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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

So are youth club closures to blame?

81 replies

TheLadyEvenstar · 07/08/2011 13:34

"There'll be riots"

So are the youth club closures to blame for the riots in Tottenham as some people on FB/Twitter believe?

OP posts:
Birdsgottafly · 07/08/2011 15:05

Maypole- btw, i know that you are not white, i have been on many threads that you have been on.

Squiglettsmummy2bx · 07/08/2011 15:06

I live in tottenham very close to the riots & I can assure you that closing youth clubs had nothing to do with last nights disgusting behaviour. Personally I think the police should have shot them all last night!

DogsBestFriend · 07/08/2011 15:06

Apologies, Birds, I misread your post. :)

I still stand by what I said about the bleeding hearters being twats though! :o

Birdsgottafly · 07/08/2011 15:06

Maypole-this is where we are today, but not how it started iyswim.

Birdsgottafly · 07/08/2011 15:08

Squiglett-not everyone on the street was involved with the riot, the rioters came from outside. I think that we have all agreed that the riot had nothing to do with cuts.

Squiglettsmummy2bx · 07/08/2011 15:09

Also Marks death was an excuse for all the drama. How would stealing a tv/trainers or burning down peoples homes & businesses get a point across unless the point was I am a thieving scum bag. It is a sad day for the people who live here & live on the right side of the law Sad

Ephiny · 07/08/2011 15:12

Sounds a bit ridiculous to me. I never went to a 'youth club' when I was young (and remember being bored sometimes) but somehow managed to avoid shooting anyone or starting a riot Hmm.

I doubt the kind of young people who do these things would be likely to go to youth clubs anyway, or indeed be welcome there. More likely they'd be the ones vandalising the place and ruining it for the kids who do want to go.

Richlinn · 07/08/2011 15:16

Here's the problem - there are too many people who don't care about children having children. Until the government looks at the reasons behind this,and rectifies it, problems like Tottenham will happen again and again.

DogsBestFriend · 07/08/2011 15:21

"Here's the problem - there are too many people who don't care about children having children. Until the government looks at the reasons behind this,and rectifies it, problems like Tottenham will happen again and again."

Yeah Richlinn. Right. Hmm

Birdsgottafly · 07/08/2011 15:22

It isn't easy to avoid trouble in these circumstances, either, it has to be remembered that school boys have been shot/stabbed/beaten senseless on the stairs of the tenement block they live in, on the way to school, going into school, in the school yard etc.

Richlinn · 07/08/2011 15:34

Dogsbestfriend - Please explain why I am wrong. There are far too many people not following through with any decent parenting and that's where things are going wrong. If you don't agree with me then that's your opinion.

catgirl1976 · 07/08/2011 15:35

I would agree there is a lack of decent parenting but I don't think that is

a) something that automatically correlates to the age of the parent

b) a reason for the perpertators on the violence to not be held accountable

Richlinn · 07/08/2011 15:38

Agree with Catgirl's last comment

DogsBestFriend · 07/08/2011 15:38

I have explained why these things are a crap excuse for criminal behaviour. See above.

Or give me an address so I can come and steal your money, torch your house, terrorise your animals and children and smash your car up. After all, I check virtually all the excuses boxes.

catgirl1976 · 07/08/2011 15:40
Confused
fluffyliquorice · 07/08/2011 15:40

it has nothing to do with youth clubs and everything to do with people bringing their children up in a moral vacuum. Teenagers today have got a hell of a lot more to occupy them than we had in the seventies and eighties, yet we weren't out smashing the streets up etc .
I would not have dared, I would have been terrified of my parents reaction if I'd broken the law. Now we have children with parents who are encouraging them to be vile ammoral thugs. It's lack of respect for any type of authority that's the reason the country is going to hell in a hand cart. (if that comes across as too Daily Mail I don't care, it's true)

DogsBestFriend · 07/08/2011 15:41

I'm maybe misreading again though (my excuse - doing accounts too!). I read your post as "too many people who don't care about children having children" as a reflection that society doesn't care that very young people are reproducing, not that people who don't give a monkeys about DC are giving birth to them anyway.

DogsBestFriend · 07/08/2011 15:42

That was to Richlinn, btw.

catgirl1976 · 07/08/2011 15:44

Yes - I thought Richlinn you were saying that young people having children was the problem and a reason for the violence.

Which I then said it wasn't.

And you then agreed with me.

So I must have mis-read you somewhere?

HappyMummyOfOne · 07/08/2011 15:49

No amount of youthclubs would stop thugs and gangs. There are plenty of free/low cost activities available, some parents just want the state to provide them with them on a plate as well as the house/money.

Its down to parenting and teaching right from wrong at an early age and then ensuring they take the correct path as a teen. Part parents to blame and part the person themselves, certainly not the states.

Ephiny · 07/08/2011 15:54

I'm sure there is a lot of terrible parenting going on, but there has to come a point where people start to take responsibility for their own actions a bit. The gang member who was killed in the police shootout was 29 - I don't care how crap his parents were, by that age you make your own choices in life.

I don't know how old the rioters and looters were, but from the photos it certainly didn't look like they were small children who couldn't be expected to know any better. Several apparently drove to the retail park to fill up their cars with stolen goods, so clearly old enough to drive. Even if they were teenagers, regardless of their parenting I don't believe they had no idea that stealing and vandalism are not a proper way to behave.

Richlinn · 07/08/2011 15:56

Yes you were both misreading my post. It should have read - ...There are too many people who don't care about children, having children"

EdithWeston · 07/08/2011 15:57

"Also the 'problem' of black on black (media wording) knife and gun crime, the killing of teenagers, has never been tackled properly or taken seriously".

How does Operation Trident fit in?

TheLadyEvenstar · 07/08/2011 15:58

HMO, thats what I said. I said parenting has a lot to do with it and that is where it starts. I was told I have a daily fail attitude Grin

OP posts:
InTheNightKitchen · 07/08/2011 16:17

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