Firstly apologies for the blatantly sensationalist and sweeping title of the post. It’s just that I could think of no better way to put it.
Throughout the years there have always been chroniclers and documenters of the worst of London life. In 1751 William Hogarth shone light into the dark corners with his studies of Gin Lane. He set down the worst behaviour of the indolent poor by drawing them sprawled, thieving, prostituted, numbed even to the suffering of their own children. His was a very urban decay caused by alcohol, peopled by characters devoid of the ability or ambition to climb from the gutter. Nearly 90 years later in 1837 Charles Dickens was writing vividly about the mores of the workhouse society. He knew there were packs of feral children in thrall both to the malign father figure of Fagin and the local gangster heavy Bill Sykes. Sykes seems to have become a role model for modern times in that he came complete with devil dog and long suffering battered other half. If you were a London centric person looking at your city today, you might think that there is nothing new under the sun and that nothing has changed.
Gin Lane c. 1750
For London you would be right but this phenomenon of the evil poor has spread so that not a town in England does not have it’s unfair share of Kappa clad, drugged up, workshy, wasters swaggering through the town centre streets with a can of lager in the one hand and a bull mastiff on a string in the other. They aren’t out looking for a job or a chance in life let alone a wash. They are just looking to do you over, nick your stuff, sell you stolen stuff and drugs, take the next drugs and collect the next dole. The attendant girls aren’t much better, shrieking complicit harpies who will all end up looking grey and faded round the edges, kicking dirty nappies out of the way to feed the dog in the kitchen of their two bedroom basic box flat on the grim estate where everything has been broken if it can’t be stolen.
A stable family unit c 1837
There has been talk and much naiveté about respect and a “respect agenda”. Even in my nick the silly posters have gone up saying “Give Respect – Get Respect.” I think of it as the algebra of the willfully uninformed. There is a simple problem with this stupid, stupid (repeat stupid) slogan. What you and I mean by respect and what Adibok boy means by it are not the same. His respect means “Act like you are scared when I am around. Do what I say because my wants come first every time. If you don’t agree, if you don’t do what I say, then that is disrespect and you won’t like me if I feel disrespected” This is respect as a loaded gun with a hair trigger pointed at your head by a youth high on drugs, booze and ego. Now if you really want me as an officer to give respect to someone that thinks like that, I am happy to do so, but it will be on his or her terms only. There is no respect as I understand it to be given to me or you by the KappaMassiv. They just want to get high, shag your 14 year old daughter until she is pregnant and nick your stuff. Sorry if that’s a bit bleak but it’s a lot true.
This common debasement of our social currency so that the worst of metropolitan life is cloned everywhere is commented on recently by Judges
Judge Russell sentencing in the Sophie Lancaster murder yesterday said said that the case raised “serious questions about the sort of society which exists in this country at the start of a new millennium which was heralded with such optimism.”
Judge Coleridge in his recent Brighton speech said “We are experiencing a period of family meltdown whose effects will be as catastrophic as the meltdown of the ice caps,”
We, the Police are currently responding with the Dock Greenism of Neighbourhood Policing and Community Focus as if turning back our policing methods 50 years will return society to the state of the 1950′s with us. That isn’t going to happen because we are not a big enough lever to move society and we have never been a catalyst. We can only help by keeping the peace, enforcing the law and protecting life and property.
The evil poor are now with us everywhere. So how are the rest of you planning to deal with them?
A street near you c. 2008
By buying a swordstick, wearing a spiked collar and investing in a bag that will shove out slim blades if grabbed by a villain.
Other than that I hope that a home secretary might once more attempt to obtain the consent of parliament for a New Police for The Metropolis and beyond to protect us from the mob, although not along continental lines where they exist to encourage tyranny by the state. He can let the City of London Corporation out of such plans in return for their support.
After a few years a few of my Fabian chums and I could then moot the segregation of the undeserving poor, aligned with a programme of eugenics, to ensure the evil strain of humanity dies withing a generation or two.
One can dream – BUT there are very many for whom proper employment opportunities with more than a tantalising glimpse of a future, wold greatly help.
If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em
A new version of the computer game Grand Theft Auto has been released today and has sold 6 million copies in the first few hours. This is what resposible adults are peddling to all and sundry,and especially kids, so these “business men” can make huge amounts of dosh, buy big houses, visit exclusive strip joints and posh casinos and snort cocaine – not much different from the scenario you describe Nightjack, but with Etonion overtones, no doubt. I REPEAT – we get the society we deserve. We produce this society and opting out is not an option. So – give us some positive suggestions aye? And, if as a copper, you don’t like what you see, then get a job breeding newts or embroidering do-nuts or summat. x
Ahhh Kate, if only I had been writing about opting out, the mechanisms by which the lowest common denominator of society had been transmitted or the evil rich, that would have been a perfect riposte by you.
As it is, I was writing about the evil poor and the bogosity of the “Respect Agenda” because that’s what I felt like writing this evening. I don’t like what I see but that’s not a reason to pack in policing. I am a copper and I have been dealing with as much of it as I can for 15 odd years. In dealing with the crime that I investigate I am reminded regularly of a Prefab Sprout lyric “Moving the river, bucket by spoon.”
Yes, global capitalism and hereditary privilege has a lot to answer for but as far as I know gangs of hedge fund managers and roaming Pimms louts haven’t kicked anyone to death in my patch recently.
If you don’t like the terms of this debate, find another one that is more to your liking.
ewww. I like the terms of this debate – but do you? Bit close to the old middle class elderly knuckle for you? You don’t have to kick anyone to death to destroy lives – and kindly do not teach your grandmother to suck eggs. With regard to “respect” – you are obviously from an era where it was dragged out of the great unwashed by fear – now you gotta EARN it – difficult huh? You have to take the time to listen and not be POMPOUS cos it don’t work with us chavs and pondlife – and the internet is for all – it is a really great leveller – and you don’t like that do you? P.S. – Hope Mrs Knight kept her job. x And Prefab Sprout are rubbish – no offence
I agree that there are many ways to destroy lives apart from kicking to death. What is your point? Do children starving in Africa make Adibok boy any more acceptable? Does a pensioner freezing to death alone inform the debate on violence in society? Is there anything apart from a crude meaningless equivalance in comparing the drink and drug habits of Wayne from the estate with William who owns an estate? I don’t think there is. It is the argument that says don’t look here, look over there instead, they’re just as bad if not worse so you can ignore us. Doesn’t wash.
