Rally Against Debt
A well mannered, polite rally for civilised people who don’t wish to see their hard earned money being spent on pointless government initiatives and instead would like government spending to actually fall and our national debt to be cut.
We don’t think that it’s fair for us to continue borrowing money to live a lifestyle that we simply can’t afford – burdening our children with unnecessary debt that they will have to pay back.
Any visits to Fortnum and Mason’s by protestors will only be to marvel at their selection of quality goods and perhaps make the occasional purchase.
Bonfires will be strictly forbidden: it’s out of season anyway
Trips to see Vodafone and other high street chains will result in congratulations to the company for providing jobs and growth in the UK.
This is only a planning group at the moment and all subject to change.
Offical hashtag #RallyAgainstDebt or #RAD
28 responses so far ↓
1 Richard // Mar 30, 2011 at 10:18 am
Count me in.
I was thinking of attending Saturday’s rally with a placard reading “deeper cuts NOW”, but I was visiting a tax haven instead so couldn’t make it.
2 JuliaM // Mar 30, 2011 at 10:18 am
/cheer
3 Alex // Mar 30, 2011 at 10:34 am
I trust a stop at the F&M tea rooms would be on the route.
4 Dan // Mar 30, 2011 at 10:57 am
Count me in. And my wife, brother, sister, in laws, parents and most of my friends.
5 R Grey // Mar 30, 2011 at 11:19 am
I think this will be bad.
The problem is that the kind of people that are really against the overspending, also happen to be the kind of people that work hard, with little time or money to spare, ergo, not the type of people to get out and protest.
6 Johnathan Pearce // Mar 30, 2011 at 11:47 am
Count me in.
7 xj // Mar 30, 2011 at 12:28 pm
@R Grey:
Maybe we could just pay people to attend for us?
You know, the way unions do.
8 PeterB // Mar 30, 2011 at 2:08 pm
Make it a Saturday or Sunday and I’m in!
9 Anon // Mar 30, 2011 at 2:22 pm
Which phonebox are you going to be meeting in?
10 DBC Reed // Mar 30, 2011 at 2:34 pm
It was actually private debt from bank loans that ruined the world economy in 2008.The next generation is burdened by these being capitalised into property prices ,so young adults have to fork out £100k up front for the land underneath any home they may wish to establish.
I used to think this blog had a higher class of right-wing ranting but recent discssions have been unnervingly weird.And boring.A bit like the Daily Mail.Not good enough.
11 Mr Ecks // Mar 30, 2011 at 2:57 pm
DBC Red
Because banking is a totally free market where anybody can do anything they like and obviously the worlds scummy goverments had nothing to do with the mess and are totally blameless.
If you don’t like it here, feel free to bugger off.
12 Tank // Mar 30, 2011 at 3:10 pm
>It was actually private debt from bank loans that ruined the world economy in 2008.The next generation is burdened by these being capitalised into property prices ,so young adults have to fork out £100k up front for the land underneath any home they may wish to establish.
Do you really think this is a high-class discussion, DBC?
13 Tom // Mar 30, 2011 at 4:14 pm
Hong Kong population 7 million
No natural resources
Sovereign Wealth Fund circa £293 billion
Singapore population 5 million
No natural resources
SWF circa £315 billion
UK population 62 million
Floating on a sea of coal and oil
Debts £1 trillion
14 Rob // Mar 30, 2011 at 4:39 pm
I’m sure the Left would cause trouble at any such rally and you can guarantee the BBC et all wouldn’t be bending over backwards to minimise the bad publicity, as they did this week.
15 Rob // Mar 30, 2011 at 4:43 pm
Anon, we all met last May, all 17,563,438 of us. A million more times the legitimacy of a bunch of violent scroungers taking to the streets.
16 Mark Wadsworth // Mar 30, 2011 at 4:53 pm
Mr Ecks, I don’t think you understood DBC’s point.
Let’s take a starker example of e.g. Ireland – would you not agree that a large part of Ireland’s government debt is down to the fact they bailed out the banks? So the total government debt is a mixture of govt stupidity/corruption and banking sector stupidity/corruption. The two are nigh inseparable.
And as it happens, although Labour were spending far too much money and increasing nominal public sector debt even before 2008, the official public sector debt was quite low by international standards, i.e. about half of one year’s GDP and nothing to worry about in the grander scheme.
17 John77 // Mar 30, 2011 at 5:46 pm
@ Mark Wadsworth
The key word in your post is “official”
Now if you look at real public sector debt, you will find it is a multiple of that.
