Why the surprise at the results? The surprise is the surprise, or maybe we should not be surprised that political commentators and mainstream parties are so out of touch.
Anyone who has an ear to the ground would not be at all surprised at the results.
Ukip have trashed the other parties. Why, because people are sick of the other parties, sick of the EU and want to see tight controls on immigration.
What was disgraceful during the campaign was the smear tactics used against Ukip.
Labour blame failure to tackle Ukip. That was not the problem. The problem is the failure to offer any radical alternative to the hated ConDem government. All Labour offer is Tory Lite. A leader who is incapable of coherent argument, who speaks in meaningless sound bites.
The only party offering a radical alternative is the Green Party. And yet they barely got a look in, thus the public is not aware of their polices: EU referendum, tight controls on immigration, renationalise the railways, no to fracking, safeguard the NHS, a living wage, derail HS2, no second runway at Gatwick, no third runway at Heathrow, tackling of climate chaos …
We could have had an EU referendum during the May elections. Why did we not? Because the outcome is known, a massive NO to EU.
Labour are refusing an EU referendum, which shows arrogant contempt for the people. The position of the Tories little better, sometime in the future in Never Never Land.
The contempt the Tories have for the people was shown when one day after the elections, they made an important announcement on fracking.
It is not only England that seeks a destruction of the EU. It is true in other countries too. The same applies to mass immigration.
In Cyprus, their tourist industry is being destroyed through use of cheap immigrant labour. Cheap Romanians and Bulgarians, who do not speak English who lack any knowledge of Greek let alone Cypriot culture, who make no contribution to the local economy. Side by side with the use of cheap immigrant labour, high local unemployment, reliance upon food banks.
Cyprus and Greece have seen their economies destroyed by the EU.
The EU is corrupt, undemocratic, a tool of big businesses, an attempt by Nazis in the dying days of the Third Reich to create the Fourth Reich.
Break up of the EU is not a left-right issue, it is an issue of democracy and accountability.
LibDems blame their trashing on being willing to take on Ukip. They did not, Nick Clegg came across as a fool, Vince Cable a clown. LibDems are a party entirely lacking in principles. The party whose only interest is power, who will do anything to remain in power, and it is this lust for power that has been their downfall. The party that delivered austerity, Bedroom Tax, a tripling of student fees, massive growth in food banks, workfare, class warfare on poor, disabled, destruction of NHS, hike in rail fares. The LibDems deserve to be wiped out. Nick Clegg will be written in the footnotes as the unprincipled leader of the LibDems who destroyed the party. If Nick Clegg had any decency or integrity left, he would have resigned.
The LibDems are going to be wiped out for a generation, and they deserve to be. And the LibDems cannot pile all the blame on Nick Clegg. They are calling for the sacking of Nick Clegg. They should have ousted him as soon as he sold out the party for a handful of silver. They did not as so they are all tarred with the same brush.
The mainstream media talk of a redrawn four party political scene. Once again they have lost the plot. It is now a five party political scene, with the LibDems as also rans.
In the Rotten Borough of Rushmoor, only two Green candidates stood in the local elections, they only announced they were standing a couple of weeks before the elections, and yet by highlighting the contempt the local council has for local people, they managed a respectable second and third place in the respective seats they challenged. In the Euro elections: UKIP 7712, Tories 6435, Labour 3636, Green Party 1661, Libdems 1491.
There is something else happening, reflected in low turnout out, far more important than elections and political parties and that is the move to a gift economy and collaborative commons. It is slowly, slowly gathering momentum.
Massive cuts to welfare budgets hitting the poorest and disadvantaged hardest. University student fees to rise threefold, education maintenance allowance for the poorest students scrapped. Lollipop ladies fired. Bookstart scrapped. Slash and burn of public services. The vast majority of the population seeing real disposable income fall as prices rise and the economy deflates.
We are all in it together!
Not if you are the super rich who have seen their wealth rise by a third in the year just ended. Not if you are tax dodgers like Sir Philip Green, Vodafone, Boots and many others.
Not if you are those who pushed through the austerity measures and slash and burn of public services. They celebrated Christmas and saw in the New Year living a life of Riley.
Millionaire Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne saw in the New Year at the exclusive Swiss ski resort of Klosters. No doubt those he rubbed shoulders with were happy to swap tips on the latest tax avoidance scams. But then Osborne does have the Finance Director of Vodafone as his adviser on corporate tax.
