Its not argy bargy, its thuggery and mindless violence.

The problem is, of course, Labour and the left have gone in far to soon, and exposed yourselves as vile, possibly murderous thugs.

That’s never going to be a position of strength to convince the British public they should continue to allow you to be scroungers and layabouts on the public purse for the rest of eternity.

The leadership of the trade unions … accepts the need for the cuts in principle, and quibble only over the details.

Really? Says who?

I mean, interesting as it was to see Sunny Hundal cheering the NUS on as they tried to murder a copper, I doubt it’s sound politics.

The NUS tried to murder a copper!

Brilliant! Where did you find this goon?

Tried to murder a copper? Another few hours and we’ll read students were trying to carry nuclear warheads into Tory HQs.

Perhaps you should picket the Bank of England in protest at the non-existence of more money. How about a placard saying “Stupid non-existent money. We want you to exist.”

Of course the money in question used to exist, but then Labour spent it all. So perhaps there’s another appropriate target for protest.

This article seems to end in contradiction. On the one hand, we’re told we need protests of 500,000 + industrial action so as to make the govt take notice and force them to stop. Then we’re told that yesterday’s protests won’t do because they were troublesome?

Given how cavalier this government is being, I’m not sure if anything short of riots will slow them down in their slashing agenda to remove the post-war settlement and British welfare state. Rather than knocking yesterday’s protests – and fringe bits of destruction – Dave, you should welcome them as the start of something bigger. And I mean that not just as a point of principle, but as a point of consistency regarding the views you put forward in this article.

Would that be the same Martin Coxall who was arrested – and then deselected as a Tory Candidate – for using violence and intimidation during the 2010 election, in the process of which he (apparently accidentally) phyiscally assaulted an innocent bystander?

Wow, some people have short memories and infinite levels of hypocrisy.

Chaps, spending is returning to 2006 levels as a % of GDP.

So when you say post-war welfare state, what you should really say is post-2006 fiscal incontinence.

Though I agree that much of that incontinence was necessary at the time – this doesn’t make it necessary for ever.

There are some lovely photos on the Torygraph website of suitably menacing hoodies brandishing stolen cricket bats

I have noticed that this has been another occasion where we’re treated to lots of photos of “suitably menacing hoodies” smashing windows – surrounded by a three-deep throng of press photographers standing in a neat semi-circle so as not to obscure each other’s shots (and with coppers calmly watching from behind the photographers). Almost like an organised photo-shoot…

(Photo #4 in this set being a particularly fine example.)

@ 6 claude

If you throw a fire extinguisher off a five or six storey building onto a crowd of coppers there’s a more than sporting chance it will hit one on the head and kill him. Can’t see your quibble here…..

“Chaps, spending is returning to 2006 levels”

Yes, but the things money is being spent on are changing – and changing in a substantial manner to make the post war welfare state over.

“Yes, but the things money is being spent on are changing – and changing in a substantial manner to make the post war welfare state over.”

Yes due to the ring-fencing of health, and the real-terms increase in schools current spending, the proportion of public money spent on these things will be considerably higher than they were in 2006.

Debt interest will also be higher of course.

Quick question for those excusing the rioters (Sunny?).

How do you expect to attract mass support to demonstrations when they descend into violence? This is hardly going to encourage anyone to take their family along to a protest for a start – which means that many families that might be involved cannot attend en mass. And then there are those who might oppose the cuts but will also steer clear of rioters and other ‘scum’ (try most honest self-proclaimed working class folk for this attitude).

Dave has the right of it here – expressions of anger should not be violent unless you want to alienate people. In a democracy, violence is not unacceptable.

I have to laugh at some of the comments to this… I wonder how many of the commenters were actually there, and how many were sitting behind a keyboard somewhere far away.

First and foremost… taking over a building is bloody good way of making a point. Vandalising and occupying Tory HQ is not violence with the intention of hurting other people. I can’t sympathise with windows and chairs. I don’t agree with getting into fights with the police though, thats just unproductive.

Second throwing a fire extinguisher off the top is frankly idiotic beyond belief. You always get idiots in protests, yet you have to be an even bigger idiot to believe this means the NUS (who condemned violence) wanted to murder a copper. In a crowd of thousands of people you’re always going to get one complete nut-case.

