You have to be royalty or...

[i_ateallthepies]

a VIP (Very Important Pikey), to get main traffic routes closed for your funeral.  Armthorpe Rd between Sandringham Rd and Thorne Rd, closed and crawling with police for a sodding pikey funeral.  Bus services re-routed, streets closed, the works.  Wonder who would have been picking up the policing bill for that lot.

[glosterred]

I suspect the good folks of Donny as per

[andy didcott]

Same in Bentley, loads of cops escorting pikey procession all way through to town, must have been a couple of em popped their clogs, surely can't be same one.

[LongbridgeMGRover]

....And I'll bet that none of them had current tax discs in their cars and pickups.

[Filo]

Wondered what was going off, I had an elderly person with a stick wanting to be dropped off at out patients, jobsworth community bobbys wouldn't let me through to the car park, poor old chap had to walk from traffic lights

[glosterred]

....And I'll bet that none of them had current tax discs in their cars and pickups.

Thought you didn't get them nowadays

[GazLaz]

Nice bit of casual racism.

[i_ateallthepies]

Not racism Gaz, couldn't care less what 'race' people perceive them to be, genetic or adopted.  It's the privilege afforded to a section of society who choose not to live by the laws of our country that I object to... and there are more groups than one who fall into that bracket.  I hold the same contempt for them all, whatever race they are.

[BobG]

That could be an interesting debate Pies Should ALL of us live by ALL the laws of our country? And whichever answer you choose, should that answer apply in every other country too?

That's a resounding no from me.

BobG

[BillyStubbsTears]

True Bob. But, car tax...? And breaking into my company's laboratory and nicking really expensive equipment to sell as scrap?

Not exactly on a par with occupying Tiannenmen Square is it?

[i_ateallthepies]

Of course you're quite right Bob, I completely agree that my reasoning could be shot down from any number of angles but was only trying to explain why my OP isn't racist.  I'm sure there will be people who could make a good fist of arguing that it was indeed racist, I would listen to what they have to say and then conclude that they're just plain wrong.

[BobG]

It's all subjective at the end of the day. I'd throw the keys away for some things. I couldn't give a toss about others. And I guess we're all pretty much the same about that really. I suppose what worries me is the general, and generalised, assumption that anyone breaking the law should be kicked to a paste and then chucked down the nearest well. How many millions would have been in the slammer for not paying the poll tax? How many South africans would be in the slammer today for working for a government who's laws were completely overturned, reversed, simply because the political climate changed?

Simplistic 'hang 'em high' soluions simply don't work when you start to think about what it actually means I'm afraid. More thought and less rush to judgement is the way I'd find solutions.

Bob

[Sammy Chung was King]

The rules of the land, are only rules because the government says they are!. On gypsies i have met the odd decent one, the rest more than live upto the stereotype!.

[Mike_F]

I don't get this gypsy "race" thing. A race is something you're born with and can't change, being a gypsy is a lifestyle choice.

[RedJ]

Romani or "proper" gypsies are a race, however.

[Mike_F]

Ok, I can buy that but the way the term is used these days it seems to apply to all sorts of people who identify themselves as gypsies or travellers (regardless of whether or not they actively travel). You can't choose to change race but you or I could become gypsies if we wanted.

[DearneValleyRover]

Gypsies are a race, pikeys on the other hand are not.

[Sammy Chung was King]

People who have very little opinion on them, tend to just have had no dealings with them!.