oppress the weak and so therefore you need a strong police prescence no?

[King Henry V]

More often than not, these yobs only fear physical punishment. Now that the laws bans any one giving them a damn good hiding, or any sort of punishment at all, there is no way stop them from continuing in their behaviour. Even if you wan to tell them off, one has to go through the "proper channels" and not shout at them directly. Often, the only way to combat violence is with violence. There are only certain people who appreciate mercy, and yobs are not those people.

[JAG]

I have done a great deal of thinking on this issue since it really became a big political one, in the last few weeks. It made me think more because I have directly experienced what the politicians have all been ranting and raving about. I have adjusted my positions a bit as well because it is clear that something does need to be done. However I have to state that it does have nothing to do with Labour specifically, but more to do with consistent failure by all govts for a long time - though this govt has taken good measures to address the problems which I applaud it on.

My change of stance is this: though I still firmly believe that the causes of crime - being the underlying problems in society as EA touched on when he nicked my hat - are the real and long term reasons for this yobbish behaviour and the growth of it in recent years there needs more to be done than simply trying to fix the problems in society without tackling the current problems with the gang violence as well.

The recent upturn in this yobbish behaviour I think can be directly linked to the growing separation of the lower depths of the working class and the parts of the working class who, because of SOME of Thatchers policies, clawed themselves slightly higher up the ladder - right to buy being one - I still think the policy stinks and was a disgrace and never should have been brought in but that isn't the point.. It would be dishonest of me if I stated it didn't help some working class people gain footholds. But because of the same policies while some working class families got better off, a lot of specific areas in Britain and the lower ends of the working class got even more adrift and disgracefully under 8 years of a Labour govt that STILL hasn't been fully changed - areas such as ex mining towns, central London areas like Bethnal Green etc. This has meant the distrust and hate for the establishment and the disillusionment with some people has grown and the yobbish behaviour has become more violent.

Now though this still means the underlying problems in society are to blame and I still fully agree with that, the problem has evidently got worse, so with serious attempts to rebuild the faith in society - serious attempts like the New Deal and rebuilding community centres which this govt has done but oh so slowly and the speeding up of benefits to those in the most needy situations, which this govt has also done but so, so slowly - there needs to be short term crack downs on certain types of behaviour. Behaviour such as congregating in groups around certain points in town needs to be broken up by police because it does intimidate people, the banning of certain clothing such as the hoodies in specific places, etc. Measures like this should be taken but ONLY if they are done with the more important social changes. If that happened I think we would see a decline in the problems like we are witnessing.