Some guy up there peddled the myth that we’ve run out of money… really what planet are you on? We might have a large deficit, but we’re still one of the largest economies in the world. The reason students are angry is because the government likes fund wars, nuclear weapons and ignore tax evaders all at great expense to the country, rather than fund the comparatively small amount it would cost to give everyone free higher education.

I’m a student, I was a Millbank.

Students, they want to learn.

@ Watchman

You’ve obviously been brainwashed by the media… the protest was 99% peaceful. It didn’t decent into violence. A small fraction of people broke into Tory HQ and got into fights with the police. Even the majority of thousands of protesters around Tory HQ were completely peaceful! We were the enjoying the live music and having a good time.

I saw small children there. The atmosphere on the march from Charing Cross to Parliament was great, I’d recommending it to all ages.

Every now and then, the leftie mask of civility slips. Yesterday was that day.

http://www.theatvzone.com/wavstuff/troll.jpg

A Tory council candidate wearing a John Prescott mask was arrested today, after a Labour volunteer was punched and another knocked to the ground during the former deputy prime minister’s campaign visit to east London.

Martin Coxall, a candidate for East India and Lansbury, was led away by police after a 46-year-old woman was punched and a 61-year-old woman was knocked to the ground at about 2pm .

Coxall was one of two men, both dressed in Prescott masks, involved in the incident. Police spoke to the other man but did not arrest him.

You really are a massive stinking hypocrite – as well as a bit of an idiot – aren’t you, Martin?

(Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/22/conservative-candidate-arrested-assault-women)

Paul,

Do you follow Martin around posting that story everywhere? I know he is combatative and aggressive in the comments (perhaps this fits…) but try responding to his comments not his actions – has he been charged with any crime anyway? If not, I’m afraid you are acting as judge and jury yourself, which makes you at best equally irritating.

looks like you’re showing your age. while you’re planning your exit from this world the students are still trying to gain entry to theirs. that’s the difference.

JC,

I have no doubt the protest was 99% peaceful. Unfortunately, the media focussed on the 1%, which not only lessened the impact of the protest (people will know students rioted, but less will know what they rioted about), but will give an image of the protests. My entire point was that excusing the violence legitimises the image of violence at 99% peaceful protests.

Incidentally, if I knew there was a 1 in 100 chance of getting caught up in violence, I would not attend something – that is quite a high risk you know. But my guess is that the actual chances were far lower – but as you say, the media do not give that impression. But they do not have to – because they were reporting the most ‘interesting’ aspect of the demonstration.

Note that large demos such as Stop the War or the Countryside Alliance save the countryside/see how many people in green wellys can congregate in London thing managed to take place without notable violence – so organisers of these protests need to take care – the violence did happen, and it is not an automatic part of protesting. If the same keeps happening, a legitimate protest movement (one I do not support, but one that has a right to exist and protest in order to try and influence policy and public opinion) risks been hijacked by illegitimate thugs. Rarely does violence work (the only time I can think of when violent protests succeeded was the Poll Tax riots – and even then, it was a wider unease with the system that doomed that silly idea), and if it keeps working, what is to stop an increased cycle of violence between factions?

@ Watchman

In a democracy, violence is not unacceptable.

Depends what you mean.

The state maintains it’s power because it has the monopoly of the means of violence within it’s borders. It is not morally illegitimate for individuals to challenge the state and it’s apparatus by using violence themselves and if enough do so it can be effective (poll tax riots, French revolution etc).

Of course everyone doing so should be aware that the government stick is much bigger than their own and that the consequences of challenging state power are likely to be painful.

That’s why it doesn’t happen much.

@23

The thing is Watchman, with Coxall’s comments it really is a case of people in glass houses not chucking stones. It’s quite audacious for someone with his track record to condemn politically motivated violence (as he does @19).

taking over a building is bloody good way of making a point

Yes, violence is an effective way of making a point. Nobody is denying that. What’s in dispute, you total moron, is whether we live in a democracy where we debate things then vote on them, or whether we just get to go out and smash things when we’re a bit upset because Mother Government won’t pay for all the poor wittle undergwaduates. Do you want to see BNP scum taking over Labour HQ? I mean it’d be a bloody good way of making their point, right? Right?

By the way, all of you that condone the mayhem – who do you think cleans up after all the middle-class idiots that made the mess? Working class cleaners, that’s who, probably immigrants who came here from 1000s of miles away to work hard and make a better life. You people disgust me.

We don’t live in a democracy. We live in a sort of semi-democracy.

