I have been in London over the past few days and just happened to be in Oxford Street/Regent St at the moment when those students protesting against Tuition Fees demonstrated the substance of their case by….smashing in windows, spraying graffiti on private property, emptying bins of rubbish across Oxford Street etc. The attack on Prince Charles/Camilla had just taken place a few moments beforehand. I was talking to some of the Officers on duty as they sought to contain the violence and my only criticism of them was that they were fat too constrained.
However, I then arrived home last evening and turned on the BBC (I know, yes, that was just asking for more trouble) and listened to a BBC interviewer doing everything possible to suggest that the Police had over-reacted and that the Students had been provoked into “responding.” What a disgrace that the National Broadcaster is little more than a mouthpiece for left wing thuggery!
Of course those of us old enough will remember how the BBC covered the poll tax riots and the Miners Strike riots and indeed every other occasion when the left has demonstrated muscle against the State. The State Broadcaster has always supported militant action against the State when a Conservative government is in power and I suggest to you that we are now living in 1979 all over again with the BBC as the propagandist in chief for those who want to being the Coalition down and reinstall a Labour government. Your thoughts?
‘…the National Broadcaster is little more than a mouthpiece for left wing thuggery!’
Form what some are noting on this blog, with clear examples, a wee bit more than a mouthpiece.
Frankly the government is getting what it deserves. At least in canine culture if you bear your neck you are spared. For the BBC it is just seen, with some justifciation, as weakness to be further exploited.
I would imagine that after recent events, the majority of people in this country will now know that all these violent, political-terrorist organisations such as UAF, SWP, Antifa etc. are simply front groups for the Labour Party.
All the while Labour were in power their anger and violence was aimed solely at the white working-class, (by using the tired, worn-out ‘Nazi’ slur as their lame excuse), never at the establishment.
A recent report from Holland explains the myth of the ‘far-right’ that the MSM, particularly the BBC, love to portray, and how it is in fact these far-left groups that pose by far the largest threat to democracy as well as law and order.
I’ll post the English translation when I can find it.
WTF simply front groups for the Labour Party? These groups barely tolerate the Labour Party.
Ken Livingstone is chairman of UAF which is an SWP sister organisation. I think you’ll find he’s Labour!
They also have stalls and meetings at the Labour Party conference each year, these are always addressed by Labour MP’s.
Cameron is also a supporter of the UAF. Not particularly surprising.
The key to this is that the UAF and Livingstone are Totskyites, and Labour is predominantly Marxist.
The two factions hate each other (which explains why Labour didn’t want Ken until they needed him more than their distaste repelled them).
Hence they use the Trots as their useful idiots and get them to do all their dirty work for them.
That’s right: they Trot them out on every such occasion(!)
Beeboids can be very selective about demonstsrations – they did their very , very, best to completely blank the last Countryside March from the nations ‘ screens. The biggest peaceful protest ever and somehow they missed it !
Then they wonder why rural people don’t like them & regard their ‘country’ programmes with disdain.
Yup, as reported by Mrs Bug (who had to stay behind to mind the farm and tried to keep up to date via the radio), the Beeb did its level best to shove said march down the running order as quickly as they possibly could.
Surpassing even their usual efforts at obsfuscation, it was even claimed at one point that we’d made our way to the capital to hear a speech by Michael Meacher !
=-O
Mr Charisma, clearly. I’m only sorry I missed out on that part of the proceedings.
Will BBC-NUJ follow ‘Daily Mail’ lead and condemn this behaviour by the likes of C. Gilmour?:
“Cenotaph hooligan son of Pink Floyd star was in the baying mob that surrounded Charles and Camilla’s car”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1337506/Tuition-fee-riot-Charlie-Gilmour-mob-surrounded-Charles-Camillas-car.html#ixzz17tf9ZRWR
Students protesting about ‘poverty’? Like C. Gilmour?
Scroll down to read about his £2000 Savile Row suits:
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/fashion/article7065600.ece
We don’t need no education we don’t need no crowd control
The Telegraph by line for this (not on-line) had shades of the Sun about it.
“We don’t need no education……………………..)
This is not mine, but it is still the best comment I have read about the situation:
all in all it’s just another prick in Whitehall.
