Here is a telling quote from a recent Observer article about violence between (South) Asian and Somali schoolchildren in Birmingham:
‘This issue arises because it is a high density area,’ said Farrukh Haroon, a project worker at the YIP. ‘Communities are scrapping for scarce resources …’
Here is another:
‘It is complicated – there is not one pattern, not one trend and not one answer,’ said Simon Blake from the National Children’s Bureau. ‘But we have to bust these myths about who gets the best housing and how resources are allocated.’
Sorry, Mr Blake, but myths with a core of truth are hard to kill. Communities will always “scrap” for government resources because they are correct in their belief that if group A gets more of the pie then group B gets less. Scrapping, with or without bricks and broken bottles, is an excellent way to get more pie. Nor is it wise to hope for a day when resources are no longer scarce; in most of the country the economy is more sovietised than many countries that not so long ago were actually part of the Soviet bloc. If you will forgive an earthy metaphor, an economy based on drinking one’s own urine can only go on so long.
Laban Tall, commenting on the same article, congratulates the Observer for having finally discovered that not all racism is white on black. I am a good deal more optimistic than he that multi-racial – and even, to some extent, multi-cultural societies can be made to work. Just not where there is socialism.
God help us if the world ever becomes one multi-cultural society under socialism, as it looks as if it might. I forsee a future of low-level suppurating conflicts that never heal because the reason for their existence never goes away.
We have had a foretaste. A recent report that examined the causes of the riots in Burnley five years ago says that the government handing out “regeneration” money in the 1990s created rivalry and anger that helped create the conditions for the riots.
“Positive regeneration had an unintended side effect,” the report says. “Ironically, it contributed to social fragmentation by increasing neighbourhood rivalries …
You know what they say: first you screw up. Then you screw up again in the same way again to prove that it really was a screw-up first time round. You guessed it: Burnley’s problems in 2006 are to be dealt with by handing out regeneration money. But fear not!
Regeneration programmes now cover wider areas and are based on themes, rather than simple ward boundaries.
Themes. Assuredly these themes will make all well and no one will whisper that some communities are more thematically challenged than others and hence are getting more than their share.
However, never let it be said that government always screws up in the same way. Sometimes government screws up in new ways.
Elevate East Lancashire, one of the government’s nine housing market renewal pathfinders, is working – sometimes in the face of opposition from furious homeowners – to demolish inner Burnley’s too many terraces and provide sites for commercial builders to create new homes.
It does not say whether those “furious homeowners” are black, white or brown. It does not matter. Whatever colour their skins they will be embittered by having their homes taken from them for the greater good – the greater good of other people – and in a place blighted by regeneration it takes but the weight of the feather to tip the balance from general bitterness into racial bitterness.
“I am a good deal more optimistic than he that multi-racial – and even, to some extent, multi-cultural societies can be made to work. Just not where there is socialism.”
Hurrah for that. Absolutely spot on.
I think the problem might be aggravated by parliamentary type democracy wherein political parties hold more power than individual politicians. In multi-ethnic countries, the political parties tend to form around various ethnic groups making the implicit divisions explicit in the political system.
The government comes along handing out (taxpayers) money and then is surprised when the various ethnic groups fight for a bigger share. And of course the, endless, administrative organisations “elevate Lancashire” indeed.
And the government ruins areas by smashing up houses (thus creating urban blight) – and steals some houses from their owners, in order to hand over the land to developers (Martin Anderson “The Federal Bulldozer” 1965, but on neither side of the Atlantic have the powers-that-be taken any notice).
And people grumble – but do nothing (because they believe that there is nothing that they can do).
How did we come to this?
Parliament is a joke. M.P.s hardly ever say anything in defence of people against the effects of government spending programs or regulations – and even when they do protest, the government (supposedly under the control of the House of Commons) ignores them.
It is like reading the Christopher Booker page in the “Sunday Telegraph”, almost every week yet more people have their lives messed up by some government regulation or other.
But the exposure of the harm the regulation does normally has no effect, as the government either denies the effect or ignores it.
“Appeal to your M.P.” (see above).
Remind me someone how diversity brings strength.
Two Inches Prescott’s policies of urban destruction are particularly repulsive in places like Burnley. These terraces of houses are stone built and perfectly sound. They will stand for centuries with minimal maintenance, but these insane NuLabor dingbats think they have to knock them down to achive urban regeneration. As the man said in Vietnam “we had to destroy the town to save it.” Fucking useless retards.
“multi-cultural societies can be made to work. Just not where there is socialism.”
well since we aren’t going to change the welfare state anytime soon, you are saying our society isn’t going to work? then what do you think is going to happen? a civil war?
If ‘socialist’ regeneration was really the guaranteed disaster you seem to believe then, given the fact that there are dozens of similar regeneration schemes going on around the country every year, Burnley wouldn’t be such an isolate example, would it?
