It was something that I haven’t really seen en masse before. It was something that some people had written off. They said was a bit old hat, doomed to a slow, dwindling death, if it even really existed. It was the working class. Not the working class in the shitty, nostalgic, culturally regressive sense that people invoke, not the deus ex machina mobilised to berate black people and gays for being too assertive of their legitimate rights. It was the working class as an agent of its own interests; it was a class for itself. It was the labour movement, every bit the multicultural entity that Cameron reviles. And that movement, comprising several millions of people, having lain dormant for years, is now looking decidedly up for a fight. If you’re a socialist in one of those workplaces on Monday morning, you should have an easier job arguing for militant strike action now, because people now know what they could not be sure of before: that we are many, and they are few.
I suppose there’ll be a lot of angst about the violence from fringe elements. There already seems to be an attempt to conflate it with UK Uncut’s various political comedy stunts off the line of march. I don’t think it will make much difference to public opinion on the issue itself. The Poll tax demo back in 1990 was the Gordon Riots in comparison to anything that happened today, but that didn’t change anyone’s mind; if anything it helped convince the government that Thatcher’s time was up, so one up there for the Great British street fighting man. And opposition to the government’s education polcies actually increased after that young fool threw a fire extinguisher off the roof of Tory Party hq and the Duchess of Cornwall endured a light goosing.
David Cameron’s Big Society plans came under attack again today after a Tory council agreed to sell off nine buildings that house charities.
At a tense meeting last night Hammersmith and Fulham decided to press ahead with the sale which it claims will raise up to £20 million to help pay off debt. Critics say the move will force the closure of up to 30 community groups and leave thousands of vulnerable residents without support.
One of the buildings, Palingswick House, which houses 22 charities, is expected to be sold to author Toby Young’s West London Free School. The sell-off comes after Dame Elisabeth Hoodless, outgoing director of Britain’s largest volunteering charity, warned that town hall cuts are destroying the “volunteer army”.
It always was one of those ideas only taken seriously in the Westminster media bubble; in the real world everybody knew what the Big Society meant. “Why don’t we fire you, cut the budgets of every government organisation that might help you, then pat you on the shoulder for doing the work for free we used to pay you to do”?
How the cuts in the grants central government provides local councils will be divided over London. It’s the poorest countries (deep red and mainly in the centre on the map above) who get the biggest cuts, the richer outer boroughs being hit relatively lightly. From the Londonist, which also has the raw data for the stat geeks amongst youse.
Good to see some militancy getting going finally. Hopefully that will be a nice little bill for the Tory scumbags, though it’s more likely they’ll find a way to let the taxpaper foot the bill. But this is what you can expect if you fuck with people’s lives, some fightback. If you want to saddle entire generations with unpayable debts for the dubious pleasure of receiving any eduction that would give them a slim chance of getting a job, did you think these people would just meekly swallow this? Of course not.
Lots of tutting in the establishment press of course and outrage by people who seem to expect they should never suffer the consequences of their own actions, whether jacking up student fees or, to pluck just one random example out of the air, lying about your opponents in an election campaign. (Did you see all the Labour piggies standing up for Phil “racist thug” Woolas yesterday?) Lots of reflexive distancing from some of the organisers and spokespeople of the students protests as well, because of course it’s not done to actually like a bit of property damage when done to the right people. But Arthur Baker is right to say that this wasn’t a minority stirring up trouble, but widely supported amongst students and bystanders alike:
I made a point to talk to as many people as possible, and whilst nobody wanted to see people hurt, they were perfectly happy to cheer as Tory HQ was vandalised; I didn’t find a single person objected to the vandalism, not even a police officer and a BBC journalist who both told me (off the record of course) that if they had been students, they would be doing the same – and who can blame them, when they face cuts and job losses too.
[…]
All of them should face justice, but for the record, putting a placard or an effigy of David Cameron on a bonfire is not violence, writing on walls is not violence, smashing windows is not violence and dancing on roves is not violence. Even throwing bits of cardboard placard at police clad in bullet proof jackets and helmets, armed with sheilds and battons hardly seems “thugishâ€.
To which I would add that the “perpetrators” should only face justice after e.g. the people who brought us the War on Iraq, or who killed Jean Charles de Menezes and Ian Tomlinson have been brought to justice. Priorities people.
