To think that rights/wrongs aside, a council needing to make £300m cuts should focus it's funds somewhere other than evicting gypsies?

[Blubell]

I know there are massive fors and againsts in the Dale Farm evictions, and I don't want to start a big travellers debate, but in this time of austerity measures, and the fact that Essex council needs to cut £300m in 3 years, is evicting the site now, when it's a case that has been going on for 10 years really the best way to spend the little cash they have? Its been reported it's going to cost the council £18m to return the site - which used to be a scrapyard so hardly a place of outstanding beauty - back to greenbelt, how many carers, libraries etc will be lost to fund that? Just a thought.......

I've just come home and I see this thread has moved on somewhat.
To math, my darling niece is half Ghanain [sp?], and I loathe racism with every fibre of my being, and have want to kill anyone that ever made any racist remarks to her (happily not many, the UK is not as racist as you think)
I think you are the most superior and actually most ridiculous poster I've ever come across on MN.
Unlike you I CBA searching websites and c & p ing them to prove my point.
I don't need to.
And what SarahSratton has said.
Because I can understand her frustration that you keep missing the point..

I have said this before on MN,so apologies to those who have read it before but racism towards Romany gypsies and Travellers is more widely tolerated than racism towards other ethnic minorities,however at the risk of repeating myself I havent seen much on this thread.

The gallows remark is apt. The prospect of eviction and the newsworthiness of it seems to have attracted the buzzards in full triumphal force.

LadyBeagle, you still griping about C&Ping? What exactly about it has got your goat? The fact that I actually can back up my pov?

LineRunner, I don't think councils basically care about what's legal or not, as long as there's money to be extracted as Beamur says. Planning applications cost money and so do appeals.

Travellers are a recognised ethnic minority, Cote. Discrimination against them is counted as racism.

Oh ffs, I'm out.
You win math.

Re "travellers are a recognized ethnic minority"

That must be a new development, because The First National Report by Ireland to the Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), July 2003, (Department of Justice, Equality, and Law Reform) says in plain terms "In regard to the scope of this report, it should be noted that Irish travelers do not constitute a distinct group from the population as a whole in terms of race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin". A position confirmed by a Parliamentary question in October 2003.

Even if travellers were an ethnic group, evicting them from land for which they have no building permission is not discrimination and therefore is no racist.

Also, pointing out that they are being pursued for this criminal act, just like anyone else wouod be, and that is a good thing is not racist, either.

Irish Travellers are a recognised ethnic minority in England but apparently not ireland.

Haven't had a chance to read the whole thread, but going back to speculation/discussions about the school at Cray's Hill at the beginning of the thread, here is a link to the OFSTED reports.

They make interesting reading. The first, back in 2002 shows a school in a depressing state of flux. It appears to have had problems as far back as 1999. It shows the presence of a small but rapidly growing minority of Traveller children. It seems to have huge issues with terrible behaviour from a minority (although it doesn't point fingers specifically at any pupil demographic obviously) behaviour, integration, violence and disruption among a minority of pupils who make learning difficult for the rest, the ability to keep staff, staff and parent morale, etc. The majority of parents seem to feel that the poor behaviour of the minority is not being addressed. The pupil roll numbers 160.

In 2007 the school numbers have dropped dramatically, and the school is in the process of reinventing itself as an exclusively Traveller school. Mass boycott of the school by non-Traveller parents and pupils, mass resignations of staff, and governors, and a new management team being put in place.

By 2011 the school appears to be really rather good, in terms of staff morale, staff continuity, teaching, and value added, although attainment and attendance are woefully low compared to the national average. The number of pupils considered to have some kind of learning, communication, behavioural or emotional difficulty or disability is...well, pretty much all of them by the sounds of things. So it seems that the LA have bent over backwards to make the school as inclusive and as nurturing and effective and welcoming as possible for the tiny number of pupils it serves, but the outcomes are very poor in spite of this.

Pupil numbers have dropped to 64, pretty much exclusively Travellers. Behaviour is now described as excellent. Reading between the lines it seems the Traveller children can cope in a school geared exclusively to them and their 'needs' and expectations, where few questions are asked, blind eyes are turned to many things, and they are not expected to meet the same standards and criteria as pupils from mainstream society.