Yes, of course the BBC support militant action and they’re certainly prepared to deceive for the cause. For example, last night Adrian Goldberg (sitting in for Stephen Nolan) introduced Anindya Bhattacharyya as ‘a mature student who was at the protest’. This may well be true, but Bhattacharyya is much more.
On his twitter account he describes himself as a writer and activist. A quck search shows that has written for Socialist Worker online (“A revolutionary anti-capitalist paper in Britain”), where he is in conversation with Peter Hallward, one of Alfie Meadows’ Marxist friends. Like Hallward, he has written for the far left Radical Philosphy magazine. Also, he appears to be a member of the violent UAF orgainsation.
Traffic reports on Radio 2 and BBC Radio London were broadcasting the exact route throughout the day. A rallying call indeed!
…my only criticism of them was that they were fat…
Fair enough.
That’s a “cruel thesis”, Asuka Langley Soryu of the red hair and attitude! 😉
[Japanese Anime reference, for those who didn’t ‘get’ my comm ent! Look up “Evangelion”…]
Yes we have seen it all before. The BBC is a disgrace.
The BBC’s own video footage showed students throwing things at the police all day, beginning long before the horses showed up. Throwing snooker balls and bottles isn’t violence?
Anyone notice the BBC calling the SWP who were involved in the student riots “Hard Left”?
Thought not, so why are they branding the EDL a “far right organisation” (BBC hate term) tonight? Anyone also notice the ‘genetic impartiality’ with which the BBC reports the EDL marches – this is odd as no one has demonstrated to me that the EDL are the violent trouble makers the BBC seems to imply – the ones who smash things up, attack people and descerate war memorials, i am not sure if it isn’t in fact the SWP who are causing the trouble by attacking a legitimate protest. Can the BBC actually report some facts about this or is that too much to ask!.
Why, in BBC land, is it ok for students to be upset about their fees but pretty close to hate crime for someone to protest about mass immigration?
The EDL are hugely (and deliberately so) mis-represented by the BBC and some other media sources. It’s all part of the agenda…
So Gilmour’s kid has been arrested for “theft”. I’ve heard about his Saville Row suit, but the pictures show him wearing his skinny girl’s black jeans he bought from H&M. The coat probably cost a few hundred, of course. Glad he’s down with the working classes, just the kind of advocate they need.
Yes; update for BBC-NUJ-NUS:-
“Men Held Amid Hunt For Tuition Fee Protesters”
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Two-Men-Arrested-After-Police-Release-Images-Of-14-People-Wanted-Over-Student-Fees-Protest-Violence/Article/201012215852052?lpos=UK_News_Top_Stories_Header_0&lid=ARTICLE_15852052_Two_Men_Arrested_After_Police_Release_Images_Of_14_People_Wanted_Over_Student_Fees_Protest_Violence
Yet another example of the BBC trying to link the student riots to the Poll Tax riots: Ever-excitable Jon Sopel’s opening question on today’s Politics Show:
“Is this the coalition’s Poll Tax moment, as it were?”
Is this the coalition’s Poll Tax moment, as it were?”
A prelude to seven more years in power? Well, if you insist…..
“We want the public to help us identify these people who may have been involved in violent disorder, attacking police officers and smashing buildings, shops and windows,”
FFS thousands of police were present in the area this was going on. Snatch squads could have taken those causing criminal damage out there and then. Instead, long after they have all melted away home, the police now want OUR help in finding out who they are.
I thought the Public need the help of the Police, not the other way around.
The closing credits of the Politics Show were accompanied by what Jon Sopel called “some more of the images from the streets of London on Thursday”.
What followed were heavily edited scenes mostly consisting of menacing police advancing and charging at students, shouting and wielding batons. There were fewer scenes of students, and they were shown mostly shaking their fists or jumping up and down, smiling.
A propaganda film by the SWP wouldn’t have been very different to this abysmal effort.
It really is about time that criminal (and in some cases, treason) charges were brought against BBC bods involved in these deliberate deceptions and skewing of news. If they can’t hack it as impartial State broadcaster staff, they shouldn’t be there and never should ahve been there.
They and those who appointed them but failed to remove them when their true nature became evident should all be up on charges of various sorts.