Capitalism can be very bad. Police officers can be offensive, officious and oppressive. Most people don’t get the society they deserve, most people deserve better. If you don’t believe me, ask a Zimbabwean or a Somali.
There is a population that I will never earn respect from. Its mutual. I won’t be losing sleep over it. Neither will they.
Prefab Sprout are still great
My point is, without blinding you with verbosity, that there are the evil poor, the evil rich, the evil middle class, the evil whatever. You are prejudiced and it shows. Most people DO get the society they deserve and can’t deal with it. You are dodging the debate – only one o in losing by the way and to be perfectly honest I have never heard of Prefabricated Brussels. ( You must be on very strange shifts) – I am bored now . x
Thanks, I hate it when a wrong spelling gets through.
Good post NJ, and most of the sentiments i fully agree with. Darwin must be turning in his grave at some of the creatures (it’s the only word for them – i refuse to acknowledge they are human as human beings don’t behave like that) i see the state supporting.
Personally the scum don’t bother me too much personally, i have a flat with good locks and some other fun deterrents including doors that you’d have to be the incredible hulk to force…
On a personal note, 20 odd years of martial arts stand me in pretty good stead vs any random idiot who decides he has a reason for getting physical with me(ask the last poor fool who tried to forcefully deprive me of my wallet while i was at a cash machine).
Kate: i have to point out that when i draw cash from a cashpoint i’m not looking over my shoulder for the evil middle class, or the evil rich – yes they commit crimes and can be bad people too but they tend to do it peacefully and in the privacy of their own homes – the kind of crime and they almost never steal (fraud perhaps but thats another conversation entirely). For example, I don’t park my car in a secure parking area in case a local councilman decides to joyride in it.
And if you still feel the need to debate this point Kate, i’d ask – when did you last see any news article about someone being beaten to death by a brandy sniffing, cigar smoking toff with a monocle? Or a bank manager or a IT Technician? Or a corner shop owner ? Or a social worker?
I agree. The Police can prevent (some) crime and keep the Peace by their physical presence on the street and arrest the villains that commit crime. That is about it.
The prisons are full so it would appear that the Police are doing their job (they would be even more successful if they were allowed to get on with it)
The Police cannot deal with causes of crime, only the results of it.
Great post, I recognise or agree with all of it though Hogarth was specifically against cheap gin ( cf alcopos ) and compared it unfavourbly with the healthy drinking of beer .
http://www.tate.org.uk/tateetc/issue9/images/hogarth_beerstreet.jpg
I dealt with Londons evil poor by leaving, happily there are not so many around here.
Kate, your arguments are those used by people who have allowed the return of the undeserving/evil poor. I know they didn’t all just go away. All those red brick municipal buildings being redeveloped into inner city loft dwellings or just demolished plus all that Victorian philanthropy dismantled with just the remnants of those organisations that were developed to assist in the rescuing strategies remaining.
It is a complex discussion with so many reasons for the way things have developed but mainly the huge determination that things would never be the same after two world wars is a major one. There is still a class system, mostly based on money, the gap between the well off and the poor is getting worse today under Labour, there are no real jobs, the jobs for life that gave society stability, no industries as such and therfore these people no future to behave responsibly to get and keep. There are millions of people living, quite happily, in their own little worlds, huge sprawling estates of hopelessness and despair, funded by welfare and maintained by easy access to cheap drugs and expensive alcohol and cigarrettes., complete with their own value systems that differ enormously from mine and the silent majority. All they have to do is pop up the post office, stick their card in the slot and say ‘All of it’ once a week. It isn’t right, it is completely wrong but that’s what you get when you subject the population of your country to a massive and ongong social engineering project since the 1960′s.
That said, I’m with the other commentators when they say who they keep an eye out for at the cashpoint or while on the nightbus or walking home late on a Saturday night or wonder if my house is still intact while I’ve been away for a few days and if my car still has a window or a straight door when I return to the multistorey. The evil rich on the other hand are also getting away with murder and they belong to our ruling elite too, who all seem to be existing in the biggest gravy train in the realm and the one that chugs across to Brussels (no reference either to the Prefabs either as I didn’t like them either, but that is just a matter of personal taste nothing I want to argue about.
No disappearing off to the drawing room with a loaded revolver and a final brandy when their skulduggery is exposed! No, a short spell in an open prison if they are realy unlucky followed by a book deal and an appearance on “get me out of here my house is filthy and I want to sell all the things in my attic”.
I haven’t got the society I deserve and nor have the silent majority of people in this country who have been told to shut up, that they are racist or anti young people or blinkered or just simply too old to know what SHOULD be done.
I know I’m over taxed, paying too much for everything, paying for millions of other people who contribute nothing and that I risk becoming more sick if I have to go into hospital.
I know that I am more likely to be punished for a minor speeding or other traffic violation if I am detected by the automatic systems that have sprouted up to monitor this society I apparantly deserve.
I could go on and on but I’ve other things to do today, and I’m sure plenty of other people have equally valid points to make – unlike you Kate. Anyone who bangs on saying that no one listens and who supports the fatuous argument about RESPECT and how it has to be earned in these times, and especially amongst the young AND ESPECIALLY in some communities where it is enforced by guns and knives is a little bit stupid and has nothing really important to say and just likes being an internet troll. Put up a real argument and not the silly mantras of the underclass.
…and as for spelling mistakes, excuse mine. It is a blog, not an English examination, not that the young are expected to bother with that these days, are they? I understand that a great many young people spell using the SMS ‘txt’ format, so your pedantry there is a bit baffling when aligned with your other arguments. Enjoy trolling!
In Old English law, people could be declared outlaw. They could also claim sanctuary.
Why bother with rehab/punishment/containment for the multiple scofflaw?
