Good morning,
Yesterday was a mixed bag then. The atmosphere inside The Lane was a marketing man’s dream. Smiling families, Mexican waves, fans cheering players and singing songs, and Spurs a’ winning. That’s what I like.
Sometime after the atmosphere outside The Lane resembled a bad night night in Belfast. So what happened? What happened to the vehicles that were torched, shops that were looted, the windows that were smashed, the houses destroyed is pretty well documented. I’ve included a short gallery from images I picked up from Twitter.
But what happened to precipitate this? There are actually three paths that took us to this civil disorder.The most obvious, at first glance appears to be some upside down gangster revenge for a policeman shooting dead one Mark Duggan. Duggan – street name ‘Starrish Mark’ – was supposedly a gangsta member of Tottenham Man Dem Gang, a street mob believed to be involved with the infamous Jamaica Yardies.
Apparently Starrish Mark was under observation by the fuzz as it was believed he was all set to take revenge for the killing of his cousin Kevin Easton a rapper – street name ‘Smegz’ – who was fatally stabbed outside a Mile End nightclub back in March.
Anyway, legend has it that Starrish Mark was in a taxi when he spotted an armed officer and it alleged took a pot shot at him from the back of the cab. The officer’s life was saved by his radio which took the bullet. The officer then returned fire and Duggan and was shot dead.
A march of people from Broadwater Farm to a local police station then took place last night in protest over Starrish Mark’s death. The march resulted in numerous acts of arson, criminal damage and looting.
The social back drop to this simply reveals how politicians using the phrase ‘Broken Britain’ is a joke. Not a very funny one. It was them that broke it.
You don’t need any GCSE’s in Neurology to work out that society needs looking after or it goes wrong. Haringey’s youth clubs were shut after the Youth Services budget was slashed by 75% after a cut of £41m to the council’s overall budget.
Now I’m not going to try and kid you that because there’s nowhere for teenagers to play ping pong Curry’s got robbed. But it’s all part of the bigger picture whereby people who are vulnerable are effectively abandoned by society.
Environments where these gang cultures are allowed to blossom need to be attacked. You break the cycle with education and tackling the abysmal places these disaffected people were sent to live.
I have no political affiliations. I think that they’re all bent. But the if you want to point a finger, point it at the last Labour government. In power for years and all they did was become as fat and corrupt as their so called old enemies the Tories. What was their legacy for the going nowhere people of Broadwater Farm? Policies so inept that the weak and the futureless are the first to get bitten as the inevitable cuts are implemented.
That said, whatever insane agenda of revenge the mob had, their social and economic plight doesn’t excuse trying to disguise a looting and vandalism trip as a protest. It’s highly unlikely there will be many arrests, but let’s hope there are. This lot aren’t freedom fighters they’re criminals.
When people are burning cars on their own streets the problem is bigger than looking for a youth in a hoody carrying matches.
Click on the image below to launch the gallery…
Did some way say ethnic clensing …… Wth is a matter with you. Disgusting , shamed to share my club with people like you
This from a guy who describes the implementation of Sharia Law as “Abdullah chasing you with stick”!
Stones & glass houses spring to mind.
I was just trine be light hearted
Why should the area be regenerated?
That means hard working TAX payers like YOU and ME will have to pay for these savages.
I was brought up in the East End, never had a pot to piss in, but I never had the urge to shoot a Copper or set a bus alight.
Most decent English people have moved away from areas like Tottenham and have been replaced by vermin that don’t give a monkeys about London, England or life in general.
All we’ll hear are the apologists and the establishment will try to convince us that these criminals are really social victims.
P.S I couldn’t care less what any of you left-wing, do-gooders think about my views.
youve never had the urge to set a bus alight?oh come,not even in the pouring rain,when you know the driver saw you and still shut the doors and drove off ? :lol:
The East End is an example of communities working together WITH funding. The influx of Bangladeshi’s kept Brick Lane and the surrounding area afloat when no-one else would touch it but gradually funding has moved in and the whole area is moving up. Hotels are being built, restaurants & bars opening and there is a vibrant art community. All the communities, despite the fears and the attempts by the BNP to unsettle things, are working well together.
The olympics has further increased that ‘feel-good’ factor and funding and all along the new London Overground route there are housing developments springing up that will will bring in wealth and prosperity.
It’s the way it should be. Because the children of those areas will have an opportunity that their grandparents never had – Decent new schools (we have one of the new academies just behind us & the kids are well turned out and well behaved) and the prospects that come with it.
Tottenham hasn’t had any of this. It’s had to do what it could under it’s own steam. We’ve seen what happened when the club tried to do something positive – The politicians took it as an opportunity to get us to do all the work and make a bit themselves in the process. What hope in all of that?
The East End is not an example of communities working together!
Most East Enders have moved to Essex and the Bangladeshis do their own thing, employing their own people, sometimes illegally.
How patronising to say that a part of the East End was kept afloat by people from the arsehole of the world!
Apart from curry, they did bring another thing with them….T.B!
Or haven’t you noticed the ‘NO SPITTING SIGNS” around Brick Lane?
Calling people ‘racist’ and using it as a weapon to promote your left-wing idealism is wearing thin, so label me all you like.
This country is bang in trouble and it’s become a multi-racial hell-hole.
I’m proud of my left-wing idealism, I believe it makes me more tolerant and considerate. Are you proud of your racism?
