Social media fuels protests across political divide

Yesterday it was the turn of hundreds of school children demonstrating outside Parliament to save their playing fields and delivering a petition signed by 500,000″ organised by 17 year old Debbie Foote from Grantham , Lincs.” Last Saturday, TopShop at Oxford Circus, the shopping mecca for metro youth, was forced to close as hundreds protested against Philip Green’s tax avoidance. The organiser if you can call it that, was Ununcut – ( another potential disaster area for the Today programme’s James Naughtie) whose latent power is well pitched here by Ian Birrell and supported believe it or not, by the Daily Mail,  as highlighted by unlikely ally, Will Straw’s Left Foot Forward .

An example of the power of social media to bridge the gap between left and right?

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the issue, the significance of Ukuncut is that unruly flash mob protest has arrived in Britain. It may build into a mass movement or it may implode; already the dunderheaded militants have muscled in, the tedious Socialist Worker banners cropping up alongside the mannequins in Topshop windows.

But the protests have left their mark.

We are reader supported. Donate to keep Slugger lit!

For over 20 years, Slugger has been an independent place for debate and new ideas. We have published over 40,000 posts and over one and a half million comments on the site. Each month we have over 70,000 readers. All this we have accomplished with only volunteers we have never had any paid staff.

Slugger does not receive any funding, and we respect our readers, so we will never run intrusive ads or sponsored posts. Instead, we are reader-supported. Help us keep Slugger independent by becoming a friend of Slugger. While we run a tight ship and no one gets paid to write, we need money to help us cover our costs.

If you like what we do, we are asking you to consider giving a monthly donation of any amount, or you can give a one-off donation. Any amount is appreciated.