M F

"Housing conditions in the private rented sector are the worst of any type of housing. In a recent survey conducted by housing charity Shelter, more than 90% of environmental health officers said they had encountered cases of severe damp, mould, electrical or fire safety hazards in private properties they investigated in the last year. While most landlords maintain decent standards there is a minority – as the Channel 4 Dispatches programme Landlords from Hell laid bare – at the bottom end of the private market that are getting away with letting properties that are unsafe and in appalling states of disrepair." - M F

"Like most councillors who represent wards containing pockets of severe deprivation, I've seen at first-hand some of the effects of overcrowding, dilapidation, damp and cold on public health. Poor housing is intimately linked with poor physical and mental health. It also comes with a heavy social cost, including an estimated bill of £600m a year for the NHS. For the children unfortunate enough to suffer at the hands of sub-standard accommodation, there is an increased risk of childhood illness, disability, behavioural and mental health problems, as well as a deadening impact on life chances." - M F

I saw some appaling rooms and flats in London and I cannot understand why these landlords are still allow to be landlords. I know of people who complained to the local councils and absolutely nothing was done against the landlords even if on paper they were breaking several major laws. - M F

:-P - Halil

"When a member of Oxford's notorious Bullingdon Club hurled a pot plant through a restaurant window, he was maintaining a tradition going back generations. It was what Evelyn Waugh called "the sound of the English county families baying for broken glass". The Prime Minister, David Cameron, the Chancellor, George Osborne, and the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, were some of the best-known members of the club – an elite dining society notorious for its drunken excesses. It has a tradition of "omerta", a code of silence, among its members." - M F

I was thinking about this exact thing the other day, those 3 are guilty to some degree of uncivilised, anti-social behaviour too, only difference is, their family had £££ to keep it under the carpet! - Halil

"THERE have been some sweeping historical claims made in the wake of last week's unrest, with commentators of left and right decrying an unprecedented collapse in moral standards, parenting and discipline among the young. There have been cultural claims too, with calls to blame African-American rap music from broadcast." - M F

"In London, 1815 sees the foundation of the Society for Investigating the Causes of the Alarming Increase in Juvenile Delinquency in the Metropolis. 1751 sees Henry Fielding's "Enquiry into the Causes of the Late Increase of Robbers" (Fielding fingered "too frequent and expensive diversions among the lower kind of people"). The seventeenth century saw moral panics about violent and rowdy apprentices, as well as about organised fighting among gangs (wearing coloured ribbons to identify their troops). Professor Pearson ends with the sixteenth century and puritan fears about, if not gangsta rap, popular songs that treated criminals as heroes." - M F

This is the NYT http://www.nytimes.com/2011... - M F

"Leading historians are to hit out against Michael Gove's plans for history teaching, saying they risk "going down the route of propaganda". Gove has said history in schools ought to "celebrate the distinguished role of these islands in the history of the world" and portray Britain as "a beacon of liberty for others to emulate"." - M F

I think all friendfeeder's would be too gobby to last in a totalitarian regime! :-P - Halil

"Despite high-profile initiatives to tackle knife and gun crime, projects that help prevent young people joining gangs are facing closure due to cuts" - M F

:-/ - Halil

"Criticism is growing of the sentences imposed on some convicted rioters after two men were jailed for four years for posting messages on Facebook inciting people to create disorder in their home towns. A cabinet minister defended the tough sentencing approach, but a senior Liberal Democrat accused the courts of seeking retribution. Jordan Blackshaw, 20, from Northwich Town, and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, 22, of Latchford, Warrington, were sentenced at Chester crown court after admitting using the social networking site to try to organise riots. No trouble resulted from their actions." - M F

Here http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk... "Lord Carlile, the barrister and former Liberal Democrat MP warned that the sacrosanct separation of powers between the government and the judiciary had appeared to have been breached by some of the messages coming out of government since the riots engulfed neighbourhoods last week." - M F

"Seeking opportunity in a moment of crisis, David Cameron this week spoke of Britain's "slow-motion moral collapse". The prime minister sought to identify "deeper problems" and came up with a sociological canard: the culture of poverty. This analysis is one that regards the chaotic lives of poor people as cause, not symptom, of the collapse of their communities. For the prime minister, these families and their children simply chose to be feckless, indolent or on the wrong side of police lines. Such talk will do much to harden public attitudes – helpful to a prime minister who wants to push draconian social policy through the Lords in the autumn. The rhetoric will profit the contentious welfare reforms, a policy built on the idea that poor people are "culturally" unique and dependent on welfare by their own design." - M F

National service? I thought we had no money left. - M F

"The proposal was attacked by the Child Poverty Action Group, which works to abolish child poverty in the UK. "Kneejerk plans to remove benefits from people convicted of less serious offences are dangerous and very likely counterproductive," said Imran Hussain, the group's head of policy. "How can a society that delivers double punishments for the poor, treating the rich and the poor differently, be called a fixed society – or the kind of world we want to live in?"" - M F

why weren't the looting MP's evicted from the house of commons??? - Halil

A very good question. - M F

"It is understood that the majority of allegations concern the treatment of vulnerable people when the government's controversial "work capability assessments" were carried out, but the GMC refused to comment on individual cases. The development will add to fears over the pace and radical agenda behind the government's welfare-to-work policy, which led to protests in Westminster in May by thousands of disabled people. It will also raise concerns about ministers' commitment to Atos Healthcare, which was recently granted a three-year extension on its contract." - M F

"One GP who attended an Atos recruitment fair told the Observer she feared doctors could become "agents of the state" who were deprofessionalised by involvement in a system that did not make patient care its first concern." - M F

"A spokesman said a barrister who was unable to practise because of cancer and lymphoma had described the assessment as being like an "interrogation" led by a computer. The assessor moved the client's legs, which caused her great pain, even though the client had warned that this would happen. In another case a claimant with learning difficulties who went for an assessment was found fit for work because he had found his way to the assessment centre on his own. When asked about this by Citizens Advice, he reluctantly explained that he had got up very early, taken the bus to the town centre, and then kept asking passersby for directions. He couldn't follow their instructions, so he would show the letter, walk in the direction they pointed, then ask again until he arrived." - M F

http://www.youtube.com/watch... - M F

Interesting, although I do not believe that the recent riots were caused just by the present government. - M F

Nice find. - Son of Groucho

"Conservative-run Wandsworth council in south London has started eviction proceedings against a woman whose son appeared in court charged in connection with the riots in Clapham Junction. It is the first local authority to issue an eviction notice on a tenant in the wake of the riots although Westminster, Greenwich, Hammersmith and Fulham, Nottingham and Salford councils have all said they will consider evicting those found to have taken part in the unrest." - M F

It might turn out to be an expensive and pointless exercise. It is not going to work as a deterrent either, teenagers often act on the spur of the moment, think they are immortal and that they will never get caught otherwise they would never do drugs, joyride or other very stupid things teenagers do. - M F

"The government is contemplating tactics against the UK riots that set dangerous precedents. In parliament today, prime minister David Cameron said authorities and the industry were looking at "whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality". Well, at least he did post it as a question of right and wrong." - M F

The past week has been a feast of hypocrisy. - M F