Joe Chapman

26th March protest video

joechapman — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 18:06:31 +0000

On 26th March 2011 over 500,000 people marched and protested against government spending cuts, student tuition fees and other issues such as corporate tax dodgers.

I bought a cheap mini digital camcorder and this is what I filmed.

This video by no means represents the full events of that day. What it does show is the largely peaceful but purposeful and comradely atmosphere of the march. It also shows, 5 minutes in, a number of young protesters climb the front of the Fortnum & Mason store. It shows the 1st, 2nd and third people to climb were not masked anarchists but 3 young girls with no masks. It also shows the crowd cheering an clapping the climbers on, smiling and looking empowered. It shows a line of riot police standing right next to the point where the climbers were climbing up and more police behind a door next to that. Not one single police officer attempted to stop the climbing from happening.

The video also shows the moment of a surge of people through the front door of Fortnum and Mason and several of them look like members of the press, photographers at least.

What this doesn’t show is what happened later. The protesters at Fortnum and Mason were tricked into going outside and being delivered to waiting riot police and arrested mostly on a spurious aggravated trespass charge.

During the day the police could be seen smiling, even posing for the camera as if they’ve been ordered to do so as a PR exercise.

After dark the police sent in van after van after van full of thugs in flourescent yellow jackets who had been waiting down the road all day for some action.

Tories to spread fear and discourage dissent using social media?

joechapman — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 17:44:00 +0000

I’ve seen the computer systems that the police use (suddenly there’s the sound of my front door being kicked in), they are poor quality, still running Windows 2000, Internet Explorer 6 and plenty of other out-of-date systems.

That and the lack of resources and training suggests the UK’s police, apart from specific departments, are not clued up or certainly ‘tooled up’ when it comes down to information technology and social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

Or maybe they are?

If they are then why were they not able to stop the so called “trouble makers” and “hooligans” during the protest and march on 26th March 2011 in London?

Come to think of it – the police were stood right next to the people who climbed up the front of the Fortnum & Mason building on that day, yet they didn’t even attempt to stop them from climbing. That’s another story though, perhaps.

A couple of days ago during a debate about the home-made sandwich eating, socially conscientious and intelligent masked/unmasked Anarchists/members of a non hierarchical anti cuts organisation, some stuff fell out some Tories’ mouths (as it so often does) which indicates our country’s favourite bunch of unelected, undemocratic, greedy, priviledged rich wankers (that’s The Conservative Neo-Liberal UnDemocratic Party for those who haven’t guess yet) are planning to send in their Flourescent yellow Porcine Storm Troopers to Facebook, Twitter and other sites.

Not content with duffing people up, holding people down and dragging them off on our streets, it’s looking like the police are all set to turn up and virtually duff us up, hold us down and drag us off online. No doubt, knowing the way the Tories normally use the police, on some spurious evidence of having ‘poked’ a member of Black Bloc once (yes I know, no-one ‘pokes’ anyone now but you know what I mean).

Considering that this government is planning cuts in the police service I am wondering where the police are going to get time and resources to gather evidence and police the internet when they can’t even police my street properly.

Not unless they are planning to use a private company , that will still cost though.

We’ll have to invent some kind of new language of the street. We could call it ‘texting’. That’ll learn ‘em. So anyway, Theresa May (pictured here just before her inner mouth and lizard tongue came out and caught a fly), the home secretary (I think), she said that they will look at the ‘need’ “to give the police any further powers to enable them to do the job we want them to do in this new environment”.

That doesn’t sound like the spirit of the internet.

Where Labour went wrong

joechapman — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 08:33:53 +0000

In December 2010, months after Labour lost the general election to a Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition and Ed Milliband won the Labour leadership, I commented on a discussion on Facebook about the Millibands and the events and changes in the Labour Party that I think have not only led the party away from its roots but where mainstream politics as a whole have failed us.

