Marching with no alternative

John Steed

Not true to say they have no alternative to the Coalition cuts programme. There is clearly more than one way to eliminate the deficit, and certainly ways to do so without the devastating impact on frontline services that the Coalition has chosen. And whether it turns out to be correct or not, there is a respectable economic argument, which the IFS budget analysis lends weight to, that the Coalition's crash approach risks causing a wider downturn while actually increasing the deficit.

AF

With the inevitable violence and vandalism that will ensue it will place milli in a very difficult postion.

AF

Labours interest in those that work in the public sector,the very public sector that they expanded and even now would expand, comes from the obvious fact that it is the main group that is controlled by the unions where thay have their placemen,cronies,and power base,not to mention the huge numbers that comes of the unemployed lists,and the boosting of their coffers.

AF

Should the unions pay toward the huge cost of policing this demo? not unlike football clubs.

Liz Brown

Just goes to show what Liebores 13 years of ejukashun edujashun have done to dumb down the intelligence of the population. Cuts? What cuts FFS.............

John Bracewell

The 'cuts' (i.e. a reduction in spending rather than real cuts) are just the manifestation of 13 years of living beyond our means. The reduction in living standards was going to be inevitable in order to smooth out the false boom (based on debt) that Labour engineered. That false boom gave people the feeling they were better off than they actually were, a feeling that is clearly unsustainable.
Unless the government gives up on its ideas of reducing the deficit, reducing an overly large public sector and rebalancing the economy, then this march will prove useless, except as a call to the leftist supporters in the Unions to cause, or practise for another occasion to cause, mayhem for the majority, in pursuit of their own interests.

Patricia Shaw

How predictable. Another black and right, damn commy pinkos v the reasonable and sane opinion from the gilded gallery.

There are alternatives to cuts for which no electoral mandate was secured. The
Marchers will come from all the
Engines of society, not
Just the Red Brigade,

And they will march as much
To cock a snoop at ideological propagandists like you as they will to serve notice on your political puppets.

David Lindsay

Phil Collins? Ha, Ha, Ha. But this one, like all Blairites, has only one objection to the programme of the Coalition, who as Eighties recruits to the Conservative Party or as Orange Book Lib Dems only ever went into politics in order to put people out of work. The present economic situation is just an excuse, and not a very good one.

That objection is that the butchery is too restrained, that the privatisation and the outright withdrawal do not go anything like far enough. If David Miliband had become Leader of the Labour Party, then he would not have been addressing today's rally. Rather, he would have been saying that, so that the "choice" at the next Election would have been between Bad and Worse.

A certain number of Labour MPs has to go next time, simply because there will be fewer seats to fill. The Blairite remnant needs to be identified and purged. Beginning with David Miliband.

Nicholas

The Left in its more comfortable role of insurgency and protest.

Having subverted the establishment and gradually trashed the country from 1945 to 2011 they now reject the medicine necessary to sort out a mess of their own making. Money grows on trees and it's all the bankers fault.

Typical Left. Typical ignorance and arrogance from all the usual suspects.

Number 7

@ DB

Warning - Apostrope abuse!!

bojimbo

Cuts : but £1/2Bn was spent on a useless census .

Robert Eve

There are no cuts - our debts are increasing.

A march to demand bigger cuts I'd support.

Fergus Pickering

You lefties say there are alternatives, but your chosen spokespersons in the Labour Party haven't come up with any. So perhaps YOU could tell us what they are. And then you could tell the Eds, so that they know. Come now. My ear is open, like a hungry shark.

Jake

If you want to organise a march for more cuts then go ahead and organise it

Dave

It's not at all intriguing that Ed Miliband has decided to address the rally - he is merely doing what his Union masters tell him to do. They put him in his present position and he is now their puppet, jumping when they pull the strings.

Frank Sutton

The Portuguese bail-out is likely to cost the UK some £3bn.
How about a march to cut our payments to Europe!

Ghengis

Blind obedience and a good street party will see off democracy any time, Eh?

Victor Southern

I just saw two sisters from Edinburgh who had come down for the protest. Both are in education - a devolved issue and nothing to do with the Coalition government. So, just assorted trouble-makers pursuing various political agendae.

Slim Jim

John Steed and the others who say there is an alternative - what is it? More taxation? More borrowing? Are you aware that the 'cuts' will bring us back to 2007 levels of spending? Tell us what will happen to the National Debt, and interest payments under your proposals. I'll give you a clue: they're still going up under this governments plans!

Nicholas

"Marchers will come from all the Engines of society, not Just the Red Brigade, And they will march as much To cock a snoop at ideological propagandists like you as they will to serve notice on your political puppets."

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! I like your wretched attempt at a Haiku for the Proletariat. That will be the "Engines" that actually produce SFA but use huge amounts of our taxes to pay them to tell us what to do and how to think and then get big fat pensions.

