Precedents
Nov. 27th, 2010 11:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloI 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.
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.
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Re: Oh, what utterly tendentious rubbish, Tony.
Date: 2010-11-27 07:15 pm (UTC)No, we're not going to agree on much, are we? I do however share your dismay at Hussey's proficiency.
Also your nostalgia for Attlee and co. I take your point about them having been military men. That was a "great generation". I think of myself as a lefty- but there's no place for me in the modern Labour party- not after Blair and Brown. I don't like Cameron, but I heartily despise those two.
Re: Oh, what utterly tendentious rubbish, Tony.
Date: 2010-11-27 08:45 pm (UTC)As indeed was the aforementioned Major Eric Joyce, whose actual words were quoted here as opposed to in the Mail.
Re: Oh, what utterly tendentious rubbish, Tony.
Date: 2010-11-27 08:55 pm (UTC)Re: Oh, what utterly tendentious rubbish, Tony.
Date: 2010-11-27 09:57 pm (UTC)