“Dear Mr. Scrote, you have been found guilty of your 117th offence. You cannot pay fines. You do not answer bail or warrants. Community Service appears not to work, and neither does prison. You are declared outlaw for a period of (…), which starts at midnight tonight. From that moment, the law has no further interest in you. Neither does any arm of the State. You may not claim any benefit or restitution from them, or vice versa. You may enter into private contacts, but they are not enforceable in law on either party. You will be fitted with a visible mark of your status, and your picture made public. The Clerk will provide you with a list of places where your person is inviolate. Good bye, and good luck.”
It’s fair to say that there are indeed the evil rich (how about Nicholas van Hoogstraten), the evil middle classes (Harold Shipman?) and so on. Their social status doesn’t make them better or worse. But I don’t think that’s what this thread about.
The respect issue goes a lot deeper than simple crime. A yob who commits crime shows no respect to society or individuals within it. But then neither does a yob who commits no crime at all, but chooses not to work but claim (genuinely) any and all available benefits, get the state to support them and their family, and generally have their entire life supported wholly or partly by the taxpayer. (Please note – I am specifically not referring to people who, through circumstances or difficulty, have recourse to the state to help them because they need it).
Our welfare state is a magnificent thing and, like our system of law, is designed to ensure that people shouldn’t slip through the net. The downside of this is that abuses can occur. In the same way as some guilty people go free in order that the innocent aren’t convicted, some workshy users take advantage of the welfare system in order that the genuinely needy don’t (or shouldn’t) suffer. We can minimise this, but abuses will always happen.
For me, I’d rather put up with these abuses than have the innocent or needy suffer. But I don’t have to like it.
And for the record, Prefab Sprout were shocking and anyone who says different is showing me no respect
Keep well away from them if at all possible.
However, if I am attacked by them or my home is invaded by them, for whatever reason, I will do my utmost to take at least one with me.
Very interesting to read your opinions. I am torn between Jay-Z and Bing Crosby, but that’s another discussion x
Well thank god!
I thought my rantings over the last 18 months were mine alone.
But I can’t agree that we get what we deserve… we’ve got what we’ve allowed.
I don’t deserve the retarded morals of the underclass. I was raised well, and my family has the same standards I grew up with. You want to blame someone, blame the parents.
You can’t use the excuse that your childhood was bad so your children and your childrens children can never achieve any better…. Thats just nonesene.
The Chavtastic classes are steeped in self pity and everything is someone else’s fault.
If you defend the sink estate morals as sociably acceptable then you’re as much to blame for the liberal-flip-flop-wearing state of our country as they are.
I would happily enforce the law. Its not because I was bullied, its not because I’m vindictive, its not even because I think i’m better than the average CHD*…. (because I know I’m better…. I made myself that way! Nobody gave those morals to me, I made my own choices.) No, I would happily enforce the law without fear or favour because I joined up do do it, because this country is rotting like bad fruit in the sun. If you let me, and others like me do our jobs, it would be the Adibok Brigade that were scared when they went out … not YOU!
*CHD = Council House Dweller.
Cars and Girls baby, Cars and Girls.
“Don’t forget the drunkard who likes to fight:
If he hasn’t killed anyone yet, he suffers:
Only a brawl puts some people to sleep!
Me he despises. Thus begins a wretched fight–
If you can call it a fight when he punches
And I take a beating: he stands in front of me
And orders me to halt. What can I do?
Especially in the face of a frenzied maniac
Who, by the way, is stronger than I am?
“Where are you coming from?
Why don’t you answer me? Speak!
You want I should kick some sense into you?
You can try to say something,
Or you can try to slip quietly away,
It really doesn’t matter one way or another:
You’re going to get pounded, and taken to court
The next day because you bothered him.
This doesn’t exhaust all the dangers in the city.
For there is always someone to rob you,
No matter how tightly you lock your house
Or seal all the shutters of your shop with fastened chains.
Sometimes thugs do their job quickly with a knife…”
Juvenal: On the City of Rome (late 1st, early 2nd Century AD)
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_1/juvenal.html
Nothing changes, does it?
maximus otter (Ex-bobby, retired & happy after his 30 years)
At least they had the amphitheatres then………….
As a troll, I blame the parents of the parents of the parents…….pondlife me. Gills anyone?
The “Respect” thing pretty much sums up what’s gone wrong.
To the hyenas respect means fear. Disrespect means not being scared of them. For the government to pick that word, to pull that particular word from the culture of anti-civilisation as a symbol of their policy towards crime, shows how much the powers that be have surrendered.
It’s a political problem though. While normal people took their eye off the ball thanks to the post war prosperity the 1968 generation burrowed their way into politics, the media and education. They’re the root of the problem. They need to be got rid of somehow.
We are on the slope. Sadly it descends towards ever more bad news, bad attitudes and shows no signs of going up and things improving.
We deal with a society that has so many problems with all and sundry blaming someone else for their problems, no one taking responsibility fortheir actions of made to be held accountable for what they do.
The exeption to this appears to be workers in the public service sector who have ever increasing layers of management who each want their own brand of accountability.
All this takes people away from what they should be doing.
The layers of managers who seem intent on micro-managing each and every possible thing have to find ways of justifying their own existence within the management layer cake. As a result multi-duplication is deemed to be essential for the next premier screening of the spread sheet or graph covering someone else’s ownership or responsibility for a problem.
Far too many people are telling others what to do and how to do it without getting their hands soiled. Add to this the latest marketting phrase which sounds as though we are tryint to sell something and you realise how sad and out of touch our managers have become.
These same people will tell you how much they really miss the times when they were deemed to be semi operational.
I think not somehow. If it was so bloody good then why do they piss off and head for the escalator away from the areas we should really focus on.
We need to cut out all the bollock talk and put our time and resources where we keep telling the public we are putting them instead of making non-statements, catchy little mission statements, mimicking our political masters and trying to run it all like a business.
We aren’t a business…….thats the point.
A few weeks ago, I had to stop a young woman (20, crack, prostitute, abused by older men from Albania, Adibok culture) coming into our building because she was late for a Problem Solving programme. The rules say Group Members must be punctual, free from Alcohol and the effects of drugs.
Of course, this is laughable, but we must have rules ?
As I attempted to reason with her and suggest she came in to see me the following day and discuss matters, she called me a “fucking cunt”
I’m 57, bearded, soft-natured, a good father, a rock and roller, straight and decent, a kindly and gentle lover and an all-round ok geezer who drives a bloody Skoda.
