Once again a significant “consultation” that no body new about. It would seem that to they’d like to give the police yet more power:
“This three-part consultation seeks your views on the areas of police powers which the government is committed to reviewing: – the relevance of the word ‘insulting‘ in section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 – new powers to request removal of face coverings – new powers to impose curfews”
And as they’ve had a consultation, which ends tomorrow they’ll claim public support. ArchbishopCranmber and Old Holborn have more details, but if you’d like to once more be able to call me a smegging idiot without risking arrest. The powers that be, seem to currently take the stand that as long as you only get arrested, charged and suffer loss of time, money and distress with the whole process as long as you don’t actually go to court and get found guilty it’s all ok. Their test is are people actually getting found guilty unreasonably, not are people suffering from the impact of the law and likewise they have no concern over it’s chilling effects. See Olly Cromwell’s blog for a prime example of abuse of this sort of power.
I would point out that the police can already ask you to remove face coverings if they genuinely believe you intend to commit an offence, so that those rioting last summer wore face coverings is already covered by existing powers – and lets face it it’s not as if you’re going to comply with a request to uncover your face if you already rioting. The new power would let them remove face coverings at any time if they felt there was “reasonable suspicion of criminal activity” – of course remember that this is the same police force that despite being told numerous times still think it’s illegal to take photographs.
Finally curfews, the police can already force people to disperse, as people who remember the rave scene at all are well aware, and they can since 2003 request a dispersal zone be designated where people won’t be allowed to gather – this apparently takes too long and has too much paper work so they’d like a new law. Of course they’re once more citing the summer looting, ignoring the option of the riot act and that there was clear criminal behaviour taking place so would the looters really have gone home because they were in a dispersal zone? What they’d like instead is:
“The aim of a general police curfew power would be to give the police an operational tool to keep members of the public off the streets in a given location, for a given period, in order to prevent or address serious disorder.”
Now that looks like it’s just begging for feature creep to me, and is if it could be used in very lazy and Stalinist ways. Though I do tend to take the view that if a law can be abused it probably will be. They say that being outside during a curfew wouldn’t be a criminal offence, so just how would they enforce it? A fine, or a going out door tax as it might be known?
So far in London tonight at least things seem quieter, though equally that may be that it’s just being reported less. Whilst I’m very glad it’s quietened down it’s worrying as it hasn’t got quieter because the looters have been stopped, more they’ve simply stopped for now. This may be due to the vast numbers of police in the capital, if so that could be a problem as they’ll have to go home at soem point and really do we want our cities that heavily policed? Or it may be due to the London firms and other groups defending their streets? Or it could be the looters have got bored, got enough trainers and mobile phones or are just having a lie in?
Earlier Inspector Gadget observed that the police need to deliver fast to maintain any credibility. From the reporting in the mainstream media and on bloggs and twitter where trouble is happening it does seem to be being dealt with more energetically. But there simply isn’t the level of trouble yet that there was the past few days (for which I’m terribly thankful) however this also means that the police haven’t yet been able to show they can deal with the situation. So if the looters and thugs are just having a quiet night to regroup count their stolen ipods and so forth, what happens when they come back? Do the people who’ve seen neighbourhoods destroyed whilst the police were unable to do anything (for what ever reason) wait and see how the police respond next time round? Or do they decide that it might be better to not wait around? With sales of batons, baseball bats and sjamboks being reported as was up, I don’t think people are planning to stay out of the way next time round, despite the popularity of #OperationCupOfTea tonight.
Seeing as today seems to be a day for lazy comparisons I thought I’d join in the fun and games, the relationship between my tongue and my cheek is left as an exercise to the readers.
Currently we are told have poor disenfranchised youths (who can afford to buy blackberry’s) finding their voice by looting shops, and lashing out at a society that told them to consume but that they were entitled to everything so didn’t need to work, or if you prefer the other narrative couldn’t find work despite being law abiding lovely people. This is just them reclaiming their power.
This has been variously compared to the Tottenham/Brixton race riots of the 80′s and even the poll tax riots. Because the government has been doing what it does best and ignoring peaceful and not so peaceful protests and well the Tories are in power so it’s just like Maggie being back innit! (Though comparing call-me-Dave to Thatcher is a hell of a stretch). Having given this some thought I don’t think these comparisons go nearly far enough (to quote Tom Lehrer out of context) and really these people are missing a wonderful bit of hyperbole.
