Three murders and at least three serious assaults in two weeks...

[Streathamite]

You miss the point. Many of them may well learn a trade. Does that mean that they shouldn't ever want to perhaps do something else?
That's what my younger brother is doing. He learned and plied a trade, now he's doing a law degree. Should he go back and work on sites for the rest of his life rather than seeing if he's got it in him to do something different?



In terms of "the trades", we don't have a significant "skills hole", what we have are companies who'd rather hire in cheaper labour from the newer EU states, and then whine like fuck about a "skills gap" as an excuse for not wanting to pay a living wage to all those people who've done the apprenticeships, got their papers, and want recompense commensurate with their labour.



"Do what you're told, be a good citizen, and you might one day earn enough at your trade to afford a family and decent housing, peasant".

Fuck off.

You mouth cant phrases like "beneficial to society", but what you mean is "beneficial to the maintenance of the status quo, with everyone in their pigeonholes.



And just where is this reality, outside of your head?



The government has control of the education system. Blaming the LEAs is like blaming the school cleaner when the school lino wears through.



Class over-arches all other social cleavages. In other words, whatever your skin colour, if you're working class you get a worse deal, both practically and in terms of life chances. If you're black then on top of your class giving you a worse deal, your colour does too. Anyone aware of this should (and generally do) strive to make the situation better for all. Remove or ameliorate the causes of crime, and crime falls. That's a basic criminological verity that both the left and right strands of criminology accept.

As for your thesis of blacks as sacrificial lambs for the furtherance of class struggle, what sort of demented halfwit are you, to even think up something as conspiratastically-horrendous? I want to see everyone treated the same, based on their common humanity, not treated differently based on their skin colour.



Masturbating when you wrote that, were you?

If (and it's a contentious point unsupported by demographic flows over the last 60 years) "most of them got a trade, moved out to the suburbs and then started voting Tory", then why is the urban working class still larger than the suburban and rural working classes? You're talking about a minority of the working class (or, more accurately, the "lower middle classes"), not "most" of them, and in terms of changed voting patterns, your claims are again not supported. The biggest change in voting patterns has been from "tribal" voting to "pragmatic" voting, which has benefitted both Labour and the Tories at different times.

As for dead Germans, the accusation of Marxism was juvenile 50 years ago, nowadays it's mostly acknowledged by everyone except the sects that Marxism is a good system for analysing society and economy, but not a particularly helpful ideology.



What the fuck are you on about? You've either been sniffing paint-thinners or reading the intellectually-garbled junk over at Harry's Place again.



Or, better still, alleviate the causes of crime so that staying in education, and learning a trade seem like a better option for actually getting some sort of employment, rather than kids having to grow up in a system that rubs the rewards of crime (from the local dealer's car to the banker's mansion) in their faces from when they're old enough to understand the media.

utterly fantastic post, but most of us commies do still view marxism as a 'helpful ideology!

 

[Streathamite]

Some do. Thats for sure. But a lot dont. And for those who dont then a trade skill gives them a good start in life along with there being a genuine need for people with such abilities in our economy.

What is so difficult to understand about this ?

your posts indicated that all w/c class kids should forget about all aspirations other than bluecollar timeserved tradesmanship

 

[TruXta]

I seem to remember that Douglas Adams envisaged a planet populated only by hairdressers, management consultants etc.

Later blates stolen by Wall-E.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Well on the planet I live in...

You live in a planet? Who are you, the fucking Soup Dragon?

....the work market is all based on people having skills and abilities that others are willing to pay them for.

And the reality is that for working class people having a trade skill empowers them massively. Thats a nailed on fact. I tell you what, have a chat with the people you know on your estate. Ask them if they would like to be taught a trade skill whilst they are at school. Ask them if they understand the importance of it. You might be surprised to find out just how highly they are valued.

Having a trade is fine.

When there's work available.

When employers are willing to pay trade rates.

Now I will admit to a personal interest in this because I work in the training industry. I sell courses for people who wish to train to become plumbers and electricians. And every day I speak to people who are desperate to get a trade because they KNOW that its the only real route for them to make something of their lives. Lots of them tell me that school was an utter joke, that they just pissed about because they were allowed to.

So, in other words, you have an interest in the promotion of trades training, regardless of whether there's work out there for the people you sell courses to.

And yes, I put this down to left wing social engineering experiences in our school system which are only now being put right or at least attempts to do so.

Then elucidate this "social engineering", by all means, but do so substantively, not just through reference to a Peter Hitchens article or two.

This is not about 'capabilitys', its about looking at a problem and coming up with a solution that actually works in all senses of the word.

With the biggest irony of it all being that London has no shortgage of Graduates. But electricians and plumbers, thats a different story.

If you truly want to empower black youth then give them a realistic chance of earning a living wage through giving them a trade. Its how the white working classes climb the ladder so why would it be any different for black people ?

No-one's said it should be any different, idiot.

 

[miss minnie]

What if a w/c kid turns out to be rubbish at trades stuff? Way to demoralize them even more if trades are considered to be the lowest common denominator, the one thing that every boy should be able to do.

