Party Vibe

I’ve got on my PC a entire report about CS gas being discharged at a urban music event in Luton. It put a local hospital into red alert (due to number of patients presenting to Emergency Dept) and the report did not come from NHS where I usually get these things from (although they did of course provide a lot of input) but the Home Office CBRN/Anti terrorist Directorate due to the impact it had on the local infrastructure.

It wasn’t covered up but was on a open access public sector website somewhere (a fairly obscure one) I found it whilst looking for other stuff on IT security and dealing with environmental incidents.

this sort of thing can happen at any public event the cops will be taking this seriously, metpol CO14 clubs and vice unit will be involved and it will impact increasingly on whether late night music events of all genres continue to be tolerated in Great Britain.

The ability to have all night legal music based events is comparatively recent, it only started when I was about 16, before that town centres were basically closed at midnight and cops herded young people off the streets. and there wasn’t a fraction of the CCTV or Police strengths there is now. Most people now in their thirties or above can remember this.

Bear in mind its a lot easier and quicker for Whitehall and the NHS to work out the costs of dealing with incidents like this offset against the benefits of the nighttime economy (tax revnues etc). We could easily go “back in time”, especially when the Government changes next year.

@MisterDuck 364600 wrote:

IF.

Let’s have a bit of optimism 😉

even if Labour stay in there is going to be a cabinet reshuffle which given previous history is tantamount to a “change of government” certainly with regard to licensing/criminal justice etc. Bear in mind I served 4 years in a Whitehall department in a high level section (quite close to No 10) and have seen things “from the inside” particularly with regard to legislation and government finances. Although the war (fuelled by greed and consumerism of the common people) is a epic fuck up of all proportions, not everything Tony Blair did was bad, under his leadership a bit more hedonistic personal freedom was initially tolerated. IMO it was the British public who are as responsible for todays clampdowns as any politicians – when in the 1990s Blair courted the pop stars, media creatives and had a surprisingly light touch against drugs enforcement he was villified for being “too soft”. I expect a lot of people here are now slightly too young to remember “cool brittania”..

Also the local constabularies, NHS and Councils are working very hard to scrutinise the night-time economy (there have already been clampdowns in Manchester for instance, with even boozers being subjected to the same crackdowns as “drug friendly” nightclubs).