It is possible for a government can be elected by a minority of voters, on an even smaller majority of eligible voters, then proceed to do all sorts of wildly unpopular things they promised in their manifesto they wouldn’t do, and there is sod all we can do about it for another five years.

That is not democracy.

By the way anybody who generalises about the protestors yesterday disparagingly as “middle-class” is so thick they forfeit the right to have their comments read, never mind responded to.

pagar,

The use of violence against others or their property is illegitimate – it is against the law. Clear matter of definition.

As to moral right – if you cannot win the argument in the sphere of politics, why should you have the moral right to impose your will through violence?

I agree that the Poll Tax Riots helped do for the poll tax – but since diehard Conservatives in my family opposed the poll tax (and the riots…) this would appear to be because there was no popular support to back the poll tax. If even a third of the population was fiercely pro-poll tax, there would have been a bedrock of support the then government could fall back on to bolster their position, but even their own supporters were generally against the idea. Compare this to the student fee issue, where I doubt there is the same feeling.

As to the French revolution (I assume you mean the first one, with the first storming of the Bastille) – an absolute monarchy is a tiny bit difficult to treat as a democracy, as opposed to say a dictatorship, so violence was probably a legitimate action. As indeed in the US war of independence – when people with no representation had to resort to violence.

boilermaker,

We don’t live in a democracy. We live in a sort of semi-democracy.

No, we live in a democracy – every adult (with the exceptions of a couple of classes of people such as prisoners…) has a vote, and can use it. A democracy is a system whereby the people select their rulers, not a system whereby the majority of the population have to select their ruler (which is a subset of democracy, but should have its own name – anyone any good at ancient Greek?). You are mistaking a concept of ‘fair’ for the essential point of democracy. You are also confusing the votes cast in individual elections for representatives to attend parliament as votes cast in a single election for a ruling party.

S.Pill,

I have a principle of only considering people guilty once found guilty. So Phil Woolas is guilty of lying in an election, as well as being (in my opinion) a nasty man who plays with race for political advantage. Two weeks ago, I could only say he was (in my opinion) a nasty man who plays with race for political advantage.

Therefore, if Mr Coxall has not been convicted of a crime, or at least accepted an official caution, I cannot accept that he has committed a deliberate act of violence, because all I have is hearsay.

Furthermore, does being a hypocrite (if Mr Coxall is such) mean that you can have every point ignored without rebuttal? Seems a bit strange to me…

#32

Thanks for giving us your definition of ‘a democracy’. Fascinating but irrelevant.

@ 34

good call.

boilermaker,

Do you normally define irrelevant as anyone setting out a point which makes your previous point invalid? If so, do you find most of your arguments end either in your being right or in irrelevance?

If you are going to assert we do not live in a democracy (which would therefore legitimise violence by protestors, a point I suspect we agree on), don’t be surprised if people point out that we do.

I’ve already typed this out once and the website lost it.

You pointed out that we live in what you regard as a democracy. Unfortunately, I’m not particularly interested in your personal definition of ‘democracy’, as it has little relevance to the point at hand.

Democracy meaning ‘the rule of the people’ we do not have: we have something approximating it.

The poll tax riots were not successful – they only accelerated their introduction.

The poll tax was defeated because millions of people refused to pay it and it became unenforcable.

I don’t think the author of the piece has really got to grips with answering the question he posed in the headline.

One of the key problems of student vangardism is that for most of the time, the majority of the population will have limited reason to side with the students. Students’ background, lifestyle and typical attitude to the towns and cities they live in often separates them from many other groups in society.

So suddenly declaring solidarity with the working classes and demanding revolution is easy to dismiss (as it was amongst the hard-working members of the team I work in, earlier today).

Moreover, the bulk of the resistance to the cuts comes from producer interests and other interested groups. Many other people find the stories alarming – reflecting the media tone, intended by the government – but not particularly meaningful.

On the contrary Dave. Large and Militant protest like this is precisely what makes it possible to win arguments about the need for larger mobilizations. The massive turn out, the vibrant debates about the ‘limits of protest’ vs the much more real limits of social concensus: in other words the kinds of debate that begin to happen when real mass action starts to happen…its precisely what we need. The irony is that some of the people complaining are the same people complaining that we are not like France. I also don’t agree that the anti-aparthied movement was just about making ourselves feel better.

boilermaker,

Democracy meaning ‘the rule of the people’ we do not have: we have something approximating it.

