Anti-Austerity Demos

[SagaNorensLeatherTrousers]

Anyone planning on attending the big one happening June 20th? Or any local ones? Will be interesting to see how many go and what (if any) impact they will have.

The forecast is still good.

howtorebuild. Don't be scared. The vast vast majority of people will be peaceful and its actually really easy to stay out of trouble. Choose a 'bloc' that you identify with list here and stick with them as they are less likely to have troublemakers in them. Try and remove yourself away from any groups of masked people. Be polite to the police and follow directions they give you. Go home before dark. And that's it.

If you do accidentally find yourself in a kettle, plonk yourself on the floor with your phone, some chocolate and a book and chill til they let you out again.
Go to the loo before the march starts!

Getting on thread.

I'll try to go, but will need help so thank you very much for info about blocs.

Flipping heck. Are the economic flat-earther's still protesting the inevitable?

Didn't we just have an election and anti austerity was roundly rejected?

whatevz

In my longish life I've never attended a demo. As an ignoramus on the subject I would genuinely like to ask what you anticipate the outcome of this demo will be and if you have attended demos in the past, have any resulted in a change?

Niceguy2 makes an interesting point. Though people of course have the right to protest.

I personally substitute "austerity" for "living within our means" something we're still not doing

I never cease to be amazed by how many people on here (a parenting site) seem to want to encourage an economic policy which will leave our children further in debt. You wouldn't run up personal debt and expect your shildren to pay it off.

The outcome of a demo is disproportionately tiny to the amount of effort it takes. Which is why it's quite a major decision to attend.

The issue is that if there is NO demo, the likes of niceguy claim that everyone is in agreement with them. Indeed, he will still claim that, but it gets harder.

"Everyone agrees with me except 4 people who demonstrated."
"Everyone agrees with me except 400 people who demonstrated."
"Everyone agrees with me except 400,000 people who demonstrated."

And while a demo doesn't always stop the immediate situation, it indicates what there is strong feeling about, and areas that politicians will have trouble pushing further. Or will find it easy to gather support for. So I think demos have longer term impact.

It's important to me to have been on the Stop the War march, because it removed from Blair any claim he had a mandate for his behaviour. I don't think there was anything I could have done to actually stop him, but I was damned if I was going to collude with him. Sometimes you just have to stand up and be counted.

Pausing correct; however, the Conservatives stood on an anti-austrity platform, so a march so soon after a GE seems a bit odd.

I think we all know the extent of Cameron's mandate. Even (some of) the prospective Labour leaders are dancing to his tune!

As a matter of fact, Malice, quite a lot of people do expect to run up debt and have it paid for by their children.

And get quite irate if you suggest the windfall equity in their house (after their death) should be used to pay for their care. They think their care should be paid for by working younger people, who will themselves never earn enough to own a house or save for their own old-age care because... they work in the care industry.

That's just one example of how it's not just the size of the economy that matters, but the shape: who benefits from the wealth of the 6th wealthiest nation.

In Victorian times we were an exceptionally wealthy nation - with children dying in workhouses.

Distribution matters.

You're preaching to the converted as I'd be very much in favour of effectively increasing IHT. I'm also in favour of removing tax relief for interest payments for BTL landlords. I'm also in favour of pensions reform withn the public sector. that said, I'm in favour of those things to the extent that doing them would enable us to reduce the deficit and pay down the national debt. I wouldn't particularly want to see them done otherwise.

And as for use of the word "austerity"... What austerity?

Only the sick and poor - many of them working poor - are experiencing austerity. If you're at the upper or property-owning end of the economy, the champagne continues to flow.

The UK has for a couple of decades been restructuring into an hour-glass economy, with the flight of the bulk of middle-tier jobs to offshore centres, leaving the highly paid jobs, and the low paid jobs.

Bearing in mind that this is the new shape of the economy, we get to chose what sort of country we live in. A Victorian shape, where there's plenty of money around but life for those forming the bottom tier is unbelievably cruel? Where, for example, the poorest shell out a huge proportion of their meagre earnings in rent to the leisured property-owning classes.

Or a more humane shape where we recognise that the economy needs some people to do the bottom jobs, that not everyone is going to be a higher earner, and tries to allow that to happen as humanely as possible?

X-posted with your comments about BTL.

The point being, we get a choice about what sort of country to be. And making taxcuts while cutting essential care to the disabled and elderly is a particular type of country, but not one I can be proud of.

You said that much better than I could have.

And to those puzzled over why there are anti-austerity demos being held so soon after a GE...it's obvious, isn't it? Because of FPTP, a huge proportion of the country didn't vote for austerity.