“Fucking Cunt” I dont think so !
JVIP
I have a revoloutionary idea – instead of bleating on and on and on on websites about how everyone is scum – go and arrest all the idiots terrorising innocent people! Either that or stick a speed camera up.
Hibbo@25
My idea is better, blog about how some people are anti-social, thieving, workshy, violent, immoral scumbags when I am not working and also go out and arrest them when I am working.
Can’t seem to get them in fast enough at the moment but we keep trying. People can help by dropping the dime and giving a witness statement but that is hard and takes guts.
If you have a problem with speed cameras , take it up with your local politicians.
Thanks for the reply Nightjack – I was in no way insinuating that you write your blog during working hours – only Bettison would do something like that.
I do not have a problem with speed cameras per se, more so that they are the only police ‘presence’ most people see; and if the vigour with which all involved (police, CPS, courts etc) persue motorists (albeit law-breaking ones, so rightly so) was applied to what are (in my opinion) more serious crimes, then the police would have MUCH more support & respect from the general public and the streets would be safer.
Sorry about all the brackets (really).
I think brackets are GREAT!! ((()))
[...] who take the piss. And if you read police blogs you’ll be familiar with the concept of the evil poor – a real-life version of Shameless with the jokes taken [...]
[...] Uriah Heep which was sort of appropriate to the Dickensian tone of the piece which followed on from The Evil Poor. I am a bit less nasal and creepy in [...]
[...] to Wigan Pier. Jack uses concepts that could never appear on a mainsteam media-hosted blog, such as the Evil Poor and he does not spare us from the mundanity, squalor and pointlessness of most crime, and allows us [...]
totallyunpc:
>”Its not because I was bullied, its not because I’m vindictive, its not even because I think i’m better than the average CHD*…. (because I know I’m better…. I made myself that way! Nobody gave those morals to me, I made my own choices.) No, I would happily enforce the law without fear or favour because I joined up do do it, because this country is rotting like bad fruit in the sun. If you let me, and others like me do our jobs, it would be the Adibok Brigade that were scared when they went out … not YOU!”
Sorry, they’ve run out of application forms for the Hitlerjugend and I don’t think they’re going to print more.
In my view, using the word “evil” to describe anything only has the result of separating people – “them vs. us” etc. This separation is probably the closest thing you can really get to describing what the word “evil” should mean. When someone does something bad, they have not committed an evil act; rather they have made a mistake, or acted in ignorance. If someone commits an extreme act of cruelty, then the roots of this mistake are within the wrong values he or she learned in society around us. Also, all of us have within us the ability to commit a great act of cruelty, if we chose to do so. But, despite this, we wouldn’t call ourselves evil. Instead, we don’t make the mistakes and we try not to be ignorant. That’s all there is.
I am a new visitor to this blog site and have found myself already addicted. It is so refreshing to see just what our cops are up against in their own words.
Well you seemed to have the nail firmly in your sights and chose to not only miss it’s head, but smack yourself on the hand instead!
This is not a new phenomenon; this ‘underclass’ has to a lesser or greater extent been with us since there were rich people and those left behind in the economic stakes.
To brand people as ‘Evil’ is not only misleading, but misses the point as it totally absolves us as a nation of any responsibility for how we interact with our fellow man. If people have a stake in their society they behave, if they don’t and with the effects of relative deprivation feel agrieved, then you will have trouble.
It is telling that in fairer more equal societies this problem exists to a much lesser extent.
Well, in my way of speaking the person isn’t evil, but there are definitely evil acts and evil behaviour. I don’t think NJ needs lectured on the semantics of it and I don’t begrudge him a handy and meaningful expression.
So often we see the nature v nurture football batted back and forth, with hardened positions on each side. In my view, anyone who doesn’t accept that a person’s character is influenced significantly by both simply shouldn’t be allowed into the debate.
And this is where the crux of the ‘evil poor’ problem lies. What chance has a child of ‘evil poor’ parents in this country ? Brought up in that environment, no matter how good your school, you’ll go back to the same home every day. It’d take a ratio of one or two teachers per pupil to reform kids working this way – and who’s going to pay for that ? What, 80% income tax ? How can we, in the first place, be bringing up the kids of these people, who contribute nothing to their own upkeep ? In what society is it seen as reasonable that a pair of teenagers with no education, no money, no work and no prospects should start breeding ?
So much for nurture.
On the nature side, anyone who knows much about kids knows that while you can give a child a loving, supportive upbringing and turn out a responsible young adult, whatever upbringing a child has, he or she will have his or her own personailty from the start. The happy, bubbly daredevil, the quiet thinker, the dreamer, the dutiful, do-as-your-told kid – we all know different types. I’m a big fan of the MBTI system of personality classification, withj four major types – SP, SJ, NT & NF. For the risk-taking, independence-loving SP, classroom-and-schoolbook school will never make sense. These don’t go on to University, don’t come back to school as teachers except maybe in PE, and if not given activities that suit them in class, are bored, disinterested and disruptive – always getting balled at and never caring. SJ, the dutiful kids, are all about classroom duty and working towards the gargets set down by the system. As long as someone’s telling them what they ‘should’ do, and they can do it, they’re happy. There’s any amount of good reading about this elsewhere on the web.
It isn’t just the evil poor – that environment exacerbates the problem – but in the UK young people are having kids without knowing much beforehand about bringing them up. If you’re middle-class and there are supportive grandparents as well as the parents, things can work out. The ‘evil poor’ have the same problem with far less resources – no disrespect to social services, but they don’t exactly come willingly ask for help, do they ?
So, first of all, why are there virtually no classes in school teaching about family reationships; reasons to have kids and when, how to bring them up, and life and career management ?
It seems to me we have a problem with families. A young couple has a first child – they expect the child will be just perfect, exactly what they want. But there’s that part of personality that comes ‘pre-instaled’. What if you think your kid’s going to be a happy, outgoing risk-taker and he turns out to be a dutiful, ‘what am I supposed to do ?’ type ? Be patient but finally start abusing him for being such a suck-up ?
