The Notting Hill Carnival is a celebration of Afro-Caribbean culture that has grown since its launch in 1966 to become Europe’s biggest street party.
Branding the carnival “the ultimate in two-tier policing”, Mr Neville said: “If the behaviour of the Notting Hill Carnival was replicated at football matches or any other event it would be banned.”
He added: “You see people openly smoking drugs, abuse of police officers, dancing with female officers to the point of sexual assault. I challenge anybody to do the same thing on the way to a Millwall football game.”
Yes, and we all know it.
Oh bollocks.
It’s “carnival” – the one day of the year where mundane authority is not imposed.
Previously saturnalia. Then Shrove Tuesday. Now a bank holiday.
Being a miseryguts I don’t do carnival. But complaining about Notting Hill is a bit like buying a house under the Heathrow flight path and trying to ban planes because of the noise.
It’s their ‘culture’ though…
They think we’ll just sit there and take it, like good little boys.
They think we won’t werewolf and go wild.
Why the fuck are female officers (presumably in service) dancing?
Three-tier policing, eh?
Emil – I hate to break this to you, but the cops are 100 IQ stupid cunts.
Judging from the comments left by Old Bill who have actually had the misfortune to have policed the event, it’s always been a nightmare, even before Kahn and TTK. What it will be like this year we’ll never know…
Grist – good, hopefully they all get a fatal dose of Monkeypox.
It has all the hallmarks of the far right apart from the really serious online stuff.
– the one day of the year where mundane authority is not imposed
So mundane (which is an interesting choice of word implying that obeying the law of the land is a rather petty and unimportant concept) authority is imposed on the other 364 days on all communities at all times and in all locations? Because the current unrest is very much the consequence of a strong perception that it isn’t.
Philip:
“It’s “carnival” – the one day of the year where mundane authority is not imposed.
Previously saturnalia. Then Shrove Tuesday. Now a bank holiday.”
I would suggest that these are European concepts predicated on the idea of a general predictability and safety in society. Notting Hill looks more like a situation where less civilised people who are strangers to these ideas are given leave to revert to Third World conditions for a couple of days.
From Wikipedia:
“Shrove Tuesday is observed by many Christians, including Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists and Roman Catholics,[4] who “make a special point of self-examination, of considering what wrongs they need to repent, and what amendments of life or areas of spiritual growth they especially need to ask God’s help in dealing with.”[5] This moveable feast is determined by the date of Easter. The expression “Shrove Tuesday” comes from the word shrive, meaning absolution following confession.[6][7] Christians traditionally visit their church on Shrove Tuesday to confess their sins and clean their soul, thus being shriven (absolved) before the start of Lent.”
Yeah. Plus ca change, eh?
Phillip – grateful if you could let me know which day mundane authority is not imposed where you live.
The Red Stripe Stabathon
I shall be continuing my winning streak of not getting stabbed, robbed, deafened, contracting food poisoning or suffering pot fumes at day at this event by not going.
I’ve been going to Carnival almost since it started. I was living in Notting Hill in ’68, long before it became a favourite roost of cabinet ministers. It’s always been two-tier policing. Where else in the country could you plonk a table in the road & sell alcohol to all & sundry without intervention? That’s without the police largely turning a blind a blind eye to drug use.
Last address I had in London was Bayswater, next street to Queensway & a hundred yards from Hyde Park. So the periphery of Carnival. I went away for the weekend. It’s got too dangerous for me.
BiS
Small world. I lived in Basing Street (between All Saints and Portobello Roads) for a short while in the early 1980’s. Enormous fun but I had to move out as there were too many distractions to get any studying done. Even then All Saints Road was a definite no-go area for whitey unless you were looking for freely available drugs, which many were.
Related: A town in the former Germany decided to have a “Festival of Diversity” this weekend.
Now several Germans are dead after being stabbed by the Diversity. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Comedy is subjective, Manfred.
Mrs Balls has stated she is going to crack down on “Hateful beliefs”.
I hope she’ll start with islam……
Building on what John said – I went to the Carnival three times while I was a student, in the 1970s. And I remember it being (in the vernacular of the time) “a skanking good time”. Everyone was drinking, smoking (yes), dancing and generally Having A Bloody Good Time. You could listen all day to perhaps the finest assortment of system reggae outside of Kingston. And the coppers were generally standing around with very little to do. Yes, there was a certain amount of blind-eye policing in action. But there was no violence that I ever saw, no open drug dealing, no petty crime. It would seem that the character of the event has significantly-altered.
llater,
llamas
The German mass-murderer (alleged for now although he has apparently confessed) is a 22 year old Syrian who escaped his “war-torn” country less than two years ago.
The bbc is actually reporting a few details.
By a sad irony, Solingen is known above all for its cutlery and is described here as “the blade city of Germany”.
John – the identity of the suspect really doesn’t matter. There’s millions more, exactly like him, already in the former Germany, and more are arriving every day.
