Times you thought real change was coming... only to be sadly disappointed

[8ball]

Strangely, i had some hope of community organising and a shift in culture wrt looking out for your neighbours and helping each other out in the early days of covid.....

Yeah, I remember all sorts of hopes being expressed about how things might be different after.

As it turned out, we got a bit of flexibility on homeworking and wound up in a worse position for a future pandemic rather than better.

 

[A380]

Wendy's returning to the UK.

 

[klang]

Yeah, I remember all sorts of hopes being expressed about how things might be different after.

As it turned out, we got a bit of flexibility on homeworking and wound up in a worse position for a future pandemic rather than better.

Well, i certainly got to know a lot of people in my area, some of them are still good friends if mine.
Solidarity and support amongst new parents, the ones with babies born just before or into the pandemic was strong and great as these parents didn't get a lot of guidance from professionals and had to isolate from parents / families.
Also, a lot of mums and dads were furloghedso had a lot of time for their babies and other parents.
The weather happened to be good too, so hanging out in parks was fun.

 

[ska invita]

There will be change. Not sure what, or to what extent, but the very different baggage the Labour party carries compared to the Tories’ baggage will guarantee that imo.

True enough - the first time a member of the International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency has become prime minister!!

 

[urbanspaceman]

The Manchester Arena bombing in which 22 young women and girls were blown to pieces for wanting to see Ariana Grande. It was the response to this murderous, misogynist, atrocity that convinced me that British is no longer a serious country, but rotten and hollowed-out, with all the appearances of a functioning nation-state, but really an empty husk, culturally, socially and "spiritually" speaking.

The response of the emergency services was woeful, in a familiar and particularly modern British way: a deadly combination of box-ticking, risk aversion, interdepartmental confusion, sloth, buck-passing and incompetence was displayed by MI5, the police and ambulance services.

What really struck me way the way in which government and media tacitly agreed to reframe this intentional act of mass murder as a sort of natural disaster, or Act of God. The mawkish "Don't look back in anger" became the unofficial anthem of this massacre. If a nation agrees to not become angry when 22 young woman are murdered by a politically-inspired fanatic, then it is no longer worthy of regard as a functioning polity.

I remember that the immediate - and customary - media response was handwringing about a possible islamophobic backlash, of which there was of course none.

Compare with the Dunblane massacre: the day after the government and people united in basically banning guns. Things have changed

We are not a serious people.

 

[Gromit]

Strangely, i had some hope of community organising and a shift in culture wrt looking out for your neighbours and helping each other out in the early days of covid.....

Divide n conquer.

I'd hope it would change society even deeper with a change in how we work and distribution of wealth.

However, Too many people in power heavily invested in draining wealth from the public via commercial property interests.

They need you to be using offices, nearby shops and cafes so that they get their rents. It's nothing to do with productivity in the home Vs office.

I wish talk shows would stop airing that debate when it's the massive red herring they want the public to swallow.

 

[SpookyFrank]

When Findus Crispy Pancakes rebranded to Birds Eye.

I'd be fucking furious if they changed findus crispy pancakes though.

I haven't eaten one in 20 years, but if I ever do buy a pack I want them to be exactly as weird and unappealing as they were in my youth.

 

[Gromit]

I'd be fucking furious if they changed findus crispy pancakes though.

I haven't eaten one in 20 years, but if I ever do buy a pack I want them to be exactly as weird and unappealing as they were in my youth.

Be furious. They changed. Completely.

Mozzarella!!!​

That's not British! (Yes i know it was a Swedish company)

 

[SpookyFrank]

I kind of thought the murder of Jo Cox by some ranting gammony arsehole might be the moment the brexit wave finally broke. Foolish really, as of course that one event didn't make a scratch in the massive underlying resentment and anger that was so successfully co-opted by the anti-EU wing of capital.

