"We should all be clear what is happening here"

The Guardian today published a statement from Tom Morris, Artistic Director at Bristol Old Vic, which was released in response to the Arts Council's announcement of funding for cultural venues and projects across the country. Despite the Bristol Old Vic getting a better deal than some, he expressed eloquently what many in the arts community feel about the Government's 'deficit reduction' programme. In unusually strong words compared to many of his colleagues, he also expressed concerns about the wider impact of spending reductions:

"We should all be clear what is happening here.

Arts Council England has been asked to make big cuts and to be progressive too. There is no way to make this scale of cut without making horrible and unpopular decisions.

Bristol Old Vic is lucky enough to be in receipt of a standstill grant; this is good news for us and good news for Bristol. In addition, we're excited about a new conversation with Arts Council England about how they can support us in developing touring work. However, many organisations and cities have not been so fortunate. It would be easy to blame Arts Council England, but this is not their fault. They have been set a riddle to which there is no fair solution.

 The arguments about the fantastically efficient economic and human impact of arts investment have been brilliantly rehearsed over recent weeks, but this is not the main issue today.

 People across the public sectors should take note of today's news, not because the arts should be favoured at the expense of health or education or benefits, but because similar cuts will soon be made across the board in all sectors. We can see the detail of our sector early, because Arts Council England has decided to give us as much time as possible to plan.

Surprisingly, this is not a party political issue. There are many people who support and belong to all three major parties who agree that the scale of cuts across the public sectors is too high. In the face of today's news, we should stand beside doctors, teachers, policemen, lawyers, local politicians and the many, many voters across the country to argue for a more enlightened approach to deficit reduction."

Half a million protest in London - and the media ignores them

For those that were there, the protest yesterday was stunning in its size, vibrancy and diversity. From firefighters, to off-duty soldiers, teachers, civil servants, stay-at-home parents, representatives from disabled groups, actors, social care workers, private sector unions, Gurkhas, doctors and health care professionals.

In otherwise fairly appalling coverage, the live blog of the Telegraph reported from a south London feeder march: "The bewildering variety of groups taking part include the Lewisham Pensioners' Forum and the Latin American Women's Rights Service".

It was, without a doubt, the largest protest since the anti-war march of 2003. And that should have been a story in itself. Much of the media, however, took a different view.

Would you brand all football fans hooligans for the inevitable actions of a few idiots that occur at the end of just about every major Premiership game? No.

But that's exactly - and predictably - what most of the press (and, depressingly, TV rolling news) did by focusing the vast bulk of their coverage of a few kids causing vandalism away from a huge and peaceful march.

So, instead of filming pictures of swathes of people marching up to Hyde Park, there was a determination to get shots of kids kicking windows, resulting in faintly ridiculous shots of kids doing just that, but surrounded by large numbers of cameramen and journalists, such as this one.

THE EXCEPTIONS

There were some notable exceptions to relentlessly negative coverage of the day by most of the media. the Guardian, to its credit, has produced this video report of the day that gives some sense of the scale of the march, which was so large that crowds were queing from Aldwych to get to the start of the march at Blackfriars while demonstrators at the front had arrived at Hyde Park.

Paul Mason, from BBC's Newsnight, was also even-handed in his coverage. He was also equally impressed - and surprised - by the turnout:

"I got a sense that the labour and trade union movement slightly stunned itself with its ability mobilise so many people on the streets... The big takeaway from today is that the trade union movement... is certainly a force to be reckoned with...

...Another note: we tend to think of the public sector unions as white collar or from the service industries but this was not true of today: there were many tens of thousands of manual workers in their bibs, hi-vis uniforms etc. I met binmen from Southhampton furious that they pay is being cut; and of course the Firefighters, designated "stewards" in order to deter the anarchists from coming anywhere near the demo".

He then had this warning for the government:

"This passive but fairly angry mass are the people that pose the biggest political problem both for the government and the opposition; because when you can mobilise more or less your entire workplace - be it a special school, a speech therapy centre, a refuse depot, an engineering shop or a fire station - to go on a march, then "something is up".
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On a lighter note, there were an amusing a diverse range of banners and placards at the march, including these:
"My banner's crap, but so are the Tories"
"David, all artists hate you. Except Tracey Emin and you're welcome to her"
and, this:

With millions priced out of the house market, Osborne hands a windfall to buy-to-let landlords

The latest Budget has, it turns out, been great news for those looking to buy portfolios of property. Incidentally, the Treasury has seen fit to throw twice as much money at this group of hard-pressed millionaires (£560M) as they have at first-time buyers (£250M).

Nice to know where Osbornes priorities are.

It Cuts Both Ways... the Alternative

Clegg - why I agree with Dave (now)

Interesting that Clegg has managed to go from this:




to this.

And they wonder why people have lost trust in politicians.

Here's (yet another) report that Cameron won't mention

We already know that this current government has an ideological interest in talking down the NHS and has consequently ignored various pieces of research that show improving patient satisfaction and rising quality of care in the service.

The British Medical Journal is this week reporting that satisfaction with the NHS is at a record high, and that even Tory-leaning voters are happier. It also concludes that rising satisfaction is "probably not unadjacent to the large rise in funding since 2000".

Will this make Lansley think otherwise about his plans? Of course not.

Thousands prepare to join March for the Alternative

In a few days time, over 100,000 marchers are expected to decend on the banks of the Thames as part of March for the Alternative, a coalition of groups (and individuals) opposed to the ideological programme of cuts that is being forced upon the British people by a Tory Party without a majority of its own, which failed to warn the public of their plans prior to the election and which consistently ignores the evidence that drastic spending cuts are causing rising unemployment and falling rates of growth.

The march web site and False Economy's transport map are currently drumming up support. And pretty impressive they are too.