Cuts protest (From Witney Gazette)

About 700?
Whats that then,give or take a 1,000
Is this news?
Why not,
About 700 people from Oxfordshire travelled to London to watch Football at West Ham,Spurs Fulham and QPR.
It has about the same relevance newswise.

A more interesting analysis would be:
a. How many of the 700 are receiving benefits?
b. How many are gainfully employed (or at least admitting it)?
c. How many are supporters of the Labour party?
d. How did they get there? By transport provided? By whom?

On a normal weekday morning around 700 workers board the 06:59 service to Paddington...

On a normal Saturday morning peak around 700 people board the Tube & X90 services in an hour to visit London.

Judging by the weekend queues, it *looked* like 150,000 people visited Bicester Village...

700 from the whole of Oxfordshire seems to be a fairly poor turnout.

At least 700 people from Oxfordshire can be bothered to protest at the austerity measures imposed upon the majority of the population by the millionaire 'Bullingdon Boys' coalition government instead of making inane 'I'm alright jack' type comments.
Do the authors of the two earlier posts not use the NHS, State Education or other aspects of the welfare system? Do they not want to defend them? Do they not realise that it was because earlier generations of people could be bothered to protest that they do not have to send their children up chimneys or down into the mines, that they now have weekends, paid holidays, shorter working weeks, the vote and dozens of other rights and benefits. If people are not prepared to stand up, protest and fight back then we risk turning the clock back to the worst excesses of previous centuries and Victorian values such as exploitation and inequality.

I was one of them.

I'm not on benefits.
I am gainfully employed, although on a pay freeze and underpaid for my job.
I am not a supporter of the Labour Party, I don't even like the Labour Party and booed them at the event along with thousands of others.
I got there on a free coach paid for my union membership. The coach I was on was full of NHS workers. So perhaps next time you unfortunately need to visit the hospital you'll think about who you attempting to insult.

Maybe 150,000 people did visit Bicester village. It's not really a significant comparison though. I realise you are trying to undermine the effectiveness of such an event but why? What is your problem with people, whether they are Labour supporters or on benefits on not, making the effort to get together and use their voices to protest against unpopular and unnecessary measures?

Unnecessary because we're not all in it together. If we were actually in it together then the "why are people complaining about having to cut down on things?" argument might stand. It's not like that, a minority of people are hoarding the wealth, land, money and power for themselves. The ones who are actually suffering as a result aren't the minority with the wealth. They are the kind of people who got on those coaches to go to London, nurses, doctors and so on.

Personally speaking I'm not doing to badly, I'm not on the bottom of the ladder but I'm not at the top or even the middle but I feel it is my duty to make an effort to support those around me that need the help. It's better than getting off on making negative comments about other people's efforts.

I don't hear anyone, especially not the Labour party, making any viable suggestions for alternative ways of getting the country out of the financial mess it's in.

Until that happens, these protests are empty.

The rest of the population either couldn't afford to get there, or are staunch Tories.
Simple way to boost the economy for many years to come, build a new airport in the Thames estuary to replace Heathrow, then the area currently occupied by Heathrow airport could be used to build at least 60,000 new homes

There is only one solution .... revolution!

There is only one solution .... revolution!

So good I said it twice!!

I dont use the NHS,ive got private health,(for which i get taxed)but i still have to pay more NI than people who use it.
Im being made redundant in March from Didcot power station,why because Tony Blair and his Labour plebs decided to make Britain martyrs to the Green cause.Germany are building 16 new ones.
At the age of 53 i will be on the scrap heap,but in the 5 months between now and then,i will still be expected to pay my taxes and NI,all of which will pay for Public sector pensions.
Dont know what im talking about?
Well my brother and sister in law have just retired aged sixty with a joint pension of £40k plus,a year.
Contributions combined,less than me,
but ill be working till im 70 to pay for pensions of public sector workers.
Dont like it,well get another job,like everbody else is trying to do.

I hesitate to ask but were you ever in a union? If so were you actively involved? If not then why not?
You do not have to accept being sacked.
Organise with your fellow workers a strike and occupation of Didcot power station. Bring it under workers' control."The great only appear great because we are on our knees".

ps You will not be paying for public sector workers pensions. Their schemes are contributory schemes self-funded and paid for by public sector workers past, present and in the future. Do not swallow the lies of this Con-Dem government.

pps Tony Blair and New Labour were never on the side of the working class.

Was Bob Crow there?

