The Idle Spectator can see a storm brewing. Monday the 23rd of February saw the Manchester Guardian publish a front page headline expressing concern over the potential for a summer of unrest given the possibility for the mobilisation of the jobless middle classes, in light of the recent economic unrest, in a manner which, had they jobs, would previously have been anathema.
In light of this TIS was driven to dispatch a less valued member of our staff to the streets, in this case a work experience peon known only as Tea-boy. His task was simple, to find a member of this so called middle class and find out their views in regard to potentially violent civil unrest in the near future of this country. He did so, finding one who would only identify himself as Sainsbury McWaitrose, the self appointed ‘voice of the middle class’. When questioned as to the prospects of civil unrest, Mr. Waitrose replied on no uncertain terms, promising, “there will be fighting on the streets, brother! We shall mobilise, we shall be heard, we shall not be ignored any longer! We may have lost our jobs but we have not lost our middle class outrage!”
Since turning in this transcript Tea-boy has not been heard from, and we have assumed he has been subsumed into the growing underground of footsoldiers of the coming revolution. Or he locked himself in the supply cupboard again. Last time he was in there for a week, surviving off of post-it notes.
Regardless, there is a distinct possibility of violent protest this summer, the promise of a G20 meeting in London assured that anyway, but the Idle Spectator must wonder what this means for the present government. Even the possibility of such protest surely suggests one thing and one thing alone, that the climate of fear created by the omnipresent threat of terrorism, that which has given cause for our glorious leaders to put a CCTV camera outside your (yes your) window, and call for every inhabitant of this state to carry seven forms of identification at all times and have a bar code tattooed on their forehead, has passed.
The threat of civil unrest on the streets of England goes to show that we are no longer afraid of what our government tells us to be afraid of. Perhaps it is indeed time they were afraid of us once again. Perhaps not. In all honesty, when the cry goes up, ‘There is no quail in Waitrose!’ and the middle classes take to the streets, we are not at all sure where we will stand.
Yours, The Idle Spectator.
The Idle Spectator 