Civil unrest? Protests? Are they on the horizon?

[Worriedtodeath1]

Anyone else utterly fucked off with all parties and The Royal Family?

To me they are a disgrace it is embarrassing. I was reading yesterday about some parents going without meals to feed their children. People asking for help with menu plans to feed a family of 4 on £20 a week! I am furious! What a shit show! Labour are no better, distracting from the fact they have no ideas by continuously going on about the shit show that is partygate. They are all immature, rich out of touch knobs! The Royal Family are no better. Unelected, powerful simpering idiots! I can feel my anger growing by the day. The Jubilee is brilliant timing for them as again another distraction. Anyone else?

I’m sorry to hear this. I hope your dog pulls through.

re CAHMS I know what you mean. Took 3 years to get there and they were meh! I don’t know your child circumstances, mine is ASD. I eventually came to realise that you can’t wait for professionals to get their shit together. You have to become the expert. When you do finally reach the holy grail they are disappointing and in a lot of cases under qualified. My advice is to seek people in similar situations whether support groups or online forums. Someone is always in the same journey and can offer real life advice. Good luck I hope you see some better times soon

I am not fucked off with the parties or the Royal Family. I've been around for too long to feel like that. What a waste of my emotional energy that would be. I think that they all get some things right and some wrong and generalisations about all of them are too simplistic.

On the question of demos etc. I think : Toxteth, 2011 riots for a reason I can't remember, Bristol riots, poll tax riots, demos outside American embassy, demos outside South African embassy, digging up cricket pitches, Greenham Common, the Jarrow march, the General Strike, Wat Tyler etc. and that the people of these islands have always been revolting and I won't be a bit surprised if there's more revoltingness to come. I remember when the sandy-haired Tory played merry hell in Parliament, whirling the mace round his head. I can't off-hand remember his name, but that was quite a rebellious way of behaving.

I was once tempted to go to one of the demos I have mentioned 'just to observe' but a friend said it wouldn't be possible to observe without getting involved. I haven't waved placards but I have written letters to MPs and PMs. One letter might not make any difference but 1000 might.

Social media and mobile phones make it easy to muster people to marches. It happened across north Africa a few years back.

I started singing the "But then I got high..." song reading your comment

I have no patience for "both parties are as bad as each other". They clearly aren't and it's self-indulgent to pretend otherwise.

I think I'm in agreement with you about Starmer.

If Starmer goes who do you want instead?
Lammy? Rayner? I don't think they'd get public support.
Burnham is popular but I think you need to be an MP to be leader.
I won't mention the one who could have organised civic outrage we all know that didn't go well.
Best hope is a tepid coalition.
The prospects are dire.

Why would anyone want to bring the country to its knees?

Shame about Burnham, and obviously he has tried for the leadership in the past.

I don't know! It's difficult

What exactly are you expecting the government to do ?. Money to subsidize energy costs and pay your grocery bill will have to come from raising taxes elsewhere. Similarly, cutting VAT or other taxes will impact investment in public services IE. UC and the NHS, not to mention the MoD - you can't have it both ways. Also, Government borrowing is at an all-time high following the pandemic so escalating debt even further creates it's own problem from having to payout $billions year on year servicing that debt. Eventually it will have to be repaid, from public funds.

Windfall tax is temporary and small beer in comparison to overall spending.

Finally, if you target subsidies at the lowest paid ( an admin nightmare ) you will have to have a cut-off point somewhere, where apon you'll have a howl of protest from those who feel, " left to starve".

These challenges will be the same for any Government and are faced by just about every other country. Add to that an escalating war in Europe and you have a bumpy time ahead. There are no simple solutions, despite what some politicians will have you believe. That's the truth of it.

I really hope so, but it seems to me that not only is there a general apathy in England, but when there is anger, it is misdirected. The amount of rage about being made to wear a mask, about lockdowns, about pronouns...while the government literally gets away with terrible corrupt and criminal behaviour because, you know, at least BoJo's not Corbyn and the Queen works hard for a pensioner.

Op it's probably because you are single, another 60k salary would make a difference.