Arthur also examines the question of whether this spontaneous action helped or hindered the students’ cause:
Finally the question of whether the incident at Milbank furthered our cause or damaged it. One thing missing from the news coverage was footage of the building being stormed by protesters in the first place, why? Surely protesters forcing the doors and surging in would make incredible footage? The answer is that the press simply weren’t there. In fact, the cameras only arrived half an hour after the protesters. On a march of 50,000, until the vandalism started, the only cameras I saw were from LSTV (Leeds student television).
In October thousands of students and trade unionists marched peacefully on downing street, and they did not make the news. Peaceful protests make boring news, without causing a bit of trouble we wouldn’t have been as big news, never mind having almost uninterrupted coverage on every TV news channel and dominating every front page.
What’s more, what cause did protesters ‘damage?’ protesters don’t want public sympathy, they want to create a feeling of unrest, and show that the Coalition are unpopular with the eventual aim of taking their votes, and this protest can only have furthered this aim.
Peaceful protest doesn’t work, unless there is the threat of more aggressive action as well. Strikes, civil disobedience and even a bit of violence has always been necessary in the fight to win and defend our collective rights. The best example of this, the antiwar protests in 2002/2003, including the largest demonstration ever held in the UK and which ultimately failed to move the government.
How the cap in housing benefits will work out, courtesy of Comment is Free commenter Texaspete82 (original here:
There are four parts to the HB reforms which will all be implemented by October 2011. The key reform – which affects 750,000 people and raises half a billion pounds per year – is the first of these.
1. Local Housing Allowance capped at the 30th percentile rent in every local housing market area (i.e. the level which allows – in theory – 30% of houses in the area to be afforded)…
2. …except in London, where the cap has been set significantly below this level (£250/week for 1 beds, £400/week for 4 beds)
3. A further 10% cut will be applied to those who have been unemployed for 1 year or more, to punish them for the crime of living during a recession
4. Housing Benefit capped at the 4-bed house rate to punish large families
To look at the full impact of this, you need to consult the VOA – the Government Agency responsible for setting Local Housing Allowance rates.
They’ve helpfully provided a table looking at the median rental rates (the current caps) and the 30 percentile rental rates (the future caps) in each local housing market area http://www.voa.gov.uk/lhadirect/Documents/LHA_percentile_rates_Oct_2010.html
Do have a look.
In Central London, the 30th percentile rent for a 4-bed is £850/week. There is no chance of anyone being able to afford to live in central London on housing benefit – the cap is set at less than half of the 30th percentile level. You could consider the poor to be “cleansed” from the area perhaps.
After moving out, they will not be eligible for the £400/week payment – this is only valid in central London remember. Elsewhere the 30th percentile cap applies. Let’s say they move to Outer South London, where their rent would be capped at £299/week. This is not an outragous rent for a 4-bed house – I challenge you to find a 4-bed house at this rate in this area. I live in this area, and I pay £210/week for a very small 2-bed flat in a down-at-heel area (and even then because I got a great deal from moving in when building work was still going on around me, and the landlord had to abandon plans to sell during the recession). Even my flat is £26/week beyond the 2-bed allowance for the area – and I don’t understand where all the 2-bed flats for £800/month are around me. I’m lucky – I have a decently-paid job (for now at least) and don’t claim HB, but it must be a worrying time for families who work in minimum wage jobs and rely on Housing Benefit to make ends meet.
If they lose their job, they have the further challenge of finding a 4-bed property for £270/week (or a 2-bed for £730/month). Not a chance.
And many, many people lose out beyond London too. Let’s imagine a family live in a 5-bed house in Tyneside and both parents lost their jobs in the recession in 2008. They are currently able to claim £207/week housing allowance. After the cap is applied, they are now only able to claim £140/week (£155 minus the £15 penalty for being unemployed). The Government will take £67/week from them. £3,500 taken from the poorest in society, in addition to spending cuts and VAT rises etc etc. This is not sharing the pain fairly is it?
Can you see what the fuss is about now?
The Tories have done a great PR job on getting the focus on the £400/week cap (despite the fact next to no-one will claim this, as it only applies in central London and there are no 4-beds to rent at half the 30th percentile rent) . Maybe a journalist may like to, say, scrutinise the plans and challenge the lies.
As Pete shows that much reported maximum of 400 pounds per week people can recieve in housing benefits is a red herring. There were rents are high enough that you might get it, they’re too high to be of much use, while elsewhere you would recieve a much lower rate still not enough to cover your rent.