Still a good forecast :) low 20's and dry.

Saga A huge proportion of England did vote for Austerity. Huge parts of the rest of the UK (subsidised by the English to one degree of another) didn't. Overall though, the country DID.

The fact is that the majority of people are satisfied witho how things are, and the direction we're moving in; regardless of how many people on MN wish it wasn't so.

I'm not a raving right winger; however, like the majority of people, I didn't trust those stadning on an anti-austerity platform. Even the labour leadership contenders have changed their tune.

Anti austerity is popular with those that don't pay the bills (as is the case iwth the SNP). It doesn't wash with the rest of us.

so its 'I'm alright Jack' then is it?

No, they voted Tory.

You may have chosen Tory because you want to cut the welfare state. Other people may have because they wanted a vote on Europe. Or the chance to buy their Housing Association house. And so on.

Absolutely Pausing.

"Or a more humane shape where we recognise that the economy needs some people to do the bottom jobs, that not everyone is going to be a higher earner, and tries to allow that to happen as humanely as possible?"

Again a reason to have voted Conservative, as everyone will get to vote on whether we stay in the EU or not.

• The UK found 3 million jobs for those outside the UK in the first decade of this century, what did that do to the job/life chances and pay rates of the (then) lower paid?

• The UK as part of a common market with the free movement of over 500 million citizens, will surely always see the pay rates of the lower skilled, compressed?

• The UK already offering 'probably' the best welfare/benefits/tax credits in Europe - if tried to ignore the 'supply and demand' of all those potential workers on pay rates, and hiked them, what will be the effect on the flow of better qualified EU workers - and resulting pressures on our unemployment rates, housing, and services?

If the point of anti austerity marches is to maintain globally attractive benefits/welfare/tax credits (no matter what state the State's finances are in) to help compensate for a dodgy UK education and/or being a member of the EU, IMNSHOpinion, you are all marching under the wrong banner.

BadKitten no, it's not a case of I'm alright Jack grow up It's more (for me at least) a recognition that we cannot, for our childrens' sake, continue to run up more debt (upon which we'll pay increasing amounts of interest)

People may have voted Tory for a number of different reasons; however, I suspect that chief among them was that Labour never admitted (really) to the mistakes they made with the economy.

We need to fundamentally re-examine the relationship between citizen and State. what gets done for who, by whom and when.

I never cease to be amazed by how many people on here (a parenting site) seem to want to encourage an economic policy which will leave our children further in debt. You wouldn't run up personal debt and expect your shildren to pay it off.

Well said, Malice. I wonder what Keynes had to say about the Magic Money Tree (that only seems to exist in the vivid imaginations of MN'ers?) It's also a little bit ingenuous to suggest austerity (i.e. living within our means) impacts on the poor adversely. In less emotive words, the financial impact is greatest on those people who receive benefits, but how could it be any other way? Of course we all want to live in a society where the poor are looked after, but the new rules are still generous (as evidenced by the smail's pace of deficit reduction).

I marched for the Countryside Alliance as a student living in a rural area. I think it's everso sweet that grown women still do

You see, I'm looking at the children who are suffering right now, those who rely on food banks, those who cant get access to CAMHS, those who are homeless. Our society is polarising more and more. With further cuts promised and a real attack attack on absolutely essential social services, it is going to get worse and it is todays children, todays mental health patients and todays elderly people who are being affected most.

Ohyou I think you are conflating a number of areas here. Healthcare access is better in countries like France where the state does not provide it. Contrary to popular opinion on here, poor people are not simply left to die in other countries. The problem with the NHS is that the state never provides anything well or in sufficient quantity. There will never be enough money to fund everything in the NHS and (imo) it's time the country put its big girl pants and faced up to that. Until then, access to "poor relations" like MH services will continue to be crap (and I agree it is btw).

I don't really have a problem with food banks and I say that as a volunteer. I think it's a good thing for communities to do to help the less fortunate. I am in no doubt whatsoever that it is very tough to survive on benefits, having been raised by a single mum on a council estate. However I am not in favour of making it less difficult by borrowing more (which will be paid back, by our children and their children, plus interest, at a time when their generation is already supporting a larger (and still growing) population of elderly (us)). It's as short term-ist as (say) paying your electricity bill with a credit card just before the bailiffs arrive.

Another elephant in the room is that our global competitors pay wages that support a much lower standard of living, have lower tax and less state support and a much more polarised society (e.g. China, India). How will our children compete if they are being taxed through the nose to keep us (and paying our debts)?

I am not suggesting these are simple issues, but equally, we cannot borrow money infinitely to support the welfare state.

Blister.........and the truth shall set you free!