Probably the worst was House of Commons Speaker John Bercow elected to the position in the wake of the expenses scandal on a manifesto to clean up Parliament. Whilst the plebs shivered in the cold and the crush on the Embankment to watch the world’s most spectacular firework display to see in the New Year, Bercow held a lavish party on the House of Commons Terrace so he and his invited cronies could see in the New Year in style. Commons lackeys and flunkies were in attendance, including the Deputy Serjeant-at-Arms. One of those present was Prison Minister Cripin Blunt, having a good time whilst HMP Ford open prison in Sussex burnt to the ground. Bercow’s wife gushed on twitter what a wonderful time they were having.
Please try not to throw up when you watch this video featuring a New Year message from the loathsome Nick Clegg.
On of the first few words to pour forth from the mouth of the loathsome Nick Clegg is power,and that is what it is all about, power and clinging on to power.
Clegg claims the credit for what the LibDems have not done, he claims things being done that are not being done. We have all noticed the clampdown on tax dodgers which is why Vodafone, Sir Philip Green, Boots and many others are laughing all the way to their banks in off-shore tax havens.
He claims hard choices. No, there were not hard choices. You were there to represent people who were lied to, who were conned into foolishly voting LibDems on a pack of lies and false promises.
The hard choices are faced by those on benefits who are faced with a choice of eating or heating.
The hard choices are faced by those now denied a chance to go to university because LibDems like Clegg voted for a threefold increase in university tuition fees and a scrapping of Education Maintenance Allowance for the poorest students.
It is not only Clegg. The Telegraph interviews with LibDem ministers showed they do not support or agree with the policies they are voting for but nevertheless vote for them to keep themselves in power.
We had Vincent Cable, the man who forced through the hike in student tuition fees bragging he could bring down the government if he walked out. The next day grovelling to remain in power, clinging on by his fingertips.
We have seen Simon Hughes, opposed to the hike in student tuition fees, but not having the guts to vote against, now appointed by the ConDem government to promote the very same policy he claimed he was against.
‘Scuse me, I think I need to be sick.
The good news is the LibDems will be wiped out at the next election
Not only did LibDems fail to honour their election pledge on not hiking student fees, they pledged fair taxes, a fair society, no broken promises like the othert parties. We are different claimed the loathsome Nick Clegg.
Fairness? Cutting Education Maintenance Allowance to the poorest kids who wish to stay on in education. Hiking student fees to three times their current levels.
Affordable housing? Cutting housing benefits.
Fair Taxes? Letting the rich avoid paying tax.
The trail of broken promises comes to an end. We can say goodbye to broken promises.
But then the loathsome Nick Clegg got the whiff of power and the stench went to his head.
On Thursday the 9th of December I made the journey from my sleepy Oxfordshire village to ULU, London, to join the Day X protest. What woke me, a studious even ‘nerdy’ sixth former, from the slumber of my comfortable middle class existence? Why, when I will not directly be effected by the £9,000 a year tuition fees, did I care enough to take to the streets of London? Because I felt cheated, betrayed even, by the political system our country calls a democracy. I, like the rest of my generation, or even the entire country, has been let down by a system supposed to act in our best interests.
I was too young to vote in the elections so I decided to try and have some small influence on the course of our country’s future. In my overwhelmingly Conservative constituency I had the youthful audacity to think that by campaigning—leafleting and posting posters—
I could influence the outcome of the election. I couldn’t as it turns out, however, it’s not my failure to influence the outcome that irks me—even given that I’m hopeful I brought at least a few people out to vote Liberal Democrat, whose votes in a proportionally representative system would have meant something. It’s the fact that I did it at all—in the pouring rain—that bothers me. I helped, and so did many others who believed in the liberal cause, with the grass roots political activities of a party that has subsequently abandoned my generation in the pursuit of personal power.
I was sold an ideology by the Liberal Democrats. Their principles of fairness, free education and nuclear reduction resonated with me. So much so that I was willing to get out of my metaphorical armchair and do something about it. However, I was lied to. I was led to act on false pretences; we all were. Normally misrepresentation of such a magnitude as that seen in the Liberal Democrats electoral campaign would lead to a trading standards investigation if it were a corporation concerned. Here, however, it leads to a political party entering into a government with no mandate and abandoning its principles.
Last Thursday was a watershed. Not because of what the protestors or even the police did but because of what the government did. They vandalised our education system in a far more costly manner than any army of protestors could hope to do to Parliament Square. They demonstrated that the government, the entire political ruling class, has lost touch with the reality of the lives of those they supposedly represent.
