David Cameron... Fuck Off Back to Eaton
I've been to my first ever protest! It was against the Con-Dem government's cuts in public services (unis, schools, hospitals, benefits, playgrounds, community centres and so on.) I almost didn't make it though, the other day I got soaked to the bone and felt rough when I woke up this morning at half six. I had set my alarm for then because I had to be at uni at 8 to get the bus up to Birmingham. So, I woke up, blinked, and somehow mid-blink I fell asleep because when I opened my eyes, what I thought was one second later, was over an hour later and it was 7:40.
I managed to text the guy who was organising our coach and found out that we weren't leaving at 8, we were meeting up at 8 so I managed to run down, limping a fair bit because yesterday morning I stepped on a broken drinks bottle and a bit of glass stabbed into my heel. Unfortunatly I left the house in three minutes flat and grabbed the first clean top I found, not realising that it was a blue one. Epic face palm!
Whilst waiting for the bus I had my first asthma attack of the day, the bus ride there was pretty uneventful and after a few hours we made it and stood through the pre-march talks where I had another couple of asthma attacks due to a) I wasn't well to begin with, b) it was raining the entire time and c) loads of people were smoking and cigarette smoke is my worst trigger and as we were all in a tight huddle I couldn't get away from the smoke.
Then we started marching and I had an absolute blast. I have been raised since birth to hate the Tories. My grandfather was a miner and his father was a miner so Thatcher is the ultimate swear word in my family. Both my parents were die-hard socialists in their day, my dad still is a socialist, my mum is but to a lesser extent. My sister doesn't give a fuck about politics and declared she wanted "anyone but Labour" to win.
Despite the rain there were over 7000 people there, quite a lot backed out because a) it was a Sunday and b) it was raining but I learnt a whole bunch of chants from the simple "David Cameron... fuck off back to Eaton" and "Tory Scum, out of Brum", though I put it to the people I was with that when they do come out of Birmingham they'll be back down to London with us haha. There was only one violent one, to the tune of that Clemantine song that went "Build a bonfire, build a bonfire, stick the Tories on the top, put the Lib Dems in the middle and we'll burn the fucking lot" and the most complicated probably was "Private companies do not run public services just for fun, bull shit, come off it, they want to make a profit!"
I had a few more asthma attacks on route and at this point I was spiraling, each one I have means it's easier to have the next one, which means it's easier to have the next one and so on. At one point I had a very bad one and the police took me out of the march and sat me down with Cherry, who I met today and is cool and one of the police men went "what's your friend's name" to her and she paniced and went "I don't know, I can't remember" which made me laugh.
Back at my flat now though and I think I might join the Socialist Worker's Party; I used to be Lib Dem but I don't think I could ever vote for them again after the stabbed all of their supporters in their backs with this coalition. The only problem is when there isn't any SWP candidates standing where I can vote, then I'll just vote Labour and Red Ed, who isn't that red but that's besides the point, he's redder than the rest of them lol.
All in all, a brilliant day out, one of the best I've had!
I managed to text the guy who was organising our coach and found out that we weren't leaving at 8, we were meeting up at 8 so I managed to run down, limping a fair bit because yesterday morning I stepped on a broken drinks bottle and a bit of glass stabbed into my heel. Unfortunatly I left the house in three minutes flat and grabbed the first clean top I found, not realising that it was a blue one. Epic face palm!
Whilst waiting for the bus I had my first asthma attack of the day, the bus ride there was pretty uneventful and after a few hours we made it and stood through the pre-march talks where I had another couple of asthma attacks due to a) I wasn't well to begin with, b) it was raining the entire time and c) loads of people were smoking and cigarette smoke is my worst trigger and as we were all in a tight huddle I couldn't get away from the smoke.
Then we started marching and I had an absolute blast. I have been raised since birth to hate the Tories. My grandfather was a miner and his father was a miner so Thatcher is the ultimate swear word in my family. Both my parents were die-hard socialists in their day, my dad still is a socialist, my mum is but to a lesser extent. My sister doesn't give a fuck about politics and declared she wanted "anyone but Labour" to win.
Despite the rain there were over 7000 people there, quite a lot backed out because a) it was a Sunday and b) it was raining but I learnt a whole bunch of chants from the simple "David Cameron... fuck off back to Eaton" and "Tory Scum, out of Brum", though I put it to the people I was with that when they do come out of Birmingham they'll be back down to London with us haha. There was only one violent one, to the tune of that Clemantine song that went "Build a bonfire, build a bonfire, stick the Tories on the top, put the Lib Dems in the middle and we'll burn the fucking lot" and the most complicated probably was "Private companies do not run public services just for fun, bull shit, come off it, they want to make a profit!"
I had a few more asthma attacks on route and at this point I was spiraling, each one I have means it's easier to have the next one, which means it's easier to have the next one and so on. At one point I had a very bad one and the police took me out of the march and sat me down with Cherry, who I met today and is cool and one of the police men went "what's your friend's name" to her and she paniced and went "I don't know, I can't remember" which made me laugh.
Back at my flat now though and I think I might join the Socialist Worker's Party; I used to be Lib Dem but I don't think I could ever vote for them again after the stabbed all of their supporters in their backs with this coalition. The only problem is when there isn't any SWP candidates standing where I can vote, then I'll just vote Labour and Red Ed, who isn't that red but that's besides the point, he's redder than the rest of them lol.
All in all, a brilliant day out, one of the best I've had!