Mass Homelessness Soon?

[tinfoilhat]

2 hours ago, ECCOnoob said:

The 60s were filled with gang activities, attacks and knife crime. In fact I remember reading one newspaper article which stated that more people carried a knife in 60s than do on the streets today.

It reads like you’re equating carrying a knife in the 60s and knife crime. Of course more people carried knives in the 60s - Sheffield was churning out thousands of pocket knives a day, where do you think they ended up if not people’s pockets? Both my grandfathers carried one (probably yours too) - I’ve got one dated to early 50s that you won at a fair. I was given one for my 10th birthday in the 80s, mother didn’t bat an eyelid. If I gave my nephew one for his 10th my sister would string me up. Difference now is that young men (and younger) are using knives to kill people. I can’t be arsed to look at figures but I’d wager there were less stabbings in 5e 60s than now.

 

Anyway, housing. We need more, arguably more smaller starter homes than streets full of “executive” ones.

 

 

[Anna B]

3 hours ago, ECCOnoob said:

Nonsense.

 

The 60s were filled with gang activities, attacks and knife crime. In fact I remember reading one newspaper article which stated that more people carried a knife in 60s than do on the streets today. The 70s were filled with a range of racism,  homophobia, civil disobedience and other hate crimes. Football hooliganism was rampant as was drug use and the beginnings of substance abuse which led into the 80s.

 

Same as always with these discussions some people go all nostalgic for the so-called "good old days" and get stuck in that rose tinted blindness.

 

If we really want to be talking about the big difference between then and now,  Its that now a crime takes place and within seconds we all hear about it it thanks for the wonder of social media.... with of course the caveat that reporting of it is accompanied with a load of gossip, rumour, speculation, opinion, exaggeration, scaremongering and falsehoods which is all amplified further by the time it hits the TV news and papers.

 

Back on the subject at hand, Irrelevant or whether it's 1960 or 2020 the same principle applies.  There will be good and bad people in every area. There will always be the popular areas which fuel house prices against less popular areas which are cheaper. There will always be those who have a big house fully paid vs those who have a small flat which they rent.

 

Despite the fantasies brought up by some people on this forum - we never have and never will have a fully equal society where everyone has the same.  Life does not work like that.  

 

Unless you are one of the very privileged whom get inherited property, we all have to start somewhere.

 

I started in a tiny flat as a rental and then scrimped and saved my way up to buy my first old knackered terraced  house. That was then followed by move into a bigger house closer to the city as I developed my career.

 

50 years earlier my parents did exactly the same thing.... they started off in a rented terraced in area they didn't particularly like and as and when they could and the money allowed they took the risk to move up the ladder. As with so many other people it wasn't always good times. They nearly destituted themselves trying to survive the housing crash and the huge interest rates that shot up, they had to downsize at one point before eventually managing to get back to where they wanted to be.

 

Nobody said it's easy.

I have to disagree. 

I grew up on a council estate in the 50s and 60s. Respectability was all, politeness encouraged, police were respected (and feared) and I can honestly say I never saw any drug abuse, drug running  etc. in those days.  People had respect for the law and family, and hope and aspirations, which with the help of the welfare state, were within their grasp. With hard work and ability, it was possible to achieve something with their lives. Crikey, with the likes of people like Twiggy and the Beatles it was actually cool to be working class in the 60s! The welfare state made ordinary people feel valued and they garnered them self respect and aspirations.

I went to a good local primary school, was taught good moral values where  the worse  thing that happened was getting caught smoking behind the bike sheds, or getting drunk at a party. I passed the 11+  which was a passport to a better life in those days and moved on.

My first house was a cheap terrace house in a not very good area, but again people were law abiding, caring, decent and happy.

 

By the time I was bringing up my children in the late 70s and 80s we'd moved up the social scale a bit, and I admit I was concerned to keep them safe from recreational drugs, and was glad we were not living in an area where crime and drug abuse was known to be on the rise.

