The Festival's Not What It Used to Be

[ukslim]

This. It doesn't have to be worn as a badge of honour as some people seem to think. Though I am being hypocritical if you take me singing along to 'Common People' as me being proud of not being rich. Though even the man who wrote that was not working class.

[One Tonne Baby]

What a peculiar thing to say.

[eFestivals]

You clearly missed the Brixton and Stoke Newington riots. Not to mention a fair few riots up north.

they defo had smaller numbers involved in the rioting, as well as not really being riots that happened out of an otherwise organised protest.

I was there for the Poll Tax riot. I was also at Greenham Common and on the picket lines during the Miners Strike in 1984 in South Wales and Yorkshire. Violence didn't do a lot to progress the cause of the miners did it?

The violence there wasn't from the miners. .... but anyway, there's plenty of other issues there too, which gets to say that not all protests are equal. Stuff like the miners strike is about a particular issue linked jusat to a particular group in society, something quite different to protests about laws or acts of govt applied across the whole population.

The Poll Tax didn't get binned because there was a riot. It got binned because of widespread refusal to pay and willingness to be imprisoned for non-payment. Non-Violent Direct Action. And yes, I have been imprisoned in both Holloway and Bullwood Hall for my stubborness.

and yet none of that made a blind bit of difference in Scotland where it was enacted a year before England and Wales. It took that protest and its associated violence to have the govt change their mind.

[clarkete]

The Poll Tax didn't get binned because there was a riot. It got binned because of widespread refusal to pay and willingness to be imprisoned for non-payment. Non-Violent Direct Action.

[One Tonne Baby]

out of genuine interest can someone bullet point things that made it better in the past?

[russycarps]

No, it would have further damaged the credibility of the protests. Smashing up the police van would have achieved absolutely zero, other than about £40,000 of taxpayers' money which could have been used on schools/hospitals etc being used to replace it.

Your clichéd brand of reverse snobbery is showing up in every single post you make.

So what if she went to a private school? How does that make her opinions any less valid?

Besides, let's not forget quite a few of those done in for criminal damage and swinging from the Cenotaph (eg Charlie Gilmour) were privately educated too. It's not remotely relevant.

[ukslim]

Please realise that the view you have that all of those people were "mindless hooligans who were just taking an opportunity to create violence" is the one that the powers-that-be want you to have. It is them that has said those people were that.

[One Tonne Baby]

yeah lets smash things up and cause millions of pounds worth of damage in a country struggling financially because i want to be highly educated for free!

[haznutuk]

and yet none of that made a blind bit of difference in Scotland where it was enacted a year before England and Wales. It took that protest and its associated violence to have the govt change their mind.

[eFestivals]

Well said indeed.

In this unfortunate world where many of the talking points are set by the popular newspapers, anyone who thinks that smashing stuff up then, or in recent action would be the catalyst for some politicians with a plan to change their minds is a little mistaken.

sorry, but the view that the poll tax was binned just because of refusal to pay is patently false. No one had yet been sent to prison for refusing to pay at the time the poll tax was announced as going to be scraped - an announcement that was made in the week or so after the protest and riot.

Edited June 21, 2011 by eFestivals

[ukslim]

What credibility? What have those protests achieved? Nothing. Full blown riots would certainly have got the governments attention rather than those girls holding hands. £40k spend on schools and hosptials? Give me a break.

Sorry, peaceful protest will achieve nothing in this day and age in this country, especially with the tories in charge.

[acidstorm523]

Maybe there should be subsidised tickets for those on benefits? you could pay your deposit as usual, then provide proof of income support when you pay the balance? more work, but maybe more fair, although you could see how it would be open to wide abuse!

[whatmidlifecrisis?]

the years pass, but where peaceful protest gets anyone in the UK doesn't.

The only protest that's ever worked in my living memory were the poll tax protests - which turned into the biggest riot in my lifetime too.

That's not just a coincidence.

[russycarps]

I don't believe that a full scale riot would have achieved more.

The violence on that day convinced the Daily Mail reading majority that the anti-cuts movement was a bunch of thugs - a mixture of mindless unwashed povs, and over-privileged posh boys on a loutish day out. The peaceful majority who went to that march were *livid* at the way the violent majority stole their headlines.

I'm convinced that the violence worked in the Tories' favour.

[showmethestones]

Things change for f**ks sake, the wife is not what she use to be but i still have a go on her, not as much as i use to mind, but more that 4 out of every 5 years hahahahaha

[ukslim]

Perhaps you're right. Though I think apathy ultimately won the day for the tories.

If there was a referendum on this I have a feeling the majority would vote for the fees anyway.

[haznutuk]

If there was a referendum on this I have a feeling the majority would vote for the fees anyway.

[clarkete]

Tsk.

Complaining about the festival is not what it used to be

[clarkete]

out of genuine interest can someone bullet point things that made it better in the past?

[robith]

yeah lets smash things up and cause millions of pounds worth of damage in a country struggling financially because i want to be highly educated for free!

[ukslim]

Drifting off topic, but turning into a great conversation to take my mind off not getting to G until very late on Weds!

Secondly it's not about being educated for free. For one - society in general benefits from a better educated society. Take me for instance - the son of working class immigrants, under the previous £1k fee system (though I never paid cos my parents didn't earn enough) I was able to go to one of the best univerisities in the world. As such I now have quite a good job and pay more taxes.

[russycarps]

And why not? They are not fees that have to be paid up front. They are fees that have to be repaid once you are earning above a certain annual income. I'd prefer a return to the days when University was fee free but I don't see that happening any time soon. The proposed system sounds frightening but if you actually stop to look at the details it's little mote than an additional bit of tax once you are earning a decent income. And no need to ever repay anything if you never do earn a decent wodge! All paid for by the taxpayers of today - many of whom haven't had the good fortune to spend three years at Uni having the time of their lives. I'm about as far from a Daily Mail reader as you can get but this issue is a non-starter. Look to benefits caps, removal of DLA, etc, if you want something to get outraged about.

[robith]

Drifting off topic, but turning into a great conversation to take my mind off not getting to G until very late on Weds!

Yeah, but you've stolen that job from someone born into privilege!

A side point to that is that the whole paradigm focuses on education as a route to wealth in later life. I don't think education should be about that. I think society benefits from academia, and if someone wants to become a world expert in Ancient Norse, and spend the rest of their life teaching and researching that, then the taxpayer should support that financially. Because it's culture, and culture is important.

[haznutuk]

Surely education is one of the most fundamental of rights? As one of the richest countries in the world, the fact that we are charging for education, at any level, is an enormous scandal. Free education is investing in our future. Free education is the only way to ensure equality of opportunity.

[robith]

Surely education is one of the most fundamental of rights? As one of the richest countries in the world, the fact that we are charging for education, at any level, is an enormous scandal. Free education is investing in our future. Free education is the only way to ensure equality of opportunity.

This Government are really quite a clever bunch. They have convinced people that free education is not a basic, essential right of any civilised society. This on top of their masterstroke involving public sector pensions.

They have turned the general public against the very people who they need most, that is firemen, teachers, nurses. I have heard so many people saying that these people do not deserve the pensions they are currently getting. It is staggering.

Divide and conquer. The tories will romp home in the next election.