Sunday, August 14, 2011

The sins of the sons


8 comments:

GreatSheElephant said...

No 10 is after all state housing. Just perfect. Thank you.

Richard said...

Ah, yes well. It is Sunday morning and I'm a pedant. I see what you tried to do there and I do sympathise to a certain degree with the sentiment and feel it was a bit of a stiff) but it isn't quite the same. Blair's (note the apostrophe) was a grace and favour house that came with his job. While it is fair to say that he beat others to it, denying them a decent well-placed family-sized gaff, it is not quite the same thing as being on a waiting list for social housing and then breaking one of the tenancy rules (it's in my tenancy agreement, too), thereby rubbing the noses of other, maybe equally deserving but more law-abiding, families waiting for somewhere to live. I am a terrible spoilsport.

Anonymous said...

I think that's a very good question indeed.

Timorous Beastie said...

Because Euan Blair was found drunk and incapable rather than ransacking shops and burning down buildings?

Rog said...

The sins of the fathers. Blair should be prosecuted for invading Iraq and being in possession of an offensive wife. Leave the boy Euan alone.

Martin said...

Where all these newly evicted people live? Doesn't the local authority have an obligation to put a roof over their heads?

I liked Richard's comment, although in Blair's case it was more disgrace and favour.

Anonymous said...

What Rog said.
Re Martin H - sounds like the old Elizabethan poor law/US TV show approach - i.e. shift the problem to the next jurisdiction/county/state.
Good pic though.

Tim F said...

Two points:

First, and by far the most important, I didn't concoct the image, so I can't be blamed for the missing apostrophe.

Second, the key thing is not the relative seriousness of Blair junior's offence and that of the rioters, nor the minutiae of the contracts one signs before picking up the keys to a grace and favour residence; it's that a woman was served with an eviction notice by Wandsworth Council because her son was *charged* with offences related to the riots. He hadn't even made it to court, let alone been found guilty. Part of the problem here is that a significant sector of the population has no faith in the forces of law and order; and suspending the assumption of innocence just to look tough is really not going to remedy that.

(While we're there, do the parents of the middle-class kids who've been busted get a free moral pass, just because they're home-owners?)