I was also mildly optimistic that Prigozhin's mad dash for Moscow might have somehow spelled the end of Putin and with him the whole Ukrainian calamity. It would have been catastrophic for the Russian people but the end of Putin's reign is guaranteed to be a catastrophe for Russia anyway and he's got to go sometime.

In terms of stuff I was involved in, well for a minute I thought that they can't possibly invade Iraq after a million people march against it. But at the time, on that march, I also thought fucking hell if we could get just 1% of these people to walk into the ministry of defence and quite peacefully and calmly strip out every light bulb, every computer, every inch of copper wire, well that'd be the matter settled. I never had a huge amount of faith in the idea of asking people who are obviously cunts to please just not be cunts this one time.

 

[Lurdan]

I think the last 'magical' Christmas I experienced was 1963 when I was ten. It's all been sadly disappointing ever since.
But that's the really great thing about Urban. When I click on a potentially interesting thread I'm never disappointed.

Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is

If.

 

[Dogsauce]

What, nobody has mentioned Nick fucking Clegg yet? Where did all those people go?

 

[Dogsauce]

More seriously, stuff I remember:

Some kind of surge in the green vote around the late 80s/early 90s, possibly for one of the euro elections. Looked like the environmental movement might be getting momentum. My older wiser self realised that these people were basically Lib Dems but a bit more annoying, but at the time it felt positive.

Poll tax - this seemed to reach deeper into society than any protest movement I can recall since. I was on my holiday job working in a paint factory and half the staff were getting on coaches to London, including the usually apolitical, sun-reading racists etc. Like everyone was talking about it and riled up. Don’t recall there was even any union organising going on there as it was a small place, just normal people genuinely pissed off.

Corbyn, for all his faults. I had friends that never did activism going out leafleting at railway stations and stuff like that. Lots of organising and meme sharing over Facebook. The ‘elite’ learnt a lesson from this and the algorithms got changed to stop it ever happening again. Crowds coming out to hear him campaigning. Nobody would do that for Starmer. It was close, I think people were still angry about Brexit and the Tories sneaking home in 2015 on the back of some dodgy campaign spending.

i don’t think we stand a chance now. We’ve had targeted messaging used effectively during Brexit vote and Johnson’s campaign, stuff tuned to appeal to people’s prejudices. With AI there is now an even more powerful tool for adjusting messages to audiences, to push the right buttons. These tools as ever will be most accessible to those with deep pockets, so their interests will always be promoted and come first.

 

[tim]

What, nobody has mentioned Nick fucking Clegg yet? Where did all those people go?

I agree with Dogsauce!

 

[mojo pixy]

Execution of Charles I

That whole post Charles I Commonwealth of England thing. Such a cowardly, cruel, small-minded, wasted opportunity. Oh no it's all fucked let's just have a king again

 

[nottsgirl]

I would say 1997 but even at the time I think it was more about seeing the Tories get a bloody nose than real hope.

 

[Ax^]

I'd be fucking furious if they changed findus crispy pancakes though.

I haven't eaten one in 20 years, but if I ever do buy a pack I want them to be exactly as weird and unappealing as they were in my youth.

ah tbf since the took the horse meat out they have really gone to shite

 

[newme]

That whole post Charles I Commonwealth of England thing. Such a cowardly, cruel, small-minded, wasted opportunity. Oh no it's all fucked let's just have a king again

Never even heard of this lol, had never thought even for a second anything was really going to change other than the face on paper money that people don't use anyway and maybe the express trying to find yet another angle on Diana.

 

[Jennaonthebeach]

I think I expected a Left Labour government in 1983 and was gutted when it didn't happen. Since then though I've had really low expectation - was the only person i knew who lamented rather than celebrated new Labour winning in 1997 - not that I wanted the tories to stay in power, but i wanted a better Labour government than the one i knew we were about to get. As it happens they were even worse than i expected.

Maybe the other time i had any hope was in the mid 90s when i was involved with Reclaim The Streets. I never saw how swiftly and thoroughly our movement would be destroyed. But since then - I've pretty much expected the worst and somehow my expectation of how bad things are going to be are always exceeded.

