Riots caused by insufficiency of violence, MP says

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Permalink Reply by Liz on January 30, 2012 at 16:44

I seem to recall we've been here before with David Lammy's predecessor Bernie Grant making similar comments about the 1985 riots. For some well thought out reasons why Lammy may need to think again, here's Dreda Say Mitchell's CIF article and a piece from blogger ItsMothersWork that looks at the claims made about the law and explains why the conclusions reached by the 'smack 'em' brigade aren't logical. 

That article does not include the remarks he made about how the middle class don't need to hit their kids because they send them to tennis lessons etc and private schools where the 'discipline is better'. There is something inherently wrong about suggesting that poor people can only control their kids through hitting them while the rich outsource it to the private schools. As far as I'm aware, private schools haven't hit kids since the beginning of this century. Surely small class sizes, unlimited resources and the ability to remove without fuss any child who may cause them problems account for their discipline successes (I've worked in both state and private)?

I'm also not clear how whacking a 5 yr old stops them from joining a gang at 15. Tottenham needs investment, youth initiatives, jobs and apprenticeships and a level playing field so that postcodes don't affect a kids chances. If the state can't protect someone on the 15th floor of a tower block from disaster, then the state has to take a good long look at itself and to whom it is offering protection, not recommend a good diet of 'smacks'. 

Incidentally, Tottenham has tennis courts at Bruce Castle Park and free lessons are offered in the holidays so it can't just be the lack of a chance to play games that explains last summer. 

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Permalink Reply by dont want to give name on January 30, 2012 at 16:57

Liz - please can you let everyone know on this thread why my comments were deleted from this thread.I reposted the comments.

Was it a computer error or do you have an agenda to censor people who dont write comments that fit your agenda?

my comments were totally relevant and go to the heart of the issue of discipline that mp lammy was talking about and with regard to the guardian article which there is a link to in which mp lammy says that lack of smacking was partially responsible for riots

i dont think this is an unreasonable question,but i notice my question has not been replied to once despite you contributing to this thread.

just asking.

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Permalink Reply by Liz on January 30, 2012 at 17:15

Nothing to do with me. I've removed nothing.

Please direct  your questions to HOL site admin.

My *personal* thoughts on your comments are there is a lot of muddled thinking going on there. There may be discussions to be had about the part race plays in the social dynamics of inner cities but I think they are more to do with the discrimination that is suffered and how a kids postcode can severely affect their life chances. Most of what you say makes massive assumptions that only black people were involved in last years rioting, evidence shows this was not the case, and that you lay the blame firmly at the door of the black community implying that they are entirely to blame for everything bad that goes on in Tottenham. 

Think about that and maybe you'll realise why  you may have fallen foul of the terms and conditions of this site relating to sweeping statements about people based on their race/gender/sexuality etc.

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Permalink Reply by HoL Site Admin on January 30, 2012 at 17:25

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Permalink Reply by Maddy on January 30, 2012 at 17:19

Hear, hear, LIz!

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Permalink Reply by pamish on January 30, 2012 at 17:43

Somewhere down the slippery slope of tap-smack-hit-beat-assault-ABH-GBH. 

I feel sick.

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Permalink Reply by Liz on January 30, 2012 at 18:21

I can't watch more than a few seconds of that. Hideous and vile.

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Permalink Reply by pamish on January 30, 2012 at 18:28

Anyone who thinks hitting kids is OK, should have to watch it.

And check the link in the RH column, to the man saying he did nothing wrong.  In fact he can't have thought it's wrong, it's so very cold and deliberate. He says he lost his temper - this is not footage of someone in a temper. It's cold. It's calculated. He thinks it's his right.

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Permalink Reply by pamish on January 30, 2012 at 22:57

Iceberg/tip.

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Permalink Reply by Karin on January 31, 2012 at 9:20

Totally agree with you Liz and Pam.

I'd love to know if David Lammy intends to keep using smacking as his way of punishing his children? What about when they are 13 and 15 and potentially bigger and stronger than their parents?

Different kettle of fish to smacking a defenceless 3 or 5 year old.

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Permalink Reply by maggie on January 31, 2012 at 12:47

Re smacking. I grew up in a disciplined household and was never ever threatened, tapped, smacked, hit etc. I brought up two boys as a single parent and never ever found it necessary to threaten, tap, hit, smack etc. I am not a paragon and this isn't meant to be self righteous it is just that when you have no history of being smacked or smacking you don't even think of it as an option, you have other ways of maintaining a sense of order. Oh and my boys, now men, were not out burning and looting, they have not run amuck, and the idea of them smacking their kids would seem totally alien too.

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Permalink Reply by pamish on January 31, 2012 at 19:09

TV alert tonightTuesday 9pm BBC2 - interviews with parents of those who were involved in the riots that took place across England last August, on how they felt when politicians and the media cited poor parenting as one of the major causes of the chaos. Will they be asked to reveal their disciplinary practices?

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