We need a diversity of tactics to fight the government
One thing became clear on Wednesday – the movement against cuts won’t be led. People are angry, and they won’t allow that anger to be contained.
Some of us will express it by ranting on blogs. Some will lobby MPs. Some will knock on doors or hand out leaflets on the streets. Some will drop banners from buildings, and some will write songs, poems or short testimonies.
Others will build websites, or produce comic videos. Some will occupy buildings, blockade roads, or glue themselves to each other.
continue reading… »
Poll finds most people support student demo
A poll by YouGov for the Sunday Times yesterday [link changed] found that the vast majority of the public had sympathy for students on their demonstration.
They didn’t look so kindly at the violence however.
State funded education is still very popular.
Question: The goverment has proposed increasing the cap on university tuition fees to £9000. Students would not have to pay the fees upfront, but would instead pay they using student loans that they would have to pay back as graduates once they were earning £21000. Wealthier graduates would have to pay a higher interest rate on their loans. Do you support or oppose these proposals?
Support: 35%; oppose 52%; don’t know 13%.
Guess who predicted violence? (Sky News, 11 April 2010)
Nick Clegg: “There’s a danger in having any government, of whatever composition, led by a party which does not have a proper mandate across the country, trying to push through really difficult decisions. I think a lot of people react badly to that.”
Presenter: “But rioting in the streets? It’s a bit much…”
Nick Clegg: “I think there’s a very serious…risk.”
YouGov questions on the actual demo:
Question: Earlier this week there was a violent demonstration against the proposed rise in tuition fees, which included protesters invading and damaging the building containing the Conservative party’s headquarters. How much sympathy do you have with the demonstration?
I sympathise both with the demonstration and the direct action against the Conservative party headquarters – 13%
I sympathise with the demonstration, but not the damage caused to the Conservative party headquarters – 52%
I do not sympathise with the demonstration, nor the damage caused – 32%
Question: More generally, do you think VIOLENT protest is ever justified in a democratic country?
There are instances when violent protest is acceptable in a democracy – 19%
There are no instances when violent protest is acceptable in a democracy – 75%
Don’t know – 5%
And my favourite question….
Would you support or oppose increasing taxation on the very rich to reduce the difference in earnings between the richest and the poorest?
Support 77%
Oppose 17%
Why isn’t Dan Hannan MEP more open about his links to the Tea Party?
contribution by Hengist McStone and Sunny Hundal
There are conflicting accounts of whether the Tea Party Movement, in the United States is grassroots or not. The recent film (Astro)turf Wars shows a slick, well-funded machine manipulating deluded activists across the country.
One writer in the UK who thinks he knows the truth is Daniel Hannan MEP, who blogs for the Daily Telegraph.
“The Tea Party is that rare beast, a genuinely spontaneous popular movement.” Mr Hannan insists, dismissing the claims of astroturfing.
continue reading… »
Poll: protests against Vodafone dent its image
You want proof that the protests against Vodafone have had an impact?
A poll for PR Week magazine has found that since the story of the Government allegedly let Vodafone off a £6bn tax bill broke, 44% view the company more negatively. 51% were unchanged, and only 5% of respondents viewed the company more favourably.
Pr Week also added:
It would appear the story may have had an impact on Vodafone’s reputation when looking at the mobile sector as a whole. As our graph shows, the firm was not the mobile phone provider of which the public had the highest opinion.
When asked if people believed the firm’s stance that the story was an urban myth and its assertion that it met its tax obligations in the UK, 58% said no. Ouch.
More importantly, a massive 76% of respondents said they believed tax avoidance was fraudulent, and 63% agreed that all businesses had a duty to be socially responsible.
[hat-tip @GuyAitchison]
The Vodafone protests were also the subject of Nick Cohen’s article today in the Observer:
You, after all, are an ordinary British taxpayer, who must pay on demand or face the consequences. If, however, you were multinational company, Hartnett would be indulgence personified. For Vodafone, HMRC reduced a potential liability not of about £7,000 to a little over £1,000 but of about £7bn to a little over £1bn and left the second-largest company on the stock market with a remarkably light tax bill.
I don’t think that HMRC realises it yet, but the Vodafone scandal is as devastating for its reputation as the banking crisis was for the reputation of the financial regulators. It shows that the Revenue is prepared to have one law for the wealthy and another for the rest and undermine the moral basis of the system over which it presides.