Ideological propagandists? Political puppets? Listen to the left wing pot calling the right wing kettle black. The Left INVENTED ideological propagansists and political puppets you deranged and dangerous thought nazi. Try reading Tammy Bruce's 'The New Thought Police' (subtitled 'Inside The Left's Assault on Free Speech and Free Minds') for a real alternative perspective you deranged, predictable and deadly dull fascist.

GDT

The vast majority of people will see this march for what it is. Self serving, self preservation. Tens of millions of people have struggled since 2008 in the private sector and have seen their standard of living fall steadily, crippled with ever increasing direct and indirect tax. All to accommodate those in the public sector feathering their nests with above inflation pay rises.
The old addage "pull the ladder up, I'm alright Jack" has never been more true.

and the Lamb lies down on Broadway

I thought Phil Collins has retired. His best moment was the drum solo on Dance on a Volcano, which all 40 something year old ex public school boys have air drummed along to. You know you have.

Sir Everard Digby

I am intrigued - Labour would have had to instigate similar levels of cuts to balance the eye watering black hole in there last budget. Does this mean Millipede and Spheroids are protesting theoretically against their own policies?

I suppose the main benefit for us is that FatBloke will be joining the faithful today. Let's pray for rain - and lots of it.

In2minds

@bojimbo - March 26th, 2011 12:52pm -

Yes agreed!

@obert Eve - March 26th, 2011 1:00pm -

Yes agreed!

@Frank Sutton - March 26th, 2011 1:18pm -

And yes again!

John HW

So when did Harold Wilson join the great Labour pantheon of orators? Never heard him so described before.

TomTom

Politicians are rather out of touch as are their footsoldiers on this blog. People are protesting because NOTHING else works. They vote in elections where issues are not discussed. They face higher taxes and higher inflation but higher payments to the EU and to MPs, but no discussion.

They are the Disenfranchised who have seen an inconclusive Election turn into a re-shaping of society in a way noone debated.

They have another colonial war from a politician who said you could not deliver democracy from 40,000 feet. They are angry.

It may be thast political parties are history and direct action is the way forward. Revolution does not flow through established structures so forget Labour, Conservative, BBC, Sky, newspapers.

The media coverage is a joke. It sounds so like the ancien regime

strapworld

Brendan Barber that towering intellectual heading the TUC tells us that the marchers were "middle England" and that government "Had better listen to them"

Just like the Labour Government listened to Middle England when the Countryside Alliance marched in far greater numbers!

Talking of numbers. Sky and the BBC told us that OVER 250.000 would be marching. The TUC are saying, now, that over 100.000 have attended. I reckon if it is 50.000 they are lucky.

It all must be a massive let down for Ed.

Ridcully

In 2003 it was "Not in my name!"
Today it's "We want our free stuff!"

Paddy

The police should "kettle" them.....put them on a coach and take them on a trip up to Scotland.....to see the "Kirkcaldy one".

They could then be left to walk home.

Nicholas

"They have another colonial war from a politician who said you could not deliver democracy from 40,000 feet. They are angry."

Drivel. And join the club. I'm angry about what your lefty friends have done to this country.

"Colonial war"? Come on. Even you can't be that thick.

TomTom

"about what your lefty friends have done to this country."

Ah Nicholas...so Pavlovian, ring the little bell and salivation ! I am no "leftie" but I do have another colonial war from a politician. I don't like what Conservatives or Labour have done to this country over decades.....and I am not as "leftie" as Cameron.

AliC

Turkeys voting for more food. Ridiculous. They and the country still do not understand that a poor indebted over regulated country with too many recent low skilled cannot afford a giant bloated civil service any more and that local government employees should not be earning 200k plus.... that is the problem not 'cuts' or 'banks' both of which I'm in favour of. argh. argh argh.

Nicholas

No little bell TomTom just your drivel. And no salivation just eyes raised to heaven that I have to share this planet with people like you.

Bom di di bom bom, Tom Tom and your "colonial" war.

Major Plonquer 1

Whenever the country gets a bill for the economic damage yet again caused by a Labour government, the lefties come over all revolution-like. Screw the deficit - lets have a revolution.

When their credit card statement arrives do they go down the bank and throw dustbins through the window? It's cheaper than paying.

Of course its the rest of the hard working people and pensioners who are left to pay their bills for them, isn't it? Some things never change.

AliC

Are the TUC and the 'anarchists' going to get a bill for the paint, the policing, the fires, the disruption?

That would make me slightly less choleric about this. Protest: fine. Fires, paint, agro, not fine.

As several folk have commented, people in Libya and other countries die for the right to say 'boo' to their government.

I'd say send them to Sangin and get them to fight properly but they are cowards with masks on their faces.

AliC -The weak will do as they must

Frankly, I'm surprised how few people are prepared to go out and fire it up. If we'd had a bit more fire in our belly as a country we could probably have rioted that idiot Brown out of his unelected seat and saved us all the pain in the first place. But the political classes are so comfortable with their positions that the country being screwed by a maniacal brooding Jock is the lesser of two evils.

Let em burn, thats what I say.