Was on BBC national radio this morning.

[Phil47uk]

I sent a text airing my views on the recent UK riots to a BBC breakfast programme this morning and the BBC phoned me back and asked if I would like to go on air..

I think they liked my idea for a punishment of young offenders, being that they had to spend a week ( Not as a prisoner I may add ) in some of the UK's toughest prisons , just to see what life there was really like. Speak to inmates, see how they live etc and maybe that would knock a bit of sense into many who have come through an education system that leads them to believe they are invincible and have every right going.
I was watching this documentary last night and found it very interesting.

Now of course I don't condone all American ideals, but in this case I'd say the Yanks have got it spot on in CA. We really need to introduce this into our judicial system instead of telling them they are naughty boys and go join a local youth club to play ping-pong.

Here's an excerpt from the programme.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1962GrrtRw]Beyond Scared Straight - PREMIERE Episode 6 "Hagerstown" Part 4 - YouTube[/ame]

And if you want to listen to me rave, then I come in about 0:41.50 and again at 0: 49:15 into the show. I thought I was quite constrained for me for once. Well in front of some 3 million listeners, I had no alternative really ..


BBC iPlayer - 5 live Breakfast: Your Call: 29/08/2011






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[Cpt Matt Sparrow]

Hi Phil

I believe like you do Phil; I view it as tough love too!

Self reliance and making good of what you have, are the way forward that should be encouraged by society, not the mindset that you are owed something, that everyone is to blame etc. There is this very cancerous collective mindset that if you contribute nothing, you are rewarded with an array of benefits

Something like the recent riots occur and their is an onslaught of holier than thou trendy thinkers, blaming the police, schools, advertising, the media, etc etc. Not once does it occur that there is something called self reliance. The understanding that you alone are responsible for your actions. I think the vast majority of the looters did what they did for a very simple reason, because they could do!

I am proud of many of the more liberal aspects of Britian, but I recognise the need of balance. Ass kicking is just as important as compassion in helping sometimes.

Matt

 

[nick1962]

Good for you!!
I would maybe put things up one notch though, by sending them for a week in a Russian prison instead! They are reputed to be ghastly.

 

[HOT-BRIT]

well done

 

[Torren61]

 

[Phil47uk]

Hi Phil

I believe like you do Phil; I view it as tough love too!

Self reliance and making good of what you have, are the way forward that should be encouraged by society, not the mindset that you are owed something, that everyone is to blame etc. There is this very cancerous collective mindset that if you contribute nothing, you are rewarded with an array of benefits

Something like the recent riots occur and their is an onslaught of holier than thou trendy thinkers, blaming the police, schools, advertising, the media, etc etc. Not once does it occur that there is something called self reliance. The understanding that you alone are responsible for your actions. I think the vast majority of the looters did what they did for a very simple reason, because they could do!

I am proud of many of the more liberal aspects of Britian, but I recognise the need of balance. Ass kicking is just as important as compassion in helping sometimes.

Matt

... Great post Matt, thanks.

Yeah, you are dead right and there were many more things I would have liked to have said, but on air, you have to try and be as short to the point as possible.
It caught me a bit by surprise. One minute I was ranting in the kitchen listening to the radio with the trendy thinkers going on about the criminals rights, then the next minute my wife hands me the phone and says " It's the BBC"..
I liked what the teacher had to say at the end and was going to join in with him, but it was right at the end of the programme and didn't want to butt in over him.. The Dr was on another planet...
Did you hear the bit where the Dr said these youths need more jobs and I butted in saying that's all well and good but when you leave school with no communication skills whatsoever and without the faintest idea of how to intergate into society, it doesn't matter what jobs are avialable. They basically haven't a clue.

Jesus, when I was young my parents were broke after the war. So broke at one time, that my Mother even had to pawn her wedding ring at one point, yet they were proud people and worked their arses off to attain a better standard of living.
Bloody hell, If I'd have ever been hauled up by the police for stealing or drugs, my old man would have hit my arse so hard I wouldn't have been able to sit down for a week.. Now of course he would be sued and I'd have been taken into the care of the social services who don't know their arse from their elbow anyway.

This is not about being broke, this is a part of society who wants and expects everything for nothing..
Unfortunately we had bred a new class in this country.. An underclass who breed more and more like themselves.
The reason there are so many is that kids like my own have waited till they were set up to have a family and that their children have a good home, for at least a good start in life.
These people don't think like that. Having a child at the age of 14 is a meal ticket for free housing and they aren't particular where they live. More kids means a bigger house for free.

