One of over 250,000

For the first time in my post student life I went on a demonstration. Yes I was one of the over 250,000 people who took to the streets to protest about the Con-Dems programme of spending cuts. Why did I march? Good question. I don't think for one moment that the government is going to take a blind pit of notice. There seems to be something about being in power that seems to translate into the belief that you are the ONLY people with the ONLY right answer and consequently, the right to have your view dominate everyone else's.

Clearly in a country of 61 million people, 250,000 (or even 500,000 which is closer to the number that were actually there as the TUC stopped counting after 1/4 million) is not a representative sample, but what it does show is that this many people were prepared to do more than sit in front of their tv and complain.  Therefore, we shouldn't see each person as a single voice. Each person probably account for at least ten times more than than their single presence becasue they are representing all the "I dont like it but I can't be bothered to do anything about it" brigade- and we know that there are always a lot of them!

When you see this strength of oppinion in a nation not noted for public demonstrations of mass dissent it definately is telling you something.

So what about the people who do like it and can't be bothered to say? Well they already have it in their favour, so one can say they've already been heard.

Call me an idealist, but if I was in power, I would want to feel that even if people didn't like what I was doing, they were prepared to live with it becasue it was the best that could be done in a bad situation. The government cuts aren't the best that could be done in this situation! It seems like they haven't even tried to find a fairer way of providing help to the people who will be most affected.

The public bodies being asked to make the cuts have had to make them so rapidly that the majority have resorted to the only way they know how -  slash and cut immediately. Those Tory borough who are boasting that they have managed to do it without cutting services should share their insights and expertise with the others rather than just gloating! Gloating does not serve the community. This is just another reason to make the cuts over a longer period as argued by Labour and the unions. If there was more time,  more knowledge of what works could be shares. Let's not pretend that skills, knowledge and experience are distributed equally across the public sector. Community is about helping the weaker members and that goes for organisations as well as individuals.