My town has really changed

This is what infuriates me. There’s so much energy (and money) spent on things that happened hundreds of years ago, criticising countries, demanding reparations, toppling statues of long dead men into rivers. Yet those same people are heading to the nail bars, having their cars washed by victims of slavery.without a hint of irony they are funding slavery they can prevent whilst hysterical over things where all involved are long dead.

It is infuriating. We’ve got a huge traveller site near us that from time to time gets raided and fire arms/drugs/slaves/abused animals are discovered. But it starts up again. It’s on a main dual carriageway and you regularly see the most dismal looking people trudging there with bags of shopping and insufficient clothing who are highly likely to be slaves. Nail bars, car washes, brothels. It’s everywhere.

Of course they know. Just as the police know which properties are cannabis farms - they obviously smell it when walking past just like everyone else. It's obviously a policy from the top to ignore the "street level" crimes as the police and other authorities try to go for the top people.

It is

Is this on the South coast, @Flamez ?

I just don’t know. We have a Turkish kitchen near us. Opens for a couple of weeks, closes, has a massive refit, opens, closes again. Yet a look at their books on companies house says they are making a massive profit. Same as modern day slavery. It’s just the scale of the problem.

How have the authorities not clocked in to the money laundering shops and stamped it out ?

I worked in social housing twenty odd years ago. We had rough estates but not no go areas. There were mainly working families, long term unemployed, some families with far too many children who were pretty feral, but you could still reason with the parents and in the main they attempted to keep their kids in line. There was always a little drug use and petty crime, but I always felt safe to go anywhere alone.

now the town revolves around drugs and county lines. It’s the main business of the high street. The Albanian gangs with their fake shops and barbers launder the money. The corner boys and bike couriers take the orders and zoom it round town to their customers on electric bikes wearing black balaclavas. Big gangs of London kids catch the train down and have machete fights. And the sad druggies stagger around after their fix.

From a BBC News story today:

Around 158,000 children missed at least half of their classes in the autumn and spring terms of the last academic year, it said, citing the latest DfE figures.
In Knowsley, more than a quarter of pupils were classed as persistently absent - meaning they missed 10% of the school calendar, or more.
Blackpool, Bradford, Middlesbrough, Sunderland, Bristol, Torbay and Plymouth followed Knowsley with the next highest rates of persistent absence - with between 23% and 25% of pupils missing significant periods of school.

This doesn't help.

If it had been legalised, taxed and regulated then it woukd be a boost for the economy, bad for organised crime and it would be less strong (and foul smelling).

We get the worst of both. It's mostly decriminalised but not legalised.

The problem is not the dogs- they have to defecate the same as you and me; the negligent dog owners are the problem.

Used to shop at the Arndale as a teen. Loved C and A opposite the Wimpey, pink flamingoes etc. Luton is one of those towns which is always perceived negatively, but got friends who live there and are happy there, and there are nice areas there.

I worked in homelessness for over 14 years, families do let homeless people sleep out.
I worked for 5 years with young (16-21) homeless in central London. Parents and families do chuck their young people out when it gets too difficult, expensive or just because. A quarter in my day were care leavers or former cared for.

I think a problem is letting in too many single men.
It may well be worse when students and health workers aren't allowed to bring their partners and children.

Some towns look similar to how England looked in the 1970's. Grey dirty and hopeless.

@LightDrizzle I agree about that and I actually blame selling off social housing for some of this- in the past it was way more mixed and plenty of decent working ordered families had social housing as well as older people who stayed once their family left home - these days there is so little of it in many areas due to sell offs that you end up with far more problematic families, who are higher up the enormous lists and dwarf the numbers of ordered decent families who struggle to get high up the list -

I grew up in a very poor area. There was still anti social behaviour and crime, but it was not as dangerous as today. I think the reduction in police has had a major impact on anti social behaviour.