He was on a question panel recently, and stated that he lived in a council house, and that all information about him was publically available - he has nothing to hide. Curious about what he said all I could find on the rmt site was his name and photo, so i googled with the wiki /newspaper report in 2009 that tallied. It stated that he had taken a 12% pay increase to a pay total of some 130,000 per year. He lives in a 3 bedroom end terrace authority owned house. A spokeman there said that people can fall on hard times after moving on so the tenancy agreement does not require you to move on and let a much poorer person move in. It then goes on comparing public/private rents which he argues it makes no difference in profit as if he had had a mortgage he would have paid it off by now. So not only admiting that he has little financial nounce, he doesn't get the point about social housing principle; it's nothing to do with social class but affordability. So he is definitely not part of 'we're all in it together'!

700 people was the number who travelled on the TU organised transport. More poepl made their way using public transport. Gievn the level of political expression by the populace in the country the 150,000 was immensly significant - just not deemed newsworthy. If had peope lined the road to celebrate Cameron or the Queen it would be a different story - one that was spalshed across the front pages of the national media and TV.
Most of the people who went were low paid workers - the majority of who will get a pension of around £5000/year - and will need benefits to support them in their old age assuming they manage to get to 68 working in the NHS etc. Of course no-one here minds me administering their drugs when I am 68, or trying to lift them on to a bed pan, when I am too old and their are no staff because some Richard Branson clone will let most of them go when they takes over the JRII and run it for their profit and not anyone's wellbeing..
A couple of people were on benefits - Alan who needed 5 people to push him round the march BECAUSE HE CAN'T WALK AND IS HAVING HIS BENEFITS CUT. I have no doubt the critics above will do the decent thing and contact me to arrange for him to get a job to replace his essential income because there are lots of employers out there ready to employ disabled 50 year old men - we just lack the acute perception of the critics above to spot them.
There were some unemployed - laid off at 55 due to the recession - but hey lets kick them too for being victims of a recession they did not make.
When people have finished kicking the disabled and the unemployed they can then move on to the principled pensioners who remember the war, and life without the welfare state, and spent their diminishing energy standing up for a society where people look after the most vulnerable and demand that some of the fantastic wealth that has been squirreled away in tax havens is used to give young people jobs and homes, protect the NHS the majority need (and which the private sector has always parasited off as it doesn't train any of it's own staff).
Yes the cash is there to pay off the deficit. £120 billion unpaid corporation tax could pay off the deficit tomorrow. So stop the shameful carping about people being unemployed, scroungers, greedy public sector workers and admit what this is really about - letting the stinking rich off the hook, covering up for their greed and criminal behaviour and attacking the victims. You'd rather kick a disabled person than take on a tax dodger any day - shameful cowards.

Whilst it is very sad that ANYBODY should lose their job and suffer financially the fact is that during this current recession they are and do. Individuals that work for the government should not be excluded from this should the need arise. Public sector employees should realise that their jobs exist becuse the public pay for them, and if the public themselves are under financial pressure then it follows that they too must suffer accordingly. Remember also that historically improvements in social services have grown according to the wealth of the country, should that wealth contract then again so should the social welfare budget. Two hundred years ago state funded social security was virtually non existant!

Whilst it is very sad that ANYBODY should lose their job and suffer financially the fact is that during this current recession they are and do. Individuals that work for the government should not be excluded from this should the need arise. Public sector employees should realise that their jobs exist becuse the public pay for them, and if the public themselves are under financial pressure then it follows that they too must suffer accordingly. Remember also that historically improvements in social services have grown according to the wealth of the country, should that wealth contract then again so should the social welfare budget. Two hundred years ago state funded social security was virtually non existant!

Thank you all for an interesting debate. The one theme that comes through the ‘anti s ‘ comments is that this WAS a political protest, not a protest against cuts so much as an anti-Coallition protest. If the ‘ant s’ were really to focus their attention on the culprits in this whole debacle, they would be protesting outside the Labour Party’s HQ and Gordon Brown’s home. Cameron and Clegg have bitten the bullet (unlike more Socialist leaders in Europe) and tried to deal with the problem created by the Blair/Brown Coallition and most likely, Britain will be one of the first to emerge positively from the economic recession. That, of course, means little to the politically motivated, who are happy to use specific examples of hardship to critisize positive actions that they do not politically agree with.
There is no doubt that this economic crissis was caused by the US with their policy of lending to the very people that could not afford to repay their loans on the back of providing ‘social housing’, a very socialist term if ever there was one. However, the extragent borrowing by the Labour Government exacerbated the situation. Yes, there was a day of reconing for their profligate economic policies, but the US crisis merely brought that day of reconing forward.
So protesters; I suggest you get your union comrades and your union organisers to go and protest to the very people that created this crisis here in the UK – The Labour Party, Tony and his Cronies and Gordon Brown.