This is where UKUncut comes in. When the public become disenfranchised from the political system, when they feel that there is an injustice occurring, they grumble. However, this inactive response to injustice can be rectified, this maelstrom of disgruntled grumblers can be turned into an army for justice and equality. My generation are willing to fight for what they believe in, they’ve proved that in the last month of student protests, and they are ready to be mobilised. It’s now time to mobilise the rest of society because tax avoidance affects all of us.
The biggest factor that deters many 6th formers and collage students from attending these marches in my experience is the cost of travel to London. What better to combat this than by mobilising people in their own communities? What better that to annul their worries about large periods spent missing vital education than organising short targeted protests on weekends? We have a historic opportunity to make a change to the way power is structured in this country, the world even. The people for too long have been at the behest of a ruling political class who are out of touch with its people. How can 18 millionaire ministers understand what it is to be a working or middle class student, public servant or worker? By mobilising the people of this country, not just the students and sixth-formers, but everyone UKUncut has a chance to change the world for good.
Small leaderless highly targeted actions are the way forward. We still need vast numbers of people to come out on the streets of our capital, to strike and to take part in civil disobedience but this won’t be enough. We can see in the media portrayal and in public perceptions of Thursday’s protest that these protests can be marginalised and categorised as despicable violent and thuggish events. These perceptions are of course unfair and unfounded because these people were not there. They were not crushed bodily against walls by advancing lines of riot police who were indiscriminately striking out into a crowd of protesters whose hands were raised above their heads in surrender and who were shouting “peaceful protest” until their throats could no longer stand the strain. They didn’t feel the fear and anger as advancing lines of mounted police threatened to crush their friends. What the public and the media can identify with, however, is peaceful direct action on every high street in this country. They can immediately see the injustice of the super rich evading taxes that their grandparents pay on their pensions, that the lowest paid workers in our country pay without option. They can get behind our cause.
So here’s my rallying cry. Go home from the streets of London with hope in your hearts because you can change the future. Take the anger you feel at the injustices you’ve seen, the pain of the bruises you may have received at the hands of your own police force, and turn it into action in your community. It takes fewer than 10 people sat in front of a shop doorway with a placard and leaflets to get our message across. We may have lost the battle on Thursday but we are winning the war. A poet read one of his pieces before we set off from ULU on Thursday. He said: “for a long time now, over the skies of this silver land, the Gods of conscience have been sleeping”. It is our job now to wake this country, to turn the wrath of its people towards inequity and to stop the tax-dodging rich and their ideologue counterparts in government from bringing down our country.
A guest blog on UK Uncut by Andrew Pryde, a sixth form student from Oxfordshire.
Shameful massive vandalism in Westminster today: the Tories and Lib Dems voted to smash up our universities and chance of poor kids getting on. – Johann Hari
When Parliament is surrounded by barricades to keep the people out. When Parliament is guarded by riot police to keep the people out. When this happens we know that those inside no longer represent the people.
And so it proved to be on Wednesday 9 December 2010 when Parliament voted to triple student fees.
We knew there was going to be trouble when the police tried to stop people reaching Parliament, when they tried to kettle people.
But people were posting locations of police on twitter and google, the protesters slipped around the police blockades by slipping down side streets and playing cat and mouse with the police.
Parliament Square was reached, but not before police had charged protesters with horses, beaten and attacked protesters. One report from @pennyred had a man in a wheelchair attacked by the police
Early afternoon Mark Thomas commented on twitter:
There are a small minority causing trouble in Parliament Square but they are dressed with blue helmets and visors so easy to spot.
What was it all about?
There was a vote to triple students fees. The Universities were not gaining anything from this as their teaching grants were to be slashed by a massive 80%. The hike in student fees was merely to make up the shortfall. Humanities, social sciences, the arts, were to receive no teaching grant at all. What we were seeing was the privatisation of the universities and students to be saddled with massive debts to pay for it.
At the moment, middle class students get through university because their obliging parents help them to pay their bills. Many for example get their accommodation paid for by parents. This is unlikely to happen for the next generation of student as their middle class parents will still be paying off their student debts.
The increase in student fees to £9,000 a year is neither fair nor affordable. It is not even likely the taxpayer will get their money back as the underlying assumption is that these future graduates will be earning in real terms the equivalent of £100,000 a year today.
