March in London on the 26th?

Athanor said:
Always good to see the Labour movement organise a good riot, errrr... demomstration to complain about the financial mess they (which includes the TUC, an integral part of "labour") got us into in the first place.

Lots of surprised looking unionists trying to distance themselves from riots they knew full well were going to happen and yet did nothing to prevent.

"Gabillions in debt, oooh, nothing to do with us. Riots and violence at our march, oooh, nothing to do with us. Take responsibility for anything, oooh nothing to do with u... oh...hang on a minute".

On the bright side the TUC have just done a fabulous job at killing any sympathy the country may have had for the unions in general and militant public sector workers in particular. Of course they were never worried about the rest of the country in return, there's a bunch of people in untenable jobs earning salaries and pensions that just have no resemblance to what the country can afford who thought a nice walk in the sun on a Saturday would solve all the problems and the nasty prime minister (who along with the banks fault this all is) would do a u-turn on Monday and guarantee their jobs whilst the rest of the country went to hell in a hand basket. Or at least that’s what Union reps up and down the country have been spinning for weeks to union members.

Ok, that's a bit of a characture of the situation but you get the gist.

You can't help but have sympathy for people who's jobs may be threatened, and untenable job or not you can't blame someone for wanting to hang onto it, but as someone else has said - there is no magic money tree at the end of the garden at No11. It's Labour movement policy that got us to this point so you'll excuse the rest of us if we view their "alternative solutions" with a little scepticism.

The shame of it is that there are genuine, valuable public sector (and other) workers that do a good job, for a fair wage and the country couldn't do without them, It's only right in a fair and civilised society we fund a healthy public sector. Unfortunately the last 10 years of government and Union work has bloated that with jobs that don't need to be there funded by money that definitely isn't there. Far too much time is spent by the unions on playing political games and at a local level trying to keep people known in house as "On the job: Retired" as they cruise to a pension rearranging pencils on a desk in a job.

Working practices like "I have 20 days sick leave I take every year, on top on holiday allowance whether I'm ill or not" along with intimidation of people that don't go sick often enough "because you make the rest of us look bad and cut our opportunities for over time" is appalling and wide spread. The idea of yearly performance reviews and commitments is completely alien to a huge swath of the public sector, where, unlike pretty much any other job in the world, all you have to do to have a job for life and a fat pension at the end is "keep your head down".

The TUC could do the country a favour and start being realistic , then they might have some credability. As it stands it's the old Union argument.

"Management" Sorry folks - The company is making a loss so we'll have to make some redundancies"

"Union" You can't do that or we'll strike

"Management" Ok, the company is on the verge of bankrupcy, we HAVE to make MORE redundancies now.

"Union" Ok, everybody out - we're on strike.

"Management" Ok, the company has gone bankrupt and we need to make EVERYONE redundant now - well done you.

"Union" Oh.. Bugger... you ****** bad people, how could you do this to helpless workers.

*sigh*
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Sorry to quote a rather large-ish post but...+1! Unlike other threads on pro and anti public job issues, I cant spare the time and nerves to go through all the pages of that one.
 
Tombstone said:
All the people on the march need to do is unite against the anarchists, 250,000 people against 500 anarchists and the anarchists would soon lose :D
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Quite a few of us tried but we were kept clear by the Police - they told us this was their issue to deal with and didn't want anyone getting hurt. We weren't going in to bash heads or anything - just try and find out what their point was - we were going to conduct some interviews etc.

Commander Bob Broadhurst of the Met Police said this of the Anarchists:-

"We've had a number of - I hesitate to call them protesters - a bunch of people that ended up in Trafalgar Square," he said.
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What we noticed yesterday, during the peaceful march, was that police has a certain amount of sympathy with the main marchers yesterday with a good percentage of them (I'd said pretty much half) stating they'd be marching with us. They are facing their own issues in their service.
 
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Dolph said:
And indeed they should, because 250,000 cannot be allowed to dictate to the other 61.75 million people in the UK because they made a bit of noise and committed some violent disorder...
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Not to pick on you specifically but I keep seeing this or variations on this and it seems like somewhat faulty logic. It appears to suggest "either you went on the March or you don't agree with what the marchers were there for" - there's a variety of plausible reasons why people could disagree with the cuts and yet not be in London for the March.

The most you can logically say without taking a leap is that those 250,000 made their feelings clear about the cuts, to draw a conclusion about the rest of the UK's population on this issue is to include those who probably range from wholeheartedly supporting the cuts through to those who vehemently disagree with them (there'll almost certainly be a number who are apathetic, some mildly pro or anti and then whatever percentage are children and have no conception of it etc etc).
 
FFS the tuc didnt organise the violence you nubs! they organised a massive march of hundreds of thousands of people, after it pretty much ended the idiots came out to hijack a peaceful march.
 
MrMoonX said:
FFS the tuc didnt organise the violence you nubs! they organised a massive march of hundreds of thousands of people, after it pretty much ended the idiots came out to hijack a peaceful march.
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Don't think anyone has said that, however they did give them a platform and reason to cause the violence (unintentionally).
 