During the years of Thatcherism and the Tories and the rise of neo-liberalism the Labour Party remained true to it’s basic principles. The problem was that in doing so it couldn’t get elected. This is because the neo-liberals had the working class and the rest of our society stitched up by preying on our aspirations, making it alright to get into debt in order to have the things which our families could not have before. Things were more desperate before, there were still back to back houses, houses with no bathrooms etc. So it was easily done. What that meant was that less people were likely to vote for old Labour because it could mean sacrificing this false notion of a new found prosperity, sacrificing aspirations.

Ed and David grew up during these times, their parents did not.

By the time we got to the early 1990s The Labour Party was still struggling and could not win elections.

Then the struggle from within. Those that wanted to keep on with the Labour struggle, and those that saw that in order to elected in those times it appeared that the party would need to change. Or at least appear to change. Since the rise of neo-liberalism and up until recently there has been little appetite amongst the average person for radical change. The Tories had drugged the people of this country with consumerism on credit. Made the real working class and the unions the seem like the enemy of the people because they threatened this neo-liberal pseudo utopia. So, the only sure way for a party like Labour to get itself elected to government during those times was to sell out to neo-liberalism and as a result we got New Labour. The Millibands, regardless of their family background, were really part of this. They did not fight to save old Labour, old Labour was, and is still radical compared to the neo-liberal status quo. The radicals within the Labour Party were played down or they left (about half of the Brighton Green Party are old Labour). Great Labour veterans like Tony Benn left (in order to spend more time in politics!).

Now we find ourselves in a time when society is polarising. The cracks are appearing in neo-liberalism. But we’re in a transition period where nothing is certain anymore. It still looks, at the moment at least, like neo-liberalism will still win elections. We are bound by the global situation and the legacy of both Thatcherism and New Labour. There is still a bad taste in the minds of many people about old Labour, unfortuately. People don’t want to give up or sacrifice anything for the good of the whole. I’m sitting here in an office with many of them right now, working for big business. The other day we had a message from our new union rep. Some people said “I hate the unions”.

When Labour lost the election they had a choice. I think the grass roots really did want to get a flavour of old, true Labour back. But to be truly progressive. People wanted people like John McDonnell to stand. They didn’t. What Labour got was Milliband vs Milliband and neither of them representing where Labour originally came from. Neither of them really stood up for real Labour during the neo-liberal years. They are a product of neo-liberal politics. Instituationalised. When one of them was elected, very much by the Unions (who are the reason Labour really exists) one of the first things the new leader did was start to attack the unions. The next thing he did instead of standing up for fairness and the workers who made Labour, was to openly talk about protecting the “middle class”. This is code for protecting the neo-liberal status quo.

It is clear to me that unfortunately the likes of Ed Milliband have no Labour balls, they were most likely castrated by neo-liberal Thatcher and Blair. It might not be their fault, they might not be bad people but if people want Labour back they are not the right people to do it. Labour had a real chance to turn it all around, the right people didn’t even stand for leadership. Either because they lacked enough support, sadly, or that they were essentially forced to stand aside for other more neo-liberal candidates because at the top of the party think that is the only way they will get elected again.

The alternative would have been that the party could have convinced itself that it needed to not only shed the New Labour brand but also the Neo-liberal path that New Labour represented. The party could have elected someone like John McDonnell. It could have stood up for what Labour was and should really be about (as my Grandad fought for, a Labour and Union man) It could have accepted that in doing so, at least for the time being, it may not have been the best way of getting re-elected to government and Labour might potentially have to wait longer. Better that than selling out though I think. Look what happened to the Lib Dems. They could have stood up for what they believed in (if they could have worked out what they believed in first!), let the Tories have a minority government and been stronger in opposition, gained support from the people and been a more effective opposition than Labour as it had just come out of government and needed to elect a new Leader. Instead the Lib Dems went for the short term power and in doing so showed themselves to be cowards. They’ve shot themselves in the foot for the rest of history. New Labour may have done that to Labour and Ed Milliband is doing nothing to turn it around. He’s still walking down the same path really.

New Statesman Kettling Comment

joechapman — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 22:54:53 +0000

On 9th December 2010 students, young people and many others were ‘kettled’ by the Metropolitan Police during a protest against tuition fees and public service cuts in London. Laurie Penny wrote about the events in New Statesman here.

