This was originally submitted to a Bristol student newspaper, but wasn't published. This explains some of the remarks and the slightly 'explanatory' tone of the piece. I am putting it here mainly so I don't feel like I wasted my time writing it, although I imagine I'm preaching to the converted.
Cuts – in case you hadn't noticed – are very much in vogue. On October 20th, the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government will announce the results of its comprehensive spending review. Judging by what has been announced already, it is likely that the plans outlined in the review will be targeted largely at the poorest and most vulnerable within society. No doubt there will be a number of diversionary exceptions intended to create the image of spreading cuts across every sector of society – for an example, see the changes already proposed to child benefit payments. But the further privatisation of the welfare system, the NHS, and the numerous other cuts to all manner of social programs will inevitably places the biggest burden on those who can least afford it. Examples of such policies have already been provided: June's 'emergency budget', according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, left working families on the lowest incomes as the biggest losers.

What is truly startling about this is not that a Conservative-dominated government is enacting retrogressive policies, but rather the collective amnesia that seems to have afflicted the majority of the country's political and media classes. Despite the fact that the current deficit is almost entirely attributable to the financial meltdown that was caused by politicians and bankers, speculators, and stock market gamblers, the narrative most often heard is that the profligate spending of the New Labour administration is to blame. The most important aspect of this narrative is, of course, the idea that 'we are all in this together'. Despite the massive implausibility of such an idea, the recent Conservative Party Conference descended upon Birmingham with the tagline 'together in the national interest'. Nothing could be further from the truth, something ably demonstrated by the conference itself. £1,000 a head dinners, champagne receptions, and the confirmed attendance of the eighteen Conservative millionaires in the cabinet (not to mention however many other Tory MPs and party members' worth runs into six figures) are just some of the highlights of the blatant hypocrisy on show. What lies behind these slogans is in fact a project based on political ideals - not necessity – which seeks to drastically reduce the role of the state in any attempts to promote social equality and cohesion, and replace such attempts either with operations run for private profit, or with nothing at all. The New Labour government was in many ways also guilty of trying to implement similar ideals, but on a scale nowhere near that intended by the coalition government.

It was with such things in mind that on Sunday 3rd October I took the decision to travel to Birmingham and join the demonstrations against both government policy and the conference itself. Somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 people (depending on whose numbers you believe) had made the same decision – not bad for a rainy Sunday spent outside. The atmosphere throughout the afternoon verged between joyful and enraged, and preceded by a number of speakers ranging from the rousing to the risible, the demonstration set off at about one o'clock to the sound of chanting and soggy, stamping feet.

After about two hours the march came to an end, in a grey street, next to a half-flooded car park about a mile away from the conference we were there to protest against. Conveniently, it was the very same car park in which there were a number of coaches waiting to take a large number of the protesters home. Fair enough, I thought. We had probably all had enough of wandering around in the rain. However, I couldn't help but feel somewhat embittered towards the organisers, who go under the name of the Right to Work campaign. They have hailed the day as a success, claiming that people came in their thousands 'to tell David Cameron and the Tories we won't pay for a crisis we did not create' (http://sites.google.com/site/righttoworkconference/home...begun). It is true that people came in their thousands. However, there was an utter failure to tell the Tories anything. On a route negotiated with the police, the closest any of us got to the conference itself was a distance of about 300 metres, with hundreds of police officers and eight foot high metal fences preventing us getting any closer.

For their part, the police are 'very pleased with the way the march [went]' (http://www.west-midlands.police.uk/np/birminghamwestand...=1236). This is a serious problem. By agreeing to march along a route negotiated with the police, the very purpose of protest itself is nullified. Protests can be successful in a number of ways: two of the most important include either succeeding in disrupting the event or practice that the protest opposes, and making people aware of why a protest is taking place. The events of Sunday 3rd October achieved neither of these. The conference continued as if nothing was happening, whilst the march was directed largely through empty backstreets and past identikit office buildings, providing almost no opportunity for engagement with people who may well be interested in finding ways to oppose government 'austerity' policies.

Before the march, John McDonnell (a Labour MP, no less), spoke enthusiastically about the need for, amongst other things, direct action, a statement that was followed by a resounding cheer from the crowd. Direct action comes in a number of forms – strikes, sit-ins, occupations, blockades, sabotage, and so forth. The attitude displayed by the organisers and the vast majority of protesters was one that reflected a desire to do nothing more than march, chant, and repeat, ad infinitum. There is certainly a time and a place for such things, and there is no doubt that it feels good and helps to build a further sense of unity amongst those already involved and committed. However, it does nothing to bring new people toward a campaign or change the course of government policy.

There are local movements across the country aiming to halt the move towards the increases in social inequality that will be caused by the abolition, downsizing, and privatisation of the welfare state (a welfare state which, it is worth nothing, was largely created when Britain's debt as a percentage of GDP was 250%, in the period following WWII (http://www.redpepper.org.uk/Countering-the-cuts-myths)). If these movements want to make a serious attempt at halting the reactionary policies the government intends to impose upon the country, they will need to more than participate in marches negotiated with the police. Undoubtedly, there will be strikes by workers in a number of unions. However, without a wider social movement working to support those strikes as well as taking action of its own accord, these strikes are unlikely to have any impact.

Many of us have grown up in a country where a vast number of public utilities (railways, water, electricity) are already run for private profit, not public benefit. We can choose to grow older in a country (indeed, a world), where ever more institutions established for social welfare are subordinated to the ideals of the market. Universities already have been, and that logic appears to be leading to uncapped tuition fees. If it seems desirable to apply such ideas to the NHS, unemployment benefit, and protection for the sick, elderly, and disabled, all we have to do is sit back, turn on the television, and do nothing. However, regardless of what the government and their cheerleaders in the media are so keen of saying, there will be no wider social benefits to removing what remains of the welfare systems that so many people in decades past struggled, and in some cases, died, to establish, and on which so many people now rely. Quite the opposite: there will be very narrow benefits, chiefly to those politicians and commentators who see the removal of such systems as a notch on their ideological bedpost, and to their friends in business who will be able to make money from it. There is a protest organised by the Bristol Anti-Cuts Alliance in response to the comprehensive spending review, due to meet at 11:00 on Saturday October 23rd, in Castle Park by Broadmead. For those of us who believe that the policies the government would like to impose on us are in fact a choice (not a necessity) and that they should be opposed, it would be worth our while to turn up and think about doing more than simply marching, chanting, and repeating.