In any case public debt of over 50% of GDP IS something to worry about. The debt servicing cost is a couple of % of GDP, equivalent to the output of half-a-million men.
18 Mr Ecks // Mar 30, 2011 at 6:33 pm
Never suggested that the banks were without sin.
DBC was peddling the leftist line that was all down to the banks. The land value bit I leave to your knowledge.
What I don’t like is the big lie that the state which claims to “regulate” the banks (and just about everybody else) for the good of all is blameless in the financial mess. At the very, very least they were asleep on the job.In fact they knew what was going on but because of their ignorance/arrogance in matters economic, they really thought they had abolished boom and bust and they could keep the spending going up forever.
Brown shouled have guaranteed deposits and let the banks go. He didn’t have the guts and did not want 7000 geordies hitting the bricks in labour’s heartland( the joke is 5000 have gone or are going anyway). Brown and his gang are just as culpable in this mess as the bankers.
The climate of “the state will save us” that has been active since the 1930-40′s is also to blame. When bankers had no prospect of help they had some incentive to be sober and cautious( there are always exceptions of course-greed is powerful). Since the last Depression the idea that the almighty, wonderful state would, like some half-arsed superhero, “not let it happen again” has created a dangerous situation. Wobbles in the market which would once have reminded bankers of their financial mortality have been smothed over by the state. This has created a financial house of cards which must soon topple.
As for the public debt being “low” by international standards, it still is billions that will have to be paid back by the state’s robbery under threat of violence.
19 Ian B // Mar 30, 2011 at 6:34 pm
Suggesting that current banking systems are private sector enterprises is a joke.
20 steves // Mar 30, 2011 at 7:40 pm
count me in
goota agree with Ian that the banks are more an arm of govt not at all free market not even close
21 Lorenzo // Mar 30, 2011 at 9:21 pm
When you’re tucked up fast asleep in bed early, do a couple of hot heads arguing in their local 10 miles away have any effect on you?
So why should half a dozen bloggers having a demo effect a load of traitor politicians fast asleep in Parliament.
Wake Up – Demos are FUTILE.
22 Newmania // Mar 30, 2011 at 10:04 pm
I have often wondered why British tax payers are so supine especially regionally . The South East gets a truly appalling deal lived through ten years of a government it hated (and rejected ) , not a squeak.
Call it a country and you have a problem
23 Johnathan Pearce // Mar 31, 2011 at 9:58 am
@ Mark Wadsworth
DBC Reed – who in other forums has defended things such as nationalised banks – did not mention the state aspect to Ireland’s problems. He only mentioned private bank lending. To do that while ignoring the role of the European Central Bank’s ultra-low interest rates – which apply in Ireland – is misleading, to say the least.
24 R Grey // Mar 31, 2011 at 10:10 am
*It was actually private debt from bank loans that ruined the world economy in 2008.*
Even if we buy the line it was all the fault of those “evil bankers”, I don’t really see how that has anything to do with our current situation of goverment budgets not balancing by a wide margin.
25 Jag // Mar 31, 2011 at 4:50 pm
@Mr Ecks
Absolutely on the money (although IMO as a long term aim the state shouldn’t even guarantee the deposits held in banks); the financial institutions (not just the banks) should have been allowed to go down and their shareholders would have borne the cost (me included as a pension fund holder, of course). And you know why they wouldn’t let this happen? Because one of the outcomes would have been a massive property crash in the UK and no party, of any colour, is prepared to countenance a realignment of UK property values to a sensible, sustainable long-term level (i.e. what the market decides is the right price WITHOUT state interference/support).
Now what do we have? A classic economic case of moral hazard where the financial institutions know they will never be allowed to fail and are back to their old tricks with the active encouragement of government.
Details of the march ASAP – I’ll be there.
26 Nick luke // Apr 1, 2011 at 12:16 am
May I suggest you e-mail details to the 460 000 plus who turned out for the Countryside Alliance March. Great walking company, tidy, polite, patient, close the gates behind themselves etc. etc.
27 G.Brownie // Apr 1, 2011 at 7:36 pm
To all those who doubt the banks caused most of this mess, try the £1,376 billion that was added to the national debt as a result of the “financial interventions”
28 kisha // Apr 3, 2011 at 11:21 pm
Hi. This is a musical response to the debt crisis, called Why do We Have to Pay. I hope you like it. http://www.youtube.com/user/kishaksalmonx?feature=mhum#p/u/0/V5iVVzIQPC8
Leave a Comment