Ah yes. So you support the entire population voting on every decision then? Otherwise, we only will ever have something approximating the rule of the people, as elected representatives do not represent the people in every respect.

@ Watchman

The use of violence against others or their property is illegitimate – it is against the law.

Firstly, I wasn’t talking about violence against others or their property, I was talking about violence against the instruments of the state. Of course that’s against the law, the government makes the law. The point is that the the state has no greater moral authority to use violence against the individual than the individual has to use violence against the state.

You then seem to argue that democracy legitimises the use of violence by the state (it’s OK to fight back against dictatorships).

I would argue that all power wielded by the state is potentially tyrannical regardless of how the government is formed.

Hold on Thomas, the poll tax riots take place on March the 31st 1990 then the community charge was introduced in April 1990. How did the rioters accelerate its introduction? The community charge had been planned to be introduced in April for quite a while before that day.

41

I don’t have a perfect solution to the problems of representative democracy, though the right of recall would obviously be part of any properly functioning system. But it doesn’t take a political genius to see when the current system is failing to represent the will of the people.

pagar,

Firstly, I wasn’t talking about violence against others or their property, I was talking about violence against the instruments of the state. Of course that’s against the law, the government makes the law. The point is that the the state has no greater moral authority to use violence against the individual than the individual has to use violence against the state.

If the state was using violence, you may have a point – and since taxation is backed with threats of violence, then the poll tax riots could be legitimate in this sense.

But if the state is not violent it is simply the custodian of certain services and property for the common benefit. It is therefore clearly illegitimate and socially wrong to attack this. It is only if the state takes on a persona and attempts to assert its will on others that it can be regarded as a target, and despite my dislike of our overlarge state, I would not classify it as tyrannical.

The potential is there, but all that legitimises is the potential for violence against the state. It has to act tyrannically first (if you want, the state/vampire has to raise from the crypt before we can ransack the castle and stick a stake into it; just breaking into castles and destroying things because there might be a vampire in the cellar is morally wrong and bad manners).

44.

I’d agree on recall – any representative system should have something to stop the represenative being unrepresentative.

I also suspect (heresy on here, I’m sure) that Messrs Hannan and Carswell are right that local primaries would help in any system.

But, I think we can agree that any system of democracy is unperfect – it is on which imperfections we would prefer we seem to disagree.

46

And on what reactions are morally legitimate when the democratic mechanisms fail to represent the will of the people.

“But it doesn’t take a political genius to see when the current system is failing to represent the will of the people.”

This kind of nonsense has to be called out.

A system that regularly receives 75%+ votes, that changes government every major election or two, is not clearly failing.

I think your statement “is failing to represent the will of me and some of the people I know” would be far, far more accurate.

48

You might have misread “when” for “that” in my sentence you quoted above. Quite a big difference.

Sometimes (such as, for example, capital punishment or the Iraq War) our system quite bloody obviously fails to express the will of the people.

indeed, 49, but I still don’t like the populist assumptions that just because there’s people on the streets means the majority agree.

I don’t think anybody has suggested that.

49,

Just to be irrelevant again, are you sure the majority would support capital punishment any more? It seems to be a truism, but I’ve seen no opinion polls or anything on this for years.

Incidentally, wouldn’t majority support for capital punishment prove that there needs to be a check on pure democracy

Watchman

I don’t know if capital punishment still commands a majority or not, but if it does, what authority is there in our society to legitimately oppose the will of the people?

For the record, I am against capital punishment. I would vote against it, but if I am in a minority, I might have to accept it (although not personally I hope!).

@ Watchman

The potential is there, but all that legitimises is the potential for violence against the state. It has to act tyrannically first

But don’t you understand that the state is tyrannical by nature and it’s power lies in the potential violence of the police and army?

If I snort cocaine, allow customers to smoke tobacco on my property, discipline my children as I see fit or even fail to pay for my TV licence then the state, in one form or another, will knock on my door. If I resist, the state will ultimately exercise it’s will at the point of a gun.

All I am saying is that it has no greater moral right to use violence against me than does anyone else.

I used that as an old example from when we use to debate this sort of thing in RE lessons at school. Maybe you’re right and I’m behind the times on that one, but it was just an example.

I suspect there are all sorts of questions on which any one person would disagree with the majority view. As it happens, I’m not anti capital punishment on principle. But that doesn’t invalidate the primacy of democracy per se, rather the form in which it exists. I don’t favour referenda as individual voting is atomised and gives too much power to those who control the supply of information (the media) and too little to collective discussion.