But it was in the 80s when I think things really took off, not in a good way. In Thatcher's Britain we began to see major unemployment, social unrest and problems with the social divide; the successful 'Yuppies' and the underachieving 'skivers' on the scrapheap thanks to unemployment.  Drugs and drug running became an industry with all its attendant problems, and for some was the only option for a carreer choice. We began to see people as winners or losers and by hook or by crook we had to be on the winning side, because with the rolling back of the welfare state, to be on the other side was pretty unthinkable. So selfishness, and every man for himself mentallity takes hold.

Anxiety takes the place of security. 

 

And this has remained ever since. This anxiety and insecurity is not imagined. People are insecure for good reason: lack of jobs, lack of job security, lack of prospects, lack of healthcare and above all lack of hope. Without a decent welfare state people are flying without a safety net which bring about very well founded fears  -  of debt, homelessness, ill health, disability, lack of care, old age. 10 years of austerity has exacerbated all these worries and shown what a callous culture we all reside in.   

 

Mental illness, depression and suicide are on the increase, and no wonder. This is what the 'Greed is good' culture of the last 40 years has brought us to. It needs to be taken seriously and swiftly reversed.

 

 

 

Edited November 3, 2020 by Anna B

[tzijlstra]

10 hours ago, Anna B said:

I have to disagree. 

I grew up on a council estate in the 50s and 60s. Respectability was all, politeness encouraged, police were respected (and feared) and I can honestly say I never saw any drug abuse, drug running  etc. in those days.  People had respect for the law and family, and hope and aspirations, which with the help of the welfare state, were within their grasp. With hard work and ability, it was possible to achieve something with their lives. Crikey, with the likes of people like Twiggy and the Beatles it was actually cool to be working class in the 60s! The welfare state made ordinary people feel valued and they garnered them self respect and aspirations.

I went to a good local primary school, was taught good moral values where  the worse  thing that happened was getting caught smoking behind the bike sheds, or getting drunk at a party. I passed the 11+  which was a passport to a better life in those days and moved on.

My first house was a cheap terrace house in a not very good area, but again people were law abiding, caring, decent and happy.

 

By the time I was bringing up my children in the late 70s and 80s we'd moved up the social scale a bit, and I admit I was concerned to keep them safe from recreational drugs, and was glad we were not living in an area where crime and drug abuse was known to be on the rise.

But it was in the 80s when I think things really took off, not in a good way. In Thatcher's Britain we began to see major unemployment, social unrest and problems with the social divide; the successful 'Yuppies' and the underachieving 'skivers' on the scrapheap thanks to unemployment.  Drugs and drug running became an industry with all its attendant problems, and for some was the only option for a carreer choice. We began to see people as winners or losers and by hook or by crook we had to be on the winning side, because with the rolling back of the welfare state, to be on the other side was pretty unthinkable. So selfishness, and every man for himself mentallity takes hold.

Anxiety takes the place of security. 

 

And this has remained ever since. This anxiety and insecurity is not imagined. People are insecure for good reason: lack of jobs, lack of job security, lack of prospects, lack of healthcare and above all lack of hope. Without a decent welfare state people are flying without a safety net which bring about very well founded fears  -  of debt, homelessness, ill health, disability, lack of care, old age. 10 years of austerity has exacerbated all these worries and shown what a callous culture we all reside in.   

 

Mental illness, depression and suicide are on the increase, and no wonder. This is what the 'Greed is good' culture of the last 40 years has brought us to. It needs to be taken seriously and swiftly reversed.

 

 

 

Anna, you are looking at your past through rose tinted glasses. All data points towards a better standard of life for people of low income. If you were on a council estate in the fifties you were lucky that you didn't live in one of the back-to-back slums like at Park Hill or Tinsley where people still had to use outhouses and crime and alcoholism was rife. Never mind domestic abuse (which wasn't reported as the police didn't bother) and high levels of child mortality. 

 

Unemployment was low because so many had lost their lives and because building up the country required a lot of workers, but come the eighties and things really turned into a mess in the UK, over 10% unemployment nationally and far higher in specific areas. There is a reason that drugs became equivalent to 'escape reality' in the eighties with the advent of the rave scene. Never mind the punk scene from a decade before.

