Precedents

[poliphilo]

I can think of two famous occasions in my lifetime when police cavalry were used against demonstrators. The first was at Orgreave in 1984 when Margaret Thatcher defeated the striking miners in a pitched battle. The second (Thatcher again) was during the Poll tax riots of 1989. 

Earlier there was Peterloo. The cavalry that charged the demonstration in St. Peter's Fields in 1819 have been described as "younger members of the Tory party in arms". An unknown number of people were killed that day- sabred, shot, trampled by the horses. Among them was a two year old child.

The Tories have an affinity with cavalry charges. Maybe it's in the genes-  all that ancestral fox hunting, all that riding down of peasants.

They don't see as us as citizens. They don't know us. We don't count.  We don't feature in their world except as annoying noises off.  We are the "enemy within" (Thatchers phrase) to be kettled and ridden down. In this latest episode of class warfare the "enemy within" are our students and school children. 

Comments

[shanghai7.livejournal.com]

They were common in London in the 1980s.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Those were exciting times.

[shanghai7.livejournal.com]

The Chinese have a curse, may you live in interesting times.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Those Chinese- I love how laid-back they are!

[(Anonymous)]

Indeed - and, in my experience, they were a lot safer than human policing - horses, in my experience, didn't trample people or pull them over backwards

[shanghai7.livejournal.com]

I disagree. Half a ton of horse bearing down o you is not fun.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

Indeed - and, in my experience, they were a lot safer than human policing - horses, in my experience, didn't trample people or pull them over backwards