I feel completely depressed. I just found my way to squat parties 21 months ago and I completely love them – after giving up on clubs cos they are just so bad in London. And it was just when parties have gone into a decline, due to really strict police action. I am gutted.
I was talking to a rig owner recently and he said it’s becoming harder & harder to put parties on, not least because the penalties are becoming more and more harsh. Not attractive to young people with lots to lose – jobs, homes, careers, futures.
TBH I think the violence is a far worse problem than cops, but this is giving the cops an excuse to clamp down as its basically proving allegations that “people cannot self-regulate themselves and their activities, they need authorities ot do it for them”.
One aspect often overlooked is those who take a few knocks at London parties (for whatever reason) often need to visit a hospital.
The Whittington, Homerton and UCL hospitals usually bear the brunt of the casualty counts, and its fucking obvious where these dazed and bloodied individuals are coming from. they know its not nightclubs because of the times, and a lot of NHS staff also go raving!
The cost of patching them up isn’t insignificant, and even if they don’t tell the cops the NHS record details on the computer and pass the number of incidents (minus the personal details) to the old bill at cross-service meetings (and just gossip amongst paramedics and bobbies in canteens, where sometimes names are exchanged – )
the big problem here is if people keep behaving like spoilt kids (albeit way more violent), the full force of the nanny state is going to come down on everyone invovled because “we couldn’t play nicely and people are getting fucking tired of mopping up all the claret.”