[alchresearch]

10 hours ago, Anna B said:

I grew up on a council estate in the 50s and 60s. Respectability was all, politeness encouraged, police were respected (and feared) and I can honestly say I never saw any drug abuse, drug running  etc. in those days. 

 

Surely it all depends on the estate.   My grandparents lived on an estate at Stradbroke which was council estate heaven compared to the Manor or Badger estates at the same time.

[Anna B]

16 minutes ago, tzijlstra said:

Anna, you are looking at your past through rose tinted glasses. All data points towards a better standard of life for people of low income. If you were on a council estate in the fifties you were lucky that you didn't live in one of the back-to-back slums like at Park Hill or Tinsley where people still had to use outhouses and crime and alcoholism was rife. Never mind domestic abuse (which wasn't reported as the police didn't bother) and high levels of child mortality. 

 

Unemployment was low because so many had lost their lives and because building up the country required a lot of workers, but come the eighties and things really turned into a mess in the UK, over 10% unemployment nationally and far higher in specific areas. There is a reason that drugs became equivalent to 'escape reality' in the eighties with the advent of the rave scene. Never mind the punk scene from a decade before.

Well, I think we agree that the 80s was the turning point.

Thatcher's Britain brought about the culture that we live in today. Winners and Losers. Heaven help you if you are on the losing side...

And 10 years of Austerity has  made it so much worse.

[nightrider]

11 hours ago, tinfoilhat said:

It reads like you’re equating carrying a knife in the 60s and knife crime. Of course more people carried knives in the 60s - Sheffield was churning out thousands of pocket knives a day, where do you think they ended up if not people’s pockets? Both my grandfathers carried one (probably yours too) - I’ve got one dated to early 50s that you won at a fair. I was given one for my 10th birthday in the 80s, mother didn’t bat an eyelid. If I gave my nephew one for his 10th my sister would string me up. Difference now is that young men (and younger) are using knives to kill people. I can’t be arsed to look at figures but I’d wager there were less stabbings in 5e 60s than now.

 

I wouldn't be so sure:

 

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/violent-britain-worse-60s-1656306

 

It's easy to think everything was better in the past, but I am not convinced it was the reality. Both my elderly parents grew up dodging the luftwaffe in the 1940's, they almost lost their house in the early 90's when interest rates skyrocketed.

 

My neighbour remembers when the terraced houses we live in did not have indoor toilets.

4 minutes ago, Anna B said:

Well, I think we agree that the 80s was the turning point.

Thatcher's Britain brought about the culture that we live in today. Winners and Losers. Heaven help you if you are on the losing side...

And 10 years of Austerity has  made it so much worse.

The reality is though that this is what we want as a whole. We repeatedly voted in Tory governments - people are happy with the low taxes and lack of welfare state, underfunded healthcare etc. Not many are willing to pay the tax needed to pay for this (as they do in many European countries).

[tinfoilhat]

2 minutes ago, nightrider said:

I wouldn't be so sure:

 

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/violent-britain-worse-60s-1656306

 

It's easy to think everything was better in the past, but I am not convinced it was the reality. Both my elderly parents grew up dodging the luftwaffe in the 1940's, they almost lost their house in the early 90's when interest rates skyrocketed.

 

My neighbour remembers when the terraced houses we live in did not have indoor toilets.

But the mirror have done what ecconoob did - equate carrying a knife with stabbing someone and there's nothing in that article that makes me think that was actually the case. Certain  Pocket knives were made mainly with women in mind, dainty little pearl handled jobs. 

 

Yes, sexual assault was higher then because violence against women was acceptable.

[ECCOnoob]

2 hours ago, Anna B said:

Well, I think we agree that the 80s was the turning point.

Thatcher's Britain brought about the culture that we live in today. Winners and Losers. Heaven help you if you are on the losing side...

And 10 years of Austerity has  made it so much worse.

Will you stop bringing up "Thatcher's Britain" it's a weak argument.