I do know what the OP means, we earn well & have a home in a nice area (only because its gentrified since). I feel very out of step with new neighbours & other school parents because of the family wealth behind them. It's all very 200k gift to move up the ladder or renovations. So despite professionally being in similar circumstances our lives are very different My actual friends are more like me luckily!

wrong thread!

I don’t think so. High unemployment tends to be the tipping point, which we don’t have

Although inflationary pressure is critical in terms of controlling it so it doesn’t spiral (see Turkey)

I agree with pp these threads come up often but we haven’t seen it yet. There were a fair few posters over winter saying the same

I disagree with pp re the idea that lockdowns were nothing to get angry about. Indeed other countries did have riots over them. Unfortunately so much was spent over covid we lack a bigger buffer. What a mistake

It’s likely windfall tax will happen, but it’s only once and it has been built up by Labour to be the answer. It won’t be. But a small amount will go to the lowest income in targeted way if it happens

The Daily Mail and the Tory press have been particularly unhinged lately, so would make sense if there was an election in the offing, rather than mid-term. Tories know things will get a lot worse so let's get the election in now.

I agree OP, it's thoroughly depressing/frustrating/anger-inducing. Daily now we have some sort of scandal that the PM wants to dismiss without consequences - the country is fucked, and even more depressing, if an election was called next week you couldn't say with complete confidence that they'd be gone.

The tories have been in power for the majority of my adult life and the way our system works are likely to be there forevermore - eurgh, honestly, it really depresses me when I think too long about it.

I would love Andy Burnham to be the leader of the opposition. I'm sure Starmers a nice enough bloke but where the fuck is his passion? I don't always agree with AB but at least he has some fight in him - I don't mind Yvette Cooper either - but there's slim pickings on all sides. Just someone, ANYONE with integrity would do!

I hope people protest - I'm not sure about rioting, it always turns to vandalism and that's just shitting on your own doorstep really, but a mass protest of refusing to pay energy/council tax bills might make them take note?

It's got to be Burnham for me, but what's the timeline? Labour lose next election, Burnham becomes MP again and is the next Labour leader. How much more damage will the Tories do in the meantime?

Not me - I am going to love the street party.
It is not the royal families duty or indeed mine to feed other people's kids.
We would love to have had a lot of kids but we understand that the y cost money.
That is why we had 2.
We did not have kids we cannot afford to look after and
1 whine that we cannot afford to give them what we think they need
2 expect others to pay for our kids

Yours maybe, o random voice on the internet, but if the Royal Family want the rest of us plebs to keep working for no reward beyond the ability to give landlords another house, they need to start sharing what is, after all, the results of our work not theirs. Ditto for our political elites. What I expect and what I want are two very different things - I expect the government to continue lining the pockets of the well-off, as they have done through very deliberate social strategies and policy choices for the last 50 years. What I want is for them to reverse it. What I want is for them to provide a fair day’s pay for fair day’s work, including the real cost of building my own life assets from my work instead of some idle landlord’s 10th such.

What a smug and self-absorbed post. Let's hope you don't end up on the wrong side of a bill that you can't pay, that your income doesn't meet your needs for whatever reason.

I can't believe that you'd read this thread and post like that. What sort of person are you?

Agreed @LyingWitchInTheWardrobe I hope the username isn't career.
Nurses with 1% payrises working alongside.
We're all just three events away from being on our arses, some have further to fall than others.

There are many people who do have kids they can’t afford, for many and varied reasons. The principle is ok, in a country that actually allows people to make a living. The issue now is that between private landlords, low wages, huge costs for training, and the usual barrage of prejudices in an unequal and hierarchical society, it does not.

I disagree with pp re the idea that lockdowns were nothing to get angry about. Indeed other countries did have riots over them. Unfortunately so much was spent over covid we lack a bigger buffer. What a mistake

I totally agree. And printing money over and over has caused some of the inflation.

Well said, let's hope they listen.

Are we talking about those kids they can't afford who grow up to be the unskilled/low skilled workforce?
Those kids?