Your apparent belief that ‘socialism’ was the sole cause of the problem in Burnley is, as even a cursory glance at the facts would have told you, bollocks. None of it would have happened had Burnley not been so unusually segregated along ethnic and cultural lines, which made it possible for various racists, demagogues and assorted hot-heads to stoke up resentment about an area-based regeneration scheme along those exact lines. In less segregated areas or even in segregated areas where people take the trouble to explain and understand what’s going on – ie, just about everywhere else – you do not see these problems, regeneration programs are generally far more succesful, and ‘socialism’, as you put it, works – Castle Vale in Birmingham being a good example. And as the Better Burnley report says, the same ‘socialism’ has been important in creating the real improvements that Burnley has seen in the years since.
Ignorance was one of the main reasons trouble kicked off in Burnley, so it’s depressing, but not exactly unexpected, to see similar ignorance being so enthusiastically promoted by Samizdatistas.
Paul Marks. ‘How did we come to this?’ Yes indeed, how?
We elected idiots who knowingly & willingly imported most of the problems now afflicting The Septic Isle and oh, we continue to do it unabated. This against the opinions of intelligent & far-sighted folk some of whose names are, strangely, anathema to today’s rational thinkers. Like the warning on the pack of cigs we chose to ignore.
How did we come to this? Simple, we are idiots.
I read a lady’s comment in another blog today. I know not whether the figure she quotes is correct but she mentioned the undemanding, non-leeching ‘invisibility’ of our quarter of a million Chinese community.
People who show the nouse to get up and move to another country, paying a lot of money for sometimes dangerous passage are not, by and large, the type who want to laze around on benefits. They come to work (illegally.)
But, if they get caught and claim “asylum” as the best bet for staying in the country we tell them they can’t work and start giving them benefits… well I suppose if they’re going to stay here they may as well adapt to our culture.
Anyway, the money being wasted on regeneration is not really tied up with ethnicity it’s really a phenomenon of the sovietized northern cities, which, bar a handful of excpetions have ethnic minority populations far less than the South East.
Dave writes,
“well since we aren’t going to change the welfare state anytime soon, you are saying our society isn’t going to work?”
Civil society already works far less well than it did.
“then what do you think is going to happen? a civil war?”
On a timescale of decades – possibly. Although I might be reading you wrong, your tone suggests that you think civil war is almost inconceivable. But the inhabitants of once-peaceful countries where it happens always think that until it happens. History supplies many examples.
Or something else may turn up to improve things. As I said, I am an optimist.
Jim writes,
“Your apparent belief that ‘socialism’ was the sole cause of the problem in Burnley”
Ta for the “apparent.” Sole cause, no. Exacerbating factor, yes. Re-read my last line.
“In less segregated areas or even in segregated areas where people take the trouble to explain and understand what’s going on – ie, just about everywhere else – you do not see these problems, regeneration programs are generally far more succesful, and ‘socialism’, as you put it, works – Castle Vale in Birmingham being a good example”
I don’t know about Castle Valley. If you say it’s going well there, I’m happy to take your word for it. But the Observer report linked to first describes inter-ethnic violence among schoolchildren in two different parts of Birmingham. Indeed the introductory paragraph says, “Pupils across the country are scared – scared of children from other ethnic backgrounds and of the blades that are now being used with terrifying regularity”
I think that something isn’t working.
“And as the Better Burnley report says, the same ‘socialism’ has been important in creating the real improvements that Burnley has seen in the years since.”
I’m sure that the authors of this report are nice people. But somehow I can’t imagine a report issued by “Burnley Action Partnership, a 48-member group of representatives from the public, private, voluntary and faith sectors” saying “Burnley is done for – get out while you can.” (Er, that was an exaggeration for humorous effect. Don’t all pile in.)
It doesn’t help that the so-called private and voluntary sectors are in fact heavily dependent on tax money.
I come not to praise socialism, Natalie. However I do not think it the culprit per se in this particular northern situation that you talk of.
No, the culprit–or the crime, if you wish–is the supression of the individual in favour of the group. People may be Catholics, New Labour, Muslims, gays, Conservative, Pakistanis, Somalis… whatever. But that is not the be-all and end-all of their existence–even if, for the time, they imagine it is. These are (or should be) just a little more that mere labels; indicators of where one came from or seeks to go, but not all of one’s being.
It is group-think that is the fundamental cause of the trouble you talk of. Yes, Socialism is a virulant agent of group-think. But so is Islam, and I suspect more importantly so in this case. The problem is that Islam demands the total submission of every aspect of public and private life to it among all adherents in a way that other religions such as Christianity for example, never does. I suspect that is one fundamental reason why Islam and democracy and personal liberty are ultimately incompatible.
In truth we are all individuals. No man is an island, but every man and woman is a free agent–if only they know it.
We are not the Borg. Yet.