Sorry my last comment was aimed at #52

“The NUS tried to murder a copper!”

Of course the NUS didn’t try to murder a copper. But someone did throw a fire extinguisher off the roof at a clump of officers; it landed a couple of feet away. If that isn’t attempted murder, then I don’t know what is. Miscreants who committed serious offences should be arrested and prosecuted and given no sympathy from the constitutional and Parliamentary left. These sorts of antics harm the sensible case to be made in favour of more moderate public spending cuts.

‘Firstly, I wasn’t talking about violence against others or their property, I was talking about violence against the instruments of the state. Of course that’s against the law, the government makes the law. The point is that the the state has no greater moral authority to use violence against the individual than the individual has to use violence against the state.’

The issue is who *initiated* the violence. If the government were using force it would be legitimate to respond in kind. Did the police start chucking fire extinguishers?

‘You then seem to argue that democracy legitimises the use of violence by the state (it’s OK to fight back against dictatorships).’

Is that what all those who oppose violence by the protestors are arguing?

‘I would argue that all power wielded by the state is potentially tyrannical regardless of how the government is formed.’

And there I’d agree – but how does this support your first paragraph?

The fact that the State should not have a monopoly on violence is not an argument in favour of protestors initiating aggression, it is an argument against the State initiating aggression.

@43
So there was only one day of action and it was that one day of violent action that made all the difference? And it made the difference because the violence was within earshot of Parliament in and around Trafalgar Sq?

Don’t make me laugh – there were literally thousands of protests against the poll tax coming in many forms throughout the 18 months before they were introduced.

The big riot in Traf Sq was simply the culmination of a series of campaigns which joined forces to combine more activists and bring more people to one place than had otherwise been possible.

By the time the Traf Sq demo took place it had already been in place in Scotland for a year.

The introduction in Scotland was brought forward specifically because initial protests had turned violent and Thatcher decided she wanted a gradual introduction to make sure Police weren’t overwhelmed as she believed the public would come to accept it once it was in place (repeating the tactics which were successful against the miners).

The Traf Sq event made great TV, but the ongoing acts of defiance and simple non-payment by millions were causing councils difficulty in collections and several had to be bailed out by central govt as actual Poll Tax receipts in some areas proved lower than the cost of printing administering and collecting the bills.

In real life the Traf Sq event was only significant as the symbolic point of the confrontation which was used as a partisan rallying point. Labour had planned a separate rally on the same day, but when they knew the scale of the main demo they hitched their bandwagon on to it thereby healing much of the rift with Militant. The Labour speakers were taken by surprise when things started to turn violent and have tried to play down their presence ever since (I can’t even remember if they got to speak).

It is completely self-important to think one big singular event out of all the millions of small daily interactions makes the decisive difference. I don’t deny it did have some influence on impressionable minds, but you’re completely inflating any real influence it had.

All that yesterday’s violence by the students managed was to prove some people who acknowledge their own need for more education don’t fully understand the consequences of their actions and are willing to gamble on behaviour which has been tried and proven to be counter-productive.

At the very least they’ve proven the free secondary education they recieved was insufficient. Maybe they could drop back down to sixth-form.

@51 “I don’t think anyone suggests that”

Well, they do. People I know regularly point describe Britain as anti-democratic because the UK government didn’t change its course after the Iraq war protests.

@54 One of the classic definitions of the state is that it is the institution with a monopoly on the use of force. Much time and effort has been spent on trying to ensure that this monopoly is used in some kind of moral way (indeed, your point almost mirrors that of Hobbes). This work, and the structures that have been created as a result, you seem not to be aware of, or willing to address.

As such, I profoundly disagree you have the same rights as the state to use force.

@boilermaker

“it doesn’t take a political genius to see when the current system is failing to represent the will of the people.”

We had a general election earlier this year. I doubt anyone could find any opinion poll which was able to collect the views of 20m people on this or any other subject.

Therefore your opinion of what the will of the people is contrary to that which was established by the system previously overseen by Labour.

It doesn’t take anyone more than 2 seconds to see you’re speculating.

When even the EDF and Islamists can stage a protests without wanton destruction the excuses for rioting above are not very convincing. You might not have noticed that there elections not very long ago through which the government was elected on a mandate of reducing the deficit to stop the country going bankrupt. That is what it is trying to do. Had a majority of people wanted the country to go bankrupt they could have found people to elect that would have been only to happy to do that, they did not. Throwing your toys out of the pram and through a plate glass window is not going to change that.

