The people protesting today are uneducated riff-raff

Is it? Let's see; what area of the public sector did/do your parents work for (Apart from the TA)? Arguably your mother hasn't got a brilliant pension from TA work, but the conditions are fairly good (I've done a few weeks work experience as a TA), good job satisfaction and security; how often do you see massive school redundancies compared to other professions? and Regardless of how much you consider it to be a generalisation, you cannot deny there is much, much more better pensions and job security (usually) than in the private sector. As traumatic as it is for families working in the public sector, people working in the private have been dealing with redundancies etc for years.

As somebody who's Mum actually previously was a Teacher Assistant in a Primary School, I can vouch for their importance, which is why personally I don't like excessive cuts in the education area, especially when schools are already not really up to scratch. However, when it comes down to it, Doctors and Police are arguably a lot more important to society as a whole, and even they are having cuts.

Again, workers in the Private Sector have been dealing with job losses etc for years, it just hardly ever affects the private sector.


If both your parents are loosing jobs, you should get a lot more. If not, you'll have to get a Student Loan from the bank, like most people, or work part-time etc?

Neither does mine.

I've been working for 2 years, and am taking on extra shifts and have a second job lined up for the summer.

I've been saving all my money for ages.

One where a stand is made, a point is made, one which starts and finishes peacefully, where there is as little violence as possible or preferably none.
Where thugs and idiots don't turn up just to cause trouble.

That would be a start

I respect that you don't like violence,

but I believe that peaceful protest just doesn't work. There is a place for it, but I believe that in isolation it just doesn't work.

3 things I've seen today on the protests:

Ed Balls was shouted at right in his face over the cuts allegedly increasing child abuse. Wtf? Ed Balls is on their (unjustifiable) side anyway.

A lady went sailing past on a wheelchair holding a sign saying 'NO CUTS'. I wanted to throw that sign in the Thames.

A man was dancing down the road blowing a horn and holding a sign saying 'Unity is Strength'. If this is the kind of communist society in which we want to live, then we must embrace the uneducated riff-raff of this protest. Otherwise we must send in the police to kettle them all.

There was another woman as well saying, 'my community is not going to stand by and pay for the actions of the bankers'. I wanted to go there and say to her, 'your community didn't mind all the extra investment that it gained however when times were good (because of the financial sector)'.

The whole lot of them want to **** right off.

****head tory scum like you should be wiped off the face of the earth

People of a left-wing persuasion should be deported.

I am yet to hear one sensible alternative to the cuts proposed. Ed Miliband would rather stand up and make a speech to the protestors likening himself to Mandela and Luther King, than give his own plan to tackle the deficit.
The protests do show a real lack of intelligence. If all these people put their heads together to come up with an alternative we may get somewhere but they'd rather smash a few windows in westminster to show how angry they are about not getting the final salary public sector pensions.
I'm just waiting for the day when Labour are back in power and the unions have taken over. Bring back Thatcher.

1 - You do not need an alternative to know something is wrong.

2 - Most of the protestors were not smashing in windows.

3 - It isn't just about final salary pensions. Its about jobs, futures, families etc.

But making cuts isn't wrong. Although it's hard for some people to take, it is the right thing and has to be done. Austere times likes these will not last forever so people need to stop whinging, get their heads down and get on with it.

Throwing half a million people onto the dole for no good reason is wrong.
If it was about money, and not ideology, then it would be the middle managers and "non jobs" that would be going. Not front line services. We would have council chiefs huge salaries cut. Etc etc.

I agree cuts need to made, but not where they are being made.