Taking to the streets on March 26th - Cuts protest

[llcoolphil]

Hey ho lets go. The m1 is just coach after coach after coach. Im guessing half a million. The streets are ours.

[irons]

Hey ho lets go. The m1 is just coach after coach after coach. Im guessing half a million. The streets are ours.

[Kowalski]

Presumably the irony of the Labour leader addressing the marchers won't be lost on people. It shouldn't be a political day IMHO, and the Labour party shouldn't be trying to band wagon on to something that they caused.

[greenfairy43]

Devil's Advocate time......How effective will marching really be?

Can't see it stopped the war or stopped the fox-hunting ban. The French have the right idea, creating blockades & generally being a right royal (or is that republican) pain in the arse.

It seems to me this day out is turning into a nice little day out & a few bands in a park.

Ooooo that should get them running scared.

[Kowalski]

what, the world banking crisis?

[jump]

That was fun, I met a couple of northen girls in the protest who kept taking pics of red buses, the Thames and various other Londonish things and then went shopping once they were bored.

[timespeedsup]

Devil's Advocate time......How effective will marching really be?

Can't see it stopped the war or stopped the fox-hunting ban. The French have the right idea, creating blockades & generally being a right royal (or is that republican) pain in the arse.

It seems to me this day out is turning into a nice little day out & a few bands in a park.

Ooooo that should get them running scared.

[llcoolphil]

Devil's Advocate time......How effective will marching really be?

Can't see it stopped the war or stopped the fox-hunting ban. The French have the right idea, creating blockades & generally being a right royal (or is that republican) pain in the arse.

It seems to me this day out is turning into a nice little day out & a few bands in a park.

Ooooo that should get them running scared.

[llcoolphil]

Failure to control the bankers in this country, and spending billions on an illegal war. The amount of money spent on Iraq could easily have been used here at home.

[Kowalski]

So is a player getting sent off the refs fault for not controlling the game?

Edited March 27, 2011 by Kowalski

[miniand]

As long as people who vote for they same two parties we're going to have the same old sh*t, but is there any real alternative? I'm 40 and voted for the first time for the last election, green party if your interested...(I personally like their drug policies) I have been of the opinion for many years that anyone that sticks their hand up and says they want to be a mp should automatically be banned from the job, this should apply even more stringantly if they want to be pm, egotistical bunch of c*nts. I've lived through 16 years of Thatcher/Major who thought it would be a good idea to sell off all the bloated nationalised industries because the they didn't have the balls to streamline them and make them profitable. I think BT was about the only profitable one out of the lot but still it was still sold off. Short term gain for long time loss, now we get taxed to the hilt at every turn make up for it. 12 years of Blair/Brown didn't seem to be much different to be honest, wasn't it mostly labour mp's that got jailed for the expenses scandal?

Parliment should be changed to make avoiding towing the party line easier, such as not having them walk through a yay and nay door. Your mp is probably more interested in towing the line than they are in what their constituants needs are. In not towing the party line they are servely restricting their future chances within their party. Having private ballots on commons votes would surely make things a little more even handed in this respect.

With repect to larger corperations if the money is earned in this country than tax should be paid on it ie topshop, Banks trading internationally has got to be a bit different, pay full tax on uk transactions and a smaller tax on profits from international deals where local taxes will probably have been paid.

I wrote a letter to my local mp to ask why we were giving a quarter of a billion in aid this year(and every year) to a country that can afford to have designed and built it own nuclear weapons with missle launch capabilities and soon ballistic missle submarine. It also runs a $1.28billion dollar space program... Her reply to cut a long story short was to keep em sweet

[5co77ie]

I think it totally showed something, half a milluon people are against the city takeover of politics instead of services and people, not only did it show we're unhapy with thecuts but also that we have an agenda, black squadron show where many of us will be taking the fight next to thecity, the banks, and the shops owned by those refusing to honestly pay tax. and if rose that marched start the next phase then the coalition need to take notice, next stop is to divide the coalition. a

As to the appearance of milliband, he didn't speak party politics, the party probably didn't want him to go, personally I think he was trying to bring the people who created the party he leads back on board, but in that he failed.

now we take the fight to the city and the bankers, there's half a mlion of us

[krisskross]

police response in trafalger square last night was insane. 1 person trying to damage the olympic clock justifies kettling and beating hundreds?

[Snufflebutt]

I have been of the opinion for many years that anyone that sticks their hand up and says they want to be a mp should automatically be banned from the job

[llcoolphil]

It is if the ref's out of his depth.

Or in fact, if the ref is from Fife and fails to send anyone off during the 90 minutes and only acts long after the match is over.

