Democracy Hijacked - The Rise Of 'Professional' Protesters

In the UK in the last thirty years or so, there has a developed  a sub group of "protesters", who turn up at every "peaceful demonstration" and commit acts of vandalism, violence and mayhem. They rarely, if ever have any affiliation to the cause being marched for, or against, and usually come from one section of  our society ....... the clues are often in the banners that they parade under - many of which are produced by the same organisation that has been producing these banners since the 1980's (and probably before that).

Banners Produced By Communists

These thugs, are often identifiable to anyone who attends one or two of these events ..... they may describe themselves as 'anti-establishment', and be officially 'unemployed' (or 'students'), and living an 'alternative" lifestyle (meaning that they claim state benefits for food and rent, deal 'a bit of weed', sell fringe 'hippie' produce at all the 'summer music festivals" etc etc etc), and turn up at all major marches on subsidised mini buses, where they can practice 'anarchist' politics i.e. try to maim a police officer, vandalise properties such as McDonalds, or Banks, and set fire to anything that makes a lot of smoke ...... anyone who has been near these demo's will instantly recognise the types.

The modus operandi of these thugs, is usually to organise via a network of small groups or cells, under the umbrella of any 'organising' group such as the TUC. These days it will be via social web based networks, but there is probably still use of texts and personal contacts, in order to evade the police and other security operatives, as they believe that they are under surveillance with police infiltrators ..... which is probably true.

Any demonstration where these groups turns up invariably ends in violence, with much physical and human damage, but more importantly the cause of the original march is effectively 'hijacked', with the press discussing only the violence and the police 'tactics' and ignoring the merits (or otherwise) of the demonstration.

Yesterdays TUC run Anti-Cuts march, ended in much the same way as all the other 'peaceful' protests of the last thirty years ..... Trafalgar Square was daubed in graffiti and paint with slogans including 'Tory scum' and 'fight back' scrawled on the statues, shop windows daubed or smashed, and red paint hurled at the 2012 Olympic countdown clock .... many businesses were closed, people frightened, and damage done to properties. All of which has to be paid for by the tax payers ..... so more public money we can't afford (but the TUC and Labour Party think money grows on trees), so more job cuts to pay for the damage.

Public Statues Defaced

By a strange 'coincidence', its those sorts of abusive terms that appear on the front of the Socialist Workers newspaper ....

Headlines Match Graffiti

Of course, that's just, as I said, a 'coincidence' ............... and these black clad 'peaceful protester' are just exercising their right to peaceful protest .....

Anarchist Thugs Smash Windows

Of course, they are either too stupid, or don't care that, by their violence they destroy any chance that the protesters have of forcing the Government of the day to back down ..... a recent example of this is the students march against tuition fee rises ..... the same groups who hijacked the TUC march, also hijacked the student march, with much the same result .....

..... pictures of the violence went around the world, a student went to prison for throwing a fire extinguisher from a building roof, and the students haven't felt able to march again. Personally I would make the organisers of any protest take out insurance to pay for damages and business losses attached to the protest and rally. If they can't get insurance, and still proceed with the the march, then the organisers can be sued for the damages.

Civil Service Cuts - Your Joking .....

In October a 'Public Spending Review' is meant to 'slash wasteful expenditure' in the Civil Service etc especially on the IT projects, which are very expensive in the 'Public Sector'.... it's not going to work, and I will illustrate why.

A mole in the local civil service I.T. development centre, informs me of all the waste and scams (which often leave them open mouthed) they come across, and its on the other side of 'a joke'. I was aware of these scenarios myself, as I had left the public sector over a decade ago, but theirs is a more recent account.

Before I can start exposing the lengths they go to to avoid reform or work, I need to first give a few brief technical terms of explanation:

• BA - Business Analyst - A specialist business user, who analyses, defines, documents, and propose solutions for large and/or complex business areas and prepares functional specifications of what the business want from an application or piece of software to be developed.
• PM - Project Manager - A manager, usually but not always from the business who co-ordinates all the work activities required to produce and deliver the required application or piece of software to be developed.
• Other - System Testers, System Analysts, Programmers / Developers, Project Office Management (POM) - other roles - some of which would normally come from within the business, but may come from contract workers e.g. System Analysts,and Programmers / Developers would be contracted in if there were not enough within the business - however the lead in each role should be business provided.

Now we come to the Civil Service I.T. sector .... my mole works on a high profile government project, for one of the major government departments .... as a contractor of course.

The mole reports that :-

• In the face of the department facing 20% to 25% budget cuts it has been busy extending all the contracts until next year, AND recruiting more contractors - apparently this so that they can then 'sack' all these additional contractors, and thus tell the government minister that they have made 20% to 25% budget cuts without actually cutting anything.
• On most of the projects, the Civil service is, through lack of anyone capable, unable to provide even BA's .... so the departments application requirements and development decisions are created by private contractors, who are not specialists of that departments needs.
• This complete lack of Civil Service talents or skills, even extends to not being able to staff the POM - a series of roles which are simply handling paperwork sign off, library functions, time-sheets etc .... very basic administration skills.
• When they tried to use Civil Servants on project tasks, the project immediately fell into arrears and chaos because they were totally incapable of performing any of the tasks - they were replaced with contractors, at four times the costs.
• The contractors are all provided by just one supplier, so its more expensive than the going rate for the same roles in private industry .... also its effectively a closed list of the same faces moving around the sites.
• The mole reports that you can usually spot the Civil Servant desks on site because there are rows of empty desks come 3 pm - they are also the ones who organise round after round of 'meetings' which perform no function other than to stop the civil servant organiser from actually having to do any work. 

Finally the mole told me a story which sums up why the Civil Service is never going to be reformed - recently, in anticipation of the 'cuts' the contractors have been shadowed by a Civil Servant who is to take over from them ..... what a laugh.

The 'shadow' assigned to the 'mole', came in on the Monday and was unhappy with their desk location (it was in the centre where the computer screen could be seen by everyone - so misuse i.e. cruising the Internet all day would be spotted) and went off sick for three days.  When the 'shadow' turned up again at 09:30am on the Thursday, they refused to listen to what the 'mole' was trying to tell them, and kept trying to query old 'signed off' work, instead off dealing with current matters, then they went home at 3pm .... on the Friday they sat with the 'mole' until 11:20am when they announced they were going on an early lunch.  'Mole' asked if they would be back at 12:20pm and was told not until 2pm - the 'mole' finally reported that the 'shadow' failed to turn up at 2pm and had gone home - they had said that they had 'done their weekly hours and had taken 'flexi time' for the afternoon.

Project Management Team



And this shambles is why the Civil Service can't run or deliver any I.T. projects - they have lost any skill base for even the most basic of the functions required to run or deliver a body of I.T. work (the destruction of ITSA, its own IT department was the initial cause of this).

But more pertinently, they have in many project areas, largely lost any culture of work ethic or responsibility, and that's the most damaging loss of them all .....