Power To The People

“While we all sup sorrow with the poor, There's a song that will linger forever in our ears, Oh, hard times, come again no more.”

It started on the 6 May 2010, when the British public in its wisdom decided it did not trust David Cameron or his party enough to run this country of ours.

However Cameron is like a car salesman in a polyester suit, who smiles at you as he sells you a ‘fantastic bargain’, then dances with glee when you drive off in what is really an MOT failure.  In the days following the election Cameron went into full wheeler-dealer mode and after convincing Nick Clegg to dance with the devil and part with every liberal value he ever held, he weaselled his way into Number 10 like the snake into the Garden of Eden.

Once there he thought that was it, he thought the hard work was done.  The monster had his hands on the keys of power and off we all sailed on the Big Ship Tory with Cameron’s hands on the tiller.

But this time, things are different.  This time, from the word go, people showed they were not prepared to sit there and trust this man; a man who claims to rule our country despite never having achieved an electoral mandate.

And that is why the coalition’s first two-thirds of this year have been marked by u-turns and backtracking.

Let’s look at what has happened to some of their major projects:

Increasing Tuition Fees – protests and direct action leaving Cameron bloodied and battered although proposals will still go ahead.

Scrapping EMA – looking like going ahead despite vociferous protests.

Scrapping the Building Schools for Future project – abandoned.

Plans to sell the forests – abandoned.

Plans to impose a 10% housing benefit cut for anyone unemployed for more than a year – dropped.

Big Society – crumbling.

Cameron’s hopes of avoiding a referendum on electoral reform – failed.

And today what does a Tory think-tank propose? Scrapping the National Minimum Wage.  You couldn’t make it up.  This must be opposed, as must the complete and systematic dismantling of the NHS and cuts to other frontline services like the Police.

But why have the projects listed above been stopped, halted, cancelled, turned around?

Because of the actions of a defiant public mobilized against the power brokers in Downing Street. People who realise that we have to do all in our power to stop the total and premeditated decimation of everything we hold dear.

Peace and Love may be the values we all aspire to, but sometimes it takes direct action to make people sit up and take note.  And, led by a new generation of protesters, headed excellently by the students, this defiant response has now been taken up by many other open-eyed and fearful citizens.  People who realise that this government, this Tory government cannot be allowed to rule in the way it wants, cannot be allowed to push through the plans it has. 

The ‘Big Society’ plan has been exposed at every twist and turn for what it really is, a cloak of the most transparent kind, used in a failed attempt to hide from the reality that Cameron wants to impose on us – a society decimated by cuts at all levels.  Except the highest levels – not the bankers. 

The men who make the money to buy the spoons that have been in the mouths of Cameron and his cronies from the moment they were born. They’re safe.  They’re DC’s ‘pals’.  Much like the MP for Dewsbury, Simon Reevell, who refuses to give up his highly-paid job as a barrister, and in fact dedicates time to being in court instead of being in his constituency carrying out case work.

How ironic that Dewsbury has lost its court services.

On the 10 October 1980 Margaret Thatcher made a speech which has been oft-quoted ever since.

She said: “To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say: You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning!"

It is this speech that gives us hope today, because despite what he and some of his supporters may think, Cameron is not Thatcher.  He does not have the right to even be mentioned in the same breath.  He is a weak man.  A posh boy in a posh suit.  Someone who wishes he had half the strength, power and respect of Mrs Thatcher. If he did, we should all be very worried.  And every flight out of Britain since May 7 would have been fully booked.

Nobody who lived through the 80s wants to go back there again.  Even people who didn’t live through the 80s but were born before 1997 remember the overwhelming relief and unconfined joy that greeted the dispatching of the Tories on 1 May 1997. It would appear some of that spirit is alive and well in little corners of this land.  All we need is something to fan the embers and get the flames glowing once more.

The recent uprisings in Algeria and Egypt have illustrated the power of the people, and the effect of public demonstrations.

Britain, is slightly more democratic than those two countries, and hopes of a collapse in the coalition and an early election may still be (are) ridiculously optimistic.  But make no mistake, it’s a lot more likely than it looked on Wednesday May 12 2010.

These anti-government protests are not just the rantings and ravings of a few either, it is bigger than that this time round.  If more local authorities follow the example of Liverpool City Council and opt out of ‘The Big Society’ Cameron could soon have a full scale rebellion on his hands.

If he doesn’t, he’ll still have the public to answer to.  And the unions.  The poor, The dispossessed, The Working Class, The Middle Class.  In the words of Mr Marley “Get Up, Stand Up, Stand Up For Your Rights.”

Let me leave you with the words to the famous protest song “The World Turned Upside Down” :

The sin of property
We do disdain
No man has any right to buy and sell
The earth for private gain
By theft and murder
They took the land
Now everywhere the walls
Spring up at their command

They make the laws
To chain us well
The clergy dazzle us with heaven
Or they damn us into hell
We will not worship
The God they serve
The God of greed who feed the rich
While poor folk starve

We work we eat together
We need no swords
We will not bow to the masters
Or pay rent to the lords
Still we are free
Though we are poor
You Diggers all stand up for glory
Stand up now

From the men of property
The orders came
They sent the hired men and troopers
To wipe out the Diggers’ claim
Tear down their cottages
Destroy their corn
They were dispersed
But still the vision lingers on

You poor take courage
You rich take care
This earth was made a common treasury
For everyone to share
All things in common
All people one
We come in peace
The orders came to cut them down