Monday, February 23, 2009

Here comes the summer

The Telegraph reports that the police are preparing for a "summer of rage".

Supt Hartshorn, who heads the Metropolitan Police's public order branch, said he feared there could be "mass protest" at rising unemployment, failing financial institutions and the downturn in the economy.

Well, he should know.

Mr Hartshorn, who is regularly briefed on potential causes of civil unrest, singled out April's G20 summit of the leading developed nations in London as one of the events that could kick start a series of protests.

As The Telegraph points out, there have already been mass demonstrations across Europe while we, in dear old Blighty, have been relatively restrained. While tens of thousands took to the streets of Dublin to protest and a million or more went on strike in France we managed a nothing more than a relatively minor kerfuffle which wasn't even related to the economic crisis per se - just about the injustice of importing foreign labour to do fill jobs while British workers are left on the dole.

Given that we're in this mess as much as anyone (and more than some) one wonders why it is that these mass protests haven't materialised already as they have all over Europe? My view is that the government know that this whole thing has barely even got started yet - but they know that come the summer things will have snowballed considerably.

2 comments:

bernard said...

I would guess the reason for our sang froid is simple enough. Even if unemployment hit 10%, that would mean 90% still had work.
Any road, we have a mighty lot of 'fat' to lose first before we feel a draught.

JuliaM said...

Not if that 'fat' is the earning classes - who's going to pay for all the diversity/outreach/community 'jobs'.../