I have published my comment from the article below as it seemed to strike a chord with a few people.

I think many people in these comments do not appear to understand the politics of this country or its history.

The previous Labour Government was not socialist. Like the Tory governments before it, it was neo-liberal.

Since the times of Thatcher the people of this country have had their aspirations preyed upon in order that the minority of people with a disproportionate amount of the wealth and power can gain more wealth and more power.

We have been pacified by being given the idea that we can acheive our aspirations by getting into debt and living beyond our means.

This has had a knock on effect right the way through society both nationally and globally. The imbalance and divide between rich and poor has increased and most of us have not realised this because we have lived our lives on credit. Our relative wealth (relative to how things were before the 1980s) has been an illusion.

We have allowed our society, our country and our government to be ruled by big business and making a profit.

Our manufacturing industries have been destroyed. Small businesses have been destroyed by big business such as Tesco who pay farmers less for a pint of milk than it costs the farmers to produce. Farmers have quite literally committed suicide as a result.

We have been scared into allowing governments to spend billions of pounds of our money on a stockpile of 200+ nuclear warheads purchased from Lockheed Martin of USA. Even if you still believe we need a nuclear deterrent how many nuclear warheads do you think it takes to wipe out millions, potentially billions of people or put off a mad man from bombing us?

Our police force should be there to protect us in the streets but is rarely there. Instead we have glorified civilians with little power called PCSOs who also aren’t there much of the time. People get stabbed, robbed and then right down to the small issues which breed inconsideration in society such as cycling on the pavement or spitting which are now tolerated, ignored or even laughed at by the police. Instead the police are only seen out in force when they are protecting the property of big businesses owned by companies like Vodafone who potentially owe us billions in tax or other tax dodgers such as Phillip Green. Instead of protecting us in the streets the police are set upon us to protect a government which is itself in the pockets of big business.

Because we’ve all lapped up consumerism and ignored basic manners and consideration for each other we have allowed this creeping rot to set it. Then when we notice it instead of sacrifing things, getting together and taking action against it on the whole with just moaned about how politicians are all the same, we’ve been apathetic and not bothered to vote or voted for the same people who have manipulated us all along.

People have forgotten that there is a direct correlation between who you vote for (or not voting at all) and the state of the country both locally and nationally.

We occassionally complain about the main 2 or 3 parties being all the same yet don’t look around or past that.

Politics and government is run by big business. The main parties are funded by the rich. The Tories spent £400,000 on a single billboard advertisement in the run up to the election. Imagine what your local school or hospital (if you’ve still got one) could have done with that money. It’s obscene.

Because the main parties are all about money and big business it means that we have a government that is run for big business instead of for the people who are supposed to have elected it and whom the government is supposed to represent.

People who spend their time pointing out violence amongst protesters are missing the point. This country and our albeit fragile democracy was not founded by people who complied with the establishment all of the time. Sometimes there comes a point when people are pushed too far. When we are told that we are all in this together by people who can afford to pay someone to clear the snow and ice off their drives whilst the local council is bled dry and people with their own jobs to do are expected to go out and do it as part of the Big Society.

All the time this is happening our top companies are still making record profits for what is really a handful of shareholders. Even the majority of shareholders are just there as padding, they are gambling and keeping the system afloat for the rich.

After so many years of pessimism, moaning and apathy we ended up with a generation or two that knew no different. What a breath of fresh air it is to find out that out of that generation a new wave of students, young people and others have the balls to question, challenge and take action even when the risks to themselves are so great. They could have just stayed at home and watched the X factor as we expected them to do so.

I am so pleased and proud that they didn’t stay at home and be the kind of vacuous, self serving inviduals that hang around newspaper websites and the like moaning about other people standing up for what they believe in whilst offering little or nothing constructive.

This is just the beginning, I am not a student, I don’t consider myself to be a young person anymore, I do not condone violence but I will stand up for what I believe is right and I will not be put off by bully boy tactics from this government using the police to oppress the people and justify the rancid, selfish ideology of the few.