60

I wouldn’t say “Britain is anti-democratic” as that’s a meaningless sweeping statement, but the Iraq War was an example of a government acting against the will of the people, however you want to measure it: demonstrations, opinion polls or whatever.

61

I’m struggling to make sense of your penultimate paragraph; and, indeed, what your point is. If you think a General Election every five years is all you need for democracy then you have a very limited and unimaginative idea of the concept of democracy.

@59 Thanks for the reply and all and very informative…and very long too, so you do know how to make a man feel wanted….. can’t say I agree 100%, but I learnt a few things I didn’t know…cheers

@63 I think @61 is saying at the end that it wasn’t a secret kept from the good British people that cuts were going to come after the election. The only issue was how detailed the parties dared to be before it took place. Knowing that all the main parties were determined to make large cuts in government spending, the population did not reject these policies and plump for Bob Crow or similar, instead they gave a weak mandate to all the main parties.

@Watchman

(I realise the conversation has gone in a different tangent but anyway, I’m waiting for the kettle to boil and nowt better to do)

“Furthermore, does being a hypocrite (if Mr Coxall is such) mean that you can have every point ignored without rebuttal? ”

My only point, to be honest, is that if Coxall is going to use inflammatory language (as I think you’ll agree he did @4) he should expect to have his past indiscretions used against him. Quite clearly from this report: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/22/conservative-candidate-arrested-assault-women Coxall was at least in close proximity to events and supportive of the perpetrators even if you think he didn’t throw any punches. By the same token, Coxall is condemning the entirey of the NUS when in fact it was one stupid prick who threw the fire extinguisher – and we don’t even know if the culprit was a student, or was someone who hijacked the event for their own purposes (black bloc anarchist seems likely from what I’ve heard).

Which is a very long-winded way of saying what I said before about houses, glass, and stones.

(Must dash, dying for a brew )

Violence of the type that occurred at Millbank yesterday – however emotionally satisfying for the participants – will not make it easier to make that case.

Perhaps not – but it won’t make it any harder, either (unless, perhaps, you think “concern trolls in blog comments” is a vital demographic to win over).

I think boilermaker is right to question how democratic Britain is. While the term “democracy” as a description for our society may occasionally be a useful shorthand, I fear it is also an ideological tool in the hands of those who defend the status quo. It tends to mask the fact that we are far from being a perfect democracy, and that democracy is better viewed as a question of degree and of kind, not as a simple yes/no. I think the term “semi-democracy” is probably a better shorthand for what we really have than the term “democracy”.

My personal complaints against our so-called democracy include the lack of proportional representation, the power of the mass media, and the distribution of wealth (and thus of economic power, and therefore also of political power between the three are so obviously linked).

“The introduction in Scotland was brought forward specifically because initial protests had turned violent ”

I thought it was because the Scottish rates were about to be revalued, this process couldn’t be delayed, and it was going to result in higher bills.

It’s like Groundhog Day. Stupid self indulgent Trots providing the Tories with their propaganda and helping them get their wicked way, and putting off most decent people into the bargain. And of course many of the Tory bloggers have politics which have developed little since those days (How long before they resurrect their what is the difference between the Politburo and NUS executive poster).

It didn’t work last time and it won’t work this time either.

Who exactly are the trots involved then, you wally? Can you even tell the difference between trots and anarchists? Or is it just shorthand for ‘”people I don’t like”?

71 – Is the SWP not a Trotskyite party? Personally, I find the internecine squabbles of fringe leftists pretty tedious, but there are people who love it.

http://www.fifthinternational.org/content/politics-swp-trotskyist-critique

Yes they are. Specifically which SWP members were “providing the Tories with their propaganda”? Or by that do you just mean “doing something I don’t like”?

Boilermaker

Call them what you want Trots, anarchists, nihilists, anti-democrats, thugs. Perhaps the right collective title is idiots. If you think that they belong to any coherrent political tradition you are sadly mistaken. You’re absolutely right I don’t like them – just as I don’t like the Tories, who at least have some political and democratice legitimacy and have been the main beneficiaries of their stupid behaviour.

The ULU president admitted to involvement and she was a former SWP member, but has now joined some other faction – and if you want to see how devoted she is to democracy just look at her election result – c700 votes out of an electorate of c100,000 and the other candidiate with over 900 votes conveniently disqualified.