GrahamForbes wrote:
Thank you all for an interesting debate. The one theme that comes through the ‘anti s ‘ comments is that this WAS a political protest, not a protest against cuts so much as an anti-Coallition protest. If the ‘ant s’ were really to focus their attention on the culprits in this whole debacle, they would be protesting outside the Labour Party’s HQ and Gordon Brown’s home. Cameron and Clegg have bitten the bullet (unlike more Socialist leaders in Europe) and tried to deal with the problem created by the Blair/Brown Coallition and most likely, Britain will be one of the first to emerge positively from the economic recession. That, of course, means little to the politically motivated, who are happy to use specific examples of hardship to critisize positive actions that they do not politically agree with.
There is no doubt that this economic crissis was caused by the US with their policy of lending to the very people that could not afford to repay their loans on the back of providing ‘social housing’, a very socialist term if ever there was one. However, the extragent borrowing by the Labour Government exacerbated the situation. Yes, there was a day of reconing for their profligate economic policies, but the US crisis merely brought that day of reconing forward.
So protesters; I suggest you get your union comrades and your union organisers to go and protest to the very people that created this crisis here in the UK – The Labour Party, Tony and his Cronies and Gordon Brown.

What an uneducated, opinionated pile of complete tosh.

You'd be better served putting the internet to good use by educating yourself with the basic facts instead of the drivel you appear to have gleaned from the political musings of the pub bore.

CowleyBoy wrote:
I don't hear anyone, especially not the Labour party, making any viable suggestions for alternative ways of getting the country out of the financial mess it's in.

Until that happens, these protests are empty.

Are you deaf or just terminally stupid?

You aren't going to hear anything of worth reading the Scum or the Daily Nazi except the echo of your own stupidity.

GrahamForbes wrote:
A more interesting analysis would be:
a. How many of the 700 are receiving benefits?
b. How many are gainfully employed (or at least admitting it)?
c. How many are supporters of the Labour party?
d. How did they get there? By transport provided? By whom?

What part of a TUC organised protest march do you not understand?

All of it by the sound of it.

saddletramp wrote:
I dont use the NHS,ive got private health,(for which i get taxed)but i still have to pay more NI than people who use it.
Im being made redundant in March from Didcot power station,why because Tony Blair and his Labour plebs decided to make Britain martyrs to the Green cause.Germany are building 16 new ones.
At the age of 53 i will be on the scrap heap,but in the 5 months between now and then,i will still be expected to pay my taxes and NI,all of which will pay for Public sector pensions.
Dont know what im talking about?
Well my brother and sister in law have just retired aged sixty with a joint pension of £40k plus,a year.
Contributions combined,less than me,
but ill be working till im 70 to pay for pensions of public sector workers.
Dont like it,well get another job,like everbody else is trying to do.

Er, if you get knocked over is there a special number I need to call for your private ambulance?

You do not pay anything towards my public sector pension but if you feel the need I can give you a bank account number.

If you think working in the public sector is so wonderful feel free to apply for a job like everyone else who works there. It is open to everyone you know.

Victor's_friend wrote:
Was Bob Crow there?

He was on a question panel recently, and stated that he lived in a council house, and that all information about him was publically available - he has nothing to hide. Curious about what he said all I could find on the rmt site was his name and photo, so i googled with the wiki /newspaper report in 2009 that tallied. It stated that he had taken a 12% pay increase to a pay total of some 130,000 per year. He lives in a 3 bedroom end terrace authority owned house. A spokeman there said that people can fall on hard times after moving on so the tenancy agreement does not require you to move on and let a much poorer person move in. It then goes on comparing public/private rents which he argues it makes no difference in profit as if he had had a mortgage he would have paid it off by now. So not only admiting that he has little financial nounce, he doesn't get the point about social housing principle; it's nothing to do with social class but affordability. So he is definitely not part of 'we're all in it together'!

Bob Crow was democratically elected as the leader of the RMT by it's fee paying members who also set the pay.

Bob Crow has dedicated his life to improving the lot of fellow workers.

Bob Crow is not going to get a job in the City after his political career is over unlike MP's so when he moves on from this post he will need all the money to keep him afloat.

Bob Crow lives in the family home he has occupied for many years and in which he has many happy memories. If he were greedy he could easily buy it at a discount but he has decided to keep it in the social housing stock for others to use when he has passed on.

Bob Crow would be stupid to move out of his house with such a short term well paid job as there is no way he will earn anything like that anywhere else afterwards.