 

The concept of winners and losers, rich and poor, the haves and the have not were established for centuries before Thatcher was even a twinkle in someone's eye.

 

You really do need to broaden your horizons as to what the realities of life in the 50s 60s and 70s was like, even well before that.   

 

We are all guilty (including myself) of only remembering the nice bits.  Many of us were nothing more than children during those periods and only saw one tiny part of life. 

Even more of us weren't even born at all and so only have the image of those periods from the warped interpretations portrayed by our parents and grandparents.

 

Is still amuses me that there are entire areas in South Yorkshire who are sometimes two or three generations on from the Thatcher era who are still blaming her for their own failures in society. It's embarrassing. 

 

The research is out there for all to see.   The  actual hardships of daily living, earning and keeping a roof over ones head was just as difficult "back then" as it can be today.     

 

The rich, entitled, lucky and privileged were just as prevalent in society back then as they are today.

 

We need to stop pretending that one prime minister's reign is the epicentre of all social and economic overhaul. It wasn't.

Edited November 3, 2020 by ECCOnoob

[ECCOnoob]

1 hour ago, tinfoilhat said:

But the mirror have done what ecconoob did - equate carrying a knife with stabbing someone and there's nothing in that article that makes me think that was actually the case. Certain  Pocket knives were made mainly with women in mind, dainty little pearl handled jobs. 

I don't think that's what I or newspaper has done at all.

 

Have you completely overlooked the comments from the the University of Sheffield sociologist or the professor in criminal law from the University of Birmingham?  There is clear comment that the prevalence of crime was unreported. There wasn't the immediate awareness of it as happens now due to modern social media technology with all its associated hype. 

 

The fact remains that whenever someone will think back to the Swinging 60s they will simply block out the fact that crime existed and may have existed just as much as it does today. The reporting of it didn't exist in the same form and that is a big difference.

 

Of course I'm not accusing everyone who carried a knife as some murderous stabber but at the same time I'm not so naive to think that knife crime, muggings and violent behaviour only significantly escalated after Maggie took office.  

 

Edited November 3, 2020 by ECCOnoob

[Anna B]

2 hours ago, nightrider said:

I wouldn't be so sure:

 

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/violent-britain-worse-60s-1656306

 

It's easy to think everything was better in the past, but I am not convinced it was the reality. Both my elderly parents grew up dodging the luftwaffe in the 1940's, they almost lost their house in the early 90's when interest rates skyrocketed.

 

My neighbour remembers when the terraced houses we live in did not have indoor toilets.

The reality is though that this is what we want as a whole. We repeatedly voted in Tory governments - people are happy with the low taxes and lack of welfare state, underfunded healthcare etc. Not many are willing to pay the tax needed to pay for this (as they do in many European countries).

But is it though? I think most people are happy with responsible capitalism, as am I. But that is not what the Conservatives are about. Thay have moved far right to irresponsible capitalism, ie winner takes all; Neoliberalism, which we see in the way the super rich are sucking up all the wealth and failing to pay their fair share of taxes, so the money doesn't trickle down or benefit anybody but themselves. They get still richer while everyone else gets poorer. They are a small club, supported by the Tories, but controlling them with their extraordinary wealth and influence. They have  individually aquired more wealth than some countries. and this gives them tremendous power and It is the reason why we now have things like 0 hours, rising prices, foodbanks, homelessness, and care homes costing upwards of £1,000 per WEEK!

Etc.

The ordinary people who vote Tory have failed to join up the dots and see the connection. They've probably never heard of Neoliberalism and Boris of course doesn't advertise it. He's part of the problem, giving private contracts etc to his buddies like Nicholas Soames. Boris of course lies through his teeth when he says he is 'tackling this issue,' and they believe him.

He isn't, but it keeps them quiet.

 

After more than 10 years (I would say 40years since Thatcher)  it still goes on with gay abandon and is continuing apace. It is now affecting more and more people and will get worse until it is stopped.

 

Do they know this is what they are voting for?

Edited November 3, 2020 by Anna B