Can’t find any reference by the BBC to this demo yesterday involving 1000 police and 11 arrests:
http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/community/local-services-and-contacts/police_services_2_1875/1_000_officers_involved_in_policing_protests_1_1894467
Was this a “mainly peaceful” protest (as one site says it was)? Was the policing disproportionale and the arrests due to heavy-handed policing? I think we should be told by the state broadcaster. I also notice that among those arrested are some of school age. I am sure they will receive the same commendation from the BBC for standing up for what they believe in as Charlie Gilmour and his mates do, especially if their members of the EDL.
Listening to the “The World This Weekend” today (or as much of it as I could physically stand before becoming nauseous) I heard Jo Cockburn of “Politics Show” fame interview various students who all claimed that free universal higher education was a “right” (presumably regardless of intelligence or aptitude) and that masses of young people would be put off enjoying this benefit by the hike in tuition fees.
One of them went on to claim that one of the achievements of New Labour was to massively increase the numbers going on to higher education. Ah, but with great respect, Lord Copper, didn’t New Labour introduce tuition (and top-up) fees in the first place meaning that, by your thesis, the numbers attending university should have fallen not risen?
Alas, Ms Cockburn was so concerned with presenting the BBC agenda of attacking the Coalition and the Lib Dems’ role in it, in particular, that she did not have the opportunity to point out this particular logical contradiction in this young person’s argument. But then, as aficionados of “The Politics Show” may know, Ms Cockburn, whatever her other manifold qualites may be, is not exactly the sharpest knife in the box, intellectually speaking.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnz4
Apologies. BBC reports Peterborough demo here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-11979295
Hmm, only 2 charged. EDL behaving better than the NUS? Surely not!
Two non-INBBC reports on EDL in Peterborough here
(scroll down):
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/
Every photo you look at a good proportion of the people in the pictures are photographers. At the time of G20 riots I recall there was one masked anarchist smashing a bank window surrounded by a circle of twenty or more photographers snapping away.
These are not run of the mill landscape or wedding portrait phoographers doing a little diversifying. There is an industry of freelancers who specialise in urban disorder, who come from the same squat-ridden parts of East London. Pushing cameras into policemen’s faces from within the rioting crowd for that “attacked by the police”angle of view.
The media picture editors are a ready market for this, in the same way some solicitors attack the police through “lawfare”, representing little Johnny who was hit on the head with a truncheon.
I’m not sure how much longer I can stomach anarchist rioters doing criminal-damage being described by lazy incompetent or malicious copy editors as “tuition fees protestors”.
I’ve taken the liberty of re-posting this from an earlier thread because it seems relevant here:-
In deciding who was responsible for the violence, it’s instructive to look at the origins of the organising body “National Campaign Against Cuts & Fees”.
A recent Guardian piece :-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/dec/10/tuition-fees-student-demonstrators
said of them:-
The National Campaign against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) was formed on 6 February this year after a conference in London of 170 university students who were engaged in activism on their campuses. “At that point anti-cuts movements hadn’t really been founded because it was before the election,” said Simon Hardy, 21, a student at the University of Westminster and a prominent figure within Ncafc.
What the Guardian coyly didn’t say however (although the poster in the photo gives a clue) is that Simon has long been a prime mover in an altogether less cuddly organisation called “Revolution Socialist Youth Movement”
http://www.socialistrevolution.org/
Which states its aims as:-
We want to bring down Cam and Clegg’s millionaire coalition and replace it with socialism. The rich and powerful clique responsible for breaking up our public services, slashing benefits and leaving millions of us on the dole will not give up their wealth and property by being voted out. They are launching a class war to make youth and workers pay the cost of capitalism’s crisis. We want to seize their assets and abolish class society with a socialist revolution.
Another prime mover in NAAFC is the head of Revolution Socialst Youth Movement – one John Bowman.
http://suacs.wordpress.com/2010/11/14/save-our-services-in-surrey-students-3/
John Bowman, a member of Workers Power and Revolution Socialist Youth, has been a leading member of the Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, the main organisers of the 10th November student protest. Workers Power and Revolution Socialist Youth have been in the forefront of the recent student movement.