That’s just what happens when you lose your country. Nein flowers.
You’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at a diversity festival that succeeded so literally.
Low IQ savages cause mayhem. Who’d have thought it?
Related: A town in the former Germany decided to have a “Festival of Diversity” this weekend.
It wasn’t a Festival of Diversity it was a celebration of the 650th anniversary of the founding of the Stadt
You’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at a diversity festival that succeeded so literally.
Indeed, but that one wasn’t.
On that subject, the suspect hadn’t been named when IS made its claim without naming him so it looks like they’re just being propagandists as well.
And on that suspect, here’s the latest reporting from Zeit Online:
And comments are open, needless to say there’s a fair amount of anger and astonishment that he hadn’t been deported. As one commenter says:
BiND – It was a Festival of Diversity, please don’t spread misinformation.
2024 is a special year for Solingen: The city of blades is celebrating its 650th anniversary! Celebrations and events are spread throughout the year – the highlight is the big “Festival of Diversity” from August 23rd to 25th
Look forward to colorful diversity and celebrate with us. The choice is yours. Find what you like and let yourself be entertained, carried away, inspired and touched by so much Solingen life in the anniversary year!
Source: Solingen council website. https://solingen.de/inhalt/sg-meinsam-erleben-2024
Narrator: many people were “carried away” after being “touched” by the “colourful diversity” in the “city of blades”.
It’s like poetry.
Person in Pictland @ 11.46, don’t forget that many of those raped, murdered (and their bodies paraded around the ‘Strip’ in the back of a pick up truck allowing those who didn’t actively participate in the mayhem to beat the corpses) and taken hostage on October 7th in Israel were participating in a ‘Peace Festival’.
I say we take off and nuke the whole site from space. It’s the only way to be sure.
You should have read the whole page, Steve, and never believe the first translation that comes out of an online translation engine, especially Google Translate, that way lies madness. Nowhere does that page talk about sexual, gender or cultural diversity in the sense you want it to mean.
For Vielfalt you will find: diversity, variety, multiplicity, cornucopia among others.
https://dict.leo.org/german-english/Vielfalt?side=both
In the case it was a diversity of events eg:
There was also a distinct lack of rainbow flags at that event.
. . . I went to the Carnival three times while I was a student, in the 1970s. And I remember it being (in the vernacular of the time) “a skanking good time”.
Presumably “a shanking good time” in current slang.
@BiND: that’s interesting. Are you suggesting that we’ve all become so used to seeing “diversity” used in the American sense that it didn’t occur to us that all the Krauts meant was variety?
I plead guilty to that.
Person in Pictland,
That is indeed the case, or at least the media and comments I’ve been reading. Germans don’t seem to celebrate diversity in the way we think of it, or at least outside Berlin and perhaps Cologne and Hamburg to a lesser extent and even then it tends to be the sexual side of it rather than ethnic diversity that is celebrated.
There’s other consumers of German media comment here, perhaps they have a different perspective.
BiND – hmm, you might be right, but on the other hand, if there’s two possible explanations I usually prefer the funniest one.
Looking at the blurb on the Solingen websites, the motto of the festival is
Vielfalt ist erlebnis
So yeah Variety is (an) Experience.
In the sociological sense Diversity is Diversitaet.
Went to Solingen about 25 years ago. Very pretty centre with it’s old town. Like all German towns a smattering of Turks back then.
Steve: «if there’s two possible explanations I usually prefer the funniest one»
If there are two possible explanations I usually prefer the funnier one.
TMB – be kind, my school was free
imo The Notting Hill Carnageval should have been banned years ago. If it must continue, move it to a field in outer London
Talking of safety:
British safety adviser killed in missile strike on hotel in Ukraine
– Not a good ‘safety adviser’ then, does he gain a Darwin Award?
PS
A little humour to start the week
Enjoy
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4geznqv7d9o
Three people stabbed, one in life-threatening condition.
Issuing an update on Sunday night, the Met said 90 arrests have been made for a range of offences and “15 officers have been assaulted”.
The alleged crimes included assault on an emergency worker, assault, possession with intent to supply, sexual offences and robbery, the police said.
She added that in the past two years, one person had been killed, 14 others had been stabbed and more than 125 police officers had been assaulted.
About 500 arrests were made at the carnival during those two years.
That all took place on what the organisers call Family and Children’s Day. Today is Adults Day.
NEWS | LONDON
More than a million expected in Notting Hill on Monday as police say ‘majority come to carnival to celebrate’
That’s a relief. I’d be worried if more than half a million only turned up for a fight..
@John
Looking forward to the perps being named, videoed and details published while they go though the justice system in double quick time
I’m sure they would were it not for the fact that the prisons are already full.
It’s not as if you can just make space appear.
@bloke in spain – “It’s always been two-tier policing. Where else in the country could you plonk a table in the road & sell alcohol to all & sundry without intervention?”
The main lesson to learn from this is that there are lots of unnecessary rules and regulations that should be abolished.