 

[SpineyNorman]

When Wednesday signed Andy Sinton

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The Arab spring. So much hope and excitement as the dictators and demagouges were swept aside by the people. And now look at Libya, Egypt, Syria, Yemen...

I wouldn't say that I had expectation during that time. But some hope, yes.

Similar with me for Corbyn and Momentum. I didn't expect it to go anywhere. In fact, I was surprised it got as far as it did. But given how far it got, I did start to think that some form of real change in direction was at least possible. The near-miss 2017 election was probably the high point of thinking that. Feels like a long time ago.

It's the hope that kills ya.

 

[Gromit]

More seriously, stuff I remember:

Some kind of surge in the green vote around the late 80s/early 90s, possibly for one of the euro elections. Looked like the environmental movement might be getting momentum. My older wiser self realised that these people were basically Lib Dems but a bit more annoying, but at the time it felt positive.

Poll tax - this seemed to reach deeper into society than any protest movement I can recall since. I was on my holiday job working in a paint factory and half the staff were getting on coaches to London, including the usually apolitical, sun-reading racists etc. Like everyone was talking about it and riled up. Don’t recall there was even any union organising going on there as it was a small place, just normal people genuinely pissed off.

Corbyn, for all his faults. I had friends that never did activism going out leafleting at railway stations and stuff like that. Lots of organising and meme sharing over Facebook. The ‘elite’ learnt a lesson from this and the algorithms got changed to stop it ever happening again. Crowds coming out to hear him campaigning. Nobody would do that for Starmer. It was close, I think people were still angry about Brexit and the Tories sneaking home in 2015 on the back of some dodgy campaign spending.

i don’t think we stand a chance now. We’ve had targeted messaging used effectively during Brexit vote and Johnson’s campaign, stuff tuned to appeal to people’s prejudices. With AI there is now an even more powerful tool for adjusting messages to audiences, to push the right buttons. These tools as ever will be most accessible to those with deep pockets, so their interests will always be promoted and come first.

Sadly Corbyn want enough of a bastard.
He should have sacked all the right wing elements in the party to make Labpur left again. Instead it's still not a true opposition to the right.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

I dunno, I've been on here a long time now so there's always been someone to point out everything is shit and nothing is changing.

 

[gosub]

The Manchester Arena bombing in which 22 young women and girls were blown to pieces for wanting to see Ariana Grande. It was the response to this murderous, misogynist, atrocity that convinced me that British is no longer a serious country, but rotten and hollowed-out, with all the appearances of a functioning nation-state, but really an empty husk, culturally, socially and "spiritually" speaking.

The response of the emergency services was woeful, in a familiar and particularly modern British way: a deadly combination of box-ticking, risk aversion, interdepartmental confusion, sloth, buck-passing and incompetence was displayed by MI5, the police and ambulance services.

What really struck me way the way in which government and media tacitly agreed to reframe this intentional act of mass murder as a sort of natural disaster, or Act of God. The mawkish "Don't look back in anger" became the unofficial anthem of this massacre. If a nation agrees to not become angry when 22 young woman are murdered by a politically-inspired fanatic, then it is no longer worthy of regard as a functioning polity.

I remember that the immediate - and customary - media response was handwringing about a possible islamophobic backlash, of which there was of course none.

Compare with the Dunblane massacre: the day after the government and people united in basically banning guns. Things have changed

We are not a serious people.

Disagree. Hadn't really heard of Ariana Grande. It was horrendous and fair points on response on the Emergency Service response. But am thinking about the gig that was done. Not knocking that either but she had clearly cocooned herself in LA and thought her gig could change stuff. Miley Sirus I think, read it right and changed its tack..felt like what the Mancs were after was a defiant hug...which was proper grown up.

