www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24135219

Privately run means G4S and Serco, of course

More privatisation of the Police

More detention without charges

More privatisation of the Prison System

Cheers, I'm off to Italy soon!

yes but it will possibly follow you there soon, maybe, maybe not

Scary shit.

Italy does not have a binge culture. They get mildly merry on wine and call it their culture and cuisine.

They are also in the top 3 pot smokers of Europe.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annual_cannabis_use_by_country

Ci vediamo li'

hey mikey, why is japans pot use so low?

batou wrote:
Dunno but the Japanese I met loved to get drunk and during the summer were often seen sleeping along the river. Not poor folks and kids but businessmen.

As for pot: it was mainly the gaijin (US, Australia, NZ , Canada and UK folks).

I never did because I didn't want to get deported and the lads there were careless. Really careless.

the Japanese themselves: still big taboo on anything but alcohol

This makes me so fucking angry...

And just who will decide when someone is 'too' drunk, exactly? The police or the privately run tanks (who will no doubt be on some kind of comission or incentive).

Scary shit indeed. And just look at the muppets cheering for it...

Fuck this.

Well the stupid thing is that you will still need a police officer to detain you, so the "privately run" tanks are just privately owned cells that earn 400 quid a night in "rent".

This will NOT cut down on police work, if anything it will do the opposite. And it will fill the courts up with defaulters when G4S and Serco have to sue the folks who can't /won't pay.

It will also mean that people who can throw money at a problem in the style of The Bullingdon Club that Cameron, Osbourne and The mayor of London belonged to, can carry on drunk and disorderly knowing that going on a bender in public is now the luxury of the privileged few.

But we already know that. So let's have a look at what Secor and G4S are up to here, shall we?

Oh look: story from last month
www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article3843134.ece
And just last year

And Serco is no better

We don't need drunk tanks, we need cunt tanks.

.

I'm totally against this, obviously, but at the same time I think we would have to acknowledge that Britain does have a major and probably insoluble problem with excessive alcohol consumption. It could easily be argued that the roots of this are economic deprivation, and obviously that does have considerable bearing on it, but there is surely a strong cultural aspect to it as well. Obviously locking people up in what are basically private prisons which will almost certainly end up being run by Serco is not the answer, but I can't help thinking that people need to show a bit more personal responsibility to avoid this tawdry situation from developing in the first place.

I know that where I come from, and thankfully no longer reside, there used to be several police riot vans stationed permanently in the town centre on a Friday and Saturday night as a matter of course, and police continually circulating throughout the town centre. I would be the first person to be critical of such draconian measures, but I would have to say on balance that it was probably justified considering the level of drinking that took place, and the violence that inevitably followed (arguably cocaine contributed to this as well). I'm pretty good at avoiding violence, but still witnessed several pretty sickening incidents.

I wouldn't have thought that this is anything out of the ordinary for the UK. And we all know that I don't need to ask Mikey if it goes down like that in Italy, because we all know the answer. So I think this issue really says something about the cultural malaise in Britain - which is caused by many complex factors, and definitely poverty and poverty of opportunity plays a big part - because the companies that are going to sign up for this wouldn't do so if the didn't think they would make money. Obviously, I assume there will be some sort of contractual payment for simply providing the service, but they will make more money if they lock people up, and they know that it won't be difficult to find these people.

Of course, this does set the rather worrying precedent that people could be hassled who aren't drunk and disorderly, and we've seen the police abuse their position and power so many times that this is a real danger. But I would say that this simply won't be necessary, it will be a piece of fucking piss to find people every night in every town in the country who are completely shitfaced and out of control. There are television programmes entirely devoted to such people. I wouldn't say that these people exactly get what they deserve, but I would say that the time has come for people to exercise a bit of personal responsibility, or else such policies will seem increasingly justifiable. Many people will agree with this policy and not unreasonably argue that they don't feel safe on the streets at night.

mikey mikey wrote:

Quote of the week for me

Well there are two problems: alcohol abuse and violence.