Poverty, overcrowding, drink and drugs, changes in shopping habits all contribute but I do think a cultural shift plays a part. Our culture has been more individualistic than many other cultures in other parts of the world, for centuries but I think this increased dramatically in the latter part of the last century and the trend has continued.

Societies that prioritise social harmony and can have their disadvantages: conformism, “punishment” of difference but they also have advantages. My DH is WC and grew up on a large sink estate in our northern city. Everyone was poor and poorer materially than the people who live there now:, fewer clothes, toys, no takeaways, no meals out, no holiday or if lucky a caravan on the coast once a year (only once in DH’s entire time at home). However there was a strong social cohesion that meant that people rarely behaved in an anti-social manner on their home ground. If they did other people would step in to police it. People valued decency and while we sneer at “keeping up appearances” - if it means not slinging your nappies out of the door or screaming profanities at each other in your garden in the early hours then the majority benefit.

We have friends still on the estate and there are plenty of decent people of all ages trying to live good lives there but they are under siege from the shouting, screaming, filth, drug dealing, noise and weed smoking of a growing minority who give no shits, can’t be told what to do by anybody and who will fill in anyone that fancies trying, - or if the nosy bitch/ bastard is elderly maybe just break their windows, encourage their kids to terrorise them and put dogshit through the letterbox. The community can’t sort them out because they can’t be shamed, they don’t care, and if anyone bigger or scarier than them “has a word” then they’ll be facing police charges.

We have definitely cut back on police numbers in the ground too much but it isn’t all down to that.

I preferred when people made an effort in their appearance. I'm sure the general attitude of slobbing around in how people dress is a direct reflection on the mood of society at the moment. Everything is very very run down, towns, people, fashion, mood...

@Seekingstyle You preferred tracksuits?

The clothes that are in fashion at the moment are awful. 20 years ago most of it would have been considered pyjamas and no one would have worn it out the house, now it's costing hundreds of pounds and people wear it for nights out.

And American candy shops, mobile phone accessory shops, hand car washes, ethnic food shops, nail bars, etc. They're usually in high cost places (high rent etc), yet have far too many workers for how busy they are (usually aren't).

I think men swaggering with 'butch' dogs are more a deprived area symptom. I don't go in Booths (it's in Lytham St Annes, millionaire fare for most people in Lancashire as is any shop in Southport) but M & S seems equally depressed - mind, I went in there the other day and I could not see one dress I liked, and only one jacket. This might have to do with the depressed looks - or winter?
But there is a belt of deprivation and the privileged don't care much about the people suffering it.

Bob, respects that others might have their own views and priorities. Universal sugferage means that everyone has a right to a vote based on what they believe, Bob knows many people voted remain on the basis that they thought “better the devil you know” rather than any in-depth knowledge of the pros and cons of the EU. He still chuckles to himself remembering the conversation on the table next to him in Costa in an affluent area.

Mum ”I can’t believe people voted to leave, I mean, what happens if I break my leg in Spain?”

Daughter “”I know, are people thick? We will have to go on holiday to Brittany because that’s still part of Britain”

(just to clarify this was an actual overheard conversation in an actual Costa the day after voting).

Bob isn’t responsible for what others thought. If people are still trusting politicians - more fool them. People need to learn to do their own research (if only on the availability of travel insurance and the constituent parts of Britain).

Bob too has a daughter in law who thinks he regrets his vote. Tbh he just got so fucking tired of her droning on he made something up so she would just bugger off.,

Bob likes Iron Maiden (because as we have seen Bob is erudite and smart) he particularly likes the lyrics to “Hell on Earth”

“You dance on the graves who bled for us
Do you really think they'll come for us?
Knowledge and virtue, taken by lust
Live on the edge of those that you trust
You think that you have all the answers for all
In your arrogant way only one way to fall
Burning a lamp that is fire in your hands
Taking you further from these lands
Love in anger, life in danger
Lost in anger, life in danger”

Bobs just ordered a pint of Trooper