 

[agricola]

The Manchester Arena bombing in which 22 young women and girls were blown to pieces for wanting to see Ariana Grande. It was the response to this murderous, misogynist, atrocity that convinced me that British is no longer a serious country, but rotten and hollowed-out, with all the appearances of a functioning nation-state, but really an empty husk, culturally, socially and "spiritually" speaking.

The response of the emergency services was woeful, in a familiar and particularly modern British way: a deadly combination of box-ticking, risk aversion, interdepartmental confusion, sloth, buck-passing and incompetence was displayed by MI5, the police and ambulance services.

What really struck me way the way in which government and media tacitly agreed to reframe this intentional act of mass murder as a sort of natural disaster, or Act of God. The mawkish "Don't look back in anger" became the unofficial anthem of this massacre. If a nation agrees to not become angry when 22 young woman are murdered by a politically-inspired fanatic, then it is no longer worthy of regard as a functioning polity.

I remember that the immediate - and customary - media response was handwringing about a possible islamophobic backlash, of which there was of course none.

Compare with the Dunblane massacre: the day after the government and people united in basically banning guns. Things have changed

We are not a serious people.

FWIW there has been an awful lot of changes brought in, at least in emergency services co-ordination at the scene of major incidents, as the result of that incident (and the other attacks in 2017).

 

[Silas Loom]

FWIW there has been an awful lot of changes brought in, at least in emergency services co-ordination at the scene of major incidents, as the result of that incident (and the other attacks in 2017).

If only there was a word for “respond” that began with a P. Then we could have had effective incident response coordination as part of CONTEST after 2001 or at least after 2005.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Sadly Corbyn want enough of a bastard.

This is the problem, though. Him not being a bastard, him not making it all about himself, was a part of the appeal.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I kind of thought the murder of Jo Cox by some ranting gammony arsehole might be the moment the brexit wave finally broke. Foolish really, as of course that one event didn't make a scratch in the massive underlying resentment and anger that was so successfully co-opted by the anti-EU wing of capital.

I was also mildly optimistic that Prigozhin's mad dash for Moscow might have somehow spelled the end of Putin and with him the whole Ukrainian calamity. It would have been catastrophic for the Russian people but the end of Putin's reign is guaranteed to be a catastrophe for Russia anyway and he's got to go sometime.

In terms of stuff I was involved in, well for a minute I thought that they can't possibly invade Iraq after a million people march against it. But at the time, on that march, I also thought fucking hell if we could get just 1% of these people to walk into the ministry of defence and quite peacefully and calmly strip out every light bulb, every computer, every inch of copper wire, well that'd be the matter settled. I never had a huge amount of faith in the idea of asking people who are obviously cunts to please just not be cunts this one time.

Yeah the big Iraq war march. I know you get caught up in things on marches, you inevitably tend towards optimism surrounded by so many like-minded people. But that day did feel different. I did think we would stop the war, there were so many people who clearly had never marched before in their lives, not just protester types.

I bit of me died that day. I've never been remotely optimistic about anything political since. Hopeful occasionally, but optimistic no.

 

[brogdale]

For me the big one was the MPs' expenses scandal. I really thought that might be the start of something big with people's eyes finally opened to just how much politicians were taking the piss. Ho hum.

'84-'85, as a 23 year old running Miners' support street stalls, ostensibly to collect food/toys etc. but, in reality, collecting what seemed like impressive sums of £ to pass on to the solidarity fund via the miners picketing the railway sidings. I remember tears coming into my eyes when ordinary folk came up quietly to give us notes (real money to those folk, then).

Still hate fatch and the fecking vermin.

 

[agricola]

This is the problem, though. Him not being a bastard, him not making it all about himself, was a part of the appeal.

That not being a bastard went too far, I think.

There were people - Danczuk being the most obvious - who could and should have been made an example of. They had every justification - political, moral, criminal - for booting him out of the party, but didn't. Not doing it was shameful.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

That not being a bastard went too far, I think.

With the benefit of hindsight, clearly yes.