Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Μύ

Commentators speculate about the outcome of Saturday's TUC protest against government spending cuts.

that until Ed Miliband explains what his alternative to cuts would be he cannot be taken seriously:

"He compared himself with the suffragettes. He likened himself, emetically, to Nelson Mandela. He announced that he was 'friends' with absolutely everyone there and that he supported their 'March for the Alternative', and just when I thought he was going to tell us what this might actually be - he vanished! We know that Labour now thinks it politic to accept that they made a disastrous hash of the economy, and indeed even Ed Balls was on telly the other night to say as much. We know that the Labour leadership also accepts that in order to be 'credible' it has to agree that some cuts to state spending are necessary and desirable, and we know that Alistair Darling himself was planning at least 80 per cent of the savings now being proposed by the Coalition. All we need to know is how Labour would make these cuts, and in what ways Labour's programme differs from that of the Government. And if they won't come clean and say what they would cut, then their very presence at the march - and Miliband's speech - is the most disgusting cheat and fraud."

that the protesters deserve to be listened to, not sneered at:

"Over the past year we have heard reasoned arguments and genuine concern from nurses, teachers, doctors, academics, and charity workers; from bosses, local government staff, arts organisations, writers, journalists, civil servants, students and their parents; from socially conscientious entrepreneurs, childcare experts, psychologists and other mental-health workers; from Keynesian economists, environmentalists, refugees and asylum-seekers; from black and Asian equality and human rights activists; from actors, playwrights, comedians, school governors, trustees, funders, the police, fire-fighters, industrial workers, ordinary bank staff and on and on. Individuals from all these groups gathered and walked on Saturday. Are they all mad, bad and dangerous, then?"

The the violence of a few hundred rioters should not become an excuse for framing Saturday's march as a law and order issue rather than an issue of politics and economics:

"The overwhelming majority of marchers, Ed Miliband and the TUC included, had nothing whatever to do with smashing windows, throwing things at the police or behaving badly. They were there to make a peaceful protest. Most of them only learned about the rioting when they got home. The march was well stewarded and well policed. Unfortunately, there will always be a fringe who prefer to riot. It was ever thus. They irresistibly attract the attention of the police and the television cameras. They should probably have been factored into the planning better; on another occasion, some shops might be more sensible to close in advance. But the public are not stupid. They know the rioters are a minority. They can tell the difference between the grown-ups and the trouble-makers. In the end, it is this wider public that matters most of all. The TUC campaign was, or should be, a campaign to win their support."

that young protesters don't believe peaceful protest can make a difference:

"There are an awful lot of unheard voices in this country. What differentiates the rioters in Picadilly and Oxford Circus from the rally attendees in Hyde Park is not the fact that the latter are 'real' protestors and the former merely 'anarchists' (still an unthinking synonym for 'hooligans' in the language of the press). The difference is that many unions and affiliated citizens still hold out hope that if they behave civilly, this government will do likewise.
Μύ
"The younger generation in particular, who reached puberty just in time to see a huge, peaceful march in 2003 change absolutely nothing, can't be expected to have any such confidence."

that it is troubling that the 4,500 police on duty appear to have been powerless to stop the violence:

"After the debacle of last year's student fees riot, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson said the force should have anticipated the level of violence 'better' and that its failure to do so was 'not acceptable'. Yet last weekend the police once again failed to prevent several hundred thugs from trashing a number of businesses and terrorising the public... Well, yes, of course; once upon a time such elementary precautionary action would have been considered essential to any policing worthy of the name. Yet, today, the police appear not to have a clue."