Here’s a check list for a much “better” comparison:
Rampant consumer culture – allegedly
High inflation due to printing money – check
People being told that they don’t have work due to a specific segment of society – check
Roaming gangs of youth attacking/looting those that have more than them – check
High unemployment – check
Organised criminality hiding behind spontaneous violence – check
Socialists politicians telling the “disenfranchised” they’re entitled to have the state provide everything – check
So I do believe that if we can just find a Reichtstag to burn down, why then we may have the set.
Do feel free to add any comparisons I may have missed.
I’m rather fond of London, even the bits I don’t like I’m quite fond of – apart from a sojourn out in the depths of Essex for a long decade I’ve lived somewhere within it’s environs for my entire life. This means that I get more than a bit miffed when some miserable hooligans decide to smash the place up, because they want to play the hard man and get a load of shitty consumer products for free. I actually get quite annoyed by such behaviour, and am more than unimpressed by bits of the media describing them as protesters.
An awful lot of people have spoken an awful lot of sense over the last few days and tomorrow I’m going to re-read it and maybe do a round up as much has been said better than I’m going to. Tonight though I shall have a beer, hope that no one I know gets caught up in it and wonder what sort of brain dead thugs are currently running lose in London. If you care for your community and your city if you know people invovled in the rioting turn them in, don’t complain about the politicians impoverishing our communities and cutting services if you’re prepared to tolerate and shelter the thugs currently burning down our neighbourhoods.
Hopefully this will calm down soon and we can take a long hard think about how on earth we’ve got to this state, and I will laugh at the first person who tries to blame it on poverty. I will also point and laugh at anyone making lazy comparisons between the current bunch of wets we have in charge and Thatcher and saying it was due to the cuts (we’re spending more than ever) and that it’s just like the 80′s.
Meanwhile I hope everyone stays safe and good luck to everyone in the Police and Fire brigade currently trying to keep the place safe, and hope you get back to your families soon.
So predictably the government has voted to raise the upper limit of fees that universities can be changed and equally predictably another student demo has descended into violence. Whilst as mentioned before I did benefit from a free University education but that was when a much smaller number of students went to University but as Dizzy observes the way the new loans are structured they only have to be paid back if they start making above a decent wage. Which seems fairer than expecting everyone to contribute to a university education for everyone who’s even just a tiny bit above academically average (which is what the goal of 50% of people going to University means), and likewise it seems preferable to graduates paying a higher rate of tax indefinitely which would likely mean paying back more than the loan works out to. Perhaps just possibly it might be a better plan to not send everyone to University but to revive technical and vocational training which Polytechnics used to excel at before they all wanted to be Universities. Before I leave the matter of funding Burning our Money observes that the ever increasing spending on education isn’t being reflected by increased educational achievement, so maybe throwing money at the problem isn’t actually working? Also it’s worth considering that only English students will be forced to pay these increased fees.
More worryingly and as highlighted by Political reboot the Browne report which is the basis for these changes in university funding prioritises subjects based on economic viability. Which is really rather reminiscent of soviet planning, and surly not a good idea as no-one really knows what the next big thing will be and the state doesn’t have a good track record of picking winners. I’m reminded of a short story where a method to travel to alternate realities had been discovered, due to war induced trauma, but it required a poet to explain how to do it to those not afflicted by the requisite trauma. Sadly due to the fictional government dictating that only “useful” subjects be studied there were no longer any poets available.
But all that aside what interests me most about the current student protests is the manner of protest used by the students and the states response to those protests. The students managed to cause a Libdem conference to be canceled thus removing the chance to lobby the people the crucial libdem faction directly, according to some reports they haven’t lobbied a single MP and consider ideology to be a bad thing. The general feeling seems to be that mass peaceful protest didn’t work for the Iraq war so may as well skip straight to the violence (not bothering with any other option), however whilst indulging in violent civil disobedience they can actually manage to get a petition together to demand that the police not contain them – if a petition is worth while to change police behavior might it perhaps have been worth while to get the MPs to change their minds. Yet given the repeated violence on the student demo’s these same people who object to the police containing protests because of the children also object to the police planning to pull children out if demo’s turn violent So I’m not quite sure what tactics they’d like the police to use – just let them run riot perhaps?
