I think it’s a legitimate issue of protest. Shame about the violence, but there are well meaning people spouting well articulated grievances about the insecurity that has been imposed on them. When we just see the twatty antagonists at the front, we’re in danger of forgetting why they were there in the first place.
Got loads more sympathy for the idea that this was an easy target, but it’s certainly an effective one in highlighting the underlying themes of the protest. Like the Guardian article says, this is a thriving business that is banging out bowls of cereal for up to a fiver a pop. It’s actually difficult to work out which is more outrageous; the pricing, or the fact that the market will both bear and accept it.
Set against the genuine backdrop of social cleansing, growing child poverty and the unchecked avarice of unscrupulous landlords, you could see why the natives might get a bit miffed at peeps that can afford to blow a bluey on a bowl of banana-bedecked All Bran.
No I know London pretty well and how can someone on the living wage afford to move with the fees involved and be close to their place of work? The further they go out the move it costs and time involved to go back in, its going back to the Victorian age in London, the only City thats dead in the evening as it has no community and no one can afford to live in the centre, a tragic shame how long before people view Southend/Reading/Basingstoke as outer London to and commute on a living wage, 14 hour days for what? To survive? We surely are better than that in a City that only rival for size, stature and prestige is New York.
Why do people have to be close to work? And what do you define as ‘close’? I travel an hour and a half each way into work, because I can’t afford to live that close to work. Shit happens.
Oh c’mon Barry. This isn’t the coal miners fighting for their livelihood, or London’s black community being brown beaten to the point of explosion. This is a bunch of bullshit people looking for something to be angry about and taking it out on an easy target. Do a quick google on the woman who at least had the balls to give a quote - she’s an educated Spanish artist. How does she have more claim to Shoreditch than anyone else? And I’m all for the artists plight, believe me. The uniqueness of London is down to eclecticism, liberalism, and open mindedness. This is the antithesis to that. Bunch of bullies.
Your romanticism of working class people paints a pretty picture, but not a lot else.
And how does a person who has to move out and then move back in renting a house afford the expense to do so, shit happens is no excuse for not caring for people less fortunate than you is it? Choice is a wonderful thing, choice is a luxury.
I define close by how long it takes to go from the front door to work, someone on a living wage is hardly going to be inspired to do that are they and is that acceptable? Moving them out and then telling them its going to cost them more to do so and longer, but fuck them they are poor, uneductaed and can quickly be undercut and hidden by open border cheap labour. London a City of selfish bastards.
That whole paragraph makes little sense. People aren’t ‘inspired’ to lengthen their commute? In that case, why don’t they move right next to work. Let’s give them Buckingham fucking Palace so that at least they feel inspired to go to work, and at least they’ll have a ten minute commute and not an hour one. People should get exactly what they want in life, irregardless of money. I want a Lamborghini but can’t afford one. I think the government should therefore put a control on the price of Lambos. Sorted.
People shouldn’t have to be inspired to travel to work, it’s a necessity. If you can’t afford to live in an area, you move out to a more affordable area. This is the advantage you are gaining, against the disadvantage of a longer commute. You send like one those idiots on Location, Location, Location, I want a 6 bedroom house in Chelsea, within 2 minutes of a tube with outside space and parking for £150k, and if I can’t get it I’m going to vandalise the local charcuterie.
What about someone on a living wage? Where do they go? What about thir friends and families and the communites they leave behind? Stabilty is key to a childs upbringing.
Being inspired was regarding to if you were moved out and told to commute back costing you more money would you be inspired to work? Would you fell agrieved? I fucking well would, what about those communites that are now ghost towns within a City?
You move out to pay less, so the commuting costs are covered. If you can’t afford to live somewhere, through gentrification or other means, then unless you are a council tenant you move. That’s the world. I’ve decided all my community, family etc was in Weybridge. I can’t afford to live there, but because I once lived there I think they should cap the cost of housing so I can carry on living there. Or I could move 5 miles down the road, which is more inconvenient, but means I can afford to live.
What would you propose we do? No-one purchases property, you are allocated housing close to your work? So 8 million London workers are allocated homes within 15 minutes of their work? That’s a fucking lot of central London homes. But it’s alright, they smashed up a breakfast shop so they obviously REALLY want to live close to work.
As with everyone who tends to have these pie in the sky ideas, you’re more than happy to bitch and moan (about a place you don’t live), but have very little substance when it comes to solutions.
I prob only have cereal bout once every couple of months, but I have to keep a stock of milk & cereals at all times cos one never knows when the craving will strike. Consequently every bowl of cereal prob costs me £15, if you factor in all the milk & cereals I throw away. And I don’t even live in London.
You haven’t answerd the questions, you have a choice and a choice is a luxury, this is why these protests take place.
I can rememeber in the early 90’s when they were doing up the docklands and I was told they would turn it into a ghost town full of rich people who will take it all and give nothing back, they have killed those areas, there will be no working class people to work in the City soon, I would love to now how people who work at KFC etc have to come in, how much do they get paid and what hope do they have? I’m alright though and I don;t give a fuck.
So Chertsey. What’s your average hourly wage? A load more than most, I would guess. Why don’t you show us how well you can emulate IDS by living on 30p a day and see how your boss feels about you hitching into work each day? Assuming anyone actually picks you up that is.
I take it you’ve tried to find the balance between being (‘having to be’?) in London for work and getting away from it given the house prices in that area:
And even 4 years ago you could get stiffed for £1k/ month rent for a room in a shared house in Leytonstone, pay £100/week to your Polish/eastern European landlord for a room in Leyton with piss running down the walls or, as many in crappy lines of work do because - and that’s the way it is they aren’t really going to ever set the world alight (so perhaps take a look at yourself too against that measure) - they’ve moved away from where their grandparents grew up commute from Southend/Brentwood/Chelmsford daily. A better idea (for starters) would simply be to get rid of London Weighting and/or bonuses and tax corporations more for having an office there because they are mostly there due to vanity.
Chertsey how can you do that if you have kids that are settled? You I suspect are educated and have a choice, what about the neets? You have to consider everybody, some simply don’t have the tools to move out and if they all moved like a mass exodus the community would lose something, a town of clones sounds like a load of bollocks to me.
Why do people have to be close to work? And what do you define as ‘close’? I travel an hour and a half each way into work, because I can’t afford to live that close to work. Shit happens.
I know that you’re suffering from the slings and arrows of outrageous treatment of South West Trains, but that’s no reason to get pissed off at people lucky enough to work close to home.
Being close to work is amazing. I remember swapping a near four hour round trip for twenty minutes of vigorous cycling in the early 2000s. It was glorious.
When i re-entered the contract market, I made the conscious decision not to restrict myself to local stuff, so got to experience the other end of the spectrum again, living away during the week, and being a visitor in my own house at the weekend.
All we really got is time, Cherts. I don’t think it is reasonable that those that get the least spend so much unpaid time travelling to jobs in areas they could never afford to live in. The bigger the gentrification bubble gets, the more pronounced the problems become.