Ban on under 21s buying alcohol

[Das Uberdog]

Worked for Manchester.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Litter isn't a social problem, it's a natural by-product of urban living and dispensible consumer madness.

Another classic!

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Infact, litter is just part and parcel of city-living. Within reason, I think that both give a city character as much as anything else.

Goal!

 

[poster342002]

I don't blame people for littering in London, where there are no bins.

You have a point, there, but THIS ruins it completely:

Infact, litter is just part and parcel of city-living. Within reason, I think that both give a city character as much as anything else.

Does it help to make it "vibrant" and "edgy", then?

 

[Das Uberdog]

It doesn't *make* it anything, it's just more honest.

You can't airbrush over reality, morons!

 

[october_lost]

Don't know about anyone else but I like to go to work with the smell of urine not too far in the distance

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Well, the inevitable shitty move towards raising the legal drinking age to 21 takes a step nearer with a pilot scheme in Croydon whereby shops will refuse to sell alcohol to those over 18 but under 21 - despite 18 beingthe age where people can legally drink. The move is expected to eventually go London-wide.

I wonder how many of the Boris-ophobes (it's backed by the Mayor) will kick and scream over this one? Or will most of the left take the cop-out position of claiming it was popular pressure from the left that forced his hand? Or that the move doesn't go far enough? I wonder what Livingstone's position on this will be?

its partly about getting young people more used to showing ID. Part of the training.

 

[In Bloom]

Litter isn't a social problem, it's a natural by-product of urban living and dispensible consumer madness

So you're saying that it's not a social problem, it's just a problem that results from the society that we live in.

If society cares about it so freakin' much, they could do something constructive like actually put bins out or perhaps pay a few more street-cleaners to sort the mess - not scapegoat ordinaries.

So you don't think that the idea of social responsibility has any place in socialist politics at all, then?

 

[The Black Hand]

Goal!

You can tell you do not live in London - Hackney for instance. Loads a litter is NORMAL there, infact I do not think anybody is nostalgic for litter free times...

 

[kyser_soze]

Litter isn't a social problem, it's a natural by-product of urban living and dispensible consumer madness.

So the reason you drop litter on the floor is not because you can't be fucked to hold on to it til you find a bin, it's because you are completely brainwashed by the disposable consumer society!!

 

[october_lost]

So the reason you drop litter on the floor is not because you can't be fucked to hold on to it til you find a bin, it's because you are completely brainwashed by the disposable consumer society!!

I think that plays a part as does not identifying with a space you live in, but In Bloom is right, there is a large proportion of responsibility at work here.

 

[chainsaw cat]

I've said it before: Drinking license.

You apply for it and take a drinking test, at which the DBLA (Drinking and Behaviour Licensing Authority) give you a photo card with the number of units you are allowed per night on it, to swipe every time you buy a bevvy.

The number of units is assessed as the number you had on the test at the point when they provoked you into taking a swing at them, minus one.

You can apply for a re- test every 3 years.

Thus, gobby violent arseholes who ruin the pub vibe will be eliminated unless they brew their own.

Vote Chainsaw Cat for a Better Britain.

 

[kyser_soze]

I think that plays a part as does not identifying with a space you live in, but In Bloom is right, there is a large proportion of responsibility at work here.

I was being sarcastic, and that first part of your answer is one of the reasons so many people laugh at the left. It may well be true in some dry academic way, but responsibility is what it comes down to.

I mean it's amazing how so many other countries somehow manage to have clean streets, and the general public see it as a basically good thing to do - not something they have to be cajoled or coerced into doing, but do it because it's a good thing to do.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

I NEVER drop litter. Ever. But I do sympathise with the problem of not being able to find a bin in city centres, especially London.

The reason for the lack of bins is, of course TERRORISM!!!111

 

[chainsaw cat]

Yeah, what could be more obvious?

You live in a shit pit, or you live somewhere clean... why on earth do some people need help with that one?


Years ago some comedian (forget who) put out a joke election pamphlet - one of the ideas was about dog crap.


Suggestion: people who let their dogs crap on the pavement and don't clean it up should be forced to eat it with a spoon and say 'yum yum'.

I can't see anything wrong with that. Nor is it in anyway not 'left wing' to want to tell scruffy bastards to CLEAN THE PLACE UP YOU SCRUFFY BASTARDS!!!

 

[chainsaw cat]

I NEVER drop litter. Ever. But I do sympathise with the problem of not being able to find a bin in city centres, especially London.

The reason for the lack of bins is, of course TERRORISM!!!111

Yeah, genuinely (on the stations at least) the lack of bins is the only real achievement from decades of Republican terrorism.
(N Igma may tell you different but he is wrong )

 

[cosmic malcolm]

Didnt know whot time it was lights were low.

How old do you need to be to join the army.

 

[DotCommunist]

I was being sarcastic, and that first part of your answer is one of the reasons so many people laugh at the left. It may well be true in some dry academic way, but responsibility is what it comes down to.

I mean it's amazing how so many other countries somehow manage to have clean streets, and the general public see it as a basically good thing to do - not something they have to be cajoled or coerced into doing, but do it because it's a good thing to do.

The sheer hypocrisy of a london centric high earner gabbing about personal responsibility, and on another thread deriding the idea of relative poverty 'cause u ent a starving african' is what poisons the left against the ideas of right wingers.

It isn't so much a denial of the realities of poverty as a lack of understanding. That in itself is not forgiveable, Orwell and in his own way, Cook, managed to do railing against social injustice despite the privileges of their upbringing. But keep walking through shoreditch on your way to work, listening to your Nokia N95 tunes. But don't have the patronising attitude that assumes some knowledge of poverty,please. It's embarrassing.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

The term "demonised" isn't one I'd throw about but at the same time very few positive portrayals of young people in the press.