Ya know sometimes it makes me so sad to see my own kids struggle. My youngest son is a manager of a chain of stores and his girlfriend a supervisor for the RSPCA. They are both 30 now and are trying so hard to get enough money to buy a house and perhaps start a family next year. And then I look at these parasites who want everything for nothing.
It makes me sick and ashamed of the way my country has deteriorated.
As I said on air. " What message does this send to decent kids in eduction".
We have to change in the UK or we are going to blow wide appart.

Of course one can get on the big corporation debate and how we are being fleeced by the elite in rip off Britain, but that's another issue for another day.
If I had seen people on the streets taking food for their starving family, I
would have been right behind them. Or perhaps if instead of making a fuss about a drug dealing gang member with a loaded gun who got shot, had torched the RBS and a few other banks, I might have cheered them on...

But as I said, that's another issue and another debate. This recent London thing isn't about that in the slighest.
Starving deprived people don't raid shoe shops for the latest trainers.

This what you riot about ..These cretins in the recent London riots haven't got a f*cking clue...
Oh how people easily forget. What a pity..
Your parents and mine fought a f*cking war so this would never happen again and still managed to emerge out of the shit and rubble a proud people to start from scratch all over again..

Boy! Have we managed to f*ck things up or what?



[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7d0GTQ2ovE&feature=related]Kinder im Warschauer Ghetto / Children in the Warsaw Ghetto - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Phil47uk]

Good for you!!
I would maybe put things up one notch though, by sending them for a week in a Russian prison instead! They are reputed to be ghastly.

They'd never come back from a Russian prison...

What these young offenders need is to be shown.. 'This is going to happen to you, unless you change your ways'. Not given a slap on the wrist, a hot meal and a game of ping pong.
I like the CA three strikes and out law, although I wouldn't go quite as far as some of the punishments for a third offence, such as 50 years for stealing from a shop without a weapon, as in the case of a guy in that first vid I posted.

But never the less, on the first strike it should be compulsory for people to attend a really tough prison as part of their punishment to see first hand what's coming if they re offend.
I'm sure this would scare the shit out of most of them and if they then want help getting back into society and not going down that road, then give them all the help they need in trying to find a job etc..

Of course this wont work with some people and for those, a long harsh sentence is the only alternative.

Dont get them to sit there in local youth club watching videos like this with a nanny state left wing social worker with a bowl of potato chips and a can of coke....Make them attend places like these, so they can get the raw feel and smell of the place. Let them meet real nutters and muderers.
Don't make prison a fairy tale school for real macho men. Give them a real life look into a crystal ball of their future. The degradation and the misery. A chance not to take that road.
I gaurantee most would shit themselves silly.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_2EMM_aE1E&feature=related]Lockup Raw - 2 hour special (1/14) - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Job-Job type Job]

well done

+1

 

[Ed B]

Good stuff Phil!

I plan on using some of these shows to inform my kids when they get older. I watch a lot of those prison shows. They're fascinating to me, but moreover they're scary as hell.

This is nothing compared to having to visit a prison of course. Let's hope we won't need to go down that road.

Another one that I think would be very effective is Intervention. That show makes me sick every time I see it. So much so that I don't watch it. It's a very unglamorous way to see addiction and it's affects on your loved ones.

 

[colchar]

This is not about being broke, this is a part of society who wants and expects everything for nothing..
Unfortunately we had bred a new class in this country.. An underclass who breed more and more like themselves.

These people don't think like that. Having a child at the age of 14 is a meal ticket for free housing and they aren't particular where they live. More kids means a bigger house for free.

I couldn't agree more Phil and have believed for a while now that the government has to get out of the housing industry. Yes, I know it was part of the social contract after the war but those times have long since passed. Over here we have government housing but it is only for the poor and, even for them, it is nowhere near as widespread as it is back in Britain. Hell, I saw something a couple of weeks back about housing reform and they were bringing the cut-off for council housing down to an income of £50K per year. Excuse me?!?!? Why the hell should the government be involved in housing for people earning that amount? Over here someone with that income who applied for social housing would be laughed out of the office. Can you imagine the savings that would be realized, by all levels of government, if they were to drastically reduce their stake in housing?

There are times when I would love nothing more than to move back to Britain but every time I start talking about it with any seriousness my parents talk me down. As my Mum says, regardless of how much I love Britain I couldn't take living there with the situation as it is because my head would explode - some of the stuff that goes on just seems so idiotic that I would flip out.

I often wonder what has happened to good old fashioned British common sense.

 

[colchar]

Not given a slap on the wrist, a hot meal and a game of ping pong.

Or trips to Alton Towers.

 

[loneguitar]

Phil, you've hit on the head, if we don't do something drastic these young people are headed for a sorry life. Once the deed is done it's too late to look back and say, I should have done things different.
A little tough love is all they'll need for the most of them.
Great post BTW, and thank you.