Specifically which SWP members were “providing the Tories with their propaganda”? Or by that do you just mean “doing something I don’t like”?

I don’t mean anything at all by it, on the basis that I didn’t say it. I would have thought, however, that placards emblazoned with the SWP logo being set on fire, hurled at policemen and smashed through windows would be quite likely to help ‘Tory propaganda’ that the student demo was just a hotbed of the usual crusty suspects. YMMV.

Involvement in what? Are you one of these daft rightwings idiots who thinks any direct action is a bad idea because those nasty men at the Daily Mail might disapprove?

As far as I can tell, none of the people involved in the really stupid stuff (chucking a fire extinguisher etc) were trots.

Setting fire to placards. Boohoo.

Funny to see some people supposedly on the left putting themselves to the right of Paul Routledge and the Daily Star http://the-workers-united.blogspot.com/2010/11/daily-star-readers-poll-backs-millbank.html

Boilermaker

You may wish to call the behaviour at CCHQ direct action – but since it will contribute absolutely nothing to the improving the position re student grants I’m afraid it is the political equivalent of masturbation in that it only gives any benefit to those participating and leaves a mess for others to clear up. I suspect the Daily Mail is secretly pleased about what happened as usually rejoices in righteous indignation and increases its sales.

You are Wolfie Smith and I claim my £10.

Oh how original! A Citizen Smith reference! Who did you say was stuck in the past again?

Blanket coverage vs. a five minute segment on the late news. Well done the students*.

More trots and less shit-eating rightwingers in our movement please!

*not the one who nearly killed someone, of course.

Boilermaker

So getting yourself on the news was the objective rather than changing the legislation re tuition fees. So mission achieved in your rather limited terms then.

Unfortunately – you cannot deny responsibility for violence which may have killed people and the other effects of the Millbank occupation – anyone who has seen riots nows that the two things go together and no amount of organisation can stop the one from spreading to the other.

And of course you do not give a damn about the ordinary people who work in Millbank – or how terrifying they would have found the whole experience. Why should they go through that just because they happen to share a building with the Conservative Party.

If you don’t have the political maturity, intellectual capacity or creativity to think of some other forms of direct (or even indirect) action which might actually achieve something which doesn’t terrify ordinary people or threaten their lives could I politely suggest that you go away and come back when you have finished growing up.

PS Boilermaker

If you wish to define yourself as an intelligent left winger – I am more than happy to define myself as a daft rightwinger, along with 99.99% of the population.

It offers some hope that students are idealistic and want to change the world, but it sad that they’re so easily led astray by people who are prepared to use violence in place of a solid intellectual argument.

Whether or not anyone agrees with the intended ends of the protesters they won’t gain support by forgetting their means determine their ends.

People don’t forget so easily that you can’t trust the words of people who are prepared to use violence as the use of force creates its own necessities.

@boilerman
given the scenes we’re talking about I’m extremely relieved modern society has balanced the principles of pure democracy with constitutionalism and representative government.

Legislation by X-Factor – I don’t think so!

Well changing the legislation is obviously the long-term aim but some direct action will undoubtedly have helped that, despite the efforts of the media (and idiot rightwingers like yourself) to turn it into a story about the one person out of 50,000 who nearly killed a copper with a fire extinguisher.

Are you seriously suggesting that people are terrified by students coming into their place of work and not doing them any harm? Where did you grow up, a wendy house? Jeez, the whiff of self-righteous prig is overbearing in here.

“Are you seriously suggesting that people are terrified by students coming into their place of work and not doing them any harm? ”

Strangely enough this is the reaction that most people would have if crowds of chanting people started smashing in their windows. And how did they know in advance that the students wouldn’t do them any harm.

Because they were obviously – from the slogans – aiming their anger at Tories, not those who “happen to share a building with the Conservative Party”.

Oh and they were sure that the demonstrators were able to demonstrate between ordinary people and CCHQ staff – leaving aside your infantile view that terrorising those misguided souls who work for the Tories is ok.

Perhaps you should ask yourself the question why if all this direct action is so effective that the Tories are now directing all their fire at the demonstrators rather than being forced to defend their miserable policy in respect of tuition fees? Tories may not have very nice politics but they are not stupid I’m afraid – and you and your ilk are just aiding and abetting their cause.

Why on earth are there so many libertarian trolls on LC?