Duke said:
Don't think anyone has said that, however they did give them a platform and reason to cause the violence (unintentionally).
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someone above did but i couldnt be bothered to quote it :rolleyes:

its a reflection on the current government that not even a year in there have been several major protests which ultimately have ended with a minority smashing up london
 
I have to wonder about the aditional cost in policing and clean-up following this march. Isn't the country in enough financial trouble without adding a couple more million to the bill in police overtime so a bunch of ***** scum can have a field day? I'm not saying that it was the intention of the TUC for trouble to occur, but anybody with a braincell knew it was going to happen.
 
semi-pro waster said:
Not to pick on you specifically but I keep seeing this or variations on this and it seems like somewhat faulty logic. It appears to suggest "either you went on the March or you don't agree with what the marchers were there for" - there's a variety of plausible reasons why people could disagree with the cuts and yet not be in London for the March.

The most you can logically say without taking a leap is that those 250,000 made their feelings clear about the cuts, to draw a conclusion about the rest of the UK's population on this issue is to include those who probably range from wholeheartedly supporting the cuts through to those who vehemently disagree with them (there'll almost certainly be a number who are apathetic, some mildly pro or anti and then whatever percentage are children and have no conception of it etc etc).
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I can refer to the poll in the guardian that clearly shows the majority approving the cuts...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/mar/25/voters-cuts-coalition-poll?intcmp=239

However, even referring to the opinion polls is pretty meaningless, because it's still an argumentum ad populum fallacy.
 
amigafan2003 said:
Not that I often defend dolph but I think calling him a Tory would be a mistake.
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Thanks, unfortunately far too many people see someone who opposes Labour's brand of authoritarian state dependency and assumes you must be a died in the wool, no prisoners Tory instead...
 
Dolph said:
I can refer to the poll in the guardian that clearly shows the majority approving the cuts...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/mar/25/voters-cuts-coalition-poll?intcmp=239

However, even referring to the opinion polls is pretty meaningless, because it's still an argumentum ad populum fallacy.
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The problem with polls like this is that the bulk of the cuts have yet to take effect. A lot of people will see it differently when the cuts hit.

I was at the march. I work with severley disabled adults and the cuts to a social care system already at breaking point will cause a lot of pain. Without a doubt we'll see more stories of abuse and neglect of older and disabled people that rely on care and support services. I get the argument about cutting the deficit but I find it hard to agreed with the posts about non-jobs and a bloated public sector when working on the front line tells a very different story.

I was at the march to protect these vital (and they are vital) services not my job. I could earn a lot more in the private care sector. I could probably afford a porche and a nice house within 10 years if I set up a private care company in my area- the only thing is I'd have to deliver a shoddy service and take advantage of vulnerable people in doing so!
 
uk_unbeliever said:
The problem with polls like this is that the bulk of the cuts have yet to take effect. A lot of people will see it differently when the cuts hit.

I was at the march. I work with severley disabled adults and the cuts to a social care system already at breaking point will cause a lot of pain. Without a doubt we'll see more stories of abuse and neglect of older and disabled people that rely on care and support services. I get the argument about cutting the deficit but I find it hard to agreed with the posts about non-jobs and a bloated public sector when working on the front line tells a very different story.

I was at the march to protect this vital (and they are vital) services not my job. I could a lot more in the private care sector. I could probably afford a porche and a nice house within 10 years if I set up a private care company in my area- the only thing is I'd have to deliver a shoddy service and take advantage of vulnerable people in doing so!
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Guess what....


THERE IS NO MONEY.

get over it, instead of marching about winging about something that can't be helped, use your time to better manage what you have got and quit wasting more in daft protests and smashing up the place.
 
uk_unbeliever said:
The problem with polls like this are that the bulk of the cuts have yet to take effect. A lot of people will see it differently when the cuts hit.
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Pure Speculation.

I was at the march. I work with severley disabled adults and the cuts to a social care system already at breaking point will cause a lot of pain. Without a doubt we'll see more stories of abuse and neglect of older and disabled people that rely on care and support services. I get the argument about cutting the deficit but I find it hard to agreed with the posts about non-jobs and a bloated public sector when working on the front line tells a very different story.
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Appeal to emotion and a failure to explain how only state provided money can prevent this occuring.

I was at the march to protect this vital (and they are vital) services not my job. I could a lot more in the private care sector. I could probably afford a porche and a nice house within 10 years if I set up a private care company in my area- the only thing is I'd have to deliver a shoddy service and take advantage of vulnerable people in doing so!
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So no possibility in your mind of a third way solution between state provided (and generally shoddy) care and privately provided, shoddy in a different way care? There's absolutely no way, for example, you could take your knowledge and apply it in a not-for-profit fashion, could create a workers cooperative or work with larger charities to provide the services you believe need to be provided? The only option is continued increases (because the cuts aren't actually cuts, they are a significant reduction in the spending increases compared to Labour's fantasy budget plans) in state spending?

The problem is, if we listened to everyone who claimed the only solution was the state, there would never ever be any way we could afford everything that people claim the state must provide.
 
uk_unbeliever said:
I was at the march to protect these vital (and they are vital) services not my job. I could earn a lot more in the private care sector. I could probably afford a porche and a nice house within 10 years if I set up a private care company in my area- the only thing is I'd have to deliver a shoddy service and take advantage of vulnerable people in doing so!
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As said why not set one up and ensure proper investment rather than huge profits.
 
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