How about if you expect a little girl with her feet firmly on the ground, oriented to the facts of everyday existence (SP or SJ both fit) but you get a solemn, withdrawn deep thinker ? Badger the health service for an autism diagnosis (I personally think tis happens a lot – so many perfectly natural future scientists, writers or engineers being treated as sick !) ? Worry constantly and reject the poor kid ? These are tough enough problems for any new parents – but in the urban jungle of the sink estate ? It’s dog eat dog and every new dog will be wild like the rest.
So, secondly, then, apart from not having any basic education in family and relationships. why aren’t we teaching kids about different personalities, how to cope with them in every day life (“no, those guys *don’t* act that way to annoy you”), and in managing the relationships within a family (your crazy parents) and between yourselves and your kids ?
I think these are what’s needed to make the necessary long-term evolutionary change. Middle-class kids typically learn a lot within their families; but non-eveil-poor families can be plenty dysfunctional. All kids should get this kind of education, regardless of the objections of parents.
Sorry about the poor typing
There are many short-term band-aid options. But why should I pay more to bring up some thug’s brats than I can afford for my own kids ? Why let those who can’t and won’t support themselves breed again and again on my dollar ? And whither evolution ? It stinks.
Getting into fantasy (sorry, yes, I’m going to get a bit freaky here), I can imagine relocating whole families to block-built facilities in remote locations, where as outcasts they don’t get expensive real estate and they don’t get to be disruptive where there’s real life going on. 2500 quid a week for one kid (see Winston Smith blog) ?!!! Out in the remote country where a family of four could be housed for, say, 250 quid a month ? Fed well for 400 ? You could allocate one good social worker / mentor per family, paying 5 grand – not a bad wage, should be able to get good ones, add 20% profit and still be out cheaper than caring for one kid alone. Add vocational training and let them move out when they’re rehabilitated and can support themselves. Don’t let them out at all unaccompanied, till they’re behaving themselves. 2500 quid a month to spoil an out-of-control kid without helping her ? Sheesh.
Oh yes, and finally, I believe that the elimination of the black market in commonly-used recreational drugs is crucial.
MJ: legalise and regulate like alcohol, advertising restricted
Ecstasy: same
Heroin: on prescription, state funded
I’m sceptical about cocaine, which turns people violent and eventually bad crazy. Others I don’t know enough about, but this is a start. How can you expect the wilder kids to think about a future when they think street smarts and attitude will see them on the deal, on easy street all the way ? How long do we have to wait to see if the ‘war on drugs’ is going to work ?
As for US influence and UN treaty restrictions, we can renounce those straight off – just like it worked for the Geneva conventions. We’ve suffered enough from blindly following America, thank-you, Mr. Ubiquitous-paranoia-and-over-reaction to the terrorism we’ve focussed on ourselves.
I am sorry but having read your blog i just have to comment . I moved from London 10 years ago having lived there for over 40 years -i moved to a country where i am now a citizen , our local marie is English , and the local police are part of the community . In london it was very clear that the job of the police was to protect wealthy ,middle class educated people like myself at the expence of everyone else , at times in the 70`s and 80`s it seemed that a fascist police force was our only protection , and then it dawned on me , the way we were policed and who we were policed by was the problem .You see the rest of us now realise that you in the police force get away with murder , i know this because my new neighbour – an ex constable from the north of England , killed 1 person and maimed another while on duty and 3 times over the limit in a high speed pursuit , he recieved compensation for his injurys and was allowed to retire with a pension , his only regret about the case was that the other ” nigger” survived . So you see the way you in the “force” behave makes you the equal of the scum that you seem to have so much trouble with . Kind regards Dr S Olsen.
[...] Orwell, the cop and ‘the evil poor’ Is it just me or is there something perverse about giving any award that bears the name of George Orwell to a cop who refers to ‘the evil poor‘? [...]
[...] Is it just me or is there something perverse about giving any award that bears the name of George Orwell to a cop who refers to ‘the evil poor‘? [...]
[...] By sharing this story, I’ve just indulged in a stereotype which is as old as class itself. It’s a portrait of the working class as moral degenerates: crass, boorish, feckless and shorn of the same standards of morality which are shared by respectable England. They claim benefits as their birthright and spend what they do not earn; they fight and steal and drink; they create kids the rest of us have to feed and proceed to fuck them up just as badly as they were fucked up by their own parents. They are the underclass, the lumpenproletariat or, as Orwell Prize Winner Jack Night describes them, the ‘evil poor’. [...]
[...] Digital fingers (ha! I made an etymology joke!) are pointed in the direction of Orwell Prize winning Nightjack, specifically this post called, “http://nightjack.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/the-evil-poor/” [...]
[...] Who is he? To find out, I went over to his blog, read the title and first three paragraphs of the first post I came to, and now I’m going to write 1200 words on a tangentially related [...]
Late to the party, but need to point out that you’re following standard tabloid procedure with your use of Hogarth. As another commenter pointed out, Beer Street and Gin Lane are supposed to be viewed together, and the latter can be seen as much as an attack on the effects of some mercantile activity at the time as upon the sozzled (poor or otherwise).
For the benefit of those who conflate identification with blame, who shy away into theory rather than applying themselves to practical measures, and who react to minutiae rather than making the effort to understand the entirety of others’ positions, let’s revisit ‘evil poor’, the phrase.
‘Entitled poor’ – yes, OK, but if you’ve worked 25 years, paying your tax & NI but for some reason left unemployed and without assets, you’re poor and your entitled to some support, aren’t you ?
‘Anti-social poor’ – well, if you’re not criminal – no theiving, drug dealing or violence – but keep your garden like a tip, or play loud music a bit too often, that’s anti-social but it’s not the same level of problem as the ‘evil poor’ that Night Jack has gone to pains to describe. You can even work a steady job and be anti-social poor.
Evil poor = persistently evil-doing poor. 99.9% not supported by doing tax-paying work. My only quibble is that if you’re pulling in 14 grand in benefits, the state provides your housing and you’re on the make in the black market for recreational drugs, you’re not poor, not by a long stretch.
Patrick – yes, and punitive taxes on gin were tried, only drove the market underground, failed and were repealed, weren’t they ?
(I’m posting this as a general thread reply; I’ve had strange results once or twice with replies tagging onto previous posts against my intention. Sorry, I’m a newbie to WordPress. Doing something wrong ?)
