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ULEZ camera cutters

Rob Ray

Rob Ray

Weight is meaningless
I know there's a thread about the ULEZ more generally:

www.urban75.net

Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ)

Tell you what. I bet he doesn't catch either the 249 or 319 to get to work from there 🙄
www.urban75.net www.urban75.net

But might be worth having one specifically on the people cutting cameras down as it's an interesting phenomenon in itself. Claiming the hilariously cringe sobriquet of "blade runners" it seems to be getting quite popular among a section of the public that I suspect would have a lot of crossover with the "I'd just run em over" set.
 
I doubt the sort of people doing this will go after CCTV cameras more generally, unless it's by accident. They seem to be drawing heavily from the right so it'd be a bit of a "steady on, that'd be vandalism because I'm all in favour of surveilling poors in the town centre" kind of thing. Think of themselves as law abiding, usually a bit hang em and flog em, but This Is A Righteous Cause.
 
I predict this is going to be a popcorn thread, there are always people on here banging on about the need for 'community action' and here it is before our very eyes.
Save of course most people round are probably pro-ULEZ

Pickman's model said:
what i think will be interesting is if this leads to a similar campaign against cctv cameras more generally
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Why? CCTV has been around for donkey's years and there hasn't been this scale of protest against them. No-one is protesting about the cameras, they're protesting about what they enforce.
 
These twats are probably taking more risks than they think, because if it is decided they are causing property damage to promote a political cause they could presumably be done under terrorism laws. Though something tells me the police/CPS will show them a bit more sympathy than left wing protestors.
 
Rob Ray said:
I doubt the sort of people doing this will go after CCTV cameras more generally, unless it's by accident. They seem to be drawing heavily from the right so it'd be a bit of a "steady on, that'd be vandalism because I'm all in favour of surveilling poors in the town centre" kind of thing. Think of themselves as law abiding, usually a bit hang em and flog em, but This Is A Righteous Cause.
Click to expand...

I’d have thought this kind of subversive bellendery would be right up your strasse, Bobby!
 
MickiQ said:
I predict this is going to be a popcorn thread, there are always people on here banging on about the need for 'community action' and here it is before our very eyes.
Save of course most people round are probably pro-ULEZ


Why? CCTV has been around for donkey's years and there hasn't been this scale of protest against them. No-one is protesting about the cameras, they're protesting about what they enforce.
Click to expand...

It's more complicated than wanting 'community action' though isn't it? There's all sorts of stuff that could be stuck under that banner, including some horrendously reactionary things, the anti-immigration hotel stuff recently for example.

I don't think this has any chance of addressing CCTV more generally for all sorts of reasons.

I agree with Rob Ray that it's interesting, but like the anti-lockdown stuff there's (small elements) of justifiable anger but it's all confused and overwhelmed with terrible politics and I don't think it has any potential to be anything more than that, but I think it's a bit embelmatic of the messy political stuff that quickly emerges and then often as quickly vanishes at the moment. Like many problems the left has no traction or power either to address when it does emerge, or to have the ability to tackle the concerns more generally before they come out as this kind of nonsense. That to me is the more fundamental question and problem that needs to be addressed.
 
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Rob Ray said:
You are intelligent enough to understand that being in favour of "community action" is not a blind statement, right? Fascists burning down a synagogue aren't suddenly considered to be doing something great because it's "community action."
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Not remotely the same thing, burning down a synagogue is rioting/criminal behaviour. This is people protesting against a goverment mandated policy and is most definitely community action in every meaningful sense of the word. It's not community action that I support by the way but it is.
 
MickiQ said:
Not remotely the same thing, burning down a synagogue is rioting/criminal behaviour. This is people protesting against a goverment mandated policy and is most definitely community action in every meaningful sense of the word. It's not community action that I support by the way but it is.
Click to expand...
I wasn't saying they were the same thing, I was making a point about how people in favour of community action as a means of promoting social change aren't in fact obliged to support every instance of community action regardless of its source, intent or behaviour by offering a clear-cut example. Honestly I thought that was a simple enough one that I wouldn't need to explain further.
 
