Just ran around Shadwell basin where Bow Estates are busy removing all greenery including some good looking blackberries that I had my eye on. I asked why?
'Oh, they said the people in the flats asked for it all to be cut down. 'They' get behind there and do anything and make a lot of noise and shit and everything.' Great explanation.
But here we have the council's and some of the resident's response to youth difficulties, cut it down, remove the seats, lock it, put barbed wire around it, flatten it. I know, let's have an 8pm curfew too. Basically, because the police are too occupied with forms, newsletters and other distractions and the borough overbuild and don't wish to educate or render more prosperous [both would involve a move to the right and a less compliant, credulous population]. Admittedly if you look at 50 years of crime stats, the main home office and succeeding [that's not the word, is it?] administrations 'objective' has been decline followed by a hockey stick upwards for crime in the 1980s.
We now have THEOs, yet another bunch of hapless, ineffective, uncoordinated wanderers to go with the rest, SNT, CT, RR, Met proper, borough ASB, Environmental service etc. etc.
As for my blackberries, they're a symbol of a huge missed opportunity in the borough. Since the borough can't educate and Bangladesh is agrarian, we have all the skills for a nice green revolution and quite a lot of extra employment, healthy food, biodiversity and genuine community involvement [at the moment the main thrust is play-involvement, come to meetings but don't try and change anything, excepts growing lists of concerns and issues].
However that would require imagination and leadership, hey, I know let's just print another newsletter saying that everything is really peachy, that should do it, shouldn't it?
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