The media and the political elite all went to the same universities. In England, the politicians all went to the same elite universities, all studied the same subjects – politics, philosophy and economics. Subjects which future students will have to be rich to study as there will be no teaching grants to the universities for these subjects and the politicians today voted to triple student fees.
When the final House of Commons vote was taken to hike student fees it was Yes 323, No 302, with a majority of 21.
Shame on those LibDem MPs who failed to vote against. For those LibDems in government it was all about clinging on to power.
Nick Clegg even called the students ‘dreamers’ Well if young people cannot have dreams, who can. Maybe he should read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.
It was then that the trouble started. First the Treasury was attacked, and contrary to the false report by chief political reporter Nick Robinson (a Tory) protesters did not get into the Treasury. The Treasury was attacked to chants of ‘we want our money back’.
Next it was the turn of the Supreme Court.
A fringe broke away and trashed Topshop in Oxford Street. Why Topshop? Because billionaire owner of Topshop Sir Philip Green is a tax dodger. If the government forced all tax dodgers to pay their unpaid taxes, there would be no budget deficit. Tweets from the streets said shoppers and public joining in. All pushing forward to take pictures.
£7 billion was cut from welfare. Vodafone owe £6 billion in tax. And yet, we can find £7 billion to bail out Ireland. Why because Ireland owes money to our banks. Were the British people asked? No! Why are we bailing out ailing economies?
The money is there for these bailouts. It is held by the rich. The same people who avoid their taxes.
Sup Julia Pendry speaking outside Scotland Yard in the evening criticised violence, but only violence against police officers. No mention of police violence. No mention of police charge with horses.
Sup Julia Pendry speaking outside Scotland Yard said police expected peaceful protest outside Parliament. Police blocked from getting near Parliament.
Sup Julia Pendry speaking outside Scotland Yard said police are tired and want to go home, will protesters please calm down and go home. Protesters tried to go home home, the police would not let them.
Sup Julia Pendry speaking outside Scotland Yard said containment did not happen until violence broke out. And that was why they used containment. Kettling was taking place early afternoon to stop student approaching Parliament.
This was in the evening. Speaking earlier she complained protesters did not follow agreed route. Protesters went down side streets to avoid police blockades.
A former police public order intelligence officer speaking live on Sky News at 2020 GMT said he had never seen this level of violence
Students on Sky news did not say what was expected. This is what happens in Europe, it was bound to happen here. What did they expect, us to just lie down? What do you expect? The police are badly organised and do not know what is going on. If the students could have got into Parliament they would have as politicians not listening
A bit unfair to attack Prince Charles on his way to a Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium (that in itself punishment enough). After all he did not vote for student fees hikes.
In Oxford Street a member of the public talking on Sky News said people were joining in on their way home from work. It was all ages. People joined in to support the students.
Will Met Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson admit charge with horses? He did not at the last protest.
Paul Stephenson said he wanted peaceful demo not violence. Why then the police tactics at the beginning of the day? Police tactics that served to raise tension.
Strong basis for university funding – Vince Cable Nick Clegg and David Cameron then walked out. They may have won the vote, they did not win the debate
By late night, been very cold since sun went down, people without food or water, still being held in Westminster Bridge kettle, people collapsing and falling ill. Police refusing to send in medics.
Winston Churchill tonight overlooked a scene of desolation. It was a very sad day for democracy.
Michael Portillo on BBC One This Week said for the Coalition what happened on the streets was a bad day. He knows from when he was in government in the 1980s and the Poll Tax.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4 News The World Tonight the LibDem chief whip showed the utter contempt the LibDems have for the electoral when he said by the next election all will be forgotten. The discussion that followed also showed the same contempt, the focus being on were the LibDems in disarray, had they been harmed? Not a word on the harm to students who will be forced to pay the higher fees.
A college lecturer speaking on BBC One Question Time said students were returning speaking of being roughed up by the police. And whilst the focus has been on student fees, we should not forget college students from poorer backgrounds who get an Education Maintenance Grant to encourage them to stay on is education. This will be scrapped.
I do not blame the police or the protesters for the violence. I blame Nick Clegg and Vince Cable, they have blood on their hands. They may have won the vote but they have totally lost public support. The LibDems are finished. The last Tory government won the Poll Tax vote. Look what then happened.
Think if the vote went the other way. Instead of anger and violence on the streets there would have been partying and rejoicing.
Best student banner on the day: Why did Nick Clegg cross the road? Because he promised not to.
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