Which all sadly leads me to the conclusion that these demos which don’t seem to be tied into any other action, aren’t much more than a temper tantrum. There’s no ideological basis behind the protest, no planned campaign of action and no acceptance that engaging in civil disobedience has a direct cost to those taking that course of action. If we have got to the stage when peaceful protest and lobbying is no longer even worth trying and only (violent) civil disobedience is an option then such a course of action surely needs to be better thought out than a letter writing campaign and needs to take heed of vulnerable supporters liable to get caught up in it, but more than that will also have to accept and prepare for the state reacting in kind. I’m not convinced myself that we are at that stage, but if we are is the question of whether an over inflated university system should be paid for by universal taxation rather than individual loans really worth the violence. Though of course there is an irony in students violently protesting that money should be taken off themselves and everyone else (especially the 50%+ to going to university) under the threat of violence to pay for their university education so that they can pretend they’re not paying for it.
I think new methods of protest need to be found and maybe some of the techniques coming out of the wikileaks drama can be adapted, so perhaps the student demo’s represent part of the search for those methods. But violence to demand the state uses the threat of violence to provide you with continuing largess, doesn’t fit will with me even if projected into the context of a “post democratic” state.
Having muttered about the student “demo” previously I find myself returning to the subject due to comments made by other commentators and people that were there. From the title of this post you can probably gather that I disagree with their points really quite strongly. But of course it’s not just supporters of the student demo’s advocating violence, elsewhere there are green candidates whose response to the cuts impacting “a genuinely shocking number of important animal welfare initiatives” and thus creating the kind of world they don’t wish to live in, is not to look at how they could fund or support those initiatives themselves but to instead suggest that they’re
“going to hack David Cameron’s nose off and make him live in a cage, only removing him in order to whip him, make him dance, kick him about a bit and then cut his throat while he’s still half-alive.”
Which obviously in line with the two recent twitter cases is a serious threat which as an up standing citizen I should probably report to the police.
Back back to the demo/riot first off via Harry’s place a musical response to the student idiocy:
Now back to the idiocy, despite the NUS claiming it was a small minority of bad sorts causing trouble and spoiling the demo others seem to disagree, with a group called “We need unity – defend the Millbank protestors” claiming that it was a peaceful demo and the people arrested need to be defended with a united front. (H/t Harry’s place). The Guardian is claiming that the cuts are the real vandals as putting up university fees is a “great injustice”. Apparently it seems that ignoring one demo of maybe 50,000 students shows no commitment to legitimate process, yet I suppose ignoring multiple demos involving many times that number is fine to pursue a war of aggression. And heaven forefend that maybe they’ve looked at the costs and decided that maybe the rest of us can no longer afford such an inflated university system. As commentators over at Harry’s place have observed more and more jobs now require a degree, which I can’t help but think is due to the larger numbers now going to uni, if only 10% of people go to Uni, then lower qualifications count, but as that number increases to the much sought after 50%, then lower qualifications count for less and even a university education becomes worth less. Thus the value of education is inflated and devalued in the same manner as our currency has been by successive governments. Surely it can’t be long before we’re all millionaires with PHD’s fighting over who gets first dibs on the rat stew?
Anyway back to the idiocy, and I’m going to force myself to comment on someone I generally avoid commenting on (I probably need to sacrifice some of my social scene sometime soon, ah well). The ever coherent Laurie Penny has two article of actually increasing idiocy on the new statesmen about the student demo of which she reports herself as being an active participant. I’m not going to fisk both articles properly because it would be really too easy. First up Inside the Millbank Tower riots.
The students she admits were armed with sticks and smoke bombs, so certainly no peaceful protest in mind, having been on a few peaceful protests before one generally doesn’t go to them armed.
Of course whilst celebrating sticking it to the man, the statist in Laurie creeps out when a fellow miscreant offers her a cigarette she notes that:
“he is at least two years too young to be in possession”
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought there was only a restriction on age to the sale of tobacco not the possession – still can’t keep a good statist down. She seems impressed that there are school children there, but then she won’t recall the poll tax riots and demo’s through the years where there’s always a school element as any excuse to bunk off for a day and cause mischief is a good excuse.
But the point from this article I really want to pick up is to just brink these few sentences into closer proximity:
“What unites them? A chant strikes up: “We’re young! We’re poor! We won’t pay any more!””
