The General Election Thread

[biffvernon]

Biff is a rare character...Admirable, IMO.

Sing Ho! for Biff.

Meanwhile, back on the streets, Charlie Gilmore's brother has written well: http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/12/13/my-brother-charlie-gilmour-and-alfie-meadows/

(Come the revolution watch out anyone with pvc windows.)

 

[Moo]

who would work out factories , take away our rubbish and work in the re-cycling centres sorting out our recycle bin rubbish? who would work our farms? clean our streets?

But surely that's what immigrants are for?

 

[Nigel Watts]

Come the revolution watch out anyone with pvc windows.

And anyone defacing a listed building or monument.

Was it that nice Mr Gilmour again who was spotted trying to set fire to the Supreme Court - a fine listed building which was once Middlesex Town Hall? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...our-tried-to-light-fire-by-Supreme-Court.html

 

[Pford75]

The same Mr Gilmour who attended a £9000/term private school and whose father is worth £78m?

Reminds me rather of the Labour 'private schooling' hypocrisy.

The fact that he attended the demo with latex gloves is perhaps the clearest indication that this was not a group of harmless students provoked by overzealous policing, but a bunch of thugs determined to cause wanton damage to property and others. Premeditated violence from a bunch of hypocrites

 

[Nigel Watts]

Reminds me rather of the Labour 'private schooling' hypocrisy.

For me it's more a kind of, you know, post-nu-lab take on the Bullingdon Boys? The only difference is that the new Bully Boys expect the taxpayer to pick up the tab for their damage.

 

[biffvernon]

Hands up which of you actually read the piece by Gilmore's brother?
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/12/13/my-brother-charlie-gilmour-and-alfie-meadows/

At least it's good to see that the Torygraph gives Charlie Gilmore some space:

“I did not actually damage the cenotaph. it is the warped priorities of the right wing media that has caused most damage right now.
“The red tops [tabloid newspapers] can go f*** themselves. They’re the despicable ones, they should have been paying attention to the poor person who had to have brain surgery after the police smashed her in, not to f****** stupid me swinging off a flag.
“It is a sad reflection to the priorities of the low brow media and their reactionary readers that they put an unnecessary focus on me.
“Despite the numerous death threats, yes I’m fine. I’m genuinely sorry for what I’ve done. In all honesty I really didn’t know what I was doing.”

 

[skier-hughes]

Hands up which of you actually read the piece by Gilmore's brother?
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/12/13/my-brother-charlie-gilmour-and-alfie-meadows/

At least it's good to see that the Torygraph gives Charlie Gilmore some space:

“ In all honesty I really didn’t know what I was doing.”

That's ok then isn't it, please sir I shot him in the back but I didn't know what I was doing, please sir I hit him with my truncheon, but I didn't know what I was doing??????????????????????




"Charlie is far more likely to harmlessly scream commandments at the ocean as King Canute famously did, than to maliciously offend or disrespect ."

Yes right, because he had no education to teach him right from wrong?


"They were kept not only without food, toilets and freedom but, ironically, without any of the public services they were trying to defend: policing, health care and eventually for many of the younger protesters, education."

Surely if they wanted to be educated on that day they'd have been in school, college university!!!!!!!

What a load of f******* c*** as per charlies own words

 

[Nigel Watts]

Have you noticed how sentimental these revolutionary lefties are?

Someone got badly hurt in a riot by being bonked over the head by an over zealous policeman. We are all very sorry for him, wish him well, hope he recovers, and hope the PCC and Courts do a proper and fair job with his case. The policeman will, in all probablity, be severely disciplined and quite possibly lose his job and be convicted of a criminal offence, with generous damages paid to the unfortunate victim.

Meanwhile millions of words are tweeted and facebooked and put on internet threads of such unctuous sentimentality that makes Little Dorrit look like the script from a Tarrantino film - all written by people who minutes earlier were writing things like "f*** the Cuts" and "Tory Secretaries of State for Culture, Media and Sport".

I am not sure whether to feel relief or despair.

 

[Pford75]

In all honesty I really didn’t know what I was doing

Except that he did.....he went to the trouble of taking and wearing latex gloves to avoid fingerprints.....that he now tries to dismiss this as 'high jinx' and japery is sad.