Totally agree with you on this one Jack. You ask what am I gonna do? The trouble with that is Adibok boy is protected better by you guys than average working blokes and their property is. It would be nice to be able to confront these guys when they’re hanging around outside, but chances are it would be me convicted if any trouble started, unless I waited until ten of them were stamping on my head before I retaliated.
You ask us how are we gonna deal with them, i ask you how can we?
So Dr Olsen, decent coppers like NJ are all murderers and fascists ? I don’t understand what you are trying to say apart from the self satisfied move to presumably rural France.
There are bastards everywhere, including the police, but how about failures and inadequacies of ‘the force’ in general being a lot to do with a total failure to decide on a long term basis what policing is for – from the PM and Home Office downwards.
(Did I really read that the new ‘boss’ of the MET thinks that the G 20 policing was excellent ???)
“Yes, global capitalism and hereditary privilege has a lot to answer for but as far as I know gangs of hedge fund managers and roaming Pimms louts haven’t kicked anyone to death in my patch recently.”
Perhaps not directly but if the same financiers had sold inequitable loans to the poor who then couldn’t pay them back, who then became addicted to substance through depression, who then killed an elderly lady whilst trying steal her giro cash… Think… the world runs on causality. Society exists only on the basis of the relationships people have with one another you cannot focus on one group in a vacuum from the rest.
Great riposte, sir.
well said mostly.
“I[sic] have to point out that when I[sic] draw cash from a Cashpoint I’m[sic] not looking over my shoulder for the evil middle class, or the evil rich – yes they commit crimes and can be bad people too but they tend to do it peacefully and in the privacy of their own homes.
RE: Pinochet, Hitler, Mugabe, Richard I, William I, Edward III, Edward I, Henry VII, Richard III, Edward IV, Henry V, Caesar, Marcus Antonious, Stalin. There are countless others. compare there combined death tolls to the ‘Evil Poor’
“And if you still feel the need to debate this point Kate, i’d ask – when did you last see any news article about someone being beaten to death by a brandy sniffing, cigar smoking toff with a monocle? Or a bank manager or a IT Technician? Or a corner shop owner ? Or a social worker?”
RE: Pinochet, Hitler, Mugabe, Richard I, William I, Edward III, Edward I, Henry VII, Richard III, Edward IV, Henry V, Caesar, Marcus Antonious, Stalin. There are countless others. compare there combined death tolls to the ‘Evil Poor’
“….who then became addicted to substance through depression, who then killed an elderly lady…….”
Merovingian, the people subject to my description never knowingly take out any loan with the intention of repaying any of it. They are part of the reason (a small part but a real part) for the credit iniquity and post code blight afflicting some areas. They are not depressed although many of them do have a fierce intake of alcohol, tobacco and other less lethal drugs. They are not unsupported, some of them have all manner of social intervention by way of finding employment, managing anger, developing thinking skills and addressing substance abuse issues. Are you seriously linking heroin, crack and crystal meth abuse to default on bank loans? That’s one of those arguments that sounds like a logical argument the first time that you think it…it might happen…. there might be some drug addicts that mug pensioners who only hit the skids because of “The Man” and his evil bank loans. It is not however a mechanism that operates much in life. In life, addicts recruit more addicts whether they have bank loans or not. Misery loves company. In life some people see the rest of us as prey. As I have said elsewhere, conflating them with the “no safety net” poor (who incidentally are their most readily available victims) does no favours to anybody.
In another life and place we could all of been gandhi’s or gas chambers assistants – Noam Chomsky
I applaud your sentiment.
HERE HERE !
you have hit the very nub of the entire issue, Society is no more than a set of agreed upon precepts of what everyone believes to be right and fair. Now that we have a system in which very few have a choice as to what is to be right and fair most are disenfranchised, and this causes the slide into social collapse.
Asserting moral equivalency does not remove the need to address the problem. it only allows you to divert your own attention to a problem you perceive as more pressing.
What do you have against Edward IV? *genuinely puzzled*
“Well, in my way of speaking the person isn’t evil, but there are definitely evil acts and evil behaviour. I don’t think NJ needs lectured on the semantics of it and I don’t begrudge him a handy and meaningful expression.”
And the word ‘Evil’ has what useful meaning ???? the only one I can think of is to assign blame without proof of evidence based on a faith based view that some people are born evil, or god has designed them to be so. Therefore it only produces negative meaning which in this case cannot be useful for any constructive debate on the future of this country or it’s inhabitants.
There are many short-term band-aid options. But why should I pay more to bring up some thug’s brats than I can afford for my own kids ? Why let those who can’t and won’t support themselves breed again and again on my dollar ? And whither evolution ? It stinks. -
It’s a justice of sorts in a sense, I hear this argument often used by friends in the finance industry, they earn a lot of money and the bemoan taxation. The irony is they money they earn from commission in the sub-prime lending market actually created the monster they so deride. Dr Frankenstien is merely the country squire and his monsters are those he created in the Mills he owns.
Cause and Affect .
Though there are exceptions to the rule, Power and legitimised authority without true public scrutiny does tend to lead to corruption. At the higher level it’s Police Commissioners affecting policy making, at the other it’s the Policeman who intimidates people in a petrol garage for kicks.
Just because someone is denounced as evil does not make them some sort of cause and it certainly doesn’t absolve us of a collective responsibility to act. The reverse is true, what sort of society fails to act against evil? What sort of society ignores behaviour outside of what is considered right ands fair? Just because one of the possible consequences of that view leads down the road to Belsen doesn’t mean that we should sit and do nothing. Do we really suspend judgement, sit on our hands and say “They do it because they have become disenfranchised.” “If only they had a stake they would be better people.” We keep giving them a stake, voting rights, legal aid, housing, money, education, employment opportunities, think first programmes, substance abuse programmes, family support, Sure Start, community support workers, credit unions..it’s all there. it is not as if the rest of us have actually turned our backs and ignored the problems. Have we done all that we might? Hell obviously not but we have done a lot.
Against this background some people make a lifestyle choice to take a stake in life beyond the pale. I will not excuse it and a large part of my job these many years gone by has been to deal with the aftermath.
What causes the slide into social collapse is very debatable. The Evil Poor will not cause social collapse so why bring social collapse into an argument about them. What they will do is continue to make life very unpleasant in the localities that they inhabit and to contribute to the stigmatisation of the poor and the unemployed.
