Does The Left Want An End To Democracy?

[naomi24]

This is what happened yesterday – a day after the result of the election was announced.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/protesters-police-face-downing-street-5670007

[-Talbot-]

Were those people representing a particular party, naomi?

[sandyRoe]

^ I had a similar thought. Are they disgruntled Milibanites, do you think?

[Peter Pedant]

demonstrating is a democratic right

altho I agree throwing traffic cones and smoke bombs at the police isnt

[naomi24]

I don't know who they were representing - but they are clearly not happy to accept the result of a democratic election.

[sandyRoe]

And the far right has a taste for thuggish behaviour. Could these have been members of the youth wing of UKIP acting out their disappointment?

[naomi24]

I doubt the youth wing of Ukip were represented - they wouldn't object to the prospect of cuts being made - but I can see a few of the banners bearing the words 'Socialist Workers'.

[sandyRoe]

Agent provocateurs? Street politics can be a dirty business.

[tamborine]

Are they communists? Do they want a north vietnamese regime or pre magna carta fuedalism ? Maybe a Saddam despot would suit.?

Intellingensia, thay are not!

[Khandro]

sandy // Could these have been members of the youth wing of UKIP acting out their disappointment? //

answer; emphatically NO!

[jim360]

There's always going to be an element of society who look for any excuse to have a good old-fashioned violent protest. The reason is often secondary.

There was also a legitimate protest going on. I think it's entirely understandable to be disappointed at the result and to question whether it is really democratic to have a Majority government based on a minority vote.

Unfortunately for these particular protesters they may have overlooked a similar opportunity to protest in 1997. And 2001. And 1992.And every election ever since 1950. (Before then doesn't count as the modern system was only introduced in 1948). In the sense they appeared to be protesting about we have never had a democracy. It's wrong to kick up a fuss about a broken system just when you don't get the result you wanted.

As an aside one of the problems with the current system is that constituency boundaries favour Labour. It's a measure of how badly they did that they only managed to stay above the 1983 result on Thursday because unfair boundaries denied the Tories another 25 seats or so.

[naomi24]

sandyRoe's much used wooden spoon is, as always, in full working order. ;o)

[Orderlimit]

You only have to look at the state of these useless violent wasters to see they are SWP and Labour type supporting students.

[dieseldick]

of course they do, look at the election debate on bbc , ukip were left out , why ?

[DTCwordfan]

There are those on both sides of the left and front who don't give a crap about democratic process, naomi, so I am not that surprised. However, whilst peaceful protest is perfectly okay, trying to take it towards blatant vandalism and abuse of the police is not.

On a lighter note, my godson, when at UEA, joined the Anarchists and then resigned to switch over to the International Socialists as 'the Anarchists were too well-organised.' His father and I reckon that he is a Conservative minister in training......

[jomifl]

Obviously cuts in the police force would be a bad idea.

[dieseldick]

(And the far right has a taste for thuggish behaviour. Could these have been members of the youth wing of UKIP acting out their disappointment?)

sandy, who else are they going to vote for bnp ? they know the bnp are too right wing so yes they vote ukip which everyone knows is not a racist party. just another excuse for socialist leftwing nutters to slur the ukip name !!

[sandyRoe]

Could someone remind me, who cut police numbers by some 17000?

[naomi24]

At least the parties agreed on something.

//the shadow Chancellor said he was “explicit that Labour would not reverse" these cuts.//

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11326446/Ed-Balls-forced-to-admit-Labour-could-cut-5billion-in-first-year-of-Government.html

[Gromit]

They would probably like a revolution and would then be able to impose their communist ideology on the masses who do not want it.

They are obviously going to be disappointed by the election result, but that is no excuse for such behaviour. From the photos, many of them look young, and hopefully they will grow out of it.