 

[teame1]

A few points

1) If you think radio 5 gets 3 million listeners at 0.41 (probably at any time) then you are delusional. More like 300,000 if they are lucky.
2) Who is going to fund such an experiment. The cost of security would be huge if you expect them to mingle with the most hardcore British prisoners.
3) We don't have that many hardcore prisoners so demand would outstrip supply.
4) And finally - it wouldn't work.

Stick to watching your american prison shows.

 

[colchar]

A few points

1) If you think radio 5 gets 3 million listeners at 0.41 (probably at any time) then you are delusional. More like 300,000 if they are lucky.
2) Who is going to fund such an experiment. The cost of security would be huge if you expect them to mingle with the most hardcore British prisoners.
3) We don't have that many hardcore prisoners so demand would outstrip supply.
4) And finally - it wouldn't work.

Stick to watching your american prison shows.

And solutions do you propose?

 

[rogerd]

1) If you think radio 5 gets 3 million listeners at 0.41 (probably at any time) then you are delusional. More like 300,000 if they are lucky

I think he means 41 mins into the show!!!

 

[colchar]

I think he means 41 mins into the show!!!

I believe that is correct.

 

[Phil47uk]

A few points

1) If you think radio 5 gets 3 million listeners at 0.41 (probably at any time) then you are delusional. More like 300,000 if they are lucky.
2) Who is going to fund such an experiment. The cost of security would be huge if you expect them to mingle with the most hardcore British prisoners.
3) We don't have that many hardcore prisoners so demand would outstrip supply.
4) And finally - it wouldn't work.

Stick to watching your american prison shows.

There's always some pedantic character who quotes statistics, yet contributes absolutely bugger all into the debate.... and here he is...

Does it really matter if there was 2 million or five million, or two hundred for that matter. They average around 5 million a week and all shows can be listened to. It was said tongue in cheek, but obviously went straight over your head, yet you obviously went to great pains to find out..Unless you happen to be BBC producer that is.

Who is going to fund this?.. The tax payer of course. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to work that one out and I can assure you as a tax payer I'd much rather fund that than pay the legal costs, free TV's, holidays and free legal representation for these parasites who are merely given a limp slap on the wrist, because I can assure you it would be a darned sight cheaper.


Watch the video before you comment and you will see that that don't just wander around socializing with hard core prisoners. It's an actual programme, which personally I think is a bloody good idea. If it works for even half of them, then it's serving a purpose.

I teach in schools all week and so I think I have more than a little experience to draw from.

So..Back to you then..What actually do you do?
Quote :- 'Stick to watching your American TV shows' ..Blimey, You don't sound very old. Either that or you are not very bright, or heavens forbid, one of these people I'm actually talking about.

Your post was negative and hostile from the outset, almost as if I'd hit a raw nerve..
You wanna debate? Then debate. Don't just quote BBC listener statistics.

As Colchar asked in his above post teame1 what's your solution then? So far we have heard zero.

As the old saying goes.. ' Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt'.

P.S..I like your avatar teame1... Is that you raiding a guitar store in Denmark St?



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[colchar]

Phil, it was difficult to hear with the people talking during that program but did I detect a faint, Scouse-accented voice behind you demanding more chips the entire time you were on the air?

 

[Phil47uk]

Or trips to Alton Towers.

One girl round here who had a baby at 14 and another at 17 ( She doesn't know who the Father of either is ) was given a flat in a nearbye town.
She complained to the council that is wasn't big enough and they said. Can you come round in two weeks time on Friday at 2pm and there will be someone to show you round a house.
She replies. " Oh I can't make Friday of that week as I don't come back from the Bahamas till Saturday. "

The councils reply.. 'Oh ok, can you make it in three weeks time instead then.'

Muggings here who has paid council tax charges for nearly thirty years here, was once late by two weeks in sending the council their money. A few days later I get a stinking letter telling me that unless they recieve their money within fourteen days, they'll send a bayliff round.
I wont repeat what I said to them on the phone, as all you'll get is ***************. I've got no street lights.. No mains sewerage.. No buses and the only thing I get are my dustbins ( trash cans to you Yanks ) emptied once a week.. And I pay £2,500 a year.

I phoned up the council once and asked why my charge were so high and the guy said , "Well you do have nice views".
I said "are you a comedian, because if you aren't you should have your own TV show?"...Twat!..

 

[Phil47uk]

Phil, it was difficult to hear with the people talking during that program but did I detect a faint, Scouse-accented voice behind you demanding more chips the entire time you were on the air?

I wouldn't be surprised at all Colchar.. The bugger follows me around enough as it is..