John’s main organisation is “Workers Power”
http://www.workerspower.com/
and describes itself thus:-
Workers Power is a revolutionary communist organisation. We fight to:
• Abolish capitalism and create a world without exploitation, class divisions and oppression
• Break the resistance of the exploiters by the force of millions acting together in a social revolution smashing the repressive capitalist state
and announces proudly that it is part of the “5th Communist World International”
http://www.fifthinternational.org/
Is John a student or a full time international communist agitator – who knows?
I think all the dewy eyed Mums ‘n Dads who sent their little darlings off to protest should realise they were simply pawns in premeditated, organised violence by the usual anti-capitalist / anti-globalisation / anti-government/ anti-police anti-anything but a good punch up mob.
How come you can track down info. like this – I assume just by Googling – but the BBC news organisation with way above 1000 staff can’t find it ?
If I were a news editor or sub-editor, I’d be calling for googling checks on ANYONE connecting with any story whatsoever.
………………
But let’s face it. The BBC knows damn well that the first “student” riot was mostly organised by the extreme left. And that riots lead to more riots – this time an excuse for kids to bunk school.
They actually interviewed Simon Hardy several times as a represenative of “National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts” without ever mentioning his well documented role in the leadership of “Revolution Socialist Youth” – even though the tw organisations’ websites are clearly linked.
Similarly, they keep interviewing 36 year old Clare Solomon as a “student leader” – without ever mentioning her role in setting up the revolutionary organisation “Counterfire” with the old ex-“Socialist Workers Party” and currently “Stop the War Coalition” hacks John Rees and his other half Lindsey German.
The BBC know it’s all organised by the same old Trots who’ve been behind street violence for decades – it’s just that being part of the general left community themselves – they don’t want to expose it’s dirty washing in public.
More anon.
Excelent research JRSIHG. This information is key to the whole story. Maybe there will be a Panorama “investigation”.
Just after hell freezes over.
On the other hand, if we get much more of this “warble gloaming” – that might just happen.
In the West Country today. I listened to the conversation around me which ended up discussing the “student ‘ riot in London.
Not one word of sympathy for them and a general agreement that it is about time the police shaped up and dealt with them.
What really upset people was the Cenotaph incident. It has finished the student cause off and so dumb or blinkered is the BBC and it’s fellow travellers that they are unable to see what most of us can.
Unreality rules as usual.
Dave – Its the same here up north I have yet to hear a word of sympathy for the “students”. I will go further and say that in fact every riot represents another seat gained by the Tories if there were an election.
I have yet to find anyone that I talk to where I live or the work place I frequent 5 days a week for 9hrs a day that has any sympathy for the students or their plight.
Too many are going to university another institution royally taken from behind by the labour party and their eagerness to throw money at people who don’t want help no matter how much they think.
Social mobility has to start at home, people have to want to go to university and that means study, which is clearly alien to many.
imagine if these were Tea Party protestors.
Tea Parties were peaceful but the left wing media did everything it could to undermine them. Do we believe the BBC would do any different.
A day after the Swedish bombing and a couple of days after the worst riots in London for many decades and Clive Myrie on News 24 at 11 was conducting a very lengthy interrogation of pastor Terry Jones via satellite about his plans to come to England in FEBRUARY? This interview which started at 5 past 11 and lasted over 5 minutes actually showed the pastor in a strangely good light and was more an opportunity to trash the EDL with the usual buzzwords thrown in ie “Far right””convictions for violence” and of course the hilarious “opposed by anti-fascists”. So quite different to the uncritical coverage of the grotesque violence the BBC allotted to the students (the sight of (white) British students denying they were responsible for anything while sitting in front of an old black power flag was particularly pitifully comical).
Myrie seems to be angling for that waste of space Theresa Dismay to ban this gentleman exercising his right to freedom of speech and expression by
Daniel it does look like the Beeb is looking for another story so is manufacturing the Pastor Jones one doesn’t it.
The poor downtrodden student story they have worked so hard on for the last few weeks now has a life of it is own thanks to Master Gilmour and the Cenotaph and the Beeb don’t like it.
I hope I don’t spoil things for the Student hooligans, but here’s an idea they may wish to take on board.
