Anyone want to name an example of a protest march that a) acheived its aim...

[SpringchickenGoldBrass]

within living memory and b) achieved its aim better and quicker because some fuckwits people actually took their very small DC along?

well said Phooey and others. I was there yesterday with my dh and 5yr old ds and it was a fantastic atmosphere. there were actually very few police on the main route and it was all good natured. we had planned our 'escape' routes should any violence erupt so we made a considered decision. as usual the actions of a small minority has overshadowed the peaceful protest of many hundreds of thousands of people.

my son actually cried when he found out our local library was being closed a few weeks ago. I was really proud that he wanted to make a placard about it and wave it on the march. I can't understand the mentality of 'what's the point' - unless we protest, how are the government going to know the strength of feeling/opposition??

SGB and UD - were you there? or were you watching the (necessarily) biased media reports and basing your opinions of this particular protest on that??

In answer to the op
Liberia

Though not especially high profile nor on a national scale, peaceful student protests in Cambridge were effective over keeping bursaries: see here. Going through the official channel of suggesting an amendment in the Senate House hadn't worked and it truly was the protest march that did it.

Yes, my family and friends who took their children to the protests in Egypt (minus the Boden surprisingly) were surely doing it to show off about being a parent. You are the only fuckwit around here.

I took my child to live on a protest site, does that make me a fuckwit then?

Even though the site, as part of a 10 year campaign, achieved its aim and saved the land?

And I assure you there was no Boden wearing going on. Just people who cared deeply about the issue making a physical stand against what they believed (and the courts later ruled) to be wrong.

OP - are you honestly suggesting that if you care about something, but you have small children, or are in a wheelchair, or are elderly or physically fragile in some way, that you should keep away from a peaceful protest & leave all protest to a violent minority?

Is that what you would do for a cause you believed in?

I wanted to go yesterday as the jobs of my colleagues in the NHS and potentially my own are at risk of redundancy even though we are 'frontline' medical staff. Howevere I have a 2 year old and no babysitter was available and I am pregnant. I decided not to go in the end as I thought it would be difficult for my son (and myself). I watched the march at home and was heartened to see so many people attending and trying to get their voices heard. everyone is going to feel the effects of these cuts in terms of NHS treatment and resources unless you have the money for private healthcover. Waiting times in my area for treatment are already through the roof as we have staff vacancies frozen and so-called 'efficiency' savings.

local march to stop a swimming pool being closed

I understand your point, but IME marches usually work alongside other ways of putting pressure on the authorities. So as part of an overall campaign I think it can work.

What sort of 'anarchist' objects to a smaller state?

I am shocked anyone would have taken a child. I think we all know there will be violence at these things.

And half the Fuckin shops are closed too.

I am shocked anyone would have taken a child

Irresponsible hippies

Poor F&M - gave I think 37 million to charity last year

Causing valuable bit of the private sector to shut down yesterday - biting the hand that feeds you.

The violence was completely separate, children were perfectly safe on the main march in the daytime, as anyone who was there would know.

Why don't for example, the NHS workers under threat, storm the management offices at their trusts and demand explanations from those who spent?

I'm delighted to hear that violence and children were separated, I hadn't realised the violent protesters had been issued strict guidelines and a separate route. That makes all the difference. Ffs.

Jaquelinehyde - fair point, I probably would take my children on a march to save a local nursery. It would, very likely, be low-key and wouldn't attract the vocal anarchist wing. But a big noisy demo in Trafalgar Square? No way.

But I love how people fling out "Mail on Sunday" as a venomous insult, because of course anybody who disagrees with you must have got their views from that august publication. Lame. Try harder.

It seemed to be known all over the internet 24 hours before which buildings and areas were going to be targeted by the violent mob. To be honest, I could have told you. Why couldn't the police have just stepped in before they did it? (Yes, I am advocating pre-emptive action by our police force. I'm sure all the Riks will be jumping up and down screaming "fascist" now.)

Smashing the glass of the Ritz and TopShop is not going to send a message to the government. It just means an ordinary person, someone very like you or your dad or grandad, has got to spend time clearing it up. How very revolutionary.

Sorry, but have any of the right wingers here heard what the cuts are actually DOING?

They are targetting the most vulnerable, the sick and the disabled. People who can't always get out there and earn for themselves without support.

Mind you I suppose being as Mainstream media don't give a shit about it people aren't hearing about it.

There is someone going to parliament tomorrow to meet with MPs about DLA restructure. Under the new proposals those able to mobilise would not be eligible for the mobility element of PIP. Having a wheelchair would be considered ability to mobilise. However this person cannot self propel a wheelchair so would need someone to push that wheelchair for them. Being as it's during the week they couldn't get a relative to help so they'd have to employ a carer, but how? They've lost their PIP. They can't afford to do that. It's not like they can just jump on a train, in fact a lot of public transport isn't actually wheelchair friendly yet.