 

[ViolentPanda]

utterly fantastic post, but most of us commies do still view marxism as a 'helpful ideology!

I don't agree. There are very few doctrinaire Marxists around nowadays. I'm not saying that people don't take Marx's ideas seriously (they do), I'm saying that people see Marxism as a helpful tool in the toolkit for analysing society and economy, but don't have the entirety of Marxism informing their ideology. You discard the stuff that doesn't apply, and keep the stuff that still has utility, hence we have soi-disant Marxists nowadays whose Marxism is filtered through other other political analyses, or even through intermediary interpretations of Marxism.

In other words: Marxism in the modern world - Curate's egg.

 

[ViolentPanda]

your posts indicated that all w/c class kids should forget about all aspirations other than bluecollar timeserved tradesmanship

Which he's trying to spin as "I only want what's best for them".

And what's best for them, of course, is the training he sells.

 

[Streathamite]

I don't agree. There are very few doctrinaire Marxists around nowadays. I'm not saying that people don't take Marx's ideas seriously (they do), I'm saying that people see Marxism as a helpful tool in the toolkit for analysing society and economy, but don't have the entirety of Marxism informing their ideology. You discard the stuff that doesn't apply, and keep the stuff that still has utility, hence we have soi-disant Marxists nowadays whose Marxism is filtered through other other political analyses, or even through intermediary interpretations of Marxism.

In other words: Marxism in the modern world - Curate's egg.

Ok, fair points, guess I tend to pick 'n' mix on old Charlie a bit

 

[stuff_it]

I'm sure if you asked some of these gang kids thy would tell you that in their position hustling drugs on the street seems like a 'useful philosophy'.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I'm sure if you asked some of these gang kids thy would tell you that in their position hustling drugs on the street seems like a 'useful philosophy'.

Of course it does, when the unemployment rate for under 25s is so disgustingly high that kids in "nice neighbourhoods" can't get jobs, let alone the poor sods from Lambeth council estates. Add to that the fact that black unemployment is generally between 75-100% as bad again as white unemployment in the same neighbourhoods, and virtually anything that brings in the money seems like a useful philosophy.

 

[Greenfish]

Needs to be a combination of education, opportunities, and an attitude from the top down and bottom up and left and right of saying "stop acting like complete cunts, stop blaming everyone else, and fucking be a decent human being!

 

[stevebradley]

Of course it does, when the unemployment rate for under 25s is so disgustingly high that kids in "nice neighbourhoods" can't get jobs, let alone the poor sods from Lambeth council estates. Add to that the fact that black unemployment is generally between 75-100% as bad again as white unemployment in the same neighbourhoods, and virtually anything that brings in the money seems like a useful philosophy.

Just for the record - one of the positive things about London (in my opinion) is that you have social housing in lots of "nice neighbourhoods" (e.g. Durand Gardens in Stockwell, Knatchbull Rd in Camberwell) and plenty of 'professionals' and middle class people/families on council estates. Obviously it differs by estate, but I can think of lots of examples in my patch.

The whole 'nice neighbourhood v council estate' polarised stereotype largely works in other cities in the country, but not so well in London. And a good thing too.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Just for the record - one of the positive things about London (in my opinion) is that you have social housing in lots of "nice neighbourhoods" (e.g. Durand Gardens in Stockwell, Knatchbull Rd in Camberwell) and plenty of 'professionals' and middle class people/families on council estates. Obviously it differs by estate, but I can think of lots of examples in my patch.

The whole 'nice neighbourhood v council estate' polarised stereotype largely works in other cities in the country, but not so well in London. And a good thing too.

Steve, the social class mix on council estates, whether in urban or rural settings, has become more homogeneous year on year for at least the last 20 years. It's an artifact of the residualisation of social housing. The fact that some estates still have a spectrum of class strata living on them is also an artifact: Partly of the vestiges of attempts to keep a "class mix" on estates, and partly through RtB owner/occupation and/or private rental of former L.A. S.H. properties.

As for the "social housing in nice neighbourhoods" that you mention, how many of those estates aren't seen by some of the "incomers"/"gentrifiers" as islands of threat in their locales? I'll wholeheartedly state that council estates aren't anywhere near as rough as they get painted, except in a few instances where local authorities chose to use an estate as a "sink" for their "bad" tenants, but how much of that permeates through to the people who need to understand it? What I know for fact is that outside of Lambeth and a few other similar "inner city" local authorities, if you say you're from a council estate, you're treated as somehow less than perfectly human, and if you say you're from a council estate in Brixton, people often take a step back.
It's about perception, not fact. If people perceive Lambeth as being a shit-hole, and council estates as being the most fly-blown parts of a shit-hole, it doesn't take a genius to see that employment possibilities get worse dependent on your address. Now, if you've got the social and/or cultural capital to transcend your location, as most "professionals" have, to some extent, that's great. It's a fucker if you've just left school, college or even university, though.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Needs to be a combination of education, opportunities, and an attitude from the top down and bottom up and left and right of saying "stop acting like complete cunts, stop blaming everyone else, and fucking be a decent human being!

Take your own advice.