Just for fun, couldn’t they find one, just one who could make any sense or even justify this behaviour to a more than gullible BBC crew.
Thus far it would appear not !
So back to smashing the place up in our designer / working class apparel.
Sweatshop ? What Sweatshop ! Where’s Sweatshop ? Do you get Uni. discount ? Is it near a Starbucks ?
As with London Calling, and others, above, I am more and more concerned with the media’s proactive, upfront role in all this.
By way of slight ‘balance’ I was confronted by two ‘reasons’, if not excuses, just now on SKY.
Ex-RAF newspaper reviewer John McNichol was making the point that the press are really dragging out things to a ridiculous degree and whipping up conflict based on a near willful inability to understand the facts of coalition politics. And they are even showing a bunch of 20+ year old thugs in hard hats and hoodies and coyly describing them as ‘students’.
Eamonn Holmes didn’t care as it was just a great reason to keep banging on with ‘But you said…’ to hapless teenage pols.
His peroxide-addled, media-studies grad offsider Charlotte was too thick to get her head around anything bar the fact that she emoted with the kiddies.
But there is a 3rd tack being pursued, and for some reason it is the one adopted and pursued by the ‘impartial’ state broadcaster, and that is that Labour should never have been voted out and any hypocrisy in word and deed by them is entirely explicable… but they do need to stay quiet to avoid looking utter plonkers, and hence the BBC will do the work of the opposition (in the role of simply ‘opposing’ no matter what) for them.
Why is this possible, Mr. NaughtieMarr?
The ‘students’ don’t seem to have many friends outside the BBC and infantile student circles.
If the BBC wants to heap praise on protesters, why not mention the dignified Jarrow March? That’s how it should be done.
Are those phoney, petulant, self-righteous, middle class, spoiled brat losers on Thursday likely to go down in history?
You can’t get away from the fact that this is a monstrous tax that will burden the younger generation for years to come. they will not be able to add to their endless debt by asking for a mortgage. They should protest but the presence of trouble makers from extremist groups should not be an excuse for not supporting the students. They represent the future prosperity of this country unless we want an all equal East European State.
But we all have a tax burden – a £4.8 Trillion tax burden. Debt interest currently about £43 Billion a year and likely to increase.
It’s a bit more complicated than that. Yes, some students will be badly affected and some youngsters may forgo a conventional university education. However, it isn’t right or “a right” that every youngster who feels like it should go to university and be publicly funded. We need fewer and better students and universities to be funded or subsidised. A variety of methods of funding and acquiring degrees need to develop for those who can’t afford the straight three-year full-time degree. I support some funding for some students but not a blanket support of all funding for all who want it.
Uhhh… fail pal, big swollen wrong fail. The hypocrisy and bias is a tad more complicated…..
No sympathy for students here at all mate – a CRS unit would’ve eaten them alive 🙂 , but I’ve been on the ground at several events – notably the fuel protests in 2000 when bus delivered thugs in uniform attacked passive, peaceful demonstrators at Avonmouth and Southampton – one assumes at the behest of Tony and Alastair. The BBC reporting was not just disgracefully biased – it was comprehensive poisonous fabrication.
The police are tools of the state (like the BBC) and I find it difficult to believe that the detail response to the student demonstrations does not have a political dimension in terms of the police response….. Sttoopid might work I suppose but there seems to be an element of controlled escalation and perception management going on here that isn’t healthy, not healthy at all. The media build up was in excess of what one might expect for a cup final…..
If this is true, then somehow all the inhabitants of copper blogs never got the memo. Your charge would be news to them.
Radio 5 this morning had a police chap on talking about getting water cannons, he was asked a number of questions on was kettling wrong to separating the violence from students, then just as he’s going into the provocation that the police had to take like snooker balls being thrown at them, sticks, barriers etc he was ‘cut off’…
The way it happened made it sound like someone flicked a switch and buh-bye…
More on the machinations behind the student riots:-
Oh dear!
Looks as if the National Campaign Against Fees & Cuts might have a “Judean People’s Front” problem.