Not quite what I meant by my earlier post math - in the main I don't think Councils 'think' like that, there is not some giant corporate conspiracy to extract money from people. Generally, the concept of public service is to help and give people stuff - like education, decent roads, libraries etc but times are a changing and the pressures of market forces are being introduced etc - but this is not a thread about that.
What I suppose I was trying to say is that Councils operate on many levels, not all of which run together. To give a different example - the eligibility to attend school is not going to be withdrawn because someone is living in a dwelling that does not have planning permission, but attending school from that dwelling is not in any way implying that therefore that dwelling is accepted from the planning perspective. So paying Council Tax for the services you are getting follows the same logic.

Human rights are for people you don't like, admire or want to live with. If they were for people just like us and we all shared the same values we would never have needed a human rights act. Nobody said you had to like individual Travellers or their culture.

Bollocks. Human Rights are to ensure a level playing field for all.

Human Rights are earned.
Suggest you channel Ghandi. alice.

aliceliddell, you want to limit the application of human rights? That's brave of you to admit it.

I don't think the human rights introduction was a very good idea. It seems to lead to this sort of problem. The rights of the silent law abiding majority are at the bottom of the pile.

alemcii. Human rights are always a good idea.

Yes, that is true, math. The right to park and camp wherever you please isn't earned, either.

What a disservice you do, to other travellers, including those here in this part of Scotland, who follow the law. Who live in legal camps here and bother and burden no one, and who are thus a part of the community for however long they chose to remain. Who came, yesterday morning, by contract, to service a homeless flat for the next occupant, painting and cleaning. I recognised one, from the pub where I work. He bid me good morning, and introduced his mother and brother. I know where they stay. Everyone does.

Who come to the village fortnightly ceilidhs to dance along and participate. Who bring their children to the village school and participate in its workings.

We have no bother here. We have one HA site and one private owned by a Scottish traveller and got permission for the camp before he allowed his fellow Scottish travllers to park on it. He and his family keep it, in accordance with all policy.

They are embarrassed and disgusted, by the actions of those at Dale Farm and others, who act in such a way as to get them tarred with the same brush, and are vocal in that. They are not the same, they say. They are the descendants of those evicted in the Highland Clearances and before, who do their part, and never want anything from anyone illegally or feel their human rights are breached by the way they chose to live their lives, legally and without camping in any other way. So they are accepted entirely.

They thumb their noses at the likes of Dale Farm, maybe if I can convince my Scottish traveller mates to come on here they can tell you as much, but this whole fracas has them even more diving for what they call 'the mist'. They are the mist people. Stewarts, Reeds, Whytes, Macdonalds, etc.

My FIL himself is a 'blue buck', half-traveller, half 'hantle', as it were.

There is no more tattie hawking, that is originally why they came this way at this time of year. So instead they turn their hand to other things, legal things.

And, having point blank asked some of the wifeys, they're disgusted with how some others behave and conduct themselves in this instance.

Maybe I'll tell them they are racists, at ceilidh next Saturday.

'Shan', as one put it.

Irish Travellers and Scottish Travellers are different groups.

If the Scottish Travellers are afraid the Irish Travellers are doing them a disservice by any behaviour of theirs, doesn't it show that they are afraid of the same racism and stereotyping that Irish Travellers experience?

Does it show that they do not feel 100% sure of their welcome in the community they are a part of if they feel the behaviour of another group entirely might be doing them a disservice?

No, actually, it shows that they are as disgusted by the behaviour of some travellers as the rest of us, and see nothing wrong with siding with non-travellers in condemning it.

Much like the Muslim community who condemns Islamist terrorists and often say that they are doing the wider Muslim community a disservice by their behavior.

How do you come to that conclusion math re Sansa's post?

Math you really like dividing people up into groups don't you. What's wrong with thinking of them as people?

Onagar, they really are two separate ethnic groups with separate identities and origins, just as the Romany and Irish Travellers are separate groups. I'm not the one who divided them. According to Sansa's post, the Scottish Travellers she knows claim a different origin and also say they are 'not the same' as the Irish Travellers.

'What's wrong with thinking of them as people?'

LOL. Ask Basildon DC, who are about to turf people out of their homes and literally onto the road.

Well I'm not 'the same' as all sorts of people in this country, but it seems I am not allowed to shout about it as it's considered racist. I'm just a common or garden white English person BTW. Luckily I don't especially care about racial or ethnic differences - I just like people to be well behaved and to show good citizenship towards one another (according to the laws of this land) no matter what their ethnicity.