Sunday 9 July 2017

"These are people who feel let down by the world economy, of course"



This morning, in passing, we also got Andrew Marr's take on the G20 protests in Hamburg - some of which turned so violent that they made Hamburg look like a city at war.

We pick the paper review up from the point at which Sarah Baxter of the Sunday Times has just finished trashing Trump:
Sarah Baxter: It's not a good look for the world's biggest democracy.
Andrew Marr: Nor necessarily are the protests in Hamburg a good look for Germany, Iain.
Iain Martin: Yeah, it's interesting the way in which these summits now happen in that there's a bubble inside, where all of that goes on, all of this. And then outside you have probably the worst demonstrations and riots if you will actually since Genoa in 2001. And there's a brilliant piece by Philip Oltermann in Hamburg which explains just how serious it was. Hundreds of injured police. What troubles me about it, what people should be concerned about, is that the atmosphere is so febrile internationally at the moment. The global economy is not quite as strong as everyone thinks it is. We're moving into an era of protest and a rise of a resurgent hard left, just at the point where...
Andrew Marr: These are people who feel let down by the world economy, of course.
From what I've read, however, characterising them as "people who feel let down by the world economy" is far too simplistic. They were anarchists, socialists, anti-globalisation activists, green campaigners, feminists and Kurdish nationalists. Many would be comfortably off, and the ranks of the unemployed and the dispossessed appear to have played a very minor part in the protests. (Anarchists, such as Black Bloc and the like, led the violence).

Was this just naivety on Andy's part or a Corbyn-inspired resurgence of 'Red Andy'? 

1 comment:

  1. Just some gentle musing and then carry on. Much the same across the BBC. Now imagine if the same mayhem had been cause by right wing elements. How would it be? Wall to wall coverage for days, condemnation and demands for things to be done. The BBC is quite casual about left wing violence, which is not a good look for the BBC. They get away with it, as ever.

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