NCAFC spokesman Simon Hardy writes (in his other, less famous, role as “Revolution Socialist Youth” organiser):-
“However there are some problems on the student left. Another student campaigning group called Education Activist Network was set up last autumn, 6 months after the NCAFC founding conference. The main organisation behind this is the SWP and their student organisation Socialist Workers Student Society. NCAFC members went to the founding conference and argued for close collaboration between our two campaigns, which was rejected by EAN. Subsequently NCAFC members attended EAN organising meetings and argued that the two campaigns should merge, a sensible proposal considering it is ridiculous to have two competing student campaigns against cuts. The SWP members involved in it, led by their members in the UCU union at Kings College, argued against the proposal.
When NCAFC gave a date for their next national meeting as early November and issued a call for all student organisations to get involved with us to organise it, within days EAN called a separate conference for one week before the NCAFC meeting. Rather than working together, EAN is pursing a strategy of splitting the student movement. This kind of approach only weakens us and causes confusion on the left – just at the moment that we need unity to fight the cuts.
Since then SWSS members have been claiming that NCAFC is a front of another socialist organisation (Alliance for Workers Liberty), which is simply not true. If it was then Revolution members would not be in it. We disagree with the AWL on many issues, including our support for a one state solution in Palestine and our support for anti imperialist struggles abroad, but we can work with them within the student movement against the cuts and marketisation of education. The claim that it is a front is simply a lie, one that can be proven by the number of non-aligned student activists who are involved and active in the campaign.”
So, for the benefit of all those enthusiastic but clueless little Tarquins & Jemima’s, who need to who they’re rioting for, let’s see if we can clear it up:-
Simon and John from “Revolution Socialist Youth” thought it would be cute to have a new student group.
Sadly, the junior wing of the nasty “Socialist Worker’s Party” had the same idea and set up a rival “Education Activist Network”.
Simon and John were unhappy about this so they went to the EAN meetings and asked if they could join forces.
The nasty EAN refused and even sabotaged the upcoming NCAFC meeting because they’re (wait for it) SPLITTERS.
But it’s even worse than that, not only are SWSS/EAN splitters – but they’re putting it about that NCAFC are really a front for a group called “Alliance For Workers Liberty” when everybody really knows they are Revolution Socialist Youth folk – who wouldn’t be seen dead in AFWL.
Meanwhile, middle aged revolutionaries John Rees and Lindsay German, who defected from the SWP to found the Stop The War Coalition, have now joined forces with BBC favourite (only slightly middle aged) “Student Leader” Clare Solomon, to found a brand new revolutionary movement called “Counterfire”
http://www.counterfire.org/
But, just so our original heroes Simon and John wouldn’t feel left out, Lindsay, John and Clare let them join in on the Counterfirfire ruling council:-
http://counterfire.org/index.php/newcoes all s/169-latest-from-coalition-of-resistance/8516-national-council-members
Since the hard left does all it’s organising on the old Interweb these days – it only takes an hour or so’s Googling to dig up all this stuff.
You think with our £3bn a year the Beeb could stretch to a laptop or two.
Radio 5 had Simon Hardy on last night. Andrew Peach (sitting in for Stephen Nolan) introduced him as a member of The National Campaign against Fees and Cut. No mention of his role in Revolution Socilist Youth (See JRSIHG’s posts above).
On Friday night, Mark Bergfeld was given a platform by Radio 5. Adrian Goldberg (where is Nolan?) introduced him as a member of the EAN and NUS who helped organise the protest. No mention of his membership the ruling council of the far left Counterfire group,
So with Bergfeld on Friday, Bhattacharayya on Saturday and Hardy on Sunday, Radio 5 achieved a hat-trick of deception. Congratulatios to the world renowned, genetically impartial broadacaster.
to compare a load of people hell bent on simple thuggery and violence with the brutal and quite frankly scary behaviour of the state against the miners plight its actually quite nasty.
I was there in 1984, Maltby, south yorkshire. And friends of mines fathers where at Orgreave coking plant where the state used the army and mass police violence against working people. This is all documented and proven -google silver fox, ask people in the wreckage of the mining heartlands about police officers with strange southern accents waving money at people who were basically starving.
My friends at school, couldnt get free school meals because they were not entitled to benefits.
They didnt have any money, we all chipped in to help out where we could. You couldnt cross a picket line -you simply couldnt.
