Walk Like an Egyptian?

Apart from the fact that you would think Egypt was actually in the UK considering all the press coverage, it does raise a very interesting question. With the population of Great Britain becoming increasingly angry at the spending cuts and most being affected in a derogatory way, could something like a revolution happen in these apathetic isles?

The short answer would be: No.
The not so short answer would be: highly unlikely.

However, we only really see mass demos and public disgruntlement when there is a Tory government in power, so should the next year become misery filled months of despair and hopelessness, could we rise up and demand a better government or at least one that acknowledges the needs of the people?

The strange thing is this government seems to have no real regard for its grass roots supporters; with the news that shedloads of bus services in rural areas are being axed, it's difficult to disassociate the countryside with anyone other than Okay Yar Tory voters. Yes, there are, in fact, a lot of unemployed and socially excluded people living in villages, many of whom depend on bus services to get to the dole office, job centres, drug dealers and friends; but cutting services to small villages means that the Okay Yars will now have to spend more time sharing their idyllic villages with these self-styled scum of the Earth and I'm sure they're not going to like that. I mean, hooray Henrys don't like these hunt sabotaging, long haired, uncouth, sexually depraved oiks in their backyards to begin with and losing them for a few hours a day is probably a blessed relief, but now...

***

The EDL or English Defence League is planning a march through Northampton, which will cost the county a lot of money in policing costs and will have detrimental effects on other services because of the knock on affect. The police cannot ignore racist imbeciles like these, so despite them being in a very small minority, it's going to eventually cost us all. I wish the people who organise these essentially Nazi events realise that in the long run they end up doing more harm than good and the people they claim to be defending end up losing out because of their stupid and ignorant beliefs.

The strange thing is that Northampton isn't exactly a hot bed of racial tension or even race issues. Move over 10 miles to the east and Wellingborough has a far higher ratio of people who fit into the EDL's hate campaigns. I was talking to a friend of mine whose father co-owns an Indian restaurant in Wellingborough. His parents are from Gujarat, but he was born in Northampton. He thinks that its amazing that such ignorance still exists in the 21st century and made a very interesting statement suggesting that Wellingborough is actually very tolerant of Asians, Afro-Carribeans and even Eastern Europeans, because the town has been a multicultural haven for a long long time. Perhaps the EDL don't want to target Wellingborough for the same reason you rarely here of them organising marches in Bradford or Southall or Wembley - for fear of having their arses handed to them on a plate by the English people who regard all ethnic minorities as friends and valuable members of their society.

***

The County Council has just discovered they need to find another £20m in savings this year, meaning that a further 300 people are likely to lose their jobs (and the bus services are being decimated - see above). Private businesses are showing no sign of recruiting and the prospect for nearly 1000 people is that by April/May they might be facing an uncertain length of time on some form of unemployment benefit. These 1000 people will be competing with each other for a handful of jobs and 99% of these jobs will be less money than they currently earn.

Cameron can insist that we all have to make sacrifices to get the country out of debt, but it wasn't these people's fault that the country was in this mess in the first place. Why is the man in the street being penalised for something that is essentially the banks' fault? Joe Public ends up footing the bill continuously for successive government cock ups and mismanagement, yet we continue to vote them into power because we have no alternatives. This time last year, I was advocating the need for more independent MPs and councillors, but the problem is independents' are about as popular as Liberals and the man in the street seems reluctant to trust someone who doesn't represent the powers that continually rule the country.

I think if I had one wish, other than wanting enough money to buy myself a small island in the Caribbean, it would be for a massive change in the way people view politics and the emergence of sensible, people led politics.