Not true, for the past 30 years the Met have had operation Trident going to deal with black on black crime. They've been spectacularly successful.

Needless to say, most of the staff are black. They have the support of the black community and a string of informants who report incidents as soon as they happen.

They're keeping the lid on an extremely dangerous situation.

Lynn I am old enough to remember the Wilson and Heath years and the 4 day week

The Thatcher years gave us a period when the unemployable were getting jobs (that is normally something like the final 1% of the working population)
and companies couldnt get enough people so they forced the government to reduce restrictions on in-comers from foreign lands.

that report is biased as it only shows one prison riot, there were probably 3 that I seem to remember. There are no miners riots, but they manage to include fights between rival factions - not really riots.

The Riot Act of 1714 was repealed in 1973 and has never been replaced, perhaps we need a new one ??

sorry but you have funny ideas
this afternoon it was announced that another early teen has been stabbed to death in London.
Thats 1 per month since start of the year
if you are suggesting the parents of the victim and the perpetrator don't care then you have a very funny idea of life and death

it matters not what the colour of the victim or the perpetrator, it matters not the religion of the victim of the perpetrator. It is a young life lost when it is unnecessary, just to prove one young kid is braver than another.

I lived for years in Navy messdecks, we were young, we had fights and arguements (what do you expect with so much testosterone floating around) but we NEVER EVER killed anyone.

Are you saying black people are dangerous?

It's not true no one cares and significant resources are employed in dealing with the problem. However you cannot get away from the fact that most of these stabbings are black on black gang crime and it seems to be getting worse.

I suggest you read the posting. HBG was calling the situation dangerous. Not the people who are keeping a lid on it.

Right! The Gijon, Aviles Oviedo triangle is the fourth biggest urban area in Spain!

Jackytoo, you are in danger of judging a whole country based on the odd unfortunate incident. There is danger in everything, even crossing the road, but it is incredibly small.

I've even been to a botellon myself 10 years ago, they are not problems at all, only for the neighbours. Yes the odd teenager might get too drunk, but thats part of growing up. Although in the UK noone ever grows up because they continue to do the same every Saturday night

The whole point is that it is Spanish culture to spend a lot of time on the streets, even in the North where it is cold like the UK. To deny children this would be denying them their own culture.

Hmm. Maybe my view is coloured by the fact there are problems with a botellón almost every week in Sur. One here

http://www.laopiniondemalaga.es/mala...00/411302.html

Most of the spanish I know are very protective about their Daughters even to the point of being overstrict.

Yeah they caused a mess but noone got killed right? I agree it is safer for the children to be drinking/socialising in the middle of a city though rather than the middle of nowhere

Yes Spanish girls (like Italian girls) are either protected by their families or brothers, or have certain standards of behaviour. But I've been told that once they move to Madrid or Barcelona post-Uni that they are liberal as any Northern European young woman. I met my wife at too young an age to be able to speak from experience

It's a strange situation.
As you say that particular problem seems to continue to get worse.
Yet the rest of the mixed local communities mostly carry on life as normal and generally don't feel too worried or threatened by it, having come to accept thats just the way it is, and as long as it doesn't affect us, so what.

One thing that always struck me in Spain, was that you'd see plenty of older people and families in the bars on a Friday and Saturday night in town or city centres. Also the greater number of bars in residential areas, meant that people often drank in their neighbourhood (not always 100% this, but a generalisation). I think that in the UK, young people who want to hit a few bars, will all head to the same parts of town. Again, this is a generalisation and you do get disco bars in Spanish cities (and certainly in resorts), but in the UK most city and town centre bars try to get the punters to drink as much as possible in a short time. A lot of Spanish on a night out will sample tapas in different bars, whilst taking small canas or glasses of wine. You don't really get this in Brits - they either go for a meal, or just hit the bars and pubs, and rely on the kebab shop or curry house if they get hungry.

I used to work 20miles away and one friday had to work extra late, abt 8.00, went into the town centre to get a fish and chip meal, and there were all these peeps in late teens\early twenties pouring into the centre to go to the pubs there. It reminded me a bit of lemmings, just line upon line of them.

I live on the edge of an estate of about 7000 people and there is one pub for the whole estate, not the sort of place to take your worst enemy to.
every one drinks off the estate or at home

The culture is entirely different as you say. You get all ages on a night out in a Spanish city.

There are certain bars where younger people go, but the culture is more like, lets have one drink here, maybe a tapa, and then on to the next one. There are bars which specialise in certain types of music and the odd nightclud, but there isnt a club culture in Spain like there is in the UK.

There are the nightclubs where the poligoneros go - think the kids who look like Cristiano Ronaldo in the industrial estates, but this is pretty much a class thing. But then again, it probably is in the UK too

Well exactly. I don't think that Brits are genetically more likely to become problem drinkers, and I've met a few Spanish who over-indulge the copas. But the way society operates, often encourages youngsters to binge-drink, when really all they want is to socialize with their friends.

There have been a 100, fatal, black on black stabbings involving teenagers in London so far this year, the last one was the 14 year old in Enfield, not an area with a high number of immigrants.

Police and politicians are flummoxed by the situation, and it is not all gang related. The strange, to most of us, concept of respect is also involved. Those young, black people crave respect, maybe not something shown to their elders by a predominantly white society in previous years.

It´s not something experienced in more rural communities, but 9 million people live in London, and many million more in Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. In fact, something like that is going to affect all of us.