I think it's done a lot more than that, though, because the reaction from the left has been stunningly inept and self-defeating. Personally, if faced with what I considered to be a poor turnout from those who debate against me (as they haven't ceased to bang on about for the past 24 hours), I'd be completely ignoring the opposition as irrelevant. Yet still it carries on. I'm thinking it could be because the event managed to get such good coverage.
If so, the very best thing to do would be to continue to profess apathy about the whole concept. Instead we see it being pulled apart incessantly long after the official publicity machine had decamped to the pub and other distractions relevant to much of the public.
I'm minded of this part of a piece explaining to the progressive minority why they received such an abject caning in the referendum.
4. Play in your own playground. Our first focus group flagged up cost as a strong argument. When we released our cost estimate the YES campaign went ballistic. For weeks at a time. They did our job for us. They gave our costings coverage and cemented the figure in the minds of the public. We could not believe our luck. They should have admitted AV might cost a bit more - "Don't all upgrades?" - and then used the opportunity to sell the benefits of THEIR upgrade - all at "less than a pint" £1 per person. Instead of dechunking, trivialising and disregarding our £250 MILLION costing and focusing on why and how AV is wonderful, they broadcast our argument far and wide and were mute on their own territory.By ignoring Rally Against Debt as an irrelevance, it would have been forgotten pretty quick. But the lefty Twitter tirade has given it more attention than any amount of press releases by the TPA and UKIP etc. I'm astonished that the BBC carried it on their front page, but then they would probably not have even heard about it if the Graun and assorted lefties hadn't been shouting louder than the 350 or so who turned up, both before and after the event.
The left are apparently bemused as to why there was so much publicity. Err, perhaps if they hadn't built it up to be such a big deal, it would have passed with little comment. I remember learning that ignoring the person who taunts you is the best way to shut them up ... at primary school. Where on Earth were these people when simple rules of life and handling people were being learned?
Secondly, yesterday illustrated perfectly some well-practiced lefty traits.
1) Hypocrisy: The RAD was laughable since it wasn't well attended, yet the biggest rally ever organised in London in recent times was the one opposing fox hunting. The left were, and still are, perfectly happy for that law to have been pursued. While simultaneously being apoplectic that the march against the Iraq War - with which I agreed - was ignored. Are we in favour of mass willy-waggling as a message to be listened to by government, or aren't we? It would appear that the left are rather confused about this.
2) The Class War: Those who consider themselves of the left still think there is one. The fact that their standard bearers are those who are mainly well-paid and hypocritical themselves seems to have escaped their attention. Campaigns primarily conducted via Twitter, Facebook and e-mail shots shows this to be a quite absurd approach. The truly less well off - the archetypal working man and woman - have little to do with any of those mediums except to sleb watch or keep up with what's happening on Eastenders. I should know, I employ over a hundred of such people who I associate with and consider as friends, yet only 12 are set up to receive payslips by e-mail. Another reason the AV referendum failed quite miserably, perhaps. Even naturally left-leaning voters tend to dislike feeling like they are being patronised by a cognoscenti elite.
And where was this simple left/right contre-temps anyway? RAD was equally annoyed at the coalition for continuing to increase spending as they were at Gordon Brown for ramping it up in the first place. There was no support for the government in any of the uploaded speeches, just condemnation for a pursuance of the same policies which Labour have admitted they'd be implementing too. The 'toffs' argument just doesn't hold any water when spouted by left-leaning toffs.
3) Lies: We've seen tons of them in the areas normally spoken of here, and the New Statesman carries a particularly egregious one today. Of all the hundreds of pictures they could have chosen, they plumped for one carried by a tiny counter-protest, and originally attached a caption which suggested this was the kind of sentiment being expressed. It's still there but has been marginally adjusted to convey at least a partial truth. But they're not daft, they know that people see what they want to see and that the emotive message about libraries will be taken in by those they wish to influence.
In fact, the whole article comprehensively confirms all of my summation above.
"plenty to do" seemed to involve standing increasingly closer together in order to make the crowd look bigger.Gathering to be near to audible range of speakers is natural behaviour, I would suggest. Dick-waggling.
