What's happening in London? Brawl involving 100 people?

[AllTheCarsForMe]

I've just seen on Sky News that a teenager has passed away after a "brawl" involving more than 100 people! What on earth is going on?

Yup. A substantial share of the blame here falls on the Tories, there's no getting round that.

Bollocks. It’s a subset of the community committing violent crime. The other half live under the Tory’s and can control themselves.

More unrest in Islington this afternoon according to footage on Twitter. With such low police numbers, what are they supposed to do about it? It's definitely getting worse across London and worrying for parents in case their kids are in the wrong ace at the wrong time.

What, the fact that the Tories have presided over substantial reductions in police funding and numbers has nothing to do with the issue at all, does it? Pull the other one, it's got big fat fucking bells on it. Laughable.

My very normal and boring McDonald's is looking at hiring security due to the behaviour of some teenagers. It's incredibly intimidating when you're on the dining area alone, especially later on a night. And it's nowhere near a city centre.

Makes you wonder how much of this trouble could be avoided if the kids had something else to do. 🤔🤷🏻‍♀️

The incident mentioned by the OP occurred less than 2 miles from Canary Wharf. Houses in that area are frequently £1m +

London is full of microcosms.

You really can't generalise on 'good/bad' areas.

The subset is men.
Women live under reduced police funding and numbers and aren’t stabbing, carrying machetes and stamping on heads.
Aim the gun at the right target and you sort the actual problem.

The subset is indeed men, but this isn't new information. The Tories when they chose to wield their axe did not do so without awareness of which sex it is that's responsible for the very substantial majority of this kind of behaviour.

Makes you wonder how much of this trouble could be avoided if the kids had something else to do. 🤔🤷🏻‍♀️

But what though? Around here there's a skate park, bmx park, plenty of green areas with beaches, free youth club that runs 3 nights a week, there are often volunteers who run things like DJ sessions where teens can go in and learn for free yet people keep saying maybe if they had something to do. Behaviour here at least has deffo gone downhill (statistically as well as anecdotally) yet we didn't have a myriad of magical things to do to occupy ourselves. Reality is as well that whatever is provided there'll be a hierarchy, the popular ones will intimidate others from using it, some will be too cool/get banned. The library used to open late just for secondary school pupils an evening a week and whilst not for everyone, many did come and enjoy it until some selfish fuckers kept causing mayhem and it was too challenging to staff.

Benches not beaches (although that would be cool).

It will worsen everywhere. In times of huge economic uncertainty and unrest, people turn more to drink and drugs. Booze is legal, sold in supermarkets cheaply.

Drugs mean county lines, criminal gangs and their overlords fighting for their share of this lucrative market.

More vicious robberies likely to come too. Scary times.

Given you are prepared to separate people out by the protected characteristic of sex would you also like to separate these men out by category of ethnicity?

Just looked where this happened and it's just off Tredegar Square. A lovely area of Bow. The most desirable part. It looks like an isolated thing.

Both London as a whole and Tower Hamlets as a borough are under Labour control.

All boroughs are under the cosh when it comes to things like police numbers, so I don't think that explains the isues in TH

Local Labour politicians and administrations don't control state funding decisions and aren't in a position to reverse the effects of Tory cuts on policing, amongst other things. The party who are in central government are the ones with responsibility for that.

Neither does the fact that all boroughs have seen reductions disprove the point, because we know that areas of greater deprivation suffer more when there are cuts. People and communities with money and resources are better placed to weather problems than people and communities with less of them.

A man was shot dead in the early hours this morning up my road (High st Ken). Without going into the gang related cases, we are also hearing more and more people being mugged and stabbed for their watches and most of the stuff I hear are incidents not reported to the news. The stuff you see or read is either really high profile cases or there's a video footage of the incident. the majority of the cases don't end up on the news anyway so it's even worse than it is. The handbags aren't even mentioned! These violent muggings aren't related to the economic uncertainty or out of desperation, their ring leaders are most likely living in that area anyway and the person that mugs you probably wouldn't even know how to sell a Rolex or Patek Phillipe without getting caught but it's a full time job for them.

On the subject of sex. Well, yes, the vast majority of perpetrators of street violence are male, as well as the victims if you’re talking about youth violence. Thus has it ever been.

But there has also been a growing trend for young females to be involved in perpetrating violent crime. Two of the incidents I was involved in this year involved girls - one exclusively so. The levels of violence - stamping on heads and necks, using a broken bottle as a weapon etc - were shocking.

That’s anecdotal, but violence between and perpetrated by girls is a noted concern for London secondary schools. It’s extremely worrying. I’d be very surprised if that doesn’t translate to other cities. It’s not a London problem, it’s a societal problem.

Having said all that, I love living in London and wouldn’t live anywhere else. I don’t live in a particularly ‘naice’ area and my children are teens and mixed race (including a great big gangly teenage boy).

It’s worrying - of course I worry - but the opportunities my children get from living in this city are enormous.

I mean...tell me your in London without telling me your from London for thinking Bow is a rough area....its gentrified to all hell and flats are around £2K a month and a Sunday roast starts at £20.

It is wrong to absolve the local council of responsibility in how it makes its funding decisions.

There are plenty of other deprived inner city areas, facing exactly the same funding cuts, who make different decisions about what they fund (for example in youth and activities) and levels of diligence in monitoring what actual makes a difference, rather than going with what feels 'right' vary enormously, as does quality of setting relevant policy targets.

If it were the case that effectiveness of local government was irrelevant, then all areas with similar proxy measures of deprivation would have much the same rate of adverse events and broadly similar outcomes for residents. That is simply not true

Once again, the underfunding of policing is simply not something that is within the control of local government. The councils and Mayor are not in a position to reverse cuts from the Tory central government.

It's not about absolving local councils of responsibility or of local government being totally irrelevant, and that's a strawman. They are responsible for their own actions, which do not include decisions taken by central government. None of which is to say there aren't things local governments could do or have done, but the level of control over policing is not there.

Thus, a substantial share of the blame falls on the Tories, and there is no way round that. Incidentally, this is not a zero sum game, so any decision made by any non-Tory that has contributed to the problem doesn't mean the Tory central government do not bear a substantial share of the blame.

If you see these incidents solely as something you throw police at when they happen, then yes how the Met Police assigns priorities and the workings of your local consultative committees about local priorities are the most relevant policy makers.

If you see it as a wider social issue, about how best to support you local, more deprived area, then many services which are under council control are highly relevant and indeed key.

I prefer to look at policies that prevent poorer outcomes and rising tensions.

And to realise that performance between councils (when standardised for deprivation levels) is variable. The strawman argument is the one which blames the bogeyman Tories for everything, for that is really not the case.

I live in London, an ‘edgy’ area and have never seen a fight at all.

And mass brawls are incredibly rare in London, too. Funnily enough.

Jeeez. I am so sick of this ‘oooh, it doesn’t happen where I live’ stuff. Atrocities can and do happen anywhere. And are awful whenever and wherever they do. But the sheer numbers in London (add up the populations of towns near you, stop when you get to 16m) mean that more happens.

Good and bad.

So this violence is blamed on "gangs" and "the youth" now huh? Instead of looking at what has changed over the last few decades, but I guess we are not allowed to think this anymore, let alone say it.

Why would you think you can't look at causes?

I think that's what the best performing areas (in terms of reducing deprivation and improving outcomes) are continuously doing.

Because it is obvious that part of the problem is mass immigration. But people are either too scared to say this or so brainwashed they believe the BS in the media and society. Just watch my comment get piled on or deleted. We live in very sad times when you are not allowed to say the truth anymore without being jumped on.