Now when I went out in Japan, I saw some incredible sights of Japanese men and women getting wasted. I saw almost no violence at all. Italy you're likely to get your stuff stolen but there is very little in the way of violence, especially that random "Watchu loookin a'?" from the complete stranger sort of thing.

Besides, even sober, the tension amongst Brits is palpable, especially if you have got used to living elsewhere.

One of the reasons is the Phil Mitchel wannabes and their concept of what it is to be male and masculine.

I am not small and defenceless by any means, but when I see the bulky beefy lad with visible hyper tension carrying invisible suitcases or the shifty eyed ratboy shiv resplendent, I cross the street.

And this goes back to an anti-intellectual hyper masculinised culture that sees violence is not just a means to an end but an end in itself.

From the top to the bottom.

I would also like to point out that there is a form of social aggression and passive aggressiveness that permeates the culture too.

It takes me a couple of weeks working in the UK to get to grips with the bitchiness, back biting and general spite. All of the resentment by hours of this crap at work for 5 days a week can turn ugly on a Friday or Saturday night, especially with a depressant.

I don't think the UK is unique in this. But I do think we take some things too far.

Assertive has become a euphemism for pushy and a bully.
Persuasive for manipulative and intimidating.
Networking for brown nosing, nepotism and gossip.

Alcohol abuse may be a social disease, but like diseases of the body such disorders can be the product of a previous condition. In this case our previous underlying condition may be something to do with what I described above.

I don't know tbh

mikey mikey wrote: I totally agree with what you're saying here. I think there are many underlying problems contributing to the situation, of which this is one. I just know that I used to work with someone who went to Rome regularly, literally every few weeks, and he told me that he would be perfectly happy to let his girlfriend walk through the centre of Rome unaccompanied at any time of night. Would you say the same about Birmingham or Bristol or pretty much any British town or city that you could name? I don't think that you would. So that says to me that there is something fundamentally wrong. It is not a natural state of affairs that people can't walk around the streets at night - and often during the day - without threat of physical abuse. That is not our natural state as human-beings. There are definitely economic factors that contribute to this, but I do believe that the primary reasons are cultural, and until this significantly changes then the sort of policy being proposed here will seem justifiable to many. It's not justifiable to me, it's ludicrous, but equally the social state of the nation is ludicrous to me as well.

Its true that when I was in Rome recently I didn't feel in the slightest bit intimidated.
I wouldn't say people went out their way to welcome us as much as in Venice or Verona but there was no hassle.
London on the other hand you get knifed for carrying home a copy of GTA5 lol....

There are still some nice places in the UK though and I'm coming back myself so its not all bad

mikey mikey wrote:
This stood out like a sore thumb for me on the one occasion I returned to Salford since coming out here. It was a Friday afternoon, I'd had a carvery dinner with my family and nipped out for a smoke. I was the only one smoking alone and every single male out there wasn't necessarily looking for a fight but they were letting you know they were more than ready for one via posturing etc. and that's on a Friday afternoon when the most anyone had supped was a pint with their dinner!

You need a bloody tank to go through middlesbrough nowadays

www.police.uk/crime/?q=Middlesbrough%2C+UK#crimetypes/2013-07

^Fark me lol...

andyh wrote:
I lived there for a bit before getting married, and had my home robbed 5 times in 6 months, and had 2 company cars stolen within a couple of weeks. Bloody other half went working away on a contract & I was taking big hammers & stuff to bed, in anticipation of thugs bursting through the windows at any given second!!!

Just to compare boro with salford for you btw oi ~

www.police.uk/crime/?q=Salford%2C+UK#crimetypes/2013-07

andyh wrote:
Pardon?

Yup. Its looking like either north oxfordshire or way up north east near amble.
I need puppet training now and they don't do it over here, bleedin irish lol.

Linux puppet by the way not puppet as in 1 foot in the grave Remember that episode? lol