And yet:
“A shy looking girl in a nice tweed coat and bobble hat ducks out of the way of some flying glass”
““It’s a party out here!” one excited posh girl tells her mobile, tottering on Vivienne Westwood boots ”
So about that poverty thing, couldn’t those better off students maybe organise to help out their less well off brethren, or is only the state allowed to help those that need it. The thing I’m left most puzzled over from this article is she states repeatedly that the youth are angered by repeated broken promises, and being repeatedly ignored by the government through out their young lives and yet despite being only in shared power for not even 6 months it’s the tories fault.
And on the subject of that 6 months in her next article Laurie compares the idiocy of the student demo’s with the suffragette movement. Presumably because they both broke windows, though of course (if I recall correctly) the suffragettes then stood politely by to be arrested so they could make their point in court, likewise the only people they ever endangered where themselves. The same cannot be said of the student protesters, if they are so sure of their point, why not stand by their actions, get arrested, hand themselves into the police, and like the suffragettes stand in court and make their point. Can they imagine the power of such a statement if even just 1,000 students turning up to hand themselves in to stand together in court to make their protest. That of course isn’t as much fun as smashing things up with your mates. Laurie seems to also neglect that the suffragettes only started taking direct action after trying other avenues of protest over a considerable time, which given the afore mentioned 6 months and very recent announcement of these proposed cuts (remember they don’t come into effect for a few years) can hardly be said to be the case here. It would seem that despite Lauries claim that property damage is “the last resort of citizens” it’s the first resort of students who want a day off from lectures. Violence against persons it seems was avoided due to luck, as it doesn’t count if you miss, and not that many police got hurt. The property damage, against a third party, is ok as it’ll be covered by insurance, which the insurance companies will recover by upping the premiums, and yet again the wider populace will pay for it – unlike her much hated Bullingdons who when they caused damage paid for it from their own (or at least their families) pocket. Sadly it seems as many people have observed the left still don’t seem to be able to grasp the awkward fact that everything has to be paid for by someone – it’s all just from magical taxes/insurance and the evil rich.
Laurie reports that “Sources on the ground have suggested that the Millbank protests are just the beginning.” which I’m sure is true for as Albert Einstein observed only two things are infinite the universe and human stupidity and he wasn’t sure about the universe.
So the students have taken to the streets to protest at the proposed changes to student funding. On the plus side they start out with some very nice placards clearly stating their cause, then left a load of grafitti which didn’t mention it. The rather pointless riot somewhat spoilt it though, starting initially in the wrong place and then attacking a rented office filled mainly with people with no power or little influence – surely protesting outside Parliament would have been more productive? Whilst the students are angry and have grievances to put across I can’t help feel that it might be a little early for this sort of civil unrest. Though given the manner in which some of that unrest took place one does again have to wonder.
Consider the lack of police action whilst scores of journalists photograph criminal action taking place:
(H/T Deathboy)
It really is very reminiscent of the same scenes back in 2009 at the G20 demo’s:
Only this time with added photogenic fire, in both cases with such an isolated lone person committing the damage one has to wonder why it was allowed to happen. I suppose actually getting the person away could be a bit tricky depending on what was going on beyond the ring of photographers and police, but really it does seem terribly odd. Though of course as Inspector Gadget observes this change in tactic may be due to the complaints about how those G20 demo’s were policed as well as maybe the NUS not giving the police a clear idea of what might happen though the promotional material they produced would count as something of a hint I’d have thought.
I’m not quite clear how setting fire to buildings and dropping fire extinguishers are acts of self defence on the part of the students, though of course I’m sure it will be claimed that these weren’t acts of genuine protesters – though the genuine protesters appear to have done little or nothing to stop such actions being taken in their names.
Considering the grievance against which this demonstration claimed to be, I was fortunate enough to go through university when grants still existed though I had to work through my holidays to avoid getting into debt, which seems to be less talked about these days and I’ve never fathomed how so many people can afford gap years. Would I have gone to university if I’d had to have paid more – I like to think so but equally as I did look at polytechnics at the time I might have gone for a trade instead (which was my plan if I didn’t get the grades). Either way as Snow wolf observes you end up paying for it somehow or other either upfront or in taxes. I can’t help but feel that paying for it up front and in the open is fairer on all those that do well without the benefit of tertiary education. But the money has to come from somewhere, though Dizzy has an alternative to charging for education.
