The Carnival of Revolt

Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, January 6th, 2011 - 5 comments
Categories: International, uk politics - Tags:

The British website False Economy has just put up “12 essential posts”  on the significance of the British student protests. My favourites are this, this, this,  and this one. There’s no doubt that this is evolving into something big, in ways that the main stream media, with a few exceptions, has been slow to grasp.

It’s not just about fees, or cuts, but about the essential corruption of the current system; so it replays the confrontation between the great British radical movements of the past and the landed-gentry “Old Corruption” that they fought to tame. Compared to 1968, the student movement is now much larger and more broadly based, with deeper roots into the working class and society in general, and so the revolt is, if anything, more profound.

The latest action has been to publish witty ads outing the Chanceller of the Exchequer George Osborne as the most artful of tax dodgers in a government of dodgers (click to see the full view).

The protest movement knows it can win, because the Liberal-Conservative coalition only has a tiny minority in Parliament, and no real mandate for its policies, which are those of a hidden agenda; even the IMF, in a stark reversal of its past line, has teamed up with the International Labor Organization to warn that tax breaks for the rich and austerity for the rest risk making the recession worse and creating a “wasteland of unemployment“, a problem that can perhaps only be solved by increasing workers’ power and level of unionisation.

Yet none of this (perhaps predictably) has had any effect on a Conservative political class, the dominant element in the coalition, which is so obviously engaged in feathering its own nest, when it is not playing a bug-eating Renfield to the vampire squids of Wall Street. The Liberal Party faces oblivion. As for Labour, its elevation of the relatively new and left-wing Ed Miliband seems to have been a smart move; it would have been a catastrophe for Labour if its leadership, too, were seen as part of the Old Corruption that must be swept away.

ChrisH

5 comments on “The Carnival of Revolt ”

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  1. john 1
    6 January 2011 at 4:45 pm

    The Tory Government is a certifiably insane member of the Privatize everything in sight club of the U$ NeoLiberal Greed is good system of Government by the rich for the rich.They’re morally and philosophically bankrupt cretins of the U$ Failed Private Wealth, and f.ck the public good, system.
    It’s arguable that the UK government does not have a spending crisis; it has a tax avoidance crisis. Official accounts suggest that the tax gap amounts to £42bn(2). Richard Murphy of Tax Research has demonstrated that this figure cannot be correct, as it contradicts other government statistics. He estimates that avoidance now amounts to £25bn a year, evasion to £70bn, and outstanding debts to the tax service to £28bn: a total of more than £120bn(3).

    It’s manifestly mad that in the name of doing away with Humanities studies that will force poorer young Brits onto the dole rather than the self respect University study would have given them and their society! The aim is to Privatixe businessize higher education.

    Sort out the 100 BILLION a year Tax dodgers don’t make class warfare on the less privileged!

  2. Maynard J 2
    6 January 2011 at 10:59 pm

    I love the ambuguity of the English language. At a glance, the ad could be funded by a lot of people who want Osborne to pay his taxes, or it could be funded by a lot of people, including Osborne himself, who want people to pay their taxes (not specifically including Osborne).

  3. Kevin Welsh 3
    7 January 2011 at 6:25 pm

    My youngest brother is back home from on holiday. He lives and works in London. Whilst talking to him on Christmas Day, I asked him about the student protests and demonstrations going on in London and he told me that there is a huge level of dissatisfaction with the government.

    I said to him that from my viewpoint here in New Zealand there is almost a whif of anarchy in the air over there at the moment, to which he replied “that’s exactly what it feels like, I think the government have bitten off more than they can chew on this one”.

    Change is gathering pace all over Europe, one pocket of resistance at a time.

  4. Drakula 4
    7 January 2011 at 11:08 pm

    I dearly hope that the winds of change will blow over here, but it is going to take a lot of work this year to the word out.

    More importantly to get young people out there to vote!!!!

    The left needs to be heavily pitching it’s ideology to all tertiary level students who are at the voting age then the schools because they are tomorrows voters.

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