You need to really really do some research before criticising and comparing the miners to midddle class twits swinging from a flag.
Lastly in the early 1990’s the police paid out £400,000 for there brutal attacks on the miners at Orgreave, many who sustained serious injuries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_miners'_strike_(1984%E2%80%931985)
We know all about the bleedin’ miner’s strike –
the BBC reminds us in prose, poetry and song on a daily basis.
“….police officers with strange southern accents waving money at people who were basically starving.”
Gosh – that sounds pretty brutal!
“…You couldnt cross a picket line -you simply couldnt.”
Of course you couldn’t – if you did those genuine salt-of-the earth mining folk would beat you to a pulp.
I grew up in a mining community in County Durham in the fifties – even then miners were selfish, militant and highly paid prima donnas.
Cam – I hope that people who follow the Wikipedia link will read the bit about David Wilkie, about half way down.
They are also advised to consult sources other than Wikipedia before coming to a conclusion.
Hi Barry.
I did consult many sources when writing much of the article on wikipedia.
The facts are debatable relating to the strike – which is what we are doing here i guess.
JRSIHG
I grew up in a mining community in County Durham in the fifties – even then miners were selfish, militant and highly paid prima donnas.
I worked down a mine for a while when i was 16 – i found them to be great and normal blokes earning a crust -only to contract pit disease and vibration white finger and to be shafted by the state, and later by compensation lawyers. Yeah i find it awful what has happened to communities when the mines closed -i had to move 200 miles to get a job, and ive never thrown a snooker ball at a police officer.
I find the behaviour of some of the present protesters utterley terrible -no one should attack our police and it’s quite obvious a lot of them, urinating on churchills statue etc are just trouble makers, With Iphones. And terribly well to do accents.
And i disagree you don’t know that much about “the bleedin miners strike” because you probably observed it in the pages of the Sun at the time.
Do some research it’s not all leftie rubbish!!
the “Use of army and mass police violence against working people”?
How so were they working people? Weren’t these striking people? What about the other 25 million working people the miners were holding to ransom?
Spare us your sepia-toned memories and red-tinted glasses.
not at all komrade ive been a tory for 25 years and am a devout capitalist.
And the use of army personell at orgreave etc etc is all true – would you say for instance to basically ruin and shut down 100’s of mines with all the knock on effects that killing heavy industries had, was a good idea?
barry.
wilkie -that was horrible, an awful premeditated assault.
But the Labour Party closed down more mines than the conservatives ever did.
You cannot be much of a capatalist if you don’t understand basic economics. The miners were pricing themselves out of jobs. Almost every year they would strike or threaten strike action for higher pay. They often held the country to ransome unless they got what they wanted.
Coal became cheaper elsewhere, so that it became more economical and reliable to get it from abroad.
You cannot have a minority of people holding the country to ransome -When the power goes off it is not just the NUM that suffer.
Thats not true -the mines were finally totally obiterated by heseltine.
UK coal/RJB/NCB didnt lose money. Simple facts. Thats why i ask people to check the facts not the rumours!
And the UDM were promised the earth and got nothing. Coal was commercially viable, still is! But the seams are totally buried now. shame a real shame.
What were the UDM promised ?
lots, and i shouldnt chortle, but they inevitabley ended up getting shafted and branded “scabs” for the rest of there lives. sick really isnt it. It’s as if the old rules of divide and conquer were at play somewhere…
Have a read up on the UDM. Sad stuff all around really.
nice to know the police were fat, first point would be that the you cannot count all students as left wing and to imply this is quite ridiculous, the proposed tuition fee rise was created by the left-wing party of the co-alition. I wonder if you noticed the interview with the co-founder of National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11976751 or that disabled protestor jody mcintyre? These go squarely against the bias you seem to propose especially in the second case where most would
have been extremely susceptible to not following an unbiased line of questioning. It seems fairly reasonable to suggest that the police may have provoked the protesters, as is it also reasonable to suggest that protesters have also provoked the police. That suggests an that the bbc has looked at both sides of an argument for impartiality. As you have not indicated who was being interviewed I imagine it was a MET representative, if so it would be the responsibility of the interviewer to bring alternative arguments to the table no matter how ludicrous you may feel them to be.