Rob Ray said:
I doubt the sort of people doing this will go after CCTV cameras more generally, unless it's by accident. They seem to be drawing heavily from the right so it'd be a bit of a "steady on, that'd be vandalism because I'm all in favour of surveilling poors in the town centre" kind of thing. Think of themselves as law abiding, usually a bit hang em and flog em, but This Is A Righteous Cause.
Click to expand...

Yeah we've got people here tearing up the barriers for the new LTNs. The narrative is that the local authority becomes illegitimate as soon as it does something I don't like so it's not a crime to act against it. Even if you're doing stuff that's a crime based on laws that are nothing to do with county council transport policy, namely the law that says don't destroy public property.

Seems to be mostly young teenagers doing the vandalism. Young teenagers can't drive so clearly they'll have been put up to it by parents in some form or other. Which regardless of driving or LTN's or anything else is a fucking loathsome thing to do.
 
MickiQ said:
Not remotely the same thing, burning down a synagogue is rioting/criminal behaviour. This is people protesting against a goverment mandated policy and is most definitely community action in every meaningful sense of the word. It's not community action that I support by the way but it is.
Click to expand...

It takes a village to cut a cable.

Oh no wait no, it just takes one arsehole with a set of extendable pruning shears.
 
Rob Ray said:
I doubt the sort of people doing this will go after CCTV cameras more generally, unless it's by accident. They seem to be drawing heavily from the right so it'd be a bit of a "steady on, that'd be vandalism because I'm all in favour of surveilling poors in the town centre" kind of thing. Think of themselves as law abiding, usually a bit hang em and flog em, but This Is A Righteous Cause.
Click to expand...
i don't mean this 'sort of people', i mean people who see this and start doing it themselves. it's not like people haven't been sabotaging or damaging cctv cameras before, just it's not - i think - previously been done on this scale. so it would be a bit surprising to me if the campaign didn't rub off on other sorts of people
 
MickiQ said:
Why? CCTV has been around for donkey's years and there hasn't been this scale of protest against them. No-one is protesting about the cameras, they're protesting about what they enforce.
Click to expand...
yeh. there's been other people do stuff about them in the past- not your protest but active damage to cameras - one instance i recall was from about 2006 when a load of cameras on estates in islington were paintballed. the campaign against the ulez cameras (which i'd say was going from protest to resistance) might well inspire other groups of people to take up paintball guns and pruning shears
 
Brainaddict said:
These twats are probably taking more risks than they think, because if it is decided they are causing property damage to promote a political cause they could presumably be done under terrorism laws. Though something tells me the police/CPS will show them a bit more sympathy than left wing protestors.
Click to expand...
as we know the Met is at now at the behest of whatever Cruella tells them to do , do it'l;l be down to what Cruella the Nylon ( disbarred in at least one US state) says
 
LDC said:
It's more complicated than wanting 'community action' though isn't it? There's all sorts of stuff that could be stuck under that banner, including some horrendously reactionary things, the anti-immigration hotel stuff recently for example.

I don't think this has any chance of addressing CCTV more generally for all sorts of reasons.

I agree with Rob Ray that it's interesting, but like the anti-lockdown stuff there's (small elements) of justifiable anger but it's all confused and overwhelmed with terrible politics and I don't think it has any potential to be anything more than that, but I think it's a bit embelmatic of the messy political stuff that quickly emerges and then often as quickly vanishes at the moment. Like many problems the left has no traction or power either to address when it does emerge, or to have the ability to tackle the concerns more generally before they come out as this kind of nonsense. That to me is the more fundamental question and problem that needs to be addressed.
Click to expand...
remember 'community action' leads to Paediatricians being burnt out of their homes and people calling for the banning of 'teaching arabic numbers' in school
 