“They do it because they have become disenfranchised.” “If only they had a stake they would be better people.” We keep giving them a stake, voting rights, legal aid, housing, money, education, employment opportunities, think first programmes, substance abuse programmes, family support, Sure Start, community support workers, credit unions,
These are not stakes, they are carrots, by which people are to be led.
A real stake would be national referendums on all acts of Parliament not explicitly mentioned in an election manifesto, or the destruction of council estate ghettos and the creation of housing that amounts to more than a tiny space that denies people the right to true private space, Or the end of of banking de-regulation. Education, Legal Aid, and Housing are not stakes they are a right regardless there not a present for all the hard work the underclass did in World War I.
“What causes the slide into social collapse is very debatable. The Evil Poor will not cause social collapse so why bring social collapse into an argument about them. What they will do is continue to make life very unpleasant in the localities that they inhabit and to contribute to the stigmatisation of the poor and the unemployed.”
To my mind this article does not distinguish between the evil poor and the real poor to be entirely honest. To be fair it’s almost impossible to be the kind of clean cut citizen you talk of and be ‘poor’.
I think you missed the point about social collapse, social collapse occurs due to no one thing but more a list of variables. If you look at the current disrespect for the Police, The disenchantment with Democracy, The fear of the foreigner and globally economic collapse precluded by a continuous global conflict without end I think you’ll find the situation is not for off the 5th century collapse of Pax Romania.
Are but you see the problem in a very narrow sense of just dealing with a symptom… I’m more interested the universe of the cause.
I was just citing one possible social equation with a list of possible real world variables and actually I having worked in the finance industry I can tell you first hand of suicide cases based on debt. Now, that aside there are many many other social equations, take another one, Husband dies in war, woman is carted off to a new prefab on a meagre war pension brings up her sons on a pittance, they see people with more than they have, the natural progression is say if I live in a world where ‘they’ have plenty and I have nothing then it no world by which rules I will follow.
I worked in the same area. Bank loans are not a gateway to a life of chaos, dishonesty and violence. The solution to “They have plenty and I have nothing” is not to rob those who have little enough already. It is not to adopt a life of chaos, dishonesty and violence either. When people do take that route, I am one of the people who are paid to minimise the damage that they do to themselves and society. There isn’t actually a solution to your problem. Thousands of years of human experiments in government and social order have failed to solve the problem of an unequal distribution of wealth, resources and opportunity once. It happens because people are different and cannot be made the same.
Did you have too many fizzy drinks, Mero ?
We don’t – I don’t, anyway – use the word ‘evil’ in general conversation, so I’ll make it simple for you. Evil = bad. This exists in contrast to good. Following so far ?
So for example, when I eat a poke of chips, I might say ‘hey, these are really good chips’ or ‘oh, these chips are crap’, depending on the circumstances. Now, in this case, the point to watch out for is that ‘crap’ is yet another word for ‘evil’.
Now, let’s say for the sake of argumenmt that you and I meet at the debating society and get along famously. We go out for a beer at the pub afterwards, just the two of us. Halfway through the first pint, you say something that offends me – like ‘I enjoy spouting off in people’s faces and don’t listen too hard to what anyone’s trying to say’, maybe, and without warning I suddenly smash my beer glass in your face.
You’re stunned, drenched in blood, and half-blinded. Other pub patrons can make out the jelly-like humour of your eye bulging out through a neatly-sliced eyeball. Can you think of any good words to describe my act ?
You completely missed my point about acts, not people, didn’t you ? Your sort of negligent har-splitting is a big part of the problem.
Sorry, I miss-spelled hair-splitting, and I know it’ll be important to you. See if you can spot the typo elsewhere – I’ll leave that one for you. But I’ll also swap ‘off-hand’ for ‘negligent’. Negligent’s correct, too, but it’s the insouciant way you seem to think that your cozy waffle has any kind of value.
Outlaws mainly numbered amongst the Gentry class in the Medieval Period.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eustace_Folville#The_Folville_Gang
I chose my words carefully for a good reason, so as not to confuse people. Now the word ‘Evil’ has a definite meaning and connotation. Given your example, I would say you were unhinged or psychopathic, but crucially, not ‘Evil’, words are our only means of communication, and words with a long history and well known meanings should be used correctly otherwise it’s very difficult actually get what one another is trying to say. Words such as Evil have many meanings but a lot of people still see it a religious antithesis of good, and in so much respond to it in a way in which they will demonise those who are labelled as such. All I’m mearly saying as that labelling a group of people as ‘Evil’ is a dangerous and emotive thing to do… I would prefer a more measured and rational wording so that it at least confers some kind of rational approach to the social/cultural problems expounding in this argument.
I chose my words carefully for a good reason, so as not to confuse people. Now the word ‘Evil’ has a definite meaning and connotation. Given your example, I would say you were unhinged or psychopathic, but crucially, not ‘Evil’, words are our only means of communication, and words with a long history and well known meanings should be used correctly otherwise it’s very difficult actually get what one another is trying to say. Words such as Evil have many meanings but a lot of people still see it a religious antithesis of good, and in so much respond to it in a way in which they will demonise those who are labelled as such. All I’m mearly saying as that labelling a group of people as ‘Evil’ is a dangerous and emotive thing to do… I would prefer a more measured and rational wording so that it at least confers some kind of rational approach to the social/cultural problems expounded in this argument.
Those who chose to debase themselves with personal attacks do nothing to elevate their own standing. Everything has value, even if we think it wrong or juxtaposed to our own beliefs.
Ooops a few spelling mistakes myself…. should be choose, not chose… I got to thinking about the whole beer/face/eyball thing, and I think in the heat of the moment I might snap off a “f**king cow” or an “you evil b**ch”… However that is something said in anger and in reality that is totally different to publishing a carefully written blog or article, where you chose words for affect with time to think about the reception of your words. In addition had I of been giving a speech to thousands of people in 1934 arguing in a furious rage across a stadium at how the Jews evil and the cause of all the evils in Germany… how would that come off ?
Context is key.
Led by who?
