Well Egypt is in a terrible mess

[GabbyLoggon]

Could you ever imagine England getting that level of street marching and protesting?

Or are our people too level headed.?

When you think Egypt has had the same leader for 30 years is the trouble suprising?

Just try and imagine 30 years of Thatcher, Blair or Cameron?

Of course having a leader in power that you have no democratic means of removing, and who is propped up solely by oppression and force, is eventually going to breed resentment and violence. In the UK we have a democratically elected legislature that we can hire or fire if they don't meet our expectations. Street protests aren't uncommon in the UK but civil unrest isn't common because it's not usually necessary. All this and our head of state has been in position for nearly 60 years...

Not even 1 year of Cameron and people are already marching in the streets!

In Egypt the government has cut off the internet to the country. Thats scary, and is often a sign that very bad things are about to happen while the world isnt looking. If it happened here of course there would be rioting, all the MNers for a start.

pmsl at the mere idea lifeinlimbo

always worth remembering we got rid of our monarchy a long time before most other countries did - we just decided to invite them back again afterwards

Depends how far you want to go back: Peterloo?

Or the Notting Hill riots?

I read that during the last fuel protests the UK Govt was worried that the fuel would run out at truck depots and filling stations so that food trucks would not be able to move food from ports and warehouses to supermarkets.

The food supply chain is so tight that the supermarkets would be stripped bare in 24 hours. Under those circumstances I am sure we would have riots within a week.

Inflation in food and fuel prices have always caused the downfall of Govts for millenia.

Any rioting thus caused would have been the least of the worries! Protesters wouldn't have been able to get beyond the distance they could walk or bicycle, so large gatherings would be unlikely. And no one would know protests were happening anyhow

the big worry was that basic infrastructure would fail - we were very close to the power stations being unable to function.

Maybe it is time the car drivers did react to this criminal increase. Let's face it they have just increased the VAT on the tax we already pay in the form of petrol duty. That is a tax on a tax which is unconstitutional anyway.

This Big Society is just a way of shifting the burden onto the little people so that the rich don't have to be bothered with it.

Wait for a late night sitting so that we can surround the House carrying pitch forks and fire brands. Get some heads on pikes too.

you don't really believe that petrol prices justify a popular revolution, in the same way as living for decades under an undemocratic, brutal and oppressive regime?

I think there is a lot in what jode and piglet say.

I am not familiar with "Heads on pikes"
I think the fatalists sleep soundist: with there "whatever will be" philosophy

I suppose America could push Egypy into real change. How well it would work is a different matter . "Gabby"