Since he became leader RMT's membership increased from around 57,000 in 2002 to more than 80,000 in 2008 easily covering his wages.

Bob Crow earned in 2009 £94,747. You really need to be able to read Wikipedia properly before posting your silly sums.

Bob Crow lives in a housing association house, again, try to read your sources properly and listen a little more carefully when watching Question Time.

Is Victor aware of your glaring misunderstanding of 'facts'?

bodchris wrote:
Whilst it is very sad that ANYBODY should lose their job and suffer financially the fact is that during this current recession they are and do. Individuals that work for the government should not be excluded from this should the need arise. Public sector employees should realise that their jobs exist becuse the public pay for them, and if the public themselves are under financial pressure then it follows that they too must suffer accordingly. Remember also that historically improvements in social services have grown according to the wealth of the country, should that wealth contract then again so should the social welfare budget. Two hundred years ago state funded social security was virtually non existant!

The need hasn't arisen, it's ideological.

For every £1 of cuts £1.70 is lost to the economy.

As for the rest of your logic, quite frankly it's illogical.

DoctorBob wrote:

bodchris wrote:
Whilst it is very sad that ANYBODY should lose their job and suffer financially the fact is that during this current recession they are and do. Individuals that work for the government should not be excluded from this should the need arise. Public sector employees should realise that their jobs exist becuse the public pay for them, and if the public themselves are under financial pressure then it follows that they too must suffer accordingly. Remember also that historically improvements in social services have grown according to the wealth of the country, should that wealth contract then again so should the social welfare budget. Two hundred years ago state funded social security was virtually non existant!

The need hasn't arisen, it's ideological.

For every £1 of cuts £1.70 is lost to the economy.

As for the rest of your logic, quite frankly it's illogical.

£1 of cuts equal £1.70 lost to the economy? Where did you get that 'gem' from??

The need has arisen: I earn £1 each week but wish to spend £1.25 and borrow the extra 25p, OK. If I continue rhis week after week after week at some stage I will have to repay all the weekly 25p's I have borrowed plus the interest charged. Now unless I invested these 25ps in business that earned me 35p I am now in trouble. What is illogical abpot this? It's called reality and the labour party in it's eagerness to achieve 'social justice' (like Spain Greece Portugal and all the other tinpot european countries) have left us with a debt that has to be repayed. Not illogical but reality.

Finally! Exposed! The Deficit Myth! So, David Cameron When are You Going to Apologise?

http://www.huffingto
npost.co.uk/ramesh-p
atel/growth-cameron-
austerity_b_2007552.
html

bodchris wrote:

DoctorBob wrote:

bodchris wrote:
Whilst it is very sad that ANYBODY should lose their job and suffer financially the fact is that during this current recession they are and do. Individuals that work for the government should not be excluded from this should the need arise. Public sector employees should realise that their jobs exist becuse the public pay for them, and if the public themselves are under financial pressure then it follows that they too must suffer accordingly. Remember also that historically improvements in social services have grown according to the wealth of the country, should that wealth contract then again so should the social welfare budget. Two hundred years ago state funded social security was virtually non existant!

The need hasn't arisen, it's ideological.

For every £1 of cuts £1.70 is lost to the economy.

As for the rest of your logic, quite frankly it's illogical.

£1 of cuts equal £1.70 lost to the economy? Where did you get that 'gem' from??

The need has arisen: I earn £1 each week but wish to spend £1.25 and borrow the extra 25p, OK. If I continue rhis week after week after week at some stage I will have to repay all the weekly 25p's I have borrowed plus the interest charged. Now unless I invested these 25ps in business that earned me 35p I am now in trouble. What is illogical abpot this? It's called reality and the labour party in it's eagerness to achieve 'social justice' (like Spain Greece Portugal and all the other tinpot european countries) have left us with a debt that has to be repayed. Not illogical but reality.

Another economic illiterate.

I got that "gem" from the International Monetary Fund. It sort of makes your £1 borrowing story look a little light in the economics department.

http://www.imf.org/e
xternal/pubs/ft/weo/
2012/02/pdf/text.pdf


or a condensed version for you.

http://ftalphaville.
ft.com/2012/10/09/11
99151/its-austerity-
multiplier-failure/

How is making public sector workers redundant relevant to this as they spend nearly 70p in every pound they earn in the local economy?

Do you really think the country borrows money without a means to make it back? Have you taken out a mortgage without the means to pay it back? Britain's debt is long term (unlike Greece's) and easily manageable.

Some interesting facts for you:

The deficit just before the banking crash was less than when Labour took it over from the Tories in 97.

We had an even bigger deficit when we build millions of council houses and set up the NHS.