If the March for the Alternative suggested that a cross-section of society strongly opposed the cuts being made by the Tory government, then the Rally Against Debt suggested that white, middle class, middle-aged men are opposed to taxation, don't like Europe or public servicesNot a Tory government, and certainly not all middle-aged men - or even women - as is a delight to such as me who have viewed the pictures, and an attendance who were as angry at the coalition as lefties are. That'll be the faux victim class war fantasy.
Six weeks later 200 people (I'm being generous) stood on a pavement outside parliament to give a big "thumbs up" to the same policies.The police said 350, as did the BBC, a petition on the day gathered 400 signatures. Err, lie.
And lastly ...
The Rally Against Debt taught us nothing new. However, it did leave one big question: Why did this failure of an event generate so much news coverage?Probably because - while the RAD crowd dispersed and watched the cup final - their cause was being publicised by incessant bleating from idiots who just don't know when to astutely shut their gobs.
It was that irrelevant, so it was.
11 comments:
"I remember learning that ignoring the person who taunts you is the best way to shut them up ... at primary school. Where on Earth were these people when simple rules of life and handling people were being learned?"
They were probably the ones going all crying and snotty-nosed to the headteacher's office...
I salute those who attended - had I lived in the London area I would have made the effort, hopefully.
And many people have deeply-held convictions that don't necessarily lead to them taking to the streets. How many, for example, believe the current level of fuel duty is unjust?
It's always going to be easier to get people to protest when they're fighting for their own jobs and have had their expenses paid by the unions and fake charities. The left have had decades of practice at this sort of thing and know how to marshall people (and to do little things like not clashing with the FA Cup final). Any attempt to back what is effectively the sitting government is rarely going to stir people into action.
I can well do without people stringing up idiotic slogans like 'Taxes = Slavery' - which I saw on the news - but the RAD did speak for the many people (the majority, judging by Labour's crap record at the recent elections) who looked at the anti-cuts protestors on TV and thought "what a bunch of infantile, economically illiterate morons".
So good on those who went. I'm sorry to have missed Durkin especially. He's a very funny speaker. My excuse was that I was in Turkey.
Why did it generate so much news?
Because they know it has the possibility to turn into something bigger, something good, something not to their liking.
The left are simply fighting against it.
They're twats.
There is, of course, another reason why AV was voted down so resoundingly – it was certainly my main reason for giving it the thumbs-down – and that is that even if FPTP was the worst system in the world, and AV the best system in the world, (neither of which is probably true), people simply don’t want politicians tinkering about with things and messing them up any more. Because no matter how good a system, a procedure or an idea might be, the moment politicians or their friends get their hands on them it all turns to dust, and we inevitably, always, without exception, end up with something which is worse than whatever we had before.
That’s why I don’t want reforms of the NHS, the education system, the road network, the public transport system, the legal system, policing, employment law, immigration, the financial system or the voting system, no matter how much any or all of those things may be screaming for improvement.
What I want is for all politicians to go off on a very, very long holiday (say about five years), and to leave us alone to get on with the business of living, working and putting this country back on its feet again, using the existing far-from-perfect-but-better-than-messed-about-with systems if necessary.
In a nutshell... where else would you expect to find nuts?
With the greatest of respect though, as it aligns with the government's professed strategy, it was always going to get a softer ride.
Sounds like an own goal alright. From what I saw the online editions of the MSM had little or no interest in reporting it and seemed to drop off those few home pages pretty swiftly. It'd be ideal if one of them took out an injunction to stop RAD protesting again and you could just sit back and wait for the tweets to take care of the publicity.
“I remember learning that ignoring the person who taunts you is the best way to shut them up ... at primary school. Where on Earth were these people when simple rules of life and handling people were being learned?”
Being ignored in the hope they'd shut up.
Some smart computer programmer out there should invent a new internet app that would allow for "virtual protests" on-screen. Someone sets up the "virtual protest march" website and then "virtual protestors" could sign in to join - and by thus doing, a new animated little "protest marcher" is added to the screen, thus filling it up with visuals of little marching protestors going up, down and across the screen, carrying little signs maybe. That would make it more accomodating to people living outside the area of a planned protest.
It is a dreadful title. I suspect a Rally to cut government to 25% of the economy - well ok "Cut the State to 25%" - would have been more popular. Since such evidence as there is suggests the popular median would by about 20% I think 70% of the population would happily endorse it not being over 25%.
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