They are either the victims of crime, or the perpetrators of it, although most people just seem to see them as the latter - young people themselves are far more likely to be the victims of crime than any other age group.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

You can tell you do not live in London - Hackney for instance. Loads a litter is NORMAL there, infact I do not think anybody is nostalgic for litter free times...

The fact that neither you nor DU can tell the difference between normal and desirable doesn't surprise me.

Oh and by the way as a bit of timely casual empiricism, last night my mother in law (a hackney resident for over 40 years) was complaining about the litter as we chatted in her kitchen.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[jæd]

I NEVER drop litter. Ever. But I do sympathise with the problem of not being able to find a bin in city centres, especially London.

There are plenty of waste bins in Central London...

 

[In Bloom]

The term "demonised" isn't one I'd throw about but at the same time very few positive portrayals of young people in the press.

They are either the victims of crime, or the perpetrators of it, although most people just seem to see them as the latter - young people themselves are far more likely to be the victims of crime than any other age group.

I think the problem goes deeper than that. Young people are often treated as a problem in and of themselves, so the problem stops being that some people act in an anti-social way for whatever reason, and this is aggravated by drink sometimes, and becomes that young people are allowed to drink at all.

Plenty of older people become pretty anti-social when they drink to excess, after all.

 

[kyser_soze]

The sheer hypocrisy of a london centric high earner gabbing about personal responsibility, and on another thread deriding the idea of relative poverty 'cause u ent a starving african' is what poisons the left against the ideas of right wingers.

It isn't so much a denial of the realities of poverty as a lack of understanding. That in itself is not forgiveable, Orwell and in his own way, Cook, managed to do railing against social injustice despite the privileges of their upbringing. But keep walking through shoreditch on your way to work, listening to your Nokia N95 tunes. But don't have the patronising attitude that assumes some knowledge of poverty,please. It's embarrassing.

1. At present I'm not a high earner, I'm a student again, and I don't expect to be back to where I was for at least the next couple of years

2. I haven't worked in shoreditch for about 13 years, don't own an N95, and don't deride the idea of relative poverty, I just wish that some people who claim they're in it on here and who quite clearly have the nous to get themsevles out of it do

3. I grew up in a w/c single parent h/hold during the 70s and 80s in what would now be classified as relative poverty by income, let alone having to deal with prejudice and shit from teachers and the local neighbours for being a bastard. My adolesence was spent veering between having money and having to organise the family budget because I couldn't trust my mum to pay the rent or bills. Going cold and hungry wasn't an everyday experience, but it happened. When I greaduated, I spent 3 months living on £5 a week before sorting a decent job and money out, so don't think for one second you can presume to lecture me about being poor matey.

4. Excuses blaming the wider social system for failing to pick up rubbish are a load of bollocks. The people who LIVE in trash city in Manilla keep their fucking shanty towns tidy FFS - and you're attempting to tell me that it's 'justfied' dropping litter because of the 'disposable society'? Litter everywhere is shit, and like being polite to people, takes NO fucking effort on the part of an individul to make sure they don't leave a trail of crap behind them.

 

[poster342002]

It doesn't *make* it anything, it's just more honest.

You can't airbrush over reality, morons!

Litter is more "honest"? WTF do you mean? You don't need to "airbrush over reality", just have sufficient litterbins and use them!

 

[poster342002]

its partly about getting young people more used to showing ID. Part of the training.

I think this is indeed part of the thinking.

 

[poster342002]

You can tell you do not live in London - Hackney for instance. Loads a litter is NORMAL there, infact I do not think anybody is nostalgic for litter free times...

I think you'll find people DON'T enjoy wallowing in their own filth and would like properly-funded and effective municipal hygiene and sanitation. It was something working class people have fought for, ffs!

What the FUCK is going on here? When did filthy, grubby, litter-strewn steets become a symbol of wadical socialism/anarchism? When did clean, sanitary streets become a symbol of bourgeoise reaction?

"What do we want? FILTHY STREETS!" When do we want them? NOW!" will never make a popular campaign slogan.

 

[kyser_soze]

Fuck me, poster and I agreeing on something!!

 

[Das Uberdog]

So you don't think that the idea of social responsibility has any place in socialist politics at all, then?

I think that demanding people have a Socialist sense of social responsibility without being given access to any of the benefits of living in a Socialist society is unfair, moralistic and twattish.

As far as Louise is concerned - your mam-in-law probably just wanted something to gas about. Fundamentally, we are conditioned to see litter as bad, BAD - for no real reason other than that its there, and doesn't represent the stern, self-controlled and orderly mentality prized so highly by our overlords and ancestors. Moaning about how people drop litter in cities is, in actual fact, no different in its philosophical outlook from bemoaning the fact the working-classes don't still spend 4 hours a day scrubbing at their doorstone and bleaching everything in the house.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

I like this thread...

It should be renamed Socialism and its Relationship to High Street Litter.

Or, Will We Still Have Litter in a Socialist Society?

 

[Maggot]

In an attempt to get back on track:

This scheme is stupid and unworkable. It's voluntary, as 18-21 year olds are legally allowed to buy booze, they would have to introduce a new law to stop it. If it's voluntary there are always gonna be off-licences who will continue to serve them. Even if all the shops in Croydon adhered to the scheme then the youngsters will just go to the neighbouring borough to get their drink.

Some retailers have introduced this already. In the Co-op you have to be over 21 to buy booze.

18 year olds can have sex, vote, drive, join the army etc. Why shouldn't they be allowed to buy drink?