—-
BTW, the situation you describe is exactly NOT like what happened in the old Soviet empire. There the suppression of liberty was so effective that no such events were ever tolerated–until the end approched, and people threw off their Soviet chains, and were able to speak and act freely again; then what you talk of happened in eastern Europe.
Lesson: Socialism/Communism (whatever-you-call-it) is ultimately the opposite of liberty. Without a police state it cannot survive, let alone “work”.
Natalie,
It’s Castle Vale, and it’s one of the more high-profile regeneration schemes in the country. Seriously, look it up. In fact, look up anything about the actual track record of regeneration, because you clearly sounded off without doing anything like that. Instead, you switch your favoured symptom of socialism-induced decline to knife-fights between kids. Well, unfortunately that’s hardly a new phenomenon, whatever the Observer might tell you.
And neither are socialist (be they of the left or right) regeneration projects. In truth the main beneficiary of them are the sweetheart deals they lead to with construction companies.
But why do blacks, etc require gov’t help, whilst whites do not? The answer is (go away, you collectivist, evil, racist, neo-nazi pseudo science spouting, etc, etc. We’re really tolerant!)
Alex, are you under the impression there are no white people on welfare? You must be a little IQ challanged methinks.
My objection to the sort of “urban regeneration” a la Burnley is that it is insane Stalinism imposed by bureaucrats whose only solution is to bulldoze.
The little stone built houses have proper slate roofs, and are much better than anything which could be put in their place. It would actually be cheaper to modernise them, but that would mean less payola to the building companies, and a smaller budget for the tax eaters.
Companies such as Urban Splash have showed in Salford that when updated, these terraces can still provide good quality accomodation, cheaper and better than a new build. But most of this so-called regeneration is being done with all the subtlety of the Luftwaffe, and with about as much concern for the fate of the dehoused serfs.
Mind you, we should not be too surprised that a policy carried out in the name of John Prescott should be ugly, brutish, and end up with the little people getting fucked. Did anyone ever have any illusions that he was Harold Acton in disguise?
John K,
“My objection to the sort of “urban regeneration” a la Burnley is that it is insane Stalinism imposed by bureaucrats whose only solution is to bulldoze.”
If their “only solution” is to bulldoze, then why have more homes in the regeneration areas been refurbished than demolished? Or didn’t you know that?
“The little stone built houses have proper slate roofs, and are much better than anything which could be put in their place.”
Some of them are, hence the mass refurbishment which you seem blisfully unaware of. But to decree that every dwelling, no matter how pokey, damp and dilapidated, must be preserved in perpetuity rather than allowing some enterprising firm to build homes that people might actually want to live in … to me, that sounds Stalinist.
“Companies such as Urban Splash have showed in Salford that when updated, these terraces can still provide good quality accomodation, cheaper and better than a new build.”
You do know that the Urban Splash scheme in Salford actually cost around £40k per property in tax-payers’ money, right? But I thought their only solution was to bulldoze!
The other day I walked past a new build block of one/two bedroomed apartments in Salford. Some not very clever developer, thinking that First Time Buyers are desperate enough to pay through the nose to live anywhere, had built it overlooking a council depot. The back doors were busted down and most of the windows were either smashed or borded-up. It looked the apartments were for sale on Rightmove if anyone wants one.
I live in an area that was ‘regenerated’ in the 60s. This along with the road widening scheme really ment the death of the local community.
They knocked down all the local corner shops, pubs etc, moved half the population to the suburbs, replaced solid brick built homes with concrete prefabs (which you can’t get a mortgage on, the first 4 they erected fell down in a week!).
The back to backs didn’t have inside toilets etc so were classed as useless. My friend lives in one of the few streets that survived the wreckers ball and his useless house (after a loft conversion and a bathroom where the 2nd bedroom was) is worth £110 000.
some regeneration — thanks Leeds City Council you did Woodhouse proud!
also – i am not the rascit buffon who posted earlier.
But to decree that every dwelling, no matter how pokey, damp and dilapidated, must be preserved in perpetuity rather than allowing some enterprising firm to build homes that people might actually want to live in … to me, that sounds Stalinist.
Who decrees anything? I don’t, but Prescott did. Many of the homes being bulldozed are privately owned, and have been compulsorarily purchased, at a price which will not enable the owners to afford the new houses being erected in their areas.
You are right to say that Salford is subsidizing the work Urban Splash is doing. The £40,000 per house is far less than the cost of demolition and rebuilding. Doesn’t that strike you as a good idea?
The root of the Pathfinder plan was central government’s belief that the market had failed in the north. But since government moves at galcial speed, by the time they started to send in the wreckers, the market had picked up. They are trying to demolish Victorian houses in Liverpool which are prefectly sound and worth £150,000. That sort of nonsense can only make sense to the mind of a bureaucrat with a budget to spend, come hell or high water.