So the disabled would be stuck in their homes, with their wonderful 'ability to mobilise' because like it or not having a disability IS more expensive. Their carers would not be able to claim financial assistance as if you don't get the PIP you don't get carers allowance, yet they still wouldn't be able to work and earn their own money because of their caring responsibilities. So they can't get housing benefit, so they lose the roof over their heads. How far does this have to go?????

My little girl has lost all pre school support. All of it. She's practically non verbal, isn't particularly mobile and has cardiac problems. The preschool are expected to manage without support. She's going to be at least six months late for her cardiac appointments. The cuts haven't even hit properly yet!!!!

Speech and Language therapy is going to be withdrawn from my boys, funnily enough social and communication disorder is their very disability but meh.... doesn't matter.

My kids don't even have a level playing field to start from. Used to be that we got support via the NHS and education to try and level it as best we could, to give them the best possible start in life that we could in order that hopefully one day they could live independently and hopefully free of the welfare system. Without the support that isn't going to happen, they could potentially be destined for a life on a (non existent) welfare state.

How is that remotely fair? How does that make us all in it together?

It seems almost too obvious to say, but I would point out that having reservations about the method of protest does not make one automatically a "right-winger".

UQD, not addressed to people who have reservations, it's addressed to those who think that ALL of these cuts are perfectly justified and fair, I've seen plenty of them not just here but on other threads.

UQD. OK the Mail on Sunday comment was a cheap shot. However, what's the difference between my saying that and your labelling people 'Rik's'. That does make you sound like a bell end of the first order.

Your comments here are based on a very narrow view. You have chosen to vent your spleen about lefy, socialist worker types and anarchists whilst completely ignoring the peaceful protest made by hundreds of thousands of ordinary people (like you, your grandparents, etc) who feel the cuts are desperately unfair and don't want to sit at home doing nothing about it.

You appear to be lumping these people in with an anarchist minority. Nobody who has posted on this thread who attended the peaceful march was involved in the civil disobedience that followed and yet you are talking as though they did.

And for what it's worth my brother is a police officer and he went on the march yesterday. Does that make him a 'Rik'.

Interesting though, not one person has come up with why these proposals are fair. Not one person has answered my points or justified them. Why is this, is it because they cannot be justified?

People are just standing by and letting it happen. People like the posters on MN who refuse to acknowledge how the sick and the disabled and their carers in this country are going to be sent to the wall. Apologies if we are an inconvenience to you.

And for all those with their fingers in their ears going "lalala can't hear you" and for all those with their hands over their eyes saying "I can't see you" you'd better pray that you aren't incapacitated tomorrow. Hit by a bus, heart attack, stroke, cancer.... the reason why you become sick or disabled doesn't matter, there will be NOTHING left for you if this Government gets its way. For this reason alone those not currently sick and disabled must also fight.

Starting to realise why I marched yesterday? It may be futile, policy may not change but I have BEEN THERE making my feelings known.

The majority of the march went ahead peacefully, but of course that doesn't make such a good story.

I know many people who went on the March, none of whom fit into theviolent anarchist or middle class poseur stereotype.

Has anyone read reports of children being injured/distressed? I'm fairly sure that it would be all over the media if that did happen.

I suspect people hear/read what they want to.

I went to the march and I would like to add that it was a peaceful event. Those I went with ranged in age from 4 to 87. There was no inkling of trouble, the overwhelming vibe was positive and the noise levels in our part of the march were minimal so no traumatised children.

I work for a local authority and have been involved in local protests and the direct petitioning (verbal and written) of the decision makers applying the cuts in my area. I have done all this not protect my job, which isn't actually under threat, but to protect the frontline services that will be withdrawn from a very vulnerable group of people.

It is extremely distressing to read this thread and to see peaceful protestors on the TUC march referred to interchangeably with those involved in the riots that also took place. Nobody I marched with was an anarchist, I would not even describe most of us as left-wing. We are regular people with empathy for those being hardest hit by the cuts.

Empathy does appear to be lacking from a lot of posters on this thread.

My son's primary school has no more funding for the reading recovery teacher. They've stopped buying cover insurance to save money so the already overstretched existing staff have to do even more cover for absent colleagues. Statements for children with learning difficulties are under threat because of the lack of funding for their staff.

The list goes on.

I chose not to march yesterday as I had no one else to look after DS2 who is deaf, and wouldn't have coped with the crowds. If things had been different I would have marched though and agree with stewiegriffinsmom about engaging younger generations. Nobody I know who went and took their kids is a posing type or a fuckwit - they just took them because it's what the family were doing that day and because they knew the massive majority of the protest would be peaceful.

Protect marches may not change things in the immediate short term, but we all have the right and duty to make our opinions heard.

"It is better to light a candle, than to curse the darkness."

No idea who said that first but I learnt it from Lucy, Charlie Browns friend.