MickiQ said:
Not remotely the same thing, burning down a synagogue is rioting/criminal behaviour. This is people protesting against a goverment mandated policy and is most definitely community action in every meaningful sense of the word. It's not community action that I support by the way but it is.
Click to expand...
Damaging public property is criminal behaviour - it's criminal damage. You're going to get into trouble if you want to define community action using the language and definitions of the law. Direct action against state mandated policy is generally going to involve doing something deemed 'criminal' by said state, whether it is 'community action' or not. That's kind of the point.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
Damaging public property is criminal behaviour - it's criminal damage. You're going to get into trouble if you want to define community action using the language and definitions of the law. Direct action against state mandated policy is generally going to involve doing something deemed 'criminal' by said state, whether it is 'community action' or not. That's kind of the point.
Click to expand...
Who said it isn't? smashing up ULEZ cameras and tipping over statues are both criminal behavour and both are community action. Which one is righteous and which one isn't is purely down to individual bias.
Pickman's model said:
yeh. there's been other people do stuff about them in the past- not your protest but active damage to cameras - one instance i recall was from about 2006 when a load of cameras on estates in islington were paintballed. the campaign against the ulez cameras (which i'd say was going from protest to resistance) might well inspire other groups of people to take up paintball guns and pruning shears
Click to expand...
No I think the whole thing will just peter out over the next month or so, 90% of cars affected by this are compliant anyway so most of the protesters are probably people who won't have to pay £12.50 anyway. Staying angry and indignant about something that doesn't really effect you gets tiring after a bit no matter how angry you were at first.
Once some of them start getting locked up and the cameras just keep getting put back up then I suspect other than the odd Piers Corbyn-esque nut most people will just accept it and get on with their iives.
Anyway I think most people support or at least are neutral on the idea of CCTV, most of it tends to be in areas that actually need it.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
The good people of Bristol have decided in a court of law that this isn't necessarily criminal. :cool: ;)
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Touche, They didn't decide it wasn't criminal though juries can't make that decision but they did decide the tipping was justified. Like I said individual bias in this case the jury sided with the protestors.
Just as possible that they could have a jury that convicted them or that ULEZ camera cutters get off on the same basis.
 
MickiQ said:
No I think the whole thing will just peter out over the next month or so, 90% of cars affected by this are compliant anyway so most of the protesters are probably people who won't have to pay £12.50 anyway. Staying angry and indignant about something that doesn't really effect you gets tiring after a bit no matter how angry you were at first.
Once some of them start getting locked up and the cameras just keep getting put back up then I suspect other than the odd Piers Corbyn-esque nut most people will just accept it and get on with their iives.
Anyway I think most people support or at least are neutral on the idea of CCTV, most of it tends to be in areas that actually need it.
Click to expand...

Yeah I also think this will vanish quickly. But unfortunately I think this backlash against environmental measures is something we're going to have more of and need to know how to deal with.
 
InArduisFouette said:
remember 'community action' leads to Paediatricians being burnt out of their homes and people calling for the banning of 'teaching arabic numbers' in school
Click to expand...
While the paediatrician mob story is actually a myth I already said above that I'm well aware that communities are not always inclined to take action for progressive causes, and in fact you'd have to be a complete fool to think otherwise.
 
Rob Ray said:
While the paediatrician mob story is actually a myth I already said above that I'm well aware that communities are not always inclined to take action for progressive causes, and in fact you'd have to be a complete fool to think otherwise.
Click to expand...
the Gwent story that mutated into the myth was within a few weeks of the News of the World fuelled stuff in the Paulsgrove area of Portsmouth which did get nasty ...

the key point is that mob rule and 'community ' action are a sliding scale
 
MickiQ said:
No I think the whole thing will just peter out over the next month or so, 90% of cars affected by this are compliant anyway so most of the protesters are probably people who won't have to pay £12.50 anyway. Staying angry and indignant about something that doesn't really effect you gets tiring after a bit no matter how angry you were at first.
Once some of them start getting locked up and the cameras just keep getting put back up then I suspect other than the odd Piers Corbyn-esque nut most people will just accept it and get on with their iives.
Anyway I think most people support or at least are neutral on the idea of CCTV, most of it tends to be in areas that actually need it.
Click to expand...
There ought to be a week's ban for a first use of "-esque" and a permaban for a second offence. you talk of 90% of cars - this still leaves hundreds of thousands of vehicles which don't mean the ulez criteria (Drivers of nearly 700,000 cars in Greater London could be liable to pay the ULEZ charge when the zone is expanded this summer | RAC Drive). so your most people still leaves a rather large number of people needing to pay the charge, probably most of whom, like my parents, will: but there's still a sizeable group of very unhappy people who will seek to undermine it.
 
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