THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Anarchists went on the rampage in central London as hundreds of thousands of people marched in protest at government cuts.
Police fought mobs of masked thugs who pelted officers with ammonia and fireworks loaded with coins.
The anti-capitalists started fires and smashed their way into banks, hotels and shops, bringing chaos to Britain’s busiest shopping street.
The violence began as Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, addressed a TUC rally of at least 250,000 peaceful protesters in Hyde Park who had marched from Westminster to demonstrate against government spending cuts.
As he spoke, an apparently co-ordinated attack began on shops and police in Oxford Street as a mob tried to storm into shops including Topshop, BHS and John Lewis.
MPs and retailers said the scenes damaged Britain’s reputation around the world. » | Patrick Sawer, and David Barrett | Saturday, March 26, 2011
My comment on this:
It would appear that this country is becoming ungovernable. But much of the blame for this lies with the people at the top, because they have forgotten one simple thing: fairness.
It’s all very well to talk about the ‘anti-capitalists,’ but we should ask ourselves why these people are ‘anti-capitalists.’ And I’m pretty sure they feel that the system is unfair.
And it is unfair. Very unfair, in fact, because the people that have the least are being asked to shoulder the greatest burden of the spending cuts, whilst the people at the top are not being asked to make any sacrifices at all. How can it be a fair society when bankers, for example, are being paid monopoly sums as bonuses when people at the bottom are barely scratching a living?
This is not the capitalism that I remember. It has always been so that the people at the top made a lot more money than the people at the bottom, but it is a question of degree. It is also a question about how much effort the people at the top have to make in order to earn those far bigger sums of money. Who, for example, would begrudge Bill Gates his fortune? He made his money by effort and ability and creativity. He has also made a very big contribution to the world in terms of technology. But bankers? What have they contributed? In what way have they made life better? And how much effort have they got to make to collect these vast sums of money?
It seems to me that bankers have a great deal to answer for. They have almost single-handedly destroyed the capitalist system (with the aid of the nincompoops in the Labour Party, of course – Blair, Brown et al.). But very importantly, thay have not been asked to join in and do their bit in these times of austerity. In short, the government expects the people who have the least to tighten their belts the most. Now that can’t be fair!
In my opinion, we cannot hope to understand the appalling behaviour of that anarchic mob yesterday in London without taking into consideration the points I have mentioned.
And by the way, it was Labour that fostered the benefits culture. Over the years they have given hand-outs to people who should not have been given them. The welfare state should never have been allowed to grow into the monster it has become. Alas it is human nature to be unwilling to give up that which was once a ‘right.’ In many ways, the welfare state, whilst a noble concept, has been allowed to become the scourge of the modern Western economy.
What we observed in London yesterday is the result of these failed policies: failed policies by Labour; failed policies by the Coalition to correct the unfairness.
I predict that the summer of 2011 will be long and hot! The heatwave has only just begun! – © Mark
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