At heart I think this is the big problem with many of the reforms that are trying to be pushed through at the moment. We’re at the start of a shift from paying for things on the never through taxes to having to pay for them as we go along, which will be all well and good once people have had a bit of warning and so can prepare (though with such poor interest rates at present how one is meant to save for future provision/education is a mystery) and we’ve also not yet started getting lower taxes which would let us pay for stuff. Sadly like someone trying to pay off credit cards so that they can then live on current earning we’re going to be worse off for a while to come – I just wish I had any faith in the concept that the tax cuts will come along at some point.
So the Summer of rage[tm] is drawing to a close without all that much rage being in evidence. Anger, disgust and even outrage but none of the rage we were promised. so I’d just like to get in before the usual suspects do and suggest that we are about to move into: The Autumn of anarchy
This may or may not be followed by a re-run of a winter of discontent, which I hope will be followed by the The Spring of sedition
The news tells me that Climate Camp in Greenwich now presumably being in full swing, I don’t know if it is or isn’t I’ve not been down there and have no intention in going. At least not without being heavily armed with non-organic petrochemical based soap to keep the hippies at bay. From their website it seems it’s not meant to be a protest but an educational event, I guess that having it as a camp saves on renting a venue and the publicity and location makes it more likely that bored middle class students will put on posh welly’s and carefully purchased scruffy clothes to go down to be told how guilty to feel and how to “stick it to the man”.
All that aside I must admit I quite like some aspects of what the Climate Camp is doing which from my point of view can be boiled down to just two things:
1) Making use of ancient rights to use common ground, a stroke of utter intelligence on their part , though they might like to recall how the peasants revolt actually ended.
2) It provides a wonderful source of free entertainment, both for those going down there (festivals are so expensive and with climate camp you can experience the same mud and squalor for free*) and for those of us watching from a distance.
Leg Iron provides a rather good summary of how pointless even the alleged softly softly approach the police are taking is. Again the reportedly disorganised “swoop” to the camp was a clever idea for both wrong footing the police and getting maximum attention.
However so far for me the best entertainment has come from this article over at Liberal conspiracy. The article itself is terribly amusing but the arguments between the author and two people they know ** is utter comedy gold. The denials, evasions, melt down and throwing toys out of the pram followed by massive back peddling is wonderful. It’s all of the techniques used by the righteous , as Leg Iron names them, in one easy to digest packet. It should really be preserved as a case study for showing how such arguments work.
Meanwhile I wish everyone down at the climate camp well and whilst you’re protesting about big oil try not to think too carefully about how the plastics in your wellys, phones and the like where made.
*I Don’t go to festivals either so this is utter ill informed prejudice about both things on my part but it makes it al the more amusing for me.
** I also know the people concerned and the author and they’re all three as white privileged and middle class as I am.
So just as predicted if not required there was it seems a certain amount of trouble at todays G20 protests. Having been sat at home working I can only go by the reports sent in by the BBC, blogs and other media outlets. Which probably gives me as much authority to comment as most people we’ll see on TV or read in the papers.
Apart from the numpties that tried to bring an armoured car into the city, which I’d expect to encounter no small degree of interest even on the best of days. Especially when it does look so very confusingly like a real police vehicle:
The rest of the reported violence seems to have been to at least some extent remarkably staged managed, here we have a spontaneous bit of violence surrounded by a veritable wall of photographers.
So it would seem that someone at least was making sure that the reporters got good images of things kicking off. There are also reports of “masked black clad” demonstrators running to the more peaceful bits of the demo (the climate camp) to make the atmosphere there more aggressive.
Given the banks that were attacked are already being bailed out by the Government, one way or another this was effectively state sponsored violence against state property. Even if the state didn’t directly provide a detailed script. With Barricades and fires being set up in the city there should be plenty more action for the mornings papers, certainly enough to drive any talk of expenses or problems at the G20 summit from the front pages. What remains to be seen is if how much more nonsense tomorrow will bring and if we’ll discover whose agenda this is all serving.
I do find myself left with one question still, what are these protesters actually protesting about? Given the mixture of interest groups and banners on display it seems that either:
a) G20 is just a convenient event for people with little to no commno ground to protest at
or
b) The protest is in favour of “Something being done” and “down with that sort of thing”
