Ashamed to be English

If there is going to be a time in the near future to feel ashamed, I suspect it is when innocent youths who had nothing to do with the rioters get arrested and locked up, just so that the coppers and the government can make a great show of bringing justice back.

Don't get me wrong, anyone that was involved should be locked up, but I have a niggling suspicion that many of the culprits will walk free, while at least a few innocent people who just happen to live in the wrong neighbourhood, and who just happen to be in the wrong age group, will get fingered.

 

Complete and utter rubbish. Blair was influenced by one woman. And one woman only. His wife.

 

Melinda, how have you managed to go from being ashamed to be English, to dragging the rest of us in by being ashamed to be British?lol lol lol

 

Melinda, surely one of the examples you mention is a reason to be very proud, rather than ashamed, unless I'm thinking of a different incident to the one you mention.

The British intervention in Serbia, if I've got my wars right, was to prevent genocide. Are we talking about the Balkans wars in the early 90's?

 

Came across this link earlier

A Look Back At Lawless London

 

No, Melinda didn't say that, in fact she has been saying the opposite!!!!!

Val

 

Excellent pics.

I hope the latest round of rioters see that. You know how it is, every generation thinks they were the first to see/do a particular thing, they think they are the originals. And they're always gutted when you explain that its just the same as something you remember from when you were their age.

 

Its just been on the news that thousands of shameful English sorts have been out on the streets with sweeping brushes, tidying up the mess, sending donations to local independent shop keepers who've had their shops destroyed, and generally, very publicly showing that we're not all bad.

This is what makes our fair nation a nation to be proud of. Not the actions of a minority of low life, but the response of the normal everyday folk.

 

Didn't even want to look at this thread cos I knew it would get me going.
However I've had a little thought - the looters and/or their parents will have less to pay on their heating bills this winter. They just need to sit around their 42" + stolen tv's. Have you felt how much heat they generate! This will surely please the energy companies too cos they'll have less debt owing.

And...before you start, no I don't want to bring back hanging, yes I do think we're a broken society and I don't know how it can be fixed, yes I do think we're too liberal and lastly I've been in all sorts of situations almost to not knowing where my next meal was coming from but I never stole - I would have gone hungry.

See I knew I would go on It's a mess.

 

Clueless, these people that did this are wonderful. It's something that I'm sure most of us would think we'd do. It's so great to see people coming together, we need more of it.
Sometimes though it is just too scary to stand up for yourself/ves. The comment about the police charging in is something I would have agreed with without reservation at one time but in reality would you charge against these who are not afraid to really hurt you - even the girls are animals. Scary. Look at that poor man that tried to put out a fire. I know what I'd like to do to all these **** people but is that just a cop out?
Hard to know isn't it?

 

Exactly, same here.

It makes my blood boil when do gooders appear on telly trying to sympathise with the culprits by saying things like, they live in a deprived neighbourhood, they are poor, they feel isolated from the rest of society, they have to live with high unemployment.

When I was a teenager, I could have ticked all of those boxes. I spent a few years living on a rough council estate at a time when job prospects for the whole region were dire, and everybody I knew was completely skint. For a while I was on the dole, and had to live pretty much on baked beans on toast, 9p beans at that. My benefits would have bought me slightly better food than that, but I was spending every spare penny on pens, paper, books, bus fare to college where I went part time. I swore that I would not let my 'deprived' status be my long term lifestyle. I took whatever work I could get, and declared it to the dole office. At that point in time a bit of extra cash was just a bonus, the real reason I did some of the jobs was so that I could show prospective employers I was willing to work. In one of my part time jobs, I cleaned a nightclub on saturday and sunday mornings. On more than one occassion I was down on my hands and knees with a scrubbing brush, trying to remove dried in vomit from a matted nightclub carpet. I did what I could, and I clawed my way out of it, in the face of many people in the same situation as me telling me there was no point, and I built a good career and a good life. And I'm nowt special. I was just an ordinary frustrated teenager who wanted a bit more than a life of 'social deprivation'.

Sadly, nowadays (and to a degree back then too) too many people hide behind their 'deprived' status. It is pure laziness.

 

Hi Gemini! I dare say Dai was making a 'Welsh' point!

 

Huzzah and very well said Clueless!

The same nation which rioted, also gives more money, more humanitarian assistance, more quickly than any other during natural disasters.

Im not blind to this country's faults, but I also know we're safer, more healthy and have more opportunity than most other places we could have been born. Its not some medieval theocracy, there are no government death squads disappearing people.