It's okay Mumsnetters slagging the DM off - but it's the only paper that has nailed it re the rioters...

[didyouseewhatshedid]

A few quotes below from Max Hastings - says it all really...

^So there we have it: a large, amoral, brutalised sub-culture of young British people who lack education because they have no will to learn, and skills which might make them employable
...Liberal opinion holds they are victims, because society has failed to provide them with opportunities to develop their potential.
...this is nonsense. Rather, they are victims of a perverted social ethos, which elevates personal freedom to an absolute, and denies the underclass the discipline ? tough love ? which alone might enable some of its members to escape from the swamp of dependency in which they live.^

I agree entirely Ms Mgee. They do it as they have nothing to lose. But why is that? Because Labour was happy to see them rot on benefits for years on end.

That's not factually correct, OP.

You really must work on this 'will to learn' thing.

so, without benefits they would have even less to lose, no?

No, breaktime. The country as a whole should have been tougher in terms of:

• Making education compulsory instead of letting kids run riot/swear/treat teachers like shite. Teachers - like the police - have their arms tied in the UK. it's a joke.
• Creating a situation where being on the dole was a career option. Labour had a golden opportunity to address the poverty trap. But bottled it.

didyousee

Do you honestly, hand on heart, think that the dole is a 'career option'? Do you know ANYONE who does?

Thats a load of bollocks didyousee, - minimum wage, new deal, ASBO's (debatable effect - agreed) better rights for workers, addressing inequalities in the tax system, tax credits, flexible working. All of these things were created by new labour to try and address the poverty trap.
No they weren't perfect but the idea that this is in some way the fault of NL policies is complete daily mail tosh.

And have you ever tried actually living on benefits?! Its NOT a career option unless your idea of a career involves being barely able to afford even the basics.

Oh, and while I'm at it (manning the barricades against the cognitively impaired) education IS compulsory.

if you think cutting benefits will bring an end to rioting and crime, you've got another think coming very shortly. The Tories will indeed cut benefits and knock people off them wherever it can. And just watch the unrest and crime grow. Especially when they cut the police and turn prisons into profit-making enterprises. More and more career criminals created at younger and younger ages. Oh the country faces such a great future under the selfservatives...

OK - I am a teacher and I have no wish to have my hands 'untied' if by that you mean be given permission to hurt or humiliate the children. I have no interest in that.

The problems in schools are down to decades of deprivation and a lack of parental education and aspiration. The children I teach have parents and grandparents who were let down by society. They have no respect for the establishment as a whole, which includes the education system. Without the support of parents, teachers are fighting a losing battle. I don't want to lay a finger on any of my pupils, I just want them to care about their education and have some respect - and that comes from home.

Being on the dole is not a 'career option'. Without welfare benefits, the children I teach would be living below the breadline and the problems would be far worse. Of course, long term benefit reliance for those who could otherwise work is not the answer, but it is still necessary to provide that safety net - and to provide support mechanisms and programmes to improve self-esteem and skills to get people feeling better about themselves and pull themselves out of the trap. That's where people are let down - because those services are being cut and squeezed and shut down.

The problem is not that we have become too soft, it's that we have not been brave enough to tackle the problem from the root cause - there's a tendency to deal with the symptoms.

well said Lifeissweet! If only half the people who pontificate about teaching and teachers would actually listen to what teachers have to say...

Im not saying humiliate and hit pupils lifeissweet. But, surely to god, there has to be a better way than what we have right now. Poor kids in poor areas are being done a disservice by leaving school with...nothing. The orthodoxy of the last 30 years has not worked. No amount of pontificating, blaming others etc does not change that

What do you suggest would untie our hands, though, didyousee?
In my experience, in the very deprived inner city area in which I teach (which, incidentally, saw some of the worst of the rioting), the problems the children have (Primary - by the way - so I would argue the most important time to change their attitudes to learning and society) are largely borne of low self-esteem and emotional instability. I am talking about mothers in prison, absent fathers, domestic violence, neglect, extreme poverty.

They being in Reception with emotional and behavioural problems and intervention programmes are in place from day one, but some get to 11 and are so badly scarred by their home lives that they stand little chance of getting through secondary school with any useful qualifications.

We do our best with what we have. What these children need is intervention at a family and community level. The parents need support to raise their children.

Our funding for our essential Learning Mentor team has been cut, the funding for teaching assistants is being cut - and it is these people in schools who have the time to help the children deal with their anger problems and emotional difficulties.

What we need is not more powers to discipline in a punitive way, but more intervention to work together as part of the community. We want to work with parents who don't see us as part and parcel of a system that belittles them and leaves them on the scrapheap. That's the priority. Attitudes are not going to change because of tougher policing/sentencing/school discipline. That leads to further alienation and the cycle continues.

Speaking as a single mother on and of benefits, I've been shocked by the rabid right wingers coming out of the woodwork on mumsnet.
Nobody condones the riots, whatever political party you support.
The student demonstrations proved that it's not just inner cities and the disenfranchised that are capable of mindless violence.

Actually this is a good article. And from the Telegraph!

I particularly like Hastings' comparison of the "wild beasts" to proper Brits - nationalistic, monarchy-loving, cricket fans. As long as you fit into the traditional nuclear family conventions, of course.
Because condoning single mothers will surely lead to anarchic ruin.

The DM is despicable and this article no different.

It is horrible TSC ,so much hate

TSC: "rightwing hatefilled cunts"? Nice.
"So much hate" is quite right, usualsuspect. Unfortunately, though, I don't think you were aiming your comment at TSC and her foul mouth.

I agree with TSC - I am really shocked. Takes something like this to legitimise those attitudes I suspect.

The very fact that people can talk on an open forum about "rightwing hate-filled cuntery" is part of the problem. It really is unpleasant. No wonder some people - regardless of social class - think they can do and say whatever they like, regardless of who gets hurt in the process.

No, its attitudes like yours that are part of the problem ,TrompetteMilitaire

So, what attitude is that usualsuspect?

The Daily Mail attitude of course