Come on, the things you’re talking about aren’t exclusive to the Bangladeshi or any community for that matter if you’re talking about people ‘Employing their own’.
The East End has been a multicultural area for about 200 years and the people who came into it through the docks are woven into it’s history. They are part of the character of it. That’s not being patronising, that’s just history.
We should also never forget how and why people like the Bangladeshi’s came to Britain. They were the return traffic in our expansive Empire – An empire that made this country very rich.
The windrush generation helped plug vital holes in our workforce after the war and helped rebuild Britain, while there are plenty of non Anglo-Saxon names on tombstones in the battlefields of France, Holland and Belgium.
Multiculturalism wasn’t an experiment, it was a necessity. If the country has slipped into hard times that is more about the political misdirection and wastefulness of our leaders than the people who live in it. It’s about how Thatcher sold off the silver with no regard for the future and how that failure has been compounded by Blair and Brown’s self-indulgence and weakness with banking regulations, coupled with an over-burdened state sector.
Yes, the country is in a mess but turning it into a racial battle-ground won’t solve it.
I agree with some of what you have written, but what will happen to the area and the people if it is not regenerated? Or do you really not care?
I care very passionately. I live in Dalston now but lived in Tottenham for years. I can see with my own eyes every day the leaps and bounds this area is making – With just a tube line, some funding and the good will of the local community and the art community to help it. It is a revolution driven by young people and it feels that way. It’s a joy living here at the moment.
I would love that kind of movement to take place in Tottenham but you have to create an environment first where people feel that there is something to be gained from investing. Tottenham feels too much like a sink-hole at the moment, so there’s no incentive.
It’s amazing how little it takes to get things going – But what it does take is good will all round and effort. It can’t just be left to the local people, there has to be help from government and investment in infrastructure is key.
BEST COMMENT by a mile on this blog …..a real spur fan with common sense ….its not about bloody race at all…..its about teenagers living in a shithole…….rebuild the lane rebuild tottenham …..
Astro – as I said earlier lost for words ,but well done for your time and effort in arguing with these …these… oh you know…thanks.
@ Astro: you talk about non-Anglo Saxon names on battlefield tombstones. How many Bangladeshi names will be on similar tombstones, after we’ve fought in Iraq and Afghanistan?
You talk about immigrants coming to the East End for many years and that’s true. But they didn’t demand streets and areas have their names changed to suit them. They didn’t demand that every East End school serves Halal food, they didn’t demand Christmas decorations are taken down and Christmas is re-named the ‘Winter Festival’ and they certainly didn’t stand outside Whitechapel Station burning the Union flag, like the Asians did recently!
@ LLL: I’m proud to be anything that’s opposite to YOU. I just wish you’d fuck off and support Arsenal.
Not sure. East End. I don’t think the army are indulging in racial profiling these days but last time I saw the sad pictures of our war dead in that part of the world, there were plenty of faces of different colours. Why do you assume all the British soldiers in Aghanistan are white? One of the biggest recruiting areas for the army at the moment is in the under-privileged parts of Britain – Areas that happen to be mainly non-white.
As for changing names on things, do you know the local name for Victoria falls in Africa? Well it sure as hell aint Victoria falls, it’s Mosi-oa-Tunya. We know it as Victoria falls because some white bloke stood there a couple of hundred years back and ‘declared’ it so. Same goes for hundreds other places around the world.
We started this stuff. Other people are just doing what we did. As for reflecting local cultural needs, what’s the harm in that – Would you say to Jewish guys in Tottenham that they have no right to ask for kosher? If you’re kid went to a vegetarian school would you have the right to demand meat for them? Of course you would… It’s called freedom, and it’s for everyone.
The christmas decorations thing sounds like Daily Mail nonsense. I walked up and down there last year and it looked lovely, just as it did for Diwali. The Daily Mail run this stuff without any kind of fact-checking just to play to blue rinsed tory grandmothers in the shires.
The only problem we’ve had recently around here was when an art gallery had a launch party in Redchurch St and some drunker hooray from Chelsea pissed on the steps of the mosque.
No-one is perfect, there are idiots on every side. It’s up to you how you interpret things. I’m just saying look at things with open eyes.
@ Astro. The question I asked was how many Babgladeshi names will be on the battlefield tombstones?
You know the answer will be ZERO, so you’ve swerved it.
A second night of rioting. This time all over London.
I suppose you’ll blame slavery, Jim Davidson or the EDL?
Bangladeshis look after each other.
Blacks look after each other.
White liberals (like you) look after Babgladeshis and Blacks.
It’s about time someone looked after the English!
OK, East End Spur, you’ve gone from making a point to hounding a reader and that’s where we close the debate. Thanks for taking part.
HH, give us a funny to lighten the mood
This’ll do for starters:
http://www.footylatest.com/everton-to-hijack-stoke-bid-for-tottenham-striker/23337
ta
I live in a shit hole I am therefore shit. No excuse for being losers, plenty of schools and colleges on the are . If you want to be something you have to do it yourself, you cannot expect the staye to make you do it
its not about the i s theres always individuals who take it apron themselves to rise up… most dont you need to raise the standard of living schooling and environment for all of the people of haringay
On a more positive note this my just be the tonic required to sway decision makers on the regional development fund that we have applied for. I also noted that some quite historical building have been arsoned – could any of those required to be preserved at part of the NDP, therefore saving a few quid as well.
Sorry if anyone finds this in ‘poor taste’.
i think theyll see this as a reason NOT to invest :devil: