to think that evicting hundreds of travellers from their site is unfair and immoral

[rocketty]

It's an illegal site. They didn't have planning permission. It's greenbelt...

but it used to be a car scrapyard (not rolling fields and thatched cottages then), they own the land and it's right next to a legal settlement.

They've obviously broken the law by settling here, but on balance, wouldn't it be more ethical to let them be? The children are settled at school and getting an education. Lots of people are prejudiced against gypsies and travellers but they've got to live somewhere.

I've seen the news articles about it. It makes me feel sad.

Sorry I haven't read all the posts since i posted this am, but just logged in and saw that my post had been deleted by MN.

I have looked at my post, I temp save them all, as I write them in word due to my dyslexia, and I cannot see how my post contravened any of the r&r?

Can anyone enlighten me?

It seems that people feel very free to direct a huge amount of white hot anger at the Travellers when in fact what they are angry about is being 'Taxed to the hilt, opportunities diminishing, university fees being introduced, child benefit being taken away.'

Along come the Travellers, who have the nerve to behave in an utterly 'Irish Traveller' way, a living, breathing embodiment of the idea that playing by the rules will get you nowhere whereas taking the rules and turning them on their heads will net you maybe £1m in cash to be distributed to your rellies at your death, a nice house in Ireland...

I know exactly what Blue meant Mouseface and she saved me typing the very same thing!

You were implying that Travellers are given less rope and tolerance than other ethnicities for their misdemeanours. You said that if Muslims/Asians/Purple heaed donkeys were evicted there would be a much greater uproar.

But that just proves that most sensible people realise that this is nothing about persecution of an ethnic minority, nothing to do with whether peopel do or do not approve of Traveller culture and behaviours, and everything to do with a simple matter of planning and the law. If people genuinely felt that ethnic cleansing was being carried out it would not be tolerated.

sorry, that was a bit slightly garbled English, but you get my drift!

Sorry, should have scattered a few apostrophes about in that

I guess I'll leave it there then. I can't seem to get my point across and maybe it's my own upbringing and my parent's own views that I hold.

See, now that makes me sound even more ignorant/wrong/misinformed.

Is it o'clock yet?

I don't think that Travellers are given less rope and tolerance than other ethnicities for their misdemeanours, but I do think that racial comments against gypsies and travellers are considered less serious than if they were made against muslims,asians or other ethnic minorities.

I don't really mind the travellers as individuals and if they want to lead this kind of lifestyle fair enough.

But I do mind them flouting planning regulations, intimidating local people, not paying taxes even though some of them have huge vehicles etc, leaving a mess for someone else to pay for when they move on.

Also if my children were not in school I could be fined. The LA makes such a fuss if the kids miss school to go on holiday.

I think it is the double standards that get to me. Equality doesn't seem to mean that in GB.

even I don't understand my last post basically what i,m saying is that I couldnt care less if it,s a bunch of green eared martians,if they dont have planning permission then they should be moved on but generally racial abuse against gypsies and travellers is more tolerated by society than against other ethnic minorities.It has happened on this thread,a poster has spouted some racial crap and then has been backed by others saying she hadnt written anything wrong.

I think you are right Bubbles. But I think that is because your average white British person still doesn't see them as an Ethnic Minority, just a pain in the arse!

Also wouldn't care if they were Dr Who characters, the law needs to be applied fairly. The man who built the house in the barn had to take it down because no planning permission. No planning permission = take it down or move on.

Well lets face it Fellatio,a fair few of them dont do themselves any favours by acting as they do but a hard working, tax paying gypsy family dont make good headlines in the tabloid press.

I haven't read all of the thread because I'm quite incensed that people are so sympathetic.

(1) If a piece of land has planning consent it's value goes up massively. So travellers arrange to buy or rent pieces of land or just occupy them, getting the benefit of the location without the cost.

(2) If they travelled it wouldn't be such a problem but they set up quasi houses - frankly I've seen some that look very much like Barratt Homes inside and then invest money in making them permanently liveable.

(3) School or not is a choice. They have access to schools if they choose. But just like military families which move around, if they move they have to move schools.

(4) They have, in the main been offered alternative accommodation, despite not putting into the local economy in terms of council tax etc.

We have a group of travellers who has moved in not far away, they arranged for a shill to buy a field and have moved caravans onto it. They claim they want their children to settle and go to school. The local authority has put them to the top of the housing list and offered them housing. They have refused it.

They have been refused planning consent. So they have built a fence.

My council tax is going into pulling down the fence and moving them on.

Landowners are paying to have lorries full of grit and slag poured onto any entrances to fields to prevent vehicle access because they are scared travellers will turn up.

And to be clear the recent eviction of student squatters in Oxford shows that the local authorities are taking a harder line on this. If you occupy property illegally, you will be removed from it. It's pretty simple really. People need to put into their society, both financially and by playing by the rules.

Grrr

even I don't understand my last post basically what i,m saying is that I couldnt care less if it,s a bunch of green eared martians,if they dont have planning permission then they should be moved on but generally racial abuse against gypsies and travellers is more tolerated by society than against other ethnic minorities.It has happened on this thread,a poster has spouted some racial crap and then has been backed by others saying she hadnt written anything wrong

I agree.

And with what you put after that Felatio.

Redgrave really annoys me, if she feels so strongly about this issue offer a few of the 'travellers' a place in her home - no I didnt think so.

She used to live in a very desirable part of London and perhaps she would like this camp next to her. I had personal experience a few years ago of a small illegal camp, everything that people have claimed to have experienced on this thread is true, and the mess they left behind was truly a disgrace. They should be made to clear it up, and where on earth do they get the money to have these top of the range Range Rovers and the like!!

Move them on - they are travellers after all. If we allow this camp to stay them it will be the green light for anyone who has brought green belt land to build on it. The travellers brought this land knowing that it didnt have planning permission - they then built on it and some posters are suggesting we allow them to...

For all the people who are saying that we should allow them to stay - why not offer them a pitch in your back/front garden.

The thing is, and I hope I can make some sense since I'm on my second martini and no dinner yet , when people make negative generalisations about Travellers and Gypsies they don't see their comments as being racist stereotyping, for the following reason: If I said that young black men were all muggers or gun/knife wielding gangsters, or if I said that all Muslim men were fundalmentalists with extremist/terrorists tendencies, I'd clearly be lumping them all into a category that actually, in reality, applies to a very small minority. But black young men do not use their cultural heritage as a reason to join gangs and shoot other young black men, or mug people. Muslims do not all use their religion as an excuse to bomb the tube system.
The fact that some of them do do these things is more to do with their social/religious conditioning than their ethnicity or culture.

With Travellers they do seem to use their ethnicity and cultural heritage as justification for behaving in a in a way which most of us find anti-social, backward, parasitic, selfish and misogynistic. They justify certain behaviours as being age-old parts of their culture. Therefore it becomes pretty unavoidable when criticising the behaviours, to criticise the entire culture/community. I would say any gypsies or travellers who do not fit the negative stereotype are the enlightened/integrated ones, and are probably in the minority. I realise that sounds quite arrogant, to suggest they need to be enlightened and adopt 'our' ways and abandon their own, but we ALL have to do that to an extend to be able to function in a non-tribal society.

I've just read my post back, and as I suspected it didn't make much sense.

I know what you mean fellatio! I saw some women wearing the burka today - not in a million years do I agree with it, it makes me uncomfortable especially as the man with them was oggling a women sitting at the next table!

Should I be more tolerate? Or is this part of someone's religion belonging in the dark ages?

I am not very sympathetic about the present customs and practices adopted in the name of 'tradition' amongst travellers. Here are my top four beefs.

1. Pulling kids out of secondary school, often semi-literate, in breach of the law.
2. Bafflingly not even being able to speak Romany, and not knowing very much about the long Romany heritage of which they are part, making reference only to the recent living history of close relatives.
3. Creating unofficial trailer parks but then using local services with no regard to contributing to those services in any way, financially or socially.
4. Failing to comply with planning laws that require other property owners and developers to have regard for planning gain, appropriate infrastructure development and so on.
5. Bare knuckle fighting encouraged amongst children as a means of solving disputes, once again in breach of the law.

Sorry, that ended up being 5!

In the end the burka is not doing any harm to others and little as non-Muslims may relish it we have to accept it. The beefs listed by SeniorWrangler numbered 1, 2, (the second one numbered two, Senior, whoopsie!), 3 and 4 are harmful to others and we are not bound to accept them or to work with them.