And yet there were people saying the protests against Vodafone would have no difference.
A national day of action against tax avoidance is being planned for 4th December. More on that soon.
Paul O’Grady supports student protesters
From ITV.
Who knew Paul O’ Grady had such a revolutionary streak?
Lefties: stop bloody fighting each other
The Republican party in the United States is, to my mind, the most successful* organisational and political movement in the world since the 1970s.
Its most successful leader Ronald Reagan had an 11th Commandment: ‘Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican’, and it has worked fantastically since.
I say this in the context of the absurd sectarianism that has broken out since the student protests, and I would implore people to stop being intolerant and engage in this orgy of self-mutilation.
continue reading… »
How you can help us kick Big Oil out of the arts
contribution by Sophie Allain
The oil industry has an image problem: oil slicked birds, gas flares in Nigeria and eye watering profits paint an ugly, but pretty representative picture of their business. And so it follows that in a bid to bolster their brands they stamp their logos across art institutions across the capital.
But a growing protest movement is targeting oil sponsorship in the arts as a way to undermine the PR campaigns of oil companies.
Platform, an art/activist organisation are launching a campaign to force oil out of the arts.
continue reading… »
Does education need cost so much? A comparison with Western Europe
Sending a kid to university abroad has never been cheaper.
With tuition fees in the UK set to reach £9000 a year, the cost of Higher Education (already high by EU standards) is going to be the most prohibitive in Western Europe.
Let’s take a look.
continue reading… »
Coalition to start means testing for Sure Start
Middle-class parents are likely to be charged for an increasing number of services at their local children’s centres under radical plans to overhaul Sure Start – the Labour government’s flagship childcare programme.
Sarah Teather, the children’s minister, will tell councils and charities that run the 3,500 centres to target resources towards the “neediest” families and consider charging the better-off for “fun” activities. Teather told the Observer that children’s centres would keep their “universal front door”.
“I’m not saying that Sure Start children’s services will be closed to some families in the area… We want it to be a non-stigmatising service. But within that service, we want it to be much better at targeting the resources,” she said.
The plans have already been denounced as a “disaster” by one Labour MP, who said that they were the first step towards ending the programme’s comprehensive nature. “The beauty of Sure Start is that it brings together families from different backgrounds – the entire community buys into it,” said Lisa Nandy, the MP for Wigan, who used to work at the Children’s Society. Even charging for a few services would change the whole ethos, she argued.
Tories try militarisation to deal with protesters
This very worrying excerpt is contained in an article for the Observer tomorrow:
As police face continued criticism for failing to control the march, the Observer has learned that defence firms are working closely with UK armed forces and contemplating a “militarisation” strategy to counter the threat of civil disorder.
The trade group representing the military and security industry says firms are in negotiation with senior officers over possible orders for armoured vehicles, body scanners and better surveillance equipment.
The move coincides with government-backed attempts to introduce the use of unmanned spy drones throughout UK airspace, facilitating an expansion of covert surveillance that could provide intelligence on future demonstrations.
Derek Marshall, of the trade body Aerospace, Defence and Security (ADS), said that such drones could eventually replace police helicopters. He added that military manufacturers had discussed police procurement policies with the government, as forces look to counter an identified threat of civil disobedience from political extremists.
Meanwhile police sources say they have detected an increase in the criminal intentions of political extremists and are monitoring “extreme leftwing activity” in light of last week’s student protest.
The office of the National Co-ordinator for Domestic Extremism (NCDE) said it was feeding information to Scotland Yard’s National Public Order Intelligence Unit, which holds a database of protest groups. NCDE, which in turn works closely with the Confidential Intelligence Unit that monitors political groups throughout the UK, said it had already recorded a rise in politically motivated disorder.
What the hell? A few idiots break windows and these people are already discussing a big jump in monitoring protest groups?
Wonder what those Tory civil libertarians will say about this now.
Update: Kevin Blowe has more:
…today’s hysteria about ‘militarisation’ is followed by a more telling piece of spin – another opportunity for the Observer to act as NETCU’s mouthpiece, with unnamed ‘police sources’ claiming an increase in “the criminal intentions of political extremists” and “extreme leftwing activity”.
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