He went with the explicit aim of causing violence and breaking the law....and now acts all sanctimonious when the papers choose to report his actions......

 

[biffvernon]

That's ok then isn't it, please sir I shot him in the back but I didn't know what I was doing,

Er, he didn't hurt anybody. He swung on a flag. Wow.

The policeman almost killed Alfie Meadows by hitting his head with a truncheon. It is likely he would have died had the ambulance driver not managed to get his patient past the police who were trying to prevent him entering the hospital.

Let's get a better grip of the reality, Graham.

 

[biffvernon]

The policeman will, in all probablity, been severely disciplined and quite possibly lose his job and be convicted of a criminal offence,

What like with Blair Peach and with IanTomlinson? I hope you are right, Nigel but I'm not holding my breath. History is not with you.

 

[skier-hughes]

That's ok then isn't it, please sir I shot him in the back but I didn't know what I was doing,

Er, he didn't hurt anybody. He swung on a flag. Wow.

The policeman almost killed Alfie Meadows by hitting his head with a truncheon. It is likely he would have died had the ambulance driver not managed to get his patient past the police who were trying to prevent him entering the hospital.

Let's get a better grip of the reality, Graham.

No, let's get a total grip on reality. What he did was wrong, his excuse that he didn't know what he was doing is just absurd.

 

[Nigel Watts]

In the heat of the moment, in the thick of a riot, you see a flag waving on the side of some stone edifice. You climb, leap, swing...

It's possible, but only just, to believe that a Cambridge History student did not realise the significance of what he was doing, but let's say we give him the benefit of the doubt.

Feeling chilly, pile up some Socialist Worker newspapers and try to ignite them to eek out some warmth to stave off immanent hypothermia and trench foot, not realising that they are piled against a wooden door which itself might catch fire igniting the entire building, nor realising that this is the door of the Supreme Court? Using that publication to start a fire is probably the thing for which it is best suited, but apart from that it is impossible to credit this action with anything other than cold blooded attempted arson which could have resulted in serious loss of life. Add to that the fact that Gilmour has form and, well, I think the Torygraph in this case has him bang to rights.

All this is a bit ironic really. Pink Floyd met at Cambridge Poly (now called something much grander but somehow more forgettable, which is why I cant remember it despite seeing their advertising emblazoned all over Cambridge station a few months ago). Their lyrics:

The lunatic is on the grass
Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs
Got to keep the loonies on the path
The lunatic is in the hall

are generally thought to be a dig at students at the rather more famous Cambridge University in whose ancient quads students and the public, but not the dons, are forbidden from walking on the grass.

Prophetic words.

 

[biffvernon]

Oh dear, like other aspects of your interpretation there is a kernal of truth somewhere but the whole is far from the mark.

Roger Waters and Syd Barrett were childhood friends. Waters and Nick Mason met at Regent Street Poly, London, started playing together and were then joined by Richard Wright, also a Regent Street Poly student. Barrett had been at Cambridge Tech but moved to Camberwell College of Art in autumn 63 and then met the others. David Gilmore had known Barrett at Cambridge Tech in the early sixties but did not join Pink Floyd till December 1967 when he moved to London.

Pink Floyd started playing in London and that's where all their early gigs were. Any links to Cambridge were very tenuous.

Another fact, Gilmore Jnr did not burn the door. But hey, let's not let facts get in the way of a good prejudice.

Of course that rather fine oak door would have taken a lot more than a few sheets of Socialist Worker to even singe the varnish.

 

[Penners]

Charlie Gilmore's brother has written well

But his dad does a pretty fair job, too.

Here's his best solo album, in my opinion: http://www.davidgilmour.com/music_island.htm


I just felt that some anodyne trivia would be appropriate, at this stage in the thread. :wink:

 

[Flyfisher]

Waters and Nick Mason met at Regent Street Poly, London, started playing together and were then joined by Richard Wright, also a Regent Street Poly student.

Indeed, some had roots in Cambridge but the band was definitely formed in London. According to Mason's book 'Inside Out', they were all studying architecture, though Wright dropped out in favour of a place at the London College of Music.