[gratedenini]

police response in trafalger square last night was insane. 1 person trying to damage the olympic clock justifies kettling and beating hundreds?

[rabid]

Could be completely ineffective, but then sitting at home would have been too, and being local I had no excuse on that front.

I'm hoping that the sheer weight of numbers that turned up can effect something positive. We arrived an hour after the start of the march, but you'd not have known it. Proceeded at shuffling speed to Hyde Park, which was all that could be done, took about 3 hours. But there was a lot of people, seemingly from across the whole country, there.

Would doing this weekly help?

[llcoolphil]

I didn`t see that...but I what I did see was groups of people willfully damaging property and causing chew.

I dont give a shit what anybody says... if you go to an event like this with your face deliberatley covered up etc--ygou are going for one thing only... to break the law... never mind kettling--- they should be put in the f**kin kettle and boiled, the bas-f**kin-tards!!

In the most basic of terms... what would make Macaroon and Co stop these policies?

What would have to happen? Take more than some marches in the capital.. poll-tax style riots perhaps?

Cuts have to happen... simple as that--but doing it at this speed and in this fashion? I`m not sure at all about it.

I must say also-- for the first time in my life.. my socialist tendency (ie labour) is beginning to wane.

I listen to Prime Ministers PMs and the Opposition is quite frankly shite!

They dont come out with anything like viable alternatives (probably cos there are none!!)

And not a session goes by (and on Question Time etc) whereby a Govt MP doesn`t reel out "We were left the biggest peace-time deficit of all time by the last Government" --i`m f**king sick of it.

Bottom line is.. we (the country) as reaping what we sowed... all old hat this.. but its true. We`ve been greedy and living beyond our means and my old chestnut of expectation.

Someones post on Faeces Book a while ago hit it right on the head for me :

"I am f**kin sick. I work hard.very hard.My pay doesn`t go up,it costs me more money to fill my car up--and my wifes.We can only go on two holidays this year because of this poxy government, yet they give Aid to these so called 3rd World places"

WTF???

I despair. I really do.

den

[llcoolphil]

Probably, yes. Plus, instead of 250k - 500k people shuffling politely along to Hyde Park for G&Ts and a free gig, sit down where you are and stay there. Someone said yesterday 'The streets are ours', they didn't add 'With your permission for a few hours and then you can have them back'.

[rexclark]

Well done everyone who was out yesterday. I doubt much will happen but at least it will give the goverment some food for thought.

[gratedenini]

So we need something like poll tax riots but without the rioting. Usual reasoned level of debate there

[gratedenini]

You need to build confidence and belief in people first - it can be quite intimidating having police in full riot gear bearing down on you if you haven't done it before, telling you to move for no reason than to assert aithority over you. Yesterday me stamding on a pavement 3 feet from a copper in full riot gear with my hands in my pockets represented a h&s risk and i had to move. Not everyone is confident enough to face that down.

[llcoolphil]

I`m sure you could lead us all in a Stand with our hands in our Pockets type poll-tax protest though. I`ll get me mask...

den

[krisskross]

I didn`t see that...but I what I did see was groups of people willfully damaging property and causing chew.

I dont give a shit what anybody says... if you go to an event like this with your face deliberatley covered up etc--you are going for one thing only... to break the law... never mind kettling--- they should be put in the f**kin kettle and boiled, the bas-f**kin-tards!!

In the most basic of terms... what would make Macaroon and Co stop these policies?

What would have to happen? Take more than some marches in the capital.. poll-tax style riots perhaps?

Cuts have to happen... simple as that--but doing it at this speed and in this fashion? I`m not sure at all about it.

I must say also-- for the first time in my life my socialist tendency (ie labour) is beginning to wane.

I listen to Prime Ministers PMs and the Opposition is quite frankly shite!

They dont come out with anything like viable alternatives (probably cos there are none!!)

And not a session goes by (and on Question Time etc) whereby a Govt MP doesn`t reel out "We were left the biggest peace-time deficit of all time by the last Government" --i`m f**king sick of it.

Bottom line is.. we (the country) as reaping what we sowed... all old hat this.. but its true. We`ve been greedy and living beyond our means and my old chestnut of expectation.

Someones post on Faeces Book a while ago hit it right on the head for me :

"I am f**kin sick. I work hard.very hard.My pay doesn`t go up,it costs me more money to fill my car up--and my wifes.We can only go on two holidays this year because of this poxy government, yet they give Aid to these so called 3rd World places"

WTF???

I despair. I really do.

den

Edited March 27, 2011 by krisskross

[chappiepunk]

Some great photos there!