every weekend when I read the London news there seems to be a gang fight at some tube station in the North/East where a young man is stabbed to death.
Southside its equally bad – read about a teenage kid being stabbed in the eye at school – another lad shot dead for a mobile (doesn’t make sense even if the shooter has no morals – surely a pistol costs way more than even the most expensive mobile?!) Unless its yet again another “territory” thing
There was an incident recently where loads of youths ran onto a South London train shouting “PENGE! PENGE!” – whilst this sounds almost amusing – like something Spike Milligan would have dreamed of it turned to horror as these lads used bats and bottles to crack the heads of anyone who was from Sydenham..
all these crimes seem to be committed in public view with witnesses – people are arrested, charged and often serve long stretches but they don’t seem to care.
Interestingly race is only a secondary factor in much of the violence; although you get the odd clashes between blacks/asians and white football hooligans in traditional flashpoint areas it seems the hate is multicultural, everyone robs/attacks each other irrespective of skin colour now..
I was born and brought up in London, lived there on and off from 1972 – 1992 (although my parents left in the late 70s after the race riots) – in 1992 there was the beginnings of this culture of violence but notthing as bad as now. I have never seen the streets as bad or the youth as angry and hopeless as this. What the fuck is happening to our capital city?
personally i wrote off london years ago. after going clubbing there for a few seasons, the shit i saw after leaving clubs at six in the morn put me off…and the scenes ive seen at london squat parties put the icing on the cake. stabbings, muggings, prostitution, drug abuse (not like kids doin pills, like two crack heads in a broken janitors cupboard opposite a passed out junkie in a subway in central london) are not what i want to have to deal with every day, so fuck london.
i almost had my mind changed when i went to an amazing haloweens party, and it was a wicked atmosphere, and i thought it was in london. we were actually outside teh tube service, and the difference with central parties was stark.
i risked it again and went to a nye squat party which was absolutely shite. nice party, good decor, good tunes, but just full to the rafters with stupid teenage morons smacking lumps out of each other, or stabbing each other up, being encouraged by vacuous slags baying for blood, and teh worst thing was that they were proud of teh fights they were in, as if they werent the biggest cocks in teh world for ruining a potentially phat night.
i guess they have no way of making themselves feel important other than through violence, as the local housing, education and youth support is so shocking. when ken livingstone came to power as london mayor, i thought he would be confronting these problems, but instead he seems more concerned about scoring cheap political points, and as hackney housing estates are virtual media-no-go-zones, he sure as shit isnt gonna show his face there, let alone help the communities deal with their problems.
as a surrey bred tosser, i cant get my head round these kids heads. it all seems so dark. i wish i knew what could be done, but i have no clue. i would have thought investment in local services to inspire some kind of hope of something better than being the hardest nutter on your estate. fat chance of that.
there’s a limit to what Ken can actually do nowadays – its not the 70s or 80s any more though – ( I grew up in London when the GLC had power and budgets).
The current Mayor of London only has power over certain things like Scotland Yard and the transport system – the borough councils still have a lot of local power and most importantly control over their budgets
in previous years with the GLC the Mayor could play “Robin Hood”. Affluent areas of London would fund social projects in less affluent areas; this is what the Tories hated and had destroyed.
Whilst there is now a “London Authority” its roles (other than overseeing the Emergency Services) seem to be more market-based such as attracting large-scale investment into London…
That said, South and East London were way more deprived even 25-30 years ago in financial terms; there was crime then, but it was safer for the average person and safer for kids. This level of violence can’t be explained away by just “bad conditions”.
Will just throwing money at things actually help when its got this bad?
I can’t speak for the eastside but I know South London well and spent a lot of my early rave days there. Even in 1990-1992 you could walk the streets at all sorts of hours and feel reasonably safe (there were a few dodgy characters but if you stood up to them you’d be left alone – nowadays someone would probably get killed).
There are youth services in South London and there’s money in some Councils budgets (maybe not Lambeth but there are buses and youth clubs don’t check your address!) but no one wants to become a youth worker as they get abuse – if they do stuff like rap/MC workshops the kids end up fighting one another etc! Many of the stabbings amongst teenagers occur at youth centres and council owned halls rented out for parties. not surprised the youth workers/teachers get jaded after a while and think the kids aren’t worth helping
the fighting you mentioned at the NYE party has now become part of the event – and what about those kids who whip up hate by dissing their rivals on CDs they cut on the estates? they can’t be that deprived if they’ve got access to studio equipment and computers..
It does need to be dealt with though. I get the impression some of the kids have got the same level of hate and anger as the 7/7 bombers (note how they pick the transport system for their fights etc) but (thankfully) not the contacts or knowledge to make IEDs…
that said I don’t think all London youth are like that, but those who are prepared to use violence are worse than ever. Perhaps this is a minority of bullies holding back the rest?
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