TUC National Demonstration Against Cuts

[OrangeBernard]

Who's going? I've just booked my train tickets. Its my first protest, any advice or tips? Bit worried about kettling.

Keep on howling at the moon, dog. You take the (dog) biscuit in being quite wilfully ignorant AND being in bad faith. Congrats. Quite a combo.

See the young conservative are represented. Dressed in black and chucking stuff at police.

To all the people saying the cuts are 'ideological'.

All political parties spend money according to what they think is right, ie their ideology. The 40% increase in public spending during the Labour years was 'ideological' - ie was based on an ideology of tax and spend. So of course the cuts are 'ideological'. Not making cuts, or making different cuts, would be just as ideological.

But this word is routinely used as a criticism. What is it supposed to mean in this context?

In case anyone hasn't posted it yet (I've not read whole thread) - here's the TUC advert against cuts.

Very odd IMO. They seem to see the relationship between government and citizen as a parent / (innocent) child relationship. It's quite revealing, especially about TUC understanding of the impact of the deficit on our children's future.

People are entitled to peaceful protest. That's what Britain stands for - free speech. I might not agree with their opinions but I defend their right to express them.
As other posters have said, there have to be cuts because the cash has run out.
However, I think what is annoying a lot of people (myself included) is the way we have bailed out other countries having just had to make financial sacrifices ourselves. Also some of the cuts have been done unfairly, meaning some people who had very little will have even less while others are just getting away with it.

jack, it's a metaphor and not a bad one really, when you consider the impact of the cuts. We really are not all in this together.

Ah Dittany.
You plumb new depths of rabidity.

'It was the handmaidens who sat at home directing their hate at other women, and sitting in denial about male hatred of them, who needed the smelling salts. Not brave women who went out on the streets and refused to submit.'

Wiple your foaming chops m'dear.

Despite what today's marchers will claim, Trafalgar is no Tahir.

Charles Moore as always presents an elegant and measured view.

"They also need constant reminders that, in a parliamentary democracy, the people with the power should never be thousands shouting in the streets, but millions quietly marking their crosses in the voting booth."

And the millions voted against these cuts. So much for bloody democracy.

"The 40% increase in public spending during the Labour years was 'ideological'"

That's very true. And it wasn't just tax and spend, it was "tax and spend a whole lot more than you're getting in tax, while allowing tax loopholes that the Coalition have already closed since they got in, allowing the rich to get out of tax by paying 18% CGT which the Coalition has already raised to 28%, and raising the lowest tax rate from 10% to 20%, while the Coalition is taking low-paid people out of tax."

That was Labour's ideology.

Yes Dittany.
In your little bubble anyone who doesn't agree with everything you say wants to wipe womankind from the face of the earth.

wubbly - only 35% of people think the cuts go too far, according to the Guardian/ICM poll.

Your thinking is an alarming eye opener Dittany.

Can I ask those of you who insist Labour bankrupted us how you square that with the fact that the UK has the second lowest deficit in the G7?

Furthermore, spending under Labour tracked that of Tory govts until we had the 2008 crash.

Osbourne also includes the 850 billion we spent bailing out the banks as public debt.

I'd personally find the coalition's repeated emphasis on the need for cuts far more convincing if they did more to prevent corporate tax avoidance of the sort practised by Vodaphone and their ilk.

How can you think that these cuts are anything other than ideologically motivated?

Wubbly - of course it's a metaphor.

But not directly interpretable.

For a start it wasn't Osborne who 'spent all our money'. If a government is to blame for that - it was the Brown / Darling government. And to be fair - much of this was spent on public services, bailing out the banks, and massive fiscal stimulus to minimise the effects of a recession.

There is nothing elegant or measured about that peice. It's merely mocking the outlandish claims of some ananrchists groups - hardly 'elegant' in any sense of the word.
Measured? - rather misses the context of the measured look at the purpose of the day and the presence of tens/hundreds of tousands of people who have given up a day of their time and travelled down to London to express their concerns at what the govt. are doing to the social infrastructure of our country - a desire to turn it into "McBritain" where the costs of the 'cuts' will fall largely on the poor.

moondog:

That figure doesn't surprise me. I know perfectly intelligent, decent people who genuinely believe that 'we have no choice'. It still leaves 65% of those polled think they do go too far.

Of course, the government don't act on the results of polls. However, in the general election, of those who voted, the majority voted against the cuts proposed by the tories.

I marched against the war on terror - these were huge and peaceful, since though the policing has become far more militant and unrest is more of an issue amongst the protesters.

I took my dd on marches then, don't think I would take a 7 year old now. Find a group that you feel safe with, or go with an organisation who will stick by you - any union groups in your area going? - They will protect you and dd.

Hope the turn out is good. I don't work in the public sector but understand that the Govt are just hacking away whilst planning on spending in areas such as the High Speed Rail network which seems bonkers.

Keep alert and enjoy the camaraderie

Madam - can you define what you mean by "second lowest deficit". Absolute figure? Percentage of GDP? In 2011? Structural or total deficit?

"Osbourne also includes the 850 billion we spent bailing out the banks as public debt."

Really? Where are you getting your figures?

I'm rather encouraged by the fact your read it Rohanda.

jackstarb - she means debt. Madam - it's the deficit that's the problem.

wubbly - did you mean "65% of people think they don't go too far?" not "do" go too far - that was the 35%. (There were 8% don't knows, so the figure for those who thought they didn't go too far was 57%).

Here are some very good reasons against the cuts the government are making:

falseeconomy.org.uk/cure/what-do-the-experts-say

This includes the expert opinion and analysis of 3 nobel prize winners in Economics, so I think they know what they are talking about (unlike good old crazy george osborne.)