Don’t buy into the fallacy that because you think a word or phrase means something, that it is somehow fixed for the rest of humanity. Yes using the word Evil is dangerous and emotive. What do you suggest? Unmake the word? Call it something else? Some people self define, self select by their actions and their behaviours. We can play at semantics together all day and it doesn’t really matter what you decide to call them. They will keep on living the evil poor life whilst the debate on whether or not they are on a par with Nazis or whether there is a rational approach to them bubbles away. Sometimes, to extend your quasi medical analogy of treating symptoms, you just treat the symptoms. Pre antibiotics gangrene is a good example. Cutting off a limb stopped the infection spreading to the rest of the body. Symptom neither properly understood or properly cured but a realisation that watching it worsen whilst waiting for a rigorous intellectual understanding resulted in very high patient mortality. Now we have been scientifically studying our society for over a century and there is still no reliable approach to criminal rehabilitation or dealing with the chaotic, violent, dishonest, damaging lifestyles that I describe. If you don’t have a solution that hasn’t been tried and failed then stand aside whilst we get on with making things tolerable for the victim pool in the mean time. By all means come back with a plan and we’ll probably try it, we try most things in the end.
Waving the holocaust is acceptable if it makes your point but to try and draw a similarity between the position of the Jewish middle classes in Nazi occupied Europe and the lifestyle anti social wasters who are so clearly apparent in our society is just bogus. Context is, as you say, the key.
Well that missed the point… The point was that you would better serve your argument by using more rational wording, you could of said the anti-social or anti-cultural poor and it would of been more accurate you wouldn’t of had to waste your time defending the choice of the word evil and I for one would of seen your entire post in a more rational light. That means you would of got your message across better.
As you know full well there us a firm base of people in this country who if given the choice would put pay to the ‘evil’ poor in the easiest most efficient way possible, the same goes for immigrants etc… And in the political Vacuum that base is growing. So the comparison with the holocaust may seem off colour in the present but the future is a very uncertain place right now.
It’s interesting as to your point of the analogy between medical symptoms and social-cultural Symptoms of ‘disease’. Here is an extract from the 12th Century which I think illustrates the point about the importance of understanding the disease.
The lord of al-Munaytirah wrote to my uncle asking him to dispatch a physician to treat certain sick persons among his people. My uncle sent him a Christian physician named Thabit. Thabit was absent but ten days when be returned. So we said to him, “How quickly has thou healed thy patients!” He said:
They brought before me a knight in whose leg an abscess had grown; and a woman afflicted with imbecility. To the knight I applied a small poultice until the abscess opened and became well; and the woman I put on diet and made her humor wet. Then a Frankish physician came to them and said, “This man knows nothing about treating them.” He then said to the knight, “Which wouldst thou prefer, living with one leg or dying with two?” The latter replied, “Living with one leg.” The physician said, “Bring me a strong knight and a sharp ax.” A knight came with the ax. And I was standing by. Then the physician laid the leg of the patient on a block of wood and bade the knight strike his leg with the ax and chop it off at one blow. Accordingly he struck it-while I was looking on-one blow, but the leg was not severed. He dealt another blow, upon which the marrow of the leg flowed out and the patient died on the spot. He then examined the woman and said, “This is a woman in whose head there is a devil which has possessed her. Shave off her hair.” Accordingly they shaved it off and the woman began once more to cat their ordinary diet-garlic and mustard. Her imbecility took a turn for the worse.
The physician then said, “The devil has penetrated through her head.” He therefore took a razor, made a deep cruciform incision on it, peeled off the skin at the middle of the incision until the bone of the skull was exposed and rubbed it with salt. The woman also expired instantly. Thereupon I asked them whether my services were needed any longer, and when they replied in the negative I returned home, having learned of their medicine what I knew not before.
-Usamah
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/usamah2.html
If you are saying that in the 21st Century we’ve run out of ideas of how to deal with this part of society that seems to hate being in our society and that we should merely amputate then I think it’s shame. There are plenty of good Ideas, I’ve mentioned a few, I honestly believe that more involvement in the working of Government and making people feel a part of the society rather than apart from it would help, destroying the Ghetto Blocks would be a start.
Whoever wishes to get more votes than the other.
And yet here we are, after 300 years of progressive liberal evolution and revolution… neither you or myself would be counted as any more than serfs or peasants (not that being either was always a bad thing but that it did mean you were owned by the gentry) were it not for the very liberalism that you argue has failed. All I argue is that it’s been hijacked by career politicians and those that have a vested interest in accruing wealth and power.
To argue that there is no link between inequality and the ‘evil’ underclass is to argue that ultimately these people would always exist because its in their nature and that there is no ‘rehabilitation’ then what are we left with with ? We are left with the only scientific-logical course and that is to amputate as it were, which does lead you down the path of sterilization or even the road to Dachau.
Indeed it was not so long ago that it was law in many states in America to sterilize chronic alcoholics, Eugenics was not just a Reichs-fetisch. Any supposedly modern democracy can and does fall into the same trap when they begin to obsess about quick fixes, amputations and scientific solutions. It is not about scientific rationalism but more about the kind of enlightenment rationalism that produced things like the NHS and the Abolition of the Slave Trade, as well as the end of serfdom for people like you and myself.
I cannot believe that the ‘evil’ poor are as they are because of a genetically pre-ordained to single-minded, nihilistic, violent and destructive way of being. Especially when the world offers so many affects to blight the human mind and twist the thoughts !.
Lol, he died to early, no but really from the court rolls it seems that there was a lot of political retribution during his supposed restoration of ‘law and order’.
But doesn’t that go for any King of the 15th century (or indeed 14th/16th/whatever)? With the possible exception of Edward V on the grounds that he was only king for about 20mins and without any real power on account of being a kid…
Yes it does ! I just put a few down not an exhaustive list, the main point is that those in power, with power unchecked do things so harmful to scores of individuals that it makes the average Council Estate Criminal look like a saint. Not that they don’t deserve to be punished either but that we should look at it in the context of orders of ‘against the community/public good’ and No.1 on my list are the people who have power to commit multiple acts of aggression and also have the defence of being legitimate unlike those in council estates who rightly don’t have that defence. If you want to talk about what is the cause of a large number of social ills including the so-called ‘evil’ poor then one should devote their time to scrutinizing those that cause the greatest harm.