I'd second Penners' comment about Gilmour's 'On An Island' album (partly recorded on Gilmour's refurbished 1911 Thames houseboat Astoria - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astoria_%28recording_studio%29), though anyone wanting to explore his work for the first time could do a lot worse than 'Live In Gdansk' and/or 'Remember That Night', which also include stunning versions of some of his older Floyd work, including a wonderful version of 'Echoes'. Both include some of the last performances of Rick Wright.

 

[Moo]

Where is the London College of Music? The only ones I know of are the Royal Academy of Music, the Guildhall, Trinity, and the Royal College of Music.

 

[Flyfisher]

It's all quite simple really.

We're broke. We've run out of things to make or sell. The only way we'll get GDP growth to come anywhere near that of China, India, Brazil, etc is to develop our intellectual capacity.

Not in the 'ologies or the pointless colouring in degrees that have been manufactured to satisfy some arbitrary goal of 50% going to university. But in difficult and important things - like medical research, physics, bio-tech, genetics and nano-technology. That is where our GDP growth is going to come from to keep our feckless consumerist poor in welfare dependency - and more importantly to fund our lingering and increasingly unhealthy demise.

[snip]

We could sit around and squabble - or we could face up to basic maths. We're spending £700bn and earning £550bn. Our GDP growth is nowhere near enough to bridge the gap. The forthcoming demographic/care avalance is truly terrifying. :shock:

Hear hear FW. I think that's a pretty good summary. I could be picky about "We've run out of things to make or sell." and argue we've not so much run out as priced ourselves out of such things, but the detail makes little difference to the actual mess we're in.

I've mentioned before the relative amounts we spend on tertiary education versus defence and questioned whether we really have our priorities right in this regard. In the same vein, I listened to Tony Benn on the radio this afternoon (R4, Head To Head) stating that the cost of Trident would pay for all the savings the government is currently trying to make. I've not checked the figures and I realise Benn is an ardent anti-nuclear weapons campaigner, but even so it does make me wonder about our priorities.

 

[biffvernon]

And what about Jody McIntyre, unable to climb cenotaphs and swing on flags since his cerebral palsy confines him to a wheelchair? A student protesting lawfully.

On reaching Parliament Square with his 16-year-old brother Finlay, Mr McIntyre quickly became caught up in a large crowd of protesters being pushed back by police.
He said: "I managed to get through to the front of the crowd and ended up facing the police, It was clear that they wanted violence. You could see it in their faces. They started using their batons and one hit me on my left shoulder, sending a sharp shooting pain down my arm. Other people around me were being hit on the head.
"Four policemen then grabbed my arms and shoulders and dragged me out of my wheelchair. My brother and some friends tried to pull me back but the police were beating them."
Ten minutes after Mr McIntyre was pulled out of the crowd by riot officers his brother managed to struggle through police lines with his wheelchair. The pair then rejoined the crowd of protesters, this time surging towards back through Parliament Square towards the Department of Education, in Victoria Street.
In the melee Mr McIntyre and Finlay found themselves alone in a no-mans land between the crowd and the police. It was at this point that he claims he was targeted by one of the same officers who had earlier dragged him out of his wheelchair.
He said: "A policeman was in front of me, telling me to move, but he was a bit nervous because I am disabled. Then out of the corner of my I saw one of the officers from the previous incident. He seemed to recognise me from earlier and came running over."
Without warning, claims Mr McIntyre, the officer tipped his wheelchair over and pushed him onto the tarmac. He dragged me across the road by my arms," said Mr McIntyre. "It was painful."
An angry crowd was soon swarming around the officer, shouting at him to release Mr McIntyre. "I managed to get back into my wheelchair and lost sight of the police officer, who was surrounded by protesters," he added.
However Mr McIntryre, who attended Haberdashers' Aske's school in south east London and writes a blog called Life on Wheels, did manage to take a note of the officer's number and is now set to report him to the Met and the IPCC.

There's more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8196630/Police-dragged-me-from-wheelchair-twice-during-protests-says-demonstrator.html

Jody McIntyre's blog: http://jodymcintyre.wordpress.com/

 

[Flyfisher]

Where is the London